The Gray Area with Sean Illing11 Apr 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

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(764)

The free-market century is over

Sean Illing talks with economic historian Brad DeLong about his new book Slouching Towards Utopia. In it, DeLong claims that the "long twentieth century" was the most consequential period in human his...

12 Feb 202454min

Music and mysticism

Musician Laraaji joins Sean to talk about improvisation as meditation, the transcendent nature of laughter, and lessons from a long life in sound and spirit. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, T...

5 Feb 202447min

The case for banning...millionaires?

Political philosopher Ingrid Robeyns believes that there should be a maximum amount of money and resources that one person can have. She tells Sean how much is too much and why limiting personal wealt...

29 Jan 202453min

The joy of uncertainty

For much of her life, author Maggie Jackson disliked uncertainty and thought of it as something to eradicate as quickly as possible. But when she began to explore the uncertain mind, she discovered ne...

22 Jan 202448min

A pro-worker work ethic

Americans have absorbed the “Protestant work ethic” — the idea that our value as human beings is determined by how hard we work and how much money we make. Elizabeth Anderson explains how this evolved...

15 Jan 202441min

How psychedelics can reinvent learning

If you’ve felt that learning new information or developing a new skill seems harder as you get older, you are not wrong. Neuroscientist Gul Dolen has studied brain capability and joins us to talk abou...

8 Jan 202437min

Seeing ourselves through the darkness

When we find ourselves in a dark place, what if we didn't "lighten things up"? Sean Illing talks with philosopher Mariana Alessandri, whose new book Night Vision offers a new way of understanding our ...

26 Dec 202355min

Living Mindfully

Jon Kabat-Zinn helped kick off the American mindfulness movement with his bestselling book Wherever You Go, There You Are. On its 30th anniversary, he joins Sean for a wide-ranging conversation about ...

18 Dec 202341min