Some months back, author Douglas Lain (targeted at a future guest on P.E.L., probably for Zizek, but this won’t happen particularly soon) and I chatted off-the-cuff for a podcast that I for once did not have to edit.
I can’t promise what I had to say there to be particularly new to any consistent P.E.L. listener, and I think not having a text to focus on leaves a conversation somewhat rambling. Anyway, it’s nice to be the center of attention, I guess (although I think you get a great introduction to Doug here too), and it was fun to do. The discussion of ontology and ethics that comes around 20 minutes in isn’t bad.
Doug has a somewhat different approach on the Diet Soap podcast than we do (e.g. we don’t tend to interrupt the interview with a song…), but has a lot of interesting guests from the literary and artistic world, and increasingly more philosophy types such as Ben Burgess on analytic vs. continental philosophy, Daniel Coffeen talking about Deluze, or this conversation with Martin Jay. If you’re impatient for us to get to newer Marxists, postmodernists, and other continental folks, Doug’s podcast may help you scratch that itch.
-Mark Linsenmayer
I’ve thought philosophy books are usually so horribly written, the concepts so poorly explained that it is a real shame and amazing people don’t react more negatively toward the tradition. Hegel, Heidegger…
In describing his love for Deleuze Coffeen gives an explanation why some people like this situation. It’s a challenge for us over-educated grad students! How boring to be able to understand what I’m reading! You can be engaged with a text for decades before you really get it.