The Wednesday Society
A podcast that takes a philosophical deep dive into forgotten or intentionally neglected texts.
Episodes
12 episodes
Introducing: The Wednesday Society - full trailer
A philosophical deep dive into forgotten or intentionally neglected texts and figures.The Wednesday Society takes its name from the radical i...
Introducing: On Beauty - with Simon Tedeschi
Season one: On Beauty - What philosophers and writers have said about beauty over the centuries.Philosopher Dalia Nassar takes you on a journey through experiences of beauty. She asks the question that so many philosophers, poet...
Introducing: The Wednesday Society - short trailer
Professor Dalia Nassar takes a philosophical deep dive into forgotten or intentionally neglected texts and figures.The Wednesday Society<...
06 | On Beauty | The Final Step: Beauty and the Erotic
The final step on Diotima’s ladder is the most enigmatic. Diotima says that we encounter the beautiful “in itself,” without any form or shape. This seems impossible, given that beauty is something we sense - or at least discern in some particul...
05 | On Beauty | Beauty and politics
Cosmos in Greek means both order and beauty, and it refers to the order of the universe. So what is the relationship between beauty and order?Just a few years after the French revolution and during the reign of terror, philosoph...
04 | On Beauty | Beauty and morality
The third step in Diotima’s ladder asks us to see the beauty of goodness. But what kind of beauty is this? And how can we think of beauty as having to do with the good when - so often - it seems to also be embroiled in evil?In this episo...
03 | On Beauty | Beautiful forms
What might it mean to speak not of a beautiful body, but of the beauty of bodily form? This is the question that Diotima’s second step asks us to answer. And to do so, Dalia and Simon discuss a novel that - as Simon puts it - is one of the best...
02 | On Beauty | Physical beauty and narcissism
Physical beauty is the first step in Diotima’s ladder. In some ways it’s super easy. We know what she means. In other ways it’s not straightforward. It can be uncomfortable, superficial, even dangerous. But is it possible that the problem isn’t...
01 | On Beauty | Diotima and her ladder
We start by going back - to ancient Greece, to an itinerant seer named Diotima. She saved Athens from the Plague for ten years; and taught Socrates everything he knew about love and beauty. Diotima, who appears in Plato’s dialogue - the Sym...
Introducing: The Wednesday Society (short)
A podcast that takes a philosophical deep dive into forgotten or intentionally neglected texts and figures.The Wednesday Society takes its name from the radical intellectual clubs that met in London, Berlin and...