“Ideas and Issues” 2002-3

WETS-FM  |  host: Hugh LaFollette

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I am adopting a new format this year. I will identify thirteen important books and spend three shows discussing each—the first with the book's author, and other two with guests who will discuss and elaborate on important themes in that book.  Where feasible, they will relate those themes to their own work.

 

The books chosen will be award winners,  well-reviewed recent books, or, just (or soon-to-be) published books that I judge will be significant. PDF version.

 

Date

Guest

Book (authored by the first guest in each group)

Sept 1

Jared Diamond

Physiology, UCLA

Guns, Germs and Steel:
The Fates of Human Societies

Pulitzer Prize for Non-fiction 1998

 

Sept 8

William H. McNeill

Prof. Emeritus of History; University of Chicago

co-author of The Human Web, (W.W. Norton, 2003)

Sept 15

James Odom

Professor Emeritus of History, ETSU

Sept 22

George Fletcher

Cardozo Professor of Law, Columbia University

Our Secret Constitution:

How Lincoln Redefined American Democracy

Best Law Book of 2001, AAP

 

Sept 29

Bruce Ackerman

Sterling Prof. of Law & Political Science

Yale University; author of We the People

Oct 6

Eric Segall

School of Law, Georgia State

Oct 13

Ariel Glucklich

Theology, Georgetown University

Sacred Pain:
Hurting the Body for the Sake of the Soul

Best Religion Book of 2001, AAP

 

Oct 20

Jeff Gold

Philosophy, ETSU

Oct 27

Armando Favazza, M.D.

author of Bodies Under Siege

Psychiatry, MO

Nov 3

Donald Worster

History, University of Kansas

A River Running West:
The Life of John Wesley Powell

Best Book of 2001, LA Times

Nov 10

Christopher Knapp

Philosophy, Binghamton

Nov 17

Daniel Kemmis

Dir. Center for Rocky Mountain West

U. of Montana; author, This Sovereign Land

Nov 24

Atul Gawande, M.D.

surgical resident; staff writer, New Yorker

Complications:
A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science
 

New York Times Book Review, Editor's Choice

Dec 1

Karen Lasser, M.D.

Harvard Medical School

author, JAMA Report on Prescription Drugs

Dec 8 Paul E. Stanton, M.D.

President, ETSU (former dean of medicine)

Dec 15 Richard Russo

Knopf

Empire Falls

2002 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

 
Dec 22 Rebecca Hanrahan

Philosophy, ETSU 

Dec 29 Mark Shechner

English, SUNY-Buffalo

Jan 5

Thomas Pogge

Philosophy, Columbia

World Poverty and Human Rights

Jan 12 Cecile Fabre

Government, London School of Economics

Jan 19 Gerald Gaus

Center for Political Economy, Tulane

Jan 26 Louis Menand

English, CUNY

The Metaphysical Club:
A Story of Ideas in America

2002 Pulitzer Prize for History

Feb 2 John Deigh

Philosophy, Northwestern University

Executive Committee, American Phil Association

Feb 9

Feb 16 Bernard Lewis

Prof. Emeritus, Near Eastern Studies; Princeton

What Went Wrong:

Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response

NY Times Bestseller

Feb 23 Frank Wu

Law, Howard University,

Visiting (2002-3), University of Michigan

Mar 2 Khaled Abou El Fadl

Law, UCLA

Mar 9 Cass Sunstein

Law, University of Chicago

Risk and Reason:
Safety, Law, and the Environment

 

Mar 16 Douglas Crawford-Brown

Dir. Carolina Environmental Program

Chair, Environmental Science, U North Carolina

Mar 23 -
Apr 7
Show pre-empted by NRP News
Do not know when the shows will begin again.
Apr 14 Kristin Shrader-Frechette
Philosophy & Biological Sciences
University of Notre Dame
Apr 21 Morris Dickstein

English, City University of New York

Leopards in the Temple:
The Transformation of American Fiction
Apr 28 Bert Bach

Provost & Professor of English

East Tennessee State University

May 5 W.T. Lhamon

English, Florida State University 

May 12 John Doris

Philosophy, U. of California, Santa Cruz

Lack of Character:
Personality and Moral Behavior
May 19 George Graham

Reid Chair in Philosophy

Wake Forest University

May 26 Thomas Hurka
Philosophy, U. of Toronto
June 1 Roberto Unger

Law, Harvard

Democracy Realized:
The Progressive Alternative
June 8 Vincent Geoghegan

Politics, Queen’s University, Belfast

June 15 Archon Fung

Kennedy School of Government

Harvard University

 

 

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