A Very Square Peg: A Podcast Series about Polymath Robert Eisler. Episode 6: Negative Interest
Warning: Economics. In this episode, we begin with Eisler’s testimony before the skeptical Senators of the Committee on Banking and Currency in Washington, D.C. on January 20, 1934, in which he propos...
14 Juli 202048min
Frank Dimatteo, "Lord High Executioner: The Legendary Mafia Boss Albert Anastasia" (Citadel, 2020)
Though not as well known today as many of his contemporaries, few American mob bosses were as feared as Albert Anastasia. As head of “Murder Inc.”, Anastasia presided over the contract killing of hund...
10 Juli 202044min
Christopher Bonanos, "Flash: The Making of Weegee the Famous" (Henry Holt, 2018)
In the middle of the twentieth century, a newspaper photographer who went by the name of Weegee took memorable pictures of New York City’s street life that appeared everywhere from tabloid newspapers ...
10 Juli 202042min
Sohrab Ahmari, "From Fire, by Water: My Journey to the Catholic Faith" (Ignatius Press, 2019)
Youthful arrogance. Hipster alienation. A lot of reading. A lot of drinking. Struggles to adjust to a land radically different from the one that one has left in youth. Intense wrestling with nearly ev...
8 Juli 20201h
A Very Square Peg: A Podcast Series about Polymath Robert Eisler. Episode 5: The Slavonic Josephus
In this episode, we focus on one of Eisler’s most controversial works, a reconstruction of the 1st-century Roman Jewish historian Josephus’ account of the events surrounding the death of Jesus and the...
7 Juli 202041min
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, "The Age of Phillis" (Wesleyan UP, 2020)
Jennifer J. Davis speaks with Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Professor of English at the University of Oklahoma, about The Age of Phillis (Wesleyan UP, 2020), Jeffers’s latest collection of poems centered o...
2 Juli 202053min
A Very Square Peg: A Podcast Series about Polymath Robert Eisler. Episode 4: Women’s Coats and Beach Cabanas
In this episode, we examine the rivalry/friendship between Eisler and the great scholar of Jewish mysticism Gershom Scholem and reassess Eisler’s infamous meeting with Scholem and Walter Benjamin in P...
30 Juni 202049min
James M. Lundberg, "Horace Greeley: Print, Politics, and the Failure of American Nationhood" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2019)
During his nearly four decades as a newspaper editor and politician, Horace Greeley embraced a range of controversial causes. In his book Horace Greeley: Print, Politics, and the Failure of American N...
30 Juni 202045min
