War and Violence
Posted on 15 December 2013
The historian Ibn Khaldūn applies the methods of philosophy to understand the rise and fall of political regimes.
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Posted on 5 April 2015
The “Investiture Contest” between church and state and the first major work of medieval political philosophy, John of Salisbury’s Policraticus.
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Posted on 7 February 2016
Two figures from the Mauryan dynasty, Kauṭilya and the king Aśoka, set out contrasting ideas about the ideal political rule.
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Posted on 14 February 2016
Aquinas follows medieval legal thinkers in defining the conditions under which war may be justified, and proposes his famous doctrine of double effect.
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Posted on 20 March 2016
The Bhagavad-Gītā or “Song of the Lord” from the Mahābhārata ties its theory of detached action to an innovative conception of the divine.
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Posted on 3 April 2016
Vegetarianism and non-violence (ahimsa) in ancient Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.
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Posted on 14 October 2018
Uthman Dan Fodio and his family were scholars, poets, and warriors whose jihad in 19th century Nigeria created the Sokoto Caliphate.
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Posted on 13 January 2019
Legal and economic thought in Byzantium: the sources of the law’s authority, the relation of church and civil law, just price, and just war.
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Posted on 10 March 2019
Intellectual exchange between Christians and Muslims, and the later flowering of Syriac literature including the philosopher Bar Hebraeus.
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Posted on 13 October 2019
In an age of revolutions and revolutionary ideas, the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1804 stands out as the most radical of them all.
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Posted on 27 October 2019
The Baron de Vastey unveils the horror of colonialism as a system and defends the monarchy of King Christophe in the tense early years of Haiti’s independence.
Note: this episode repeats some of Vastey's vivid descriptions of violence against slaves, so please think twice before listening to it around kids for example.
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Posted on 10 November 2019
An interview with Doris Garraway on the background, intellectual basis, and legacy of the Haitian Revolution.
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Posted on 5 January 2020
David Walker defends violent resistance in his incendiary and influential Appeal.
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Posted on 19 January 2020
Maria W. Stewart’s public addresses bring the concerns of African American women into the struggle against racial prejudice.
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Posted on 1 March 2020
Frederick Douglass' journey from slave to leading figure of 19th century American thought.
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Posted on 15 March 2020
In two speeches marking holidays, Frederick Douglass champions the idea of world citizenship, the power of appeals to conscience to bring change, and the role of violence.
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Posted on 29 March 2020
Henry Highland Garnet encourages, or actually demands, that enslaved Americans throw off their chains and debates Douglass over how best to resist slavery.
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Posted on 26 April 2020
The moral crusades of Sojourner Truth and Frances Harper, activists against racial and gender oppression.
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Posted on 17 May 2020
Machiavelli’s seminal work of political advice, The Prince, tells the ruler how to be strong like a lion and cunning like a fox.
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Posted on 31 May 2020
Peter celebrates reaching 350 episodes by explaining a single sentence in Machiavelli's "Discourses."
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Posted on 28 June 2020
Bruni, Poggio, Machiavelli, and Guicciardini explore political ideas and historical method in works on Roman and Italian history.
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Posted on 12 July 2020
Tommaso Campanella’s The City of the Sun and other utopian works of the Italian Renaissance describe perfect cities as an ideal for real life politics.
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Posted on 19 July 2020
T. Thomas Fortune uses newspaper editorials to put forth a theory of civil rights and sets out a plan of political action for protecting them.
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Posted on 1 November 2020
Ida B. Wells, her tireless crusade against lynching, and her analysis of the underlying purpose of racial violence
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Posted on 10 January 2021
Co-host Chike joins Peter to look back at series two and ahead to series three.
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Posted on 21 March 2021
Around the time of World War One, Hubert Harrison (pictured), A. Philip Randolph, and other black socialists argue that racial oppression is caused by capitalism.
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Posted on 25 April 2021
How humanism and scholasticism came together with the Protestant Reformation to create the philosophy of 15 - 16th century Europe.
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Posted on 4 July 2021
The “learned piety” of Desiderius Erasmus, the greatest figure of northern humanism.
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Posted on 24 October 2021
Faced with massive political upheaval and the rise of the Anabaptists, Luther argues for a socially conservative version of the Reformation.
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Posted on 23 January 2022
Claudia Jones argues that Communism provides the remedy for racism and imperialism.
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Posted on 13 February 2022
Amidst religious conflict in the Netherlands, Dirck Coornhert pleads for religious toleration and freedom of expression.
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Posted on 20 February 2022
Famous for his incendiary novel Native Son, Richard Wright responds in his multifaceted writings to sociology, communism, colonialism, and existentialism.
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Posted on 27 February 2022
Justus Lipsius draws on Seneca and other Stoics to counsel peace of mind in the face of political chaos, but also writes a work on how such chaos can be avoided.
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Posted on 6 March 2022
Ralph Ellison provides a new metaphor for the experience of racism in his Invisible Man and tackles topics of art and identity in his essays.
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Posted on 3 April 2022
The story of Martin Luther King Jr. up to 1963, focusing on the development of his philosophy of nonviolence.
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Posted on 1 May 2022
The life and career of Malcolm X up to 1963, with a focus on his separatist black nationalism and his critique of non-violent protest.
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Posted on 29 May 2022
After 1963, the views of Malcolm X and MLK came closer together, on topics including internationalism, political engagement, and economics.
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Posted on 4 September 2022
Fanon’s incendiary final work explores the violent process of decolonization.
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Posted on 18 September 2022
We're joined by a leading Fanon expert to talk about a range of themes in his work: Negritude, psychiatry, and violence.
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Posted on 2 October 2022
The author of the famous play, A Raisin in the Sun, explores questions of violence, sexuality, and more during her too brief life.
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Posted on 16 October 2022
How the controversial slogan “black power,” used by activists like H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael (pictured), relates to ideas of militancy, separatism, and the power of language.
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Posted on 23 October 2022
Even as wars of religion in France prompt calls for toleration, hardly anyone makes a principled case for freedom of conscience… apart from Sebastian Castellio.
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Posted on 30 October 2022
The philosophical underpinnings of a “vanguard of revolution” led by Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and Eldridge Cleaver: the Black Panther Party.
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Posted on 6 November 2022
An interview on the nature of religious tolerance, and the forms it took during the Reformation and in the thought of early modern thinkers like Locke and Leibniz.
Maria Rosa Antognazza is Professor of Philosophy at King's College London.
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Posted on 13 November 2022
The Pan-Africanist philosopher Maulana Karenga defends the importance of cultural revolution and invents the holiday Kwanzaa.
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Posted on 20 November 2022
Protestant French thinkers like François Hotman and Theodore Beza propose a radical political philosophy: the king rules at the pleasure of his subjects.
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Posted on 11 December 2022
After Albert Cleage and James Cone propose a liberatory interpretation of Christianity, William R. Jones wonders whether God is a white racist. We also follow Black Theology among “Womanist” authors and in South Africa.
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Posted on 8 January 2023
Amílcar Cabral, leader of a revolution against colonialism in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, rethinks culture and Marxist theory as bases for his struggle.
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Posted on 22 January 2023
Two scholars of the same name join us to shed further light on freedom fighter and political theorist Amílcar Cabral.
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Posted on 5 February 2023
The career and ideas of Nelson Mandela up to the time of his imprisonment, in the context of the founding of the African National Congress.
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Posted on 19 March 2023
How the Rastafari movement grew from trends within Africana philosophy, and then passed into global popular culture in the music of Bob Marley and other reggae artists.
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Posted on 26 March 2023
John Knox polemicizes against idolaters and female rulers, while the humanist George Buchanan argues more calmly for equally radical political conclusions.
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Posted on 27 January 2013
In his City of God Augustine traces the histories and philosophical underpinnings of two “cities,” one devoted to worldly glory, the other to heavenly bliss.
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