A special 4th of July episode featuring Dr. Cornel West.  Dr. West talks about American democracy and how the humanities can inform the ongoing struggle for justice and equality. Further Reading (direct links at anchor.fm/dphi): Full text of Frederick Douglass's speech "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?", The Heroic Slave, W. E. B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, Paideia, Curtis Mayfield, Socrates, William James, African American Spirituals, The Isley Brothers,  Samual Beckett, the rightwing nativist party mentioned in the introduction, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Dr. West's canonical books, Race Matters and Democracy Matters. Thanks to Kelsey Percival, Hannah Warner, Julia Archer and Gabriel Grinsteiner.  For more about D-phi and our live events, visit dphi.org.

On the craft of historical writing and the process of expanding our understanding of American history by incorporating an ethnohistory of its native peoples, with Drs. Elizabeth Fenn and Matthew Makley.  Further Reading (direct links at anchor.fm/dphi): Washoe, Go Fast Turn Left, Shop Class as Soulcraft, Whither the Rest of the Continent?, Mandan, Ethnohistory, Virgin Soil Epidemics, There There. The Plague, Horsemen on the Roof. By our guests: Cave Rock, The Small Shall be Strong, Encouters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People, Pox Americana.  Episode Image Thanks to Kelsey Percival, and Hannah Warner, and Gabriel Grinsteiner. For more info on D-phi live events, visit dphi.org

On the socioeconomic changes caused by pandemics throughout (and before) recorded history with Drs. Walter Scheidel, Andrew Monson, and Adam Graves. Further Reading (direct links at anchor.fm/dphi): Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, Roman Egypt, Antonine Plague, Spanish flu, Black Death, Plague of Justinian, Great Depression, New Deal, Financial crisis of 2007 and of course, Dr. Scheidel's The Great Leveler. Episode image. Thanks to Kelsey Percival, Hannah Warner, and Gabriel Grinsteiner. For more about D-phi and our live events, visit dphi.org

On the meaning and history of solitude, and how thinkers from the past 2500 years weigh in on the Coronavirus quarantine with Drs. Melissa Lane and Adam Graves. Further Reading (direct links at anchor.fm/dphi): Sikkim, Sannyasins, Sadhu, Athanasius, St. Augustine, Montaigne, Plato, Aristotle, Desert Fathers, Desert Mothers, Phaedrus, Transcendentalism, Romanticism, Praktikos, Nicomachean Ethics, Epicurus, Machiavelli, Emerson, Thoreau, Rousseau, John Cassian, Anchorite, Episode Image  Thanks to Kelsey Percival, Hannah Warner, and Gabriel Grinsteiner. To learn about D-phi and joining our live events, visit dphi.org