
Manifesto!
Your regular visit to the archives of vanity, where men and women who stopped making myths turned to issuing commandments.
Your guides for this journey are the writers Phil Klay and Jacob Siegel, along with their trusty engineer, Jacqui Rigazio
May you continue to be a person.
Manifesto! Is now sponsored by Fairfield University, a Jesuit University in Fairfield Connecticut. Fairfield’s mission is to develop the creative intellectual potential of students and to foster in them ethical and religious values and a sense of social responsibility. Phil also teaches at Fairfield, in both their undergraduate English department and in their Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. We’re very pleased to be associated with Fairfield, and thank them for their sponsorship.
Latest episodes

Jan 26, 2023 • 1h 34min
Episode 49: Angry Popes and Architecture
Jake and Phil are joined by John Davis, an environmental and architectural historian at the Knowlton School at Ohio State, to discuss Pascendi Dominici Gregis, Pope Pius X's encyclical against the modernists, and Antoni Gaudí’s La Sagrada Familia basilica in Barcelona, Spain.
The Manifesto:
Pascendi Dominici Gregis, Pope Pius X
https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-x/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-x_enc_19070908_pascendi-dominici-gregis.html
Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família
https://sagradafamilia.org/en/

Nov 22, 2022 • 1h 56min
Episode 48: The Ultimate Revolution
Jake and Phil are joined by Becca Rothfeld (https://www.beccarothfeld.com/) to discuss Shulamith Firestone's The Dialectic of Sex and Sheila Heti's That Longing for a Holy Completeness (from her novel MOTHERHOOD)
Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex
http://biopolitics.kom.uni.st/Shulamith%20Firestone/The%20Dialectic%20of%20Sex_%20The%20Case%20for%20Feminist%20Revolution%20(139)/The%20Dialectic%20of%20Sex_%20The%20Case%20for%20Feminis%20-%20Shulamith%20Firestone.pdf
Sheila Heti, That Longing for a Holy Completeness
https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/that-longing-for-a-holy-completeness/

Oct 18, 2022 • 58min
Episode 47: The Democracy Engineering Complex
Phil is joined by Sam Kimbriel, the founding director of Aspen's Philosophy & Society Initiative, to discuss Sam's essay "What the Democracy Engineering Complex Misses"
The Manifesto:
Sam Kimbriel, What the Democracy Engineering Complex Misses
https://wisdomofcrowds.live/the-democracy-engineering-complex/

Sep 19, 2022 • 1h 12min
Episode 46: Sunday Morning and God's Grandeur
Jake and Phil discuss Wallace Stevens' "Sunday Morning" and Gerard Manley Hopkins' "God's Grandeur."
The Manifesto:
Wallace Stevens' "Sunday Morning"
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/13261/sunday-morning
The Art:
Gerard Manley Hopkins' "God's Grandeur."
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44395/gods-grandeur
Works referenced:
Wallace Stevens, The Idea of Order at Key West
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43431/the-idea-of-order-at-key-west
Wallace Stevens, Anecdote of the Jar
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/14575/anecdote-of-the-jar
Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45236/thirteen-ways-of-looking-at-a-blackbird
Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Windhover
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44402/the-windhover
Gerard Manley Hopkins, No Worst
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44398/no-worst-there-is-none-pitched-past-pitch-of-grief
Anne Carpenter, Theo-Poetics: Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Risk of Art and Being
https://undpress.nd.edu/9780268023782/theo-poetics/

Jul 21, 2022 • 1h 59min
Episode 45: Spielberg and Roxy Music
Jake and Phil are joined by culture critic Armond White to discuss Make Spielberg Great Again and Roxy Music's 1979 album Manifesto
The Manifesto:
Make Spielberg Great Again (specifically focusing on the chapters "The Wailing Wall" and "Steven Spielberg's Obama"), Armond White
https://www.amazon.com/Make-Spielberg-Great-Again-Chronicles/dp/0984215913
The Art:
Roxy Music, Manifesto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjkVYOArUQM

Jun 17, 2022 • 1h 39min
Episode 44: We're All Stars Now In the Dope Show
Jake and Phil are joined by James Poulos, author of Human Forever: The Digital Politics of Spiritual War, to discuss Jacques Ellul and Marilyn Manson.
The Manifesto:
Jacques Ellul, Propaganda - Chapter 5 (The Socio-Political Effects”), Part 3 (“Propaganda and Grouping), section “Effects on the Churches.”
https://monoskop.org/images/4/44/Ellul_Jacques_Propaganda_The_Formation_of_Mens_Attitudes.pdf
The Art:
Marilyn Manson, Mechanical Animals
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6ogdCG3tAWinzV1alDntKEi3uO9Mq5ES

May 28, 2022 • 1h 18min
Episode 43: Tradition and the Individual Talent
Jake and Phil discuss T.S. Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent", and James Joyce's "A Mother"
The Manifesto:
T.S. Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Talent"
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69400/tradition-and-the-individual-talent
The Art:
James Joyce, "A Mother"
http://www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/963/

Apr 11, 2022 • 1h 10min
Episode 42: The Transmogrifications of Gary Leib
Phil is joined by Peter Catapano, of the New York Times, and graphic novelist Jess Ruliffson to discuss Peter's essay on the life and work of cartoonist Gary Leib
The Manifesto:
Peter Catapano, “I’m Going to Make a Fire”: The Transmogrifications of Gary Leib
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/im-going-to-make-a-fire-the-transmogrifications-of-gary-leib/
The Art:
Gary Leib's animation for The Stone
https://vimeo.com/148232540
Leib's animations for the Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/opinion/01leib_bio.html
Other:
Pre-order Peter's forthcoming book, Question Everything
https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324091837
Pre-order Jess' forthcoming graphic novel, Invisible Wounds.
https://jessruliffson.com/home.html

Mar 5, 2022 • 1h 45min
Episode 41: To Be Incarnational
Jake and Phil are joined by the great poet Tom Sleigh to discuss his essay "To Be Incarnational," on the World War I poetry of David Jones, as well as Tom's poem "In Which a Spider Weaves a Web on My Computer Screen"
The Manifesto:
Tom Sleigh, To Be Incarnational
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/70066/to-be-incarnational
The Art:
Tom Sleigh, "In Which a Spider Weaves a Web on My Computer Screen"
https://vimeo.com/669317283

Feb 4, 2022 • 1h 28min
Episode 40: Flannery O'Connor versus Andre Dubus II
Jake and Phil (finally) discuss Flannery O'Connor's Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction, alongside Andre Dubus II's short story Killings
The Manifesto:
Flannery O'Connor, Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction
https://bscc.instructure.com/courses/4608/files/434937/download?download_frd=1
Audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMrveIu0DdE
The Art:
Andre Dubus II, Killings
https://www.uww.edu/documents/library/ersearch/er/moore_g/moore_101/dubuskillings_101_moore.pdf