#449 - Living for Seven Decades: A Dialogue with Michael Gurven

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Michael Gurven about humans living for seven decades. They discuss our evolution for seven decades, post-reproductive life, healthspan vs. lifespan, subsistence populations, multigenerational cooperation, older age, seven decades in the future, and many more topics. Michael Gurven is an evolutionary anthropologist and professor at University of California-Santa Barbara. He has conducted fieldwork for two decades with South American indigenous populations, and his work takes an evolutionary perspective on behavior, health, physiology and psychology. Since 2002, he has co-directed the Tsimane’ Health and Life History Project to better understand how aspects of environment and lifestyle affect health and lifespan in subsistence-level societies. His research applies an evolutionary lens to help inform our understanding of today’s complex diseases. He is the author of the book, Seven Decades: How We Evolved to Live Longer. Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with John Burt about Lincoln and moral conflict. They discuss Lincoln’s tragic pragmatism for morals and public engagement, on slavery and emancipation, implicit concepts, freedom, moral obsessions, and liberalism. They also talk about morals and violence, popular sovereignty, cultural shifts, the Whig party, Rawls, modern comparisons, America as an idea, and many other topics. John Burt is a professor of American literature at Brandeis University. His main research interests are 19th-century American literature, 20th-century American literature (especially poetry), Southern Gothic fiction, American romantic fiction, composition, and rhetoric. He is the author of the book, Lincoln’s Tragic Pragmatism: Lincoln, Douglas, and Moral Conflict. Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Audrey Truschke about the history of India. They discuss India as a subcontinent, the Indus Valley civilization, nomadic to cities and empires, trade, Indo-European language and Sanskrit, Vedas and Hinduism, and development of other religions. They also talk about Ashoka, the caste system, Muslims, Ghurids, Sikhism, the Mughal Empire, British Raj, India today and the future of India. Audrey Truschke is Professor of South Asian History at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. She is the author of four books, including the most recent book, India: 5,000 Years of History on the Subcontinent. Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Scott McGill and Susannah Wright about their new English translation of The Aeneid. They discuss past English translations of The Aeneid, plot of The Aeneid, and comparisons with Homer’s epics. They discuss authorship of Virgil, The Aeneid as Roman propaganda, translating from Latin into English and the oral vs. written tradition. They also talked about the Iambic vs. Dactylic meter, relationship between humans and gods, why The Aeneid is still relevant for the 21st century, and many more topics. Scott McGill is Deedee McMurtry Professor in Humanities at Rice University. work focuses on Latin poetry, Roman history and culture, and on the reception of classical antiquity. He is an expert on Virgil and the Latin poetry of late antiquitySusannah Wright is an assistant professor of classical studies and Roman history at Rice University. Her research centers on Greco-Roman literature, history, and culture and its medieval and modern receptions, as well as Latin and Greek epic texts of all periods, women and gender in antiquity, politics and literature in late republican and imperial Rome, and ancient and medieval histories of the Trojan War. They are the co-translators of the new English translation of The Aeneid. Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Bernd Roeck about the Renaissance. They discuss what the Renaissance gave to the modern world, the Renaissance and the West, seven pillars of modernity, and the impact of other civilizations on the Renaissance. They discuss the level of impact that Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome deserve on the Renaissance, Christianity and the West, Islamic impact on the Renaissance, Western European marriage pattern, feudalism, origins of the University and the importance of art during the Renaissance. They also discuss the Gutenberg Press, New World discoveries, the high Renaissance, Socratic dialogue in the Renaissance, the Ottoman Empire, Martin Luther and the Reformation, the Habsburgs, post-Renaissance, the Renaissance’s impact on the future, and many more topics. Bernd Roeck was appointed to the Chair of General and Swiss History of Modern Times at the University of Zurich/ Switzerland in 1999. He served his University from 2009 to 2011 as Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy. He has been made emeritus since 2019. He was director of the German Study Centre in Venice, Italy and has taught at the University of Augsburg and the University of Bonn. In addition, he received the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian republic in 1996 and was awarded the Merit Medal of the city of Augsburg (Bavaria/Germany). He is the author of numerous books, including the most recent, The World at First Light: A New History of the Renaissance. Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Jon Lee Anderson about the Taliban in Afghanistan over the past 20 years. They provide an overview of Afghanistan, how the Taliban came to power, makeup of the Taliban, their intentions for an Islamic state, Hamid Karzai, Taliban resurgence in 2012, US withdrawal, Taliban reign at present, the future of Afghanistan, and many more topics. Jon Lee Anderson is an author and a staff writer for The New Yorker. As a longtime observer of political violence and revolutionary movements, he has reported from many war zones over the years, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Angola, Somalia, Mali, and Liberia. He has reported frequently from Latin America and profiled political leaders such as Augusto Pinochet, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez, and Nicolás Maduro. Anderson also wrote a celebrated biography of the late Argentine revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara. He is the author of the latest book, To Lose A War: The Fall and Rise of the Taliban. Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with John Tolan about the history of Islam. The give an overview of Islam, discuss the Prophet Muhammad, succession and split after his death, Umayyad caliphate, Abbasid Caliphate, and 3 caliphates of 1000 AD. They talk about the Turks and Ottoman empire, Wahhabism, Arab nationalism, Islam in the 21st century, and many more topics. John Tolan is Professor of History at Université de Nantes and works on the history of religious and cultural relations between the Arab and Latin worlds in the Middle Ages and on the history of religious interaction and conflict between Jews, Christians and Muslims. He studied at Yale (BA classics), University of Chicago (MA & PhD history) and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (HDR). He has taught in various universities in North America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East; he is currently professor of History at the University of Nantes and member of the Academia Europæa and the Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres de Barcelona. he is the author of numerous books, including the most recent book, Islam: A New History from Muhammad to the Present. Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with John Cochrane about the Euro. They talk about the Euro, European Central Bank (ECB), inflation and price stability, and the differences between the US Federal Reserve and the ECB. They talked about the creation of the Euro, joining the EU, debates about “end the Fed,” Greek crisis, covid-19 pandemic and inflation, future of the Euro, and many more topics. John H. Cochrane is the Rose-Marie and Jack Anderson Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Physics at MIT, and earned his Ph.D. in Economics at the University of California at Berkeley. He was at the Economics Department of the University of Chicago before joining the Booth School in 1994, and visited UCLA Anderson School of Management in 2000-2001. Before coming to Hoover, Cochrane was the AQR Capital Management Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he taught the MBA class “Advanced Investments” and a variety of PhD classes in Asset Pricing and Monetary Economics.He is also a Senior Fellow of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), Professor of Finance and Economics (by Courtesy) at Stanford GSB, a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and an Adjunct Scholar of the CATO Institute. He is a past President and Fellow of the American Finance Association, and a Fellow of the Econometric Society. He has been an Editor of the Journal of Political Economy, and associate editor of several journals including the Journal of Monetary Economics, Journal of Business, and Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control. He was a director of the NBER asset pricing program. Awards include the Bradley Prize, the APEE Adam Smith award, the TIAA-CREF Institute Paul A. Samuelson Award for Asset Pricing, the Chookaszian Endowed Risk Management Prize, the Faculty Excellence Award for MBA teaching and the McKinsey Award for Outstanding Teaching. He is the author of numerous books, including the most recent book (with co-authors Luis Garicano & Klaus Masuch), Crisis Cycle: Challenges, Evolution, and Future of the Euro. Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Walter Scheidel about ancient history. They ask what is ancient history, why Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome are heavily emphasized, globalism, and classicism. They discuss some of the evolutionary history of humans, nomadic to stationary, human writing, The West, future of the classics, and many more topics. Walter Scheidel is a historian and author and is the Dickason Professor of the Humanities and Professor of History at Stanford University. He has his MPhil and PhD in Ancient History from the University of Vienna. He is one of the most cited Roman historians in an active faculty position. He has written over 270 articles, chapters, and reviews and is the author of over 22 books, including the most recent, What Is Ancient History? Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Moudhy Al-Rashid about ancient Mesopotamia. They discuss the uniqueness of Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent, importance of cuneiform, Sumerian to Akkadian writing, importance of clay for writing, ancient astronomy, and many more topics. Moudhy Al-Rashid is an Assyriologist and Honorary Fellow at Wolfson College at the University of Oxford. She has a Bachelors in Philosophy from Columbia University’s Columbia College, an MPhil in Cuneiform Studies, and a DPhil in Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford (Wolfson College), where she now researches the use of metaphor in descriptions of mental distress in cuneiform medical texts. She teaches Akkadian text classes and modules in the history of science in Mesopotamia at the Oriental Institute.Research interests include the history of science, medicine, and technology; science and medicine in the ancient Middle East; Iraq; cuneiform; Akkadian language; ancient North Arabian languages and scripts; archaeology; Assyriology; and historiography of Assyriology.She is the author of the latest book, Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History. Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe