Required Reading from Liberties
Episodes
Abbas Milani on Ali Khamenei: A Profile in Dogma
14 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Abbas Milani and Morten Høi Jensen discuss Milani's recent Liberties essay "Ali Khamenei: A Profile in Dogman"
Yahia Lababidi - Czesław Miłosz and Thomas Merton; Secretaries of Silence
31 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Yahia Lababidi discusses his recent essay "Secretaries of Silence" with Morten Høi Jensen. The essay is about the relationship between Czes...
James Wolcott - Gloire Days
06 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
James Wolcott and Morten Høi Jensen discuss Wolcott's essay "Gloire Days" and Trump's obsession with Mar-a-Lago.
Dan Sinykin - Close Reading
09 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Sinykin and Morten Høi Jensen discuss Close Reading For The Twentieth Century, the book that Dan Sinykin and Johanna Winnant edited and which was...
Morten Høi Jensen and Celeste Marcus -- Mann and Soutine
27 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Morten Høi Jensen and Celeste Marcus discuss their respective books The Master of Contradictions: Thomas Mann and the Making of the Magic Mountain an...
Lace Richardson - Peter Matthiessen, True Nature: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen,
05 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode of Required Reading, Morten Høi Jensen and Lance Richardson discuss Richardson’s new biography Peter Matthiessen, True Nature: The ...
Aatish Taseer - Return to Self: Excursions in Exile
11 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On November 7th, 2019, the Indian government revoked Aatish Taseer's Indian citizenship. In this episode of Required Reading, MORTEN HØI JENSEN...
Daniel Elkind - Dr Chizhevsky's Chandelier
15 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel Elkind and Morten Høi Jensen discuss Elkind's new book, Dr Chizhevsky's Chandelier: The Decline of the USSR and other Heresies of the ...
Oliver Moody - Baltic: The Future of Europe
09 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Oliver Moody and Morten Høi Jensen discuss Moody's new book and explain how the history of the Baltic sea and the countries that surround it reve...
Luka Ivan Jukić - Central Europe: The Death of a Civilization and the Life of an Idea
27 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Luka Ivan Jukić and Morten Høi Jensen discuss Luka's recent book and ask and answer whether "Central Europe" even exists.
Alissa Wilkinson: We Tell Ourselves Stories
18 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Alissa Wilkinson and Morten Høi Jensen discuss Wilkinson's most recent book We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine...
Ben Libman - The Third Solitude; A Memoir Against History
01 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ben Libman and Morten Høi Jensen discuss Ben's new book The Third Solitude, religion, tradition, and a modern Jew's relationship with and res...
Guy Stagg - The World Within
02 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Guy Stagg joins Required Reading's new host Morten Høi Jensen to discuss his new book The World Within.On writing the book: "All my life I h...
Carlos Fraenkel and Agnes Callard: Open Socrates
07 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Carlos Fraenkel and Agnes Callard discuss Carllard's new book Open Socrates and make the case for a life of philosophical inquiry.
Scott Spillman: MAKING SENSE OF SLAVERY: America’s Long Reckoning, from the Founding Era to Today
26 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Scott Spillman on his recent book Making Sense of Slavery which illustrates how the study of slavery has been at the heart of American intellectual an...
Rob Rubsam on Red Rooms and our Depravity
03 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Rob Rubsam and Celeste Marcus discuss the movie Red Rooms and the case it makes for the inescapable depravity of contemporary human life.
Ryan Ruby on Context Collapse
10 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ryan Ruby discusses his new book Context Collapse with Christopher McCaffery and Celeste Marcus.
Jessica Pishko on Trumpian Immigration policies
20 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jessica Pishko and Celeste Marcus discuss what immigration policies will look like in the next Trump administration
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
04 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Henry Oliver and Celeste Marcus discuss Evelyn Waugh's masterpiece Brideshead Revisited.
Little Journals, Local Papers, and Democracy
19 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dave Kelsey talks with Celeste Marcus about his projects to heal local journalism and literary culture -- at least a little bit.
Sean Wilentz and Johann Neem on the stakes of this election
22 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sean Wilentz and Johann Neem join Celeste Marcus to discuss their recent essays about the threat Trump poses to American liberal democracy.
Jessica Pishko - The Highest Law in the Land
17 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jessica Pishko joins Celeste Marcus to discuss her book The Highest Law in the Land, a meticulously researched and reported account of how sheriffs ca...
October 7 and The Meanings of Commemoration
08 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In a conversation about two books recounting the horrors of October Seventh, Leon Wieseltier and Celeste Marcus explore the themes of collective memor...
Zack Beauchamp - The Reactionary Spirit
04 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Zack Beauchamp joins us for a discussion about the chapter of his book The Reactionary Spirit which focuses on Carl Schmitt, Schmittian anti-liberalis...
How We Got Here by David Shields
27 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The writer, director, and producer David Shields discusses his new book How We Got Here with Liberties' managing editor Celeste Marcus. How We Got...
Liberalism of Fear by Judith Shklar
20 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Public defender Elena Kagan joins Christopher McCaffery and Celeste Marcus to discuss Judith Shklar's seminal essay Liberalism of Fear.