Required Reading from Liberties

Liberties Journal
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On Required Reading we talk with writers and readers about the texts — old and new — that influence or express their worldview.

  1. APR 14

    Abbas Milani on Ali Khamenei: A Profile in Dogma

    Abbas Milani and Morten Høi Jensen discuss Milani's recent Liberties essay "Ali Khamenei: A Profile in Dogma"

    35 min

  2. MAR 31

    Yahia Lababidi - Czesław Miłosz and Thomas Merton; Secretaries of Silence

    Yahia Lababidi discusses his recent essay "Secretaries of Silence" with Morten Høi Jensen. The essay is about the relationship between Czesław Miłosz and Thomas Merton.

    34 min

  3. MAR 6

    James Wolcott - Gloire Days

    James Wolcott and Morten Høi Jensen discuss Wolcott's essay "Gloire Days" and Trump's obsession with Mar-a-Lago.

    25 min

  4. FEB 9

    Dan Sinykin - Close Reading

    Dan Sinykin and Morten Høi Jensen discuss Close Reading For The Twentieth Century, the book that Dan Sinykin and Johanna Winnant edited and which was published recently by Princeton University Press.

    36 min

  5. JAN 27

    Morten Høi Jensen and Celeste Marcus -- Mann and Soutine

    Morten Høi Jensen and Celeste Marcus discuss their respective books The Master of Contradictions: Thomas Mann and the Making of the Magic Mountain and Chaim Soutine: Genius, Obsession, and a Dramatic Life in Art.

    45 min

  6. JAN 5

    Lance Richardson - Peter Matthiessen, True Nature: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen,

    On this episode of Required Reading, Morten Høi Jensen and Lance Richardson discuss Richardson’s new biography Peter Matthiessen, True Nature: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen, exploring the author’s environmentalism, his time working for the CIA, and his fascination with the Bigfoot Legend."

    39 min

  7. 11/11/2025

    Aatish Taseer - Return to Self: Excursions in Exile

    On November 7th, 2019, the Indian government revoked Aatish Taseer's Indian citizenship. In this episode of Required Reading, MORTEN HØI JENSEN and AATISH TASEER discuss Taseer’s recent book Return to Self: Excursions in Exile, a memoir about processing that violent ejection and grappling with the shards of self which remain after statehood.

    35 min

  8. 10/15/2025

    Daniel Elkind - Dr Chizhevsky's Chandelier

    Daniel Elkind and Morten Høi Jensen discuss Elkind's new book, Dr Chizhevsky's Chandelier: The Decline of the USSR and other Heresies of the Twentieth Century.

    35 min
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On Required Reading we talk with writers and readers about the texts — old and new — that influence or express their worldview.

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