Are We Replicating the Old Giants?

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Tyler Cowan: Do you ever wish you were in sconce an academic life with tenure? Like really wish it. I'm the first in my family to have any university degree at all, so the idea of becoming a faculty member never crossed my mind until I found myself working within academia. Would I have been able to write the first biography of René Girard? If I had been, I don't think it'd be something that necessarily would have been encouraged in an academic atmosphere. It was something I could do because I was an outsider to some extent.

As a little girl, Cynthia Haven loved reading classic works of literature. At sixteen, she began her career as a reporter. And years later, those two interests converged as they led her to interview and write books about three writers and thinkers whom she also came to call mentors: René Girard, Czeslaw Milosz, and Joseph Brodsky.

Cynthia joined Tyler to discuss what she’s gleaned from each of the three, including what traits they have in common, why her biography of Girard had to come from outside academia, Milosz’s reaction to the Berkley Free Speech Movement, Girard’s greatest talent—and flaw—as a thinker, whether Brodsky will fall down the memory hole, why he was so terrible on Ukraine, why Cynthia’s early career was much like The Devil Wears Prada, the failings of Twitter, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

Recorded May 18th, 2022 Other ways to connect

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