Cohosts Ryan McDermott and Elise Lonich Ryan have a conversation about the art that has accompanied them through 2020. They discuss the mysterious ending of Pulitzer-nominated Heroes of the Fourth Turning, a play that explores the political beliefs of four conservative Catholics and has had multiple runs on Zoom. Ryan and Elise share a love of Marilynne Robinson and critiques of Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life. Ryan explains how the Norwegian show Beforeigners ties into his project Genealogies of Modernity, and Elise recommends the best nature writing.

Reading the signs of the times

The relationship between affect and reason

Can you make sense of the present?

How sci-fi and dystopia help us find meaning in times of anxiety

Affective responses and structures of feeling

Franz Jäggerstätter and the intellectual life

American transcendentalism and sentimentalism

Wilma Theater production of Heroes of the Fourth Turning

The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu

“Unpacking My Library” by Walter Benjamin

Tenet

Inception

Flourishing in the Wake of COVID-19

Marilynne Robinson on The Ezra Klein Show

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

Jack by Marilynne Robinson

Lila by Marilynne Robinson

Home by Marilynne Robinson

“A beginners guide to The Ezra Klein Show”

Heroes of the Fourth Turning by Will Arbery

A Hidden Life

The Thin Red Line

Andrei Tarkovsky

Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez

The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson

Beforeigners

Genealogies of Modernity