The TLS Podcast

Jill Lepore traces the history of conspiracy theories and the conditions that allow them to thrive; Tim Crane talks us through whether we have free will or not, and why it is still a problem; Michael Caines looks at non-traditional approaches to criticismBooksCONSPIRACY THEORIES AND THE PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE THEM, edited by Joseph E. Uscinski CONSPIRACIES OF CONSPIRACIES: How delusions have overrun America, by Thomas Milan Konda  THE STIGMATIZATION OF CONSPIRACY THEORY SINCE THE 1950s:  ‘A plot to make us look foolish’, by Katharina ThalmannTHE AMERICAN CONSPIRACIES AND COVER-UPS: JFK, 9/11, the Fed, rigged elections, suppressed cancer cures, and the greatest conspiracies of our time, by Douglas Cirignano  REPUBLIC OF LIES: American conspiracy theorists and their surprising rise to power, by Anna Merlan  A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE SAYING:The new conspiracism and the assault on democracy, by Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum  HARVESTER OF HEARTS: Motherhood under the sign of Frankenstein, by Rachel Feder  THE HUNDREDS, by Lauren Berlant and Kathleen Stewart  TUNNEL VISION, by Kevin Breathnach  ON THE LITERARY MEANS OF REPRESENTING THE POWERFUL AS POWERLESS, by Steven Zultanski  The Limits of Free Will: Selected essays by Paul Russell Aspects of Agency: Decisions, abilities, explanations, and free will by Alfred R. Mele Self-Determination: The ethics of action – Volume One by Thomas Pink Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Following the discovery of a strange book, Sarah Green revises the story of the late nineteenth-century poet Lionel Johnson, whose legacy was distorted in the 1950s by a criminal with a taste for fancy bedding; in the US, of 70,000 cases that went to disposition in 2016, more than 99 per cent resulted in conviction. What does this tell us? Clive Stafford Smith explains why American justice is a mirage; since 2015, Refugee Tales – part walking pilgrimage, part protest, part collection of narratives about those unjustly treated by Britain’s immigration system – has become an annual event. David Herd tells us what ground remains to be covered Doing Justice: A prosecutor’s thoughts on crime, punishment, and the rule of law, by Preet Bharara Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nick Groom ponders the fate of the beleaguered British countryside and shares new theories about the economics of the natural world; En Liang Khong takes us through the increasingly global phenomenon of Japanese manga (which translates as “pictures run riot”); Damian Flanagan on Mishima, a writer who yearned to transcend time and identity Green and Prosperous Land: A blueprint for rescuing the British countryside by Dieter HelmWho Owns England?: How we lost our green and pleasant land and how to take it back, by Guy ShrubsoleManga, and exhibition at the British Museum in LondonStar, by Yukio Mishima; translated by Sam BettThe Frolics of the Beasts, by Yukio Mishima; translated by Andrew Clare Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"The sociable side of nineteenth-century musical life is not acknowledged as often as it should be..." – Laura Tunbridge discusses the interconnected, complicated and often contradictory myths and realities that link Chopin, Schumann and Brahms; the TLS's music editor Lucy Dallas takes us through a selection of other pieces on music in this week's issue, including new histories of the blues and the poetic pop of Kate Bush and the Pet Shop Boys; when Irving Sandler wrote his seminal history of abstract expressionism, he neglected to mention Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, Grace Hartigan and Elaine de Kooning – Jenni Quilter joins us to put these artists back in the frameNinth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell and Helen Frankenthaler: Five painters and the movement that changed modern art, by Mary Gabriel Fryderyk Chopin: A life and times by Alan Walker Schumann: The faces and masks by Judith ChernaikBrahms in Context, edited by Natasha Loges and Katy Hamilton(with Liebeslieder Walzer, Opus 52, performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra)Up Jumped the Devil: The real life of Robert Johnson by Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean WardlowThe Original Blues: The emergence of the Blues in African American vaudeville, by Lynn Abbott and Doug SeroffOne Hundred Lyrics and a Poem by Neil TennantHow To Be Invisible by Kate Bush Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s the centenary of the birth of Iris Murdoch, the novelist-philosopher who dominated the literary pages for much of the twentieth century. Where do we stand on her now? Michael Caines and Frances Wilson discuss; This was the week that the US women’s football team won the World Cup. Devoney Looser, the roller derby queen of academia, enjoys “a brief opportunity to revel in America’s better strengths”. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do the kids – in these times of identity politics – still read Updike? The answer is “probably not”. But should they? Claire Lowdon makes the case; Toby Lichtig discusses Chelsea Manning, the US Army data analyst turned whistle-blower, and a new documentary on her life; Eric Rauchway considers the prevalence of pro-Nazi feeling and policy in 1940s America and beyond Novels 1959–1965: The Poorhouse Fair, Rabbit, Run, The Centaur, Of the Farm, by John Updike (Library of America)XY Chelsea, directed by Tim Travers HawkinsHitler’s American Friends: The Third Reich’s supporters in the United States, by Bradley HartThe Unwanted: America, Auschwitz, and a village caught in between, by Michael Dobbs Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thea Lenarduzzi on the cultural history of gesture and body language; What is Chaucer to us today? When did he become known as the "Father of English poetry", and what did he get up to when he was not writing rude and memorable poetry? Julia Boffey explains; the Stonewall uprising in New York is remembered as a pivotal moment in LGBTQ rights – fifty years on, Hugh Ryan revisits the history Books Dictionary of Gestures: Expressive comportments and movements in use around the world by François CaradecSilent History: Body language and nonverbal identity, 1860–1914, by Peter K. AnderssonThe Stonewall Riots: A documentary history, edited by Marc SteinThe Stonewall Reader, edited by the New York Public LibraryPride: Photographs after Stonewall by Fred W. McDarrahLove and Resistance: Out of the closet into the Stonewall era, edited by Jason Baumann Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

TLS contributors – including David Baddiel, Mary Beard, Paul Muldoon and Elizabeth Lowry – give their seasonal reading recommendations; TLS editors wreak havoc and suggest their own. (Visit the-tls.co.uk to read the summer books feature in full.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A "new" ending to a Nabokov novel and the unregarded first volume of Vasily Grossman's epic, the "Soviet War and Peace"; Rebecca Reich guides us through these and the question of whether the West is paranoid about Russia or vice versa; Laura Freeman joins us to talk about dinner with the Durrells and pond life sandwiches.BooksStalingrad: A novel by Vasily GrossmanVasily Grossman and the Soviet Century by Alexandra PopoffPlots against Russia by Eliot BorensteinThe Russia Anxiety by Mark B. SmithDining with the Durrells by David Shimwell Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If capitalism is broken, can it be fixed? And can it save the environment? Joseph E. Stiglitz discusses; as we mark seventy-five years since the D-Day landings, William Boyd considers a brilliant new "worm's-eye view" of historical events; a decade after leaving academia for the "wilderness of writing", Stephen Marche returns to report on the troubled field of the humanitiesThe Future of Capitalism: Facing the new anxieties by Paul CollierCapitalism: The future of an illusion by Fred L. BlockMoney and Government: A challenge to mainstream economics by Robert SkidelskyNormandy ’44: D-Day and the battle for France by James Holland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.