The TPPI Podcast, Episode 10: Interview with filmmaker Richard Ledes

In this episode of the TPPI Podcast, we present plenary session 3, entitled “Economic Democracy and Political Participation,” from day 1 of Political Economy and the Good Life: The 2024 Postliberalism Conference. This session was moderated by Imogen Sinclair, Director of the New Social Covenant Unit. The panel featured presentations from the following four speakers: Dan Carden MP, Labour Member of Parliament for Liverpool, Walton since 2017; Jonathan C.D. Clark, British historian; Joyce C. and Elizabeth Ann Hall Distinguished Professor Emeritus of British History, University of Kansas; Will Hutton, President, Academy of Social Sciences; columnist, The Observer; author of This Time No Mistakes (2024); and Munira Mirza, Director, Civic Future; Head of the No. 10 Policy Unit (2019–2022). The 2024 Postliberalism Conference took place on December 13–14, 2024, in the McCrum Lecture Theatre, Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge, UK. Co-sponsored by the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute, the Centre for Social Renewal, Energeia, and Plough, the conference brought together leading academics, politicians, policymakers, and journalists to explore the errors and excesses of liberalism and to conceptualize constructive alternatives to its worldview and to the dominant theoretical models that underpin it.

In this episode of the TPPI Podcast, we present plenary session 2, entitled “Beyond Global Capitalism and the Ecological Crisis: Rebuilding National Economies and Societies,” from day 1 of Political Economy and the Good Life: The 2024 Postliberalism Conference. This session was moderated by David Pan, Editor of Telos and Professor of German at the University of California, Irvine. The panel featured presentations from the following four speakers: Sohrab Ahmari, Co-Founder and Co-Editor, Compact Magazine; U.S. Editor of UnHerd; author of Tyranny, Inc. How Private Power Crushed American Liberty–And What To Do About It (2023); Juan Carlos Belausteguigoitia, Professor of Economics; Director of the Center of Energy and Natural Resources, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM); Mary Harrington, Contributing Editor, UnHerd and author of Feminism against Progress (2022); and Wolfgang Streeck, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Max-Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne, Germany; author of Taking Back Control? States and State Systems After Globalism (2024). The 2024 Postliberalism Conference took place on December 13–14, 2024, in the McCrum Lecture Theatre, Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge, UK. Co-sponsored by the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute, the Centre for Social Renewal, Energeia, and Plough, the conference brought together leading academics, politicians, policymakers, and journalists to explore the errors and excesses of liberalism and to conceptualize constructive alternatives to its worldview and to the dominant theoretical models that underpin it.

In this episode of the TPPI Podcast, we present plenary session 1, entitled “The Crisis of Contemporary Capitalism and Civil Society,” from day 1 of Political Economy and the Good Life: The 2024 Postliberalism Conference. This session was moderated by Alison Milbank, Emeritus Professor of Theology and Literature, University of Nottingham, and author of God and the Gothic (2018) and For the Parish (2010, with Andrew Davison). The panel featured presentations from the following three speakers: Maurice (Lord) Glasman, Labour Life Peer, founder of Blue Labour and of the Common Good Foundation, and author of Blue Labour: The Politics of the Common Good (2022); Frances Foley, Deputy Director of the Compass think-tank; and Paul Tyson, Honorary Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Queensland, Australia. The 2024 Postliberalism Conference took place on December 13–14, 2024, in the McCrum Lecture Theatre, Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge, UK. Co-sponsored by the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute, the Centre for Social Renewal, Energeia, and Plough, the conference brought together leading academics, politicians, policymakers, and journalists to explore the errors and excesses of liberalism and to conceptualize constructive alternatives to its worldview and to the dominant theoretical models that underpin it.

In this episode of the TPPI Podcast, we present Michael Lind’s keynote address “After Liberalism: Pluralism and the Social Constitution,” from day 1 of Political Economy and the Good Life: The 2024 Postliberalism Conference. Lind is a leading academic, commentator, and bestselling author of The New Class War (2020). The panel discussion was moderated by Tom McTague, Political Editor of UnHerd, and it featured responses to Lind’s lecture from the following three speakers: Claire Ainsley, Director of the Project on Center-Left Renewal, Progressive Policy Institute; Director of Policy, Labour Party (2020–22); author of The New Working Class; Jon Cruddas, former Labour MP for Dagenham and Rainham; author of The Dignity of Labour (2021), and A Century of Labour (2024); and Adrian Pabst, Professor of Politics, University of Kent, and author of The Politics of Virtue: Postliberalism and the Human Future (2016, with John Milbank) and Postliberal Politics (2021). The 2024 Postliberalism Conference took place on December 13–14, 2024, in the McCrum Lecture Theatre, Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge, UK. Co-sponsored by the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute, the Centre for Social Renewal, Energeia, and Plough, the conference brought together leading academics, politicians, policymakers, and journalists to explore the errors and excesses of liberalism and to conceptualize constructive alternatives to its worldview and to the dominant theoretical models that underpin it.

In today’s episode of the TPPI Podcast, Gabriel Noah Brahm speaks with New York City filmmaker Richard Ledes about his latest film, Ikonophile Z (2024). Ledes is the director of Adieu Lacan (2022), A Hole in One (2004), The Caller (2008), Foreclosure (2012), Fred Won't Move Out (2012), Golden Dawn, NYC (2014), The Dark Side (2014), No Human Is Illegal (2018), and the forthcoming V13 (2025).

Gabriel Noah Brahm talks with Orian Morris, a longtime close observer of Israeli politics and culture, a noted Israeli literary critic, a critically acclaimed novelist writing primarily in Hebrew, and a former IDF combat soldier. While serving as a paratrooper, he saw the death of his company commander in battle and participated in an ambush in which a number of Hezbollah terrorists were killed. He has authored numerous highly original and thought-provoking essays and stories for Haaretz, Makor Rishon, Tablet, and TelosScope. The release of his formally innovative 2016 book לרגל עבור מקום אחר (With My Little Eye) established him as the latest "enfant terrible of Hebrew literature."

Gabriel Noah Brahm talks with Paul Gross, a Senior Fellow at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. Previously, Gross served as speechwriter for Israel's Ambassador to the UK. He holds an MA in Middle East Politics from the University of London, and lectures widely on Israeli history and politics. His numerous published research articles and op-eds have appeared in a variety of media outlets in Israel, the UK, the US and Canada, including The Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, Fathom, The American Interest , and Persuasion. He was an active participant in the protest movement against judicial reform in Israel from December 2022 to October 2023.    

Gabriel Noah Brahm talks with Michael S. Kochin, Professor Extraordinarius in the School of Political Science, Government, and International Relations at Tel Aviv University. Kochin received his A.B. in mathematics at 19 from Harvard and his M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago. He has held visiting appointments at Yale, Princeton, Toronto, and Claremont McKenna College. Through September 2025 Kochin is Visiting Scholar at the Hillsdale College Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship and at the Catholic University of America. He has written widely on the comparative analysis of institutions, political thought, politics and literature, and political rhetoric. Kochin is the author of three books: Gender and Rhetoric in Plato’s Political Thought (2002), Five Chapters on Rhetoric: Character, Action, Things, Nothing, and Art (2009) and (with the historian Michael Taylor) An Independent Empire: Diplomacy & War in the Making of the United States (2020). With Alberto Spektorowski he edited Michel Houellebecq, the Cassandra of Freedom: Submission and Decline (2021).

The TPPI Podcast, Episode 6: Israel's Year of Dangerous Living, Part 2: "From the Battlefield of Ideas to the Battlefield, and Back": A Podcast Conversation with Dr. Jonathan Spyer Gabriel Noah Brahm, director of the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute’s Israel Initiative, speaks with Jonathan Spyer, editor of the Middle East Quarterly, the Middle East Forum's flagship publication, and director of research at the Forum. A journalist, he reports for Janes Intelligence Review, writes a column for the Jerusalem Post, and is a contributor to the Wall Street Journal and The Australian. He frequently reports from Syria and Iraq. He has a B.A. from the London School of Economics, an M.A. from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics. He is the author of two books: The Transforming Fire: The Rise of the Israel-Islamist Conflict (2010) and Days of the Fall: A Reporter's Journey in the Syria and Iraq Wars (2017).

Gabriel Noah Brahm, director of the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute’s Israel Initiative, speaks with Gadi Taub, a Senior Lecturer at the Federmann School of Public Policy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Taub previously joined us for the TPPI webinar on “Our Troubled Institutions: The End(s) of Higher Education, Post-Journalism, and Antisemitism after October 7,” which also featured Russell A. Berman and Paulina Neuding, and which is available here. For more information about TPPI's Israel Initiative, visit our website.