Exploring the Moral Genius of Simone Weil

Sean Illing speaks with history professor Robert Zaretsky about Simone Weil, a 20th-century French writer and activist who dedicated her life to a radical philosophy of love and attention. They discuss how she inspired her contemporaries — like Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir — and how her revolutionary ideas have remained relevant and important.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Robert Zaretsky, history professor, The University of Houston

References: 

• The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas by Robert Zaretsky (The University of Chicago Press, 2021)
• “The Philosophers: Resisting Despair” by Sean Illing (Vox, May 2022)
• The Ethics of Attention: Engaging the Real with Iris Murdoch and Simone Weil by Silvia Caprioglio Panizza (Routledge, 2022)

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This episode was made by: 

• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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