The (ir)Rational Mob: On the Life and Legacy of Gustave Le Bon

A dramatized thought experiment like best episodes of Star Trek, Forbidden Planet (1956) is a wonderful reminder of how people in the past envisioned the future. Part prophecy—looking forward—and part analysis of the timeless human condition, the film wraps heavy ideas about the cost of knowledge and the ways we interact with our own creations into melodrama. Yes, it’s a reimagining of The Tempest, but it’s also Faust, Frankenstein, and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” from Fantasia. Join us for a conversation about the limits of technology and the ways in which anything we create bears our own failings. If you’re interested in further reading, Dr. Morbius has many literary antecedents, from Prospero in The Tempest, to Dr. Faustus, Dr. Frankenstein, and Dr. Jekyll. Follow us on X and Letterboxd–and let us know what you’d like us to watch! Incredible bumper music by John Deley. Also check out the new Substack site, Pages and Frames, for more film-related material. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Dr. Langmia's book Black 'Race' and the White Supremacy Saga (Anthem Press, 2024) examines the conundrum that has haunted the Black and White ancestry for ages on what supremacy actually means. Is it Black or White supremacy? Granted, the term "White supremacy" has occupied the sociopolitical, cultural and economic discourse for ages, but what does that really imply? All other ancestries on planet earth have been coerced to believe that conformity to Euro-American lifestyle is the way to become 'civilized' on planet earth.  But the term civilization owes its genesis to the African cultural and educational achievements in Egypt. Consequently, Black ancestry, the first human specie on planet earth, should lead humankind to cultural and epistemological supremacy--but that has always been met with skepticism. This book examines this debate, especially between the Black and the White ancestry. There appears to be a pejorative connotation associated with the term Black. It has been 'inferiorized' because of the stain of slavery, servitude and brutal murders suffered by those from the continent of Africa that are overwhelmingly Black. Dr. Kehbuma Langmia offers “counter arguments on ‘inferiority’ and ‘superiority’ designations” (p. 181) that have been applied to particular groups and have prevented the unity of the entire human "race."  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Listen to this interview of Redowan Mahmud, Lecturer in the School of Electrical Engineering, Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Curtin University, Australia; and, Mohammad Goudarzi, Lecturer at Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Australia. We talk about their paper iFogSim simulator for mobility, clustering, and microservice management in edge and fog computing environments (JSS 2022). Redowan Mahmud : "The thing is, when a researcher starts writing, they start from their own perspective. So, in our case, we wrote our manuscript from the perspective of, 'These things are right, and those things are the limitations.' But in the review process, we found out — as many researchers do — that the strengths and limitations of our work were not demonstrably in quite that shape. The reviewers still needed convincing that what we were doing was innovative and in the long run was going to make some impact. That was the task we needed to accomplish through the writing." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

On Thursday, June 27th, President Joe Biden and Trump debated for 90 minutes without a live audience or the usually provided by the Commission on Presidential Debates. Instead, two CNN journalists – Dana Bash and Jake Tapper – asked the questions. Not only was the format a departure but the timing was unusually early for a presidential debate. Today’s podcast is a conversation between Susan Liebell at Saint Joseph’s University and Dr. Daniel E. Ponder, the L.E. Meador Professor of Political Science and Director of the Meador Center for Politics and Citizenship at Drury University. We started with a little context about American debates (including the first televised debate between the 1960 presidential candidates Vice President Richard M. Nixon and Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy). Dan outlined some big moments in previous presidential debates and whether they mattered in November. We then assessed the performances of Biden and Trump – and how that might affect voters. Some items we mentioned: Did reading the transcript leave people with a more positive view of Biden? “Our Debate Wraps:How the system failed. How Biden's stubbornness hurt him. And how it will play in November” from Jonathan Bernstein, Julia Azari, and David S. Bernstein on Good Politics/Bad Politics, June 27, 2024 Gretchen Whitmer Wants a Gen X President — in 2028” The Interview via The New York Times, June 22, 2024 Lilly Goren and Susan’s earlier conversation with Meena Bose and Dan Ponder, “Previewing the 2024 Presidential Race,” Postscript via New Books Network, June 17, 2024 Biden’s strong performance in the VP debate with Paul Ryan in 2012 in full here with key moments at 11:11 (Iran), 21:48 (jobs), 32.43 (Medicare and social security), and 1:13 (abortion). Elaine Kamarck’s Primary Politics: Everything You Need to Know about How America Nominates Its Presidential Candidates (Brookings, 2016) and Why Presidents Fail And How They Can Succeed Again (Brookings, 2016) Nicolle Wallace, Trump lied “as often as he breathed” on MSNBC, June 27, 2024. CNN Flash Poll, June 27, 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

This week, we examine the sounds humans make in order to monitor, repel, and control beasts. Author Mandy-Suzanne Wong’s Listen, We All Bleed is a creative nonfiction monograph that explores the human-animal relationship through animal-centered sound art. We’ll hear works by Robbie Judkins, Claude Matthews, and Colleen Plumb, interwoven with Wong’s unflinchingly reflective prose. By turns beautiful and harrowing, these sounds and words reposition us, kindling empathy as we listen through non-human ears. Links to works by the artists heard in this episode: ·      Mandy Suzanne-Wong’s Listen, We All Bleed.  ·      Robbie Judkins: Homo Tyrannicus, “Pest” (video), live in London, 2017 ·      Claude Matthews: “DogPoundFoundSound (Bad Radio Dog Massacre)” ·      Colleen Plumb: “Thirty Times a Minute” (homepage), indoor installation (video) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

To give up or not to give up? The question can feel inescapable but the answer is never simple. Giving up our supposed vices is one thing; giving up on life itself is quite another. One form of self-sacrifice feels positive, something to admire and aspire to, while the other is profoundly unsettling, if not actively undesirable. There are always, it turns out, both good and bad sacrifices, but it is not always clear beforehand which is which. We give something up because we believe we can no longer go on as we are. In this sense, giving up is a critical moment--an attempt to make a different future. In On Giving Up (FSG, 2024), the acclaimed psychoanalyst Adam Phillips illuminates both the gaps and the connections between the many ways of giving up and helps us to address the central question: What must we give up in order to feel more alive? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In political philosophy, “liberalism” is not the name of a particular social platform. Rather, it refers to a framework for thinking about politics. It is the way of thinking according to which the state, its laws, and its institutions all stand in need of justification, and that the justification of the state must be addressed to those who live within its territory. In this way, liberalism as a philosophical stance affirms the moral equality of persons and prioritizes the liberty of each, “taken one by one,” as it were. The idea of liberalism as a way of life thus may seem curious. According to many traditional liberal thinkers, liberalism is distinguished from other approaches by the denial that it is a “way of life.” On these views, a liberal political order establishes the conditions under which each individual can “seek their own good in their own way,” as John Stuart Mill put it. In Liberalism as a Way of Life (Princeton University Press 2024), Alexandre Lefebvre argues that liberalism currently informs our cultural sensibilities. What’s more, he argues that liberalism is a worthwhile way of life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Media studies is an emerging discipline that is quickly making an impact within the wider field of biblical scholarship. The Dead Sea Scrolls in Ancient Media Culture (Brill, 2023) is designed to evaluate the status quaestionis of the Dead Sea Scrolls as products of an ancient media culture, with leading scholars in the Dead Sea Scrolls and related disciplines reviewing how scholarship has addressed issues of ancient media in the past, assessing the use of media criticism in current research, and outlining potential directions for future discussions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In recent decades, Americans have purchased second homes at unprecedented rates. In Privileging Place: How Second Homeowners Transform Communities and Themselves (Princeton UP, 2024), Meaghan Stiman examines the experiences of predominantly upper-middle-class suburbanites who bought second homes in the city or the country. Drawing on interviews with more than sixty owners of second homes and ethnographic data collected over the course of two years in Rangeley, Maine, and Boston, Massachusetts, Stiman uncovers the motivations of these homeowners and analyzes the local consequences of their actions. By doing so, she traces the contours of privilege across communities in the twenty-first century. Stiman argues that, for the upper-middle-class residents of suburbia who bought urban or rural second homes, the purchase functioned as a way to balance a desire for access to material resources in suburban communities with a longing for a more meaningful connection to place in the city or the country. The tension between these two contradictory aims explains why homeowners bought second homes, how they engaged with the communities around them, and why they ultimately remained in their suburban hometowns. The second home is a place-identity project—a way to gain a sense of place identity they don’t find in their hometowns while still holding on to hometown resources. Stiman’s account offers a cautionary tale of the layers of privilege within and across geographies in the twenty-first century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

While there has been considerable research on digital cultures in the Indian Subcontinent, video games have received scant attention so far. Yet, they are hugely influential. Globally, India is perceived as a ‘sleeping giant’ of the video game industry with immense untapped potential, and Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan also have developed significant gaming cultures. With the already immense and constantly burgeoning smartphone access, the Subcontinent potentially has the largest reach for video games across the world. But how have video games become a part of the culture of the region, keeping in mind its huge diversity and plurality? In this conversation, Xenia Zeiler, professor of South Asian Studies at the University of Helsinki, discusses with Souvik Mukherjee on his book Videogames in the Indian Subcontinent (Bloomsbury, 2023). Mukherjee is assistant professor of Cultural Studies at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. He is a pioneering researcher on videogames from South Asia and his key interests are videogames as storytelling media, videogames and postcolonialism and gaming cultures in South Asia. He is the author of three monographs on videogames including Videogames in the Indian Subcontinent (Bloomsbury Academic) and is currently researching boardgames in South Asia. Xenia Zeiler is professor of South Asian Studies at the University of Helsinki. Her research and teaching are situated at the intersection of digital media, culture, and society, specifically as related to India and global Indian communities. Her focus within this wider field of digital culture is video games and gaming research, in India and beyond. She also researches and teaches digital religion, popular culture, cultural heritage, and mediatization processes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network