The Gray Area with Sean Illing11 Huhti 2017

G. Willow Wilson on religion, comics, and modern myths

This is a podcast about topics we don’t always cover on this show. Religion. Spirituality. Gender roles. Traditionalist societies. Comic books.G. Willow Wilson is the author of The Butterfly Mosque, Alif the Unseen, and the Hugo award winning comic book, Ms. Marvel. She’s also lived a fascinating, unusual life: she’s an American who converted to Islam and then moved to Egypt, where she met her now-husband. The hallmark of her work is an empathy and appreciation for societies that are often caricatured or even reviled by Americans. This conversation went in some wonderful, weird directions. We talk about Richard Dawkins’ “God gene,” and why Wilson feels she has it, and I don’t. We talk about how sickness can strengthen faith, what happens to spirituality when it’s decoupled from beauty, and why being in Egypt made Wilson feel less free, but more appreciated.We also talk about writing and comics, about the ways in which superheroes have become modern myths, and how her character, Ms. Marvel, became an surprise commercial success as well as an unexpected protest icon. We touch on Gamergate, representation in comic books, and Mike Pence’s rules for interacting with women who aren’t his wife.Wilson has a quality you find in the very best writers: an ability to look at the same world you see every day, but somehow discover much more behind it. Books:Anya’s Ghost, by Vera BrosgolThe Color of Earth, by Dong Hwa KimFun Home, by Alison Bechdel“A Revolution Undone,” by H.A. Hellyer“Throne of the Crescent Moon,” by Saladin Ahmed“The Meccan Revelations,” by Ibn al'Arabi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(764)

If AI can do your classwork, why go to college?

What’s the point of college if no one’s actually doing the work? It’s not a rhetorical question. In the age of AI, it's incredibly easy for students to offload their assignments. AI tools can write es...

30 Kesä 202555min

Is Trump winning?

We’re nearly six months into Donald Trump’s second term as president, and a lot of us are still trying to figure out what that actually means. Not just politically. But culturally. What kind of countr...

16 Kesä 202548min

A right-wing economist makes his case

For decades, the American right has stayed on brand: the economy. Low taxes. Free markets. Deregulation. Those have been the buzzwords for more than half a century. But that doctrine is now being chal...

9 Kesä 20251h 4min

What "near death" feels like

Sebastian Junger came as close as you possibly can to dying. While his doctors struggled to revive him, the veteran reporter and avowed rationalist experienced things that shocked and shook him, leavi...

2 Kesä 202552min

Machiavelli on how democracies die

Almost nothing stands the test of time. Machiavelli's writings are a rare exception. Why are we still talking about Machiavelli, nearly 500 years after his death? What is it about his political phi...

26 Touko 202547min

Do you have moral ambition?

We’re told from a young age to achieve. Get good grades. Get into a good school. Get a good job. Be ambitious about earning a high salary or a high-status position. Some of us love this endless cli...

12 Touko 202556min

The science of ideology

What do you do when you’re faced with evidence that challenges your ideology? Do you engage with that new information? Are you willing to change your mind about your most deeply held beliefs? Are you ...

5 Touko 202551min

A new analysis of the pandemic

There are lots of stories to tell about the Covid pandemic. Most of them, on some level, are about politics, about decisions that affected people’s lives in different — and very unequal — ways. Cov...

28 Huhti 202547min