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Princeton UP Ideas Podcast

By: New Books Network
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  • Summary

  • A series of interview with authors of new books from Princeton University Press
    New Books Network
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Episodes
  • Alexandre Lefebvre, "Liberalism as a Way of Life" (Princeton UP, 2024)

    Alexandre Lefebvre, "Liberalism as a Way of Life" (Princeton UP, 2024)
    Jul 1 2024
    In political philosophy, “liberalism” is not the name of a particular social platform. Rather, it refers to a framework for thinking about politics. It is the way of thinking according to which the state, its laws, and its institutions all stand in need of justification, and that the justification of the state must be addressed to those who live within its territory. In this way, liberalism as a philosophical stance affirms the moral equality of persons and prioritizes the liberty of each, “taken one by one,” as it were. The idea of liberalism as a way of life thus may seem curious. According to many traditional liberal thinkers, liberalism is distinguished from other approaches by the denial that it is a “way of life.” On these views, a liberal political order establishes the conditions under which each individual can “seek their own good in their own way,” as John Stuart Mill put it. In Liberalism as a Way of Life (Princeton University Press 2024), Alexandre Lefebvre argues that liberalism currently informs our cultural sensibilities. What’s more, he argues that liberalism is a worthwhile way of life.
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    1 hr and 9 mins
  • Meaghan Stiman, "Privileging Place: How Second Homeowners Transform Communities and Themselves" (Princeton UP, 2024)

    Meaghan Stiman, "Privileging Place: How Second Homeowners Transform Communities and Themselves" (Princeton UP, 2024)
    Jul 1 2024
    In recent decades, Americans have purchased second homes at unprecedented rates. In Privileging Place: How Second Homeowners Transform Communities and Themselves (Princeton UP, 2024), Meaghan Stiman examines the experiences of predominantly upper-middle-class suburbanites who bought second homes in the city or the country. Drawing on interviews with more than sixty owners of second homes and ethnographic data collected over the course of two years in Rangeley, Maine, and Boston, Massachusetts, Stiman uncovers the motivations of these homeowners and analyzes the local consequences of their actions. By doing so, she traces the contours of privilege across communities in the twenty-first century. Stiman argues that, for the upper-middle-class residents of suburbia who bought urban or rural second homes, the purchase functioned as a way to balance a desire for access to material resources in suburban communities with a longing for a more meaningful connection to place in the city or the country. The tension between these two contradictory aims explains why homeowners bought second homes, how they engaged with the communities around them, and why they ultimately remained in their suburban hometowns. The second home is a place-identity project—a way to gain a sense of place identity they don’t find in their hometowns while still holding on to hometown resources. Stiman’s account offers a cautionary tale of the layers of privilege within and across geographies in the twenty-first century.
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    30 mins
  • Michael Sonenscher, "Capitalism: The Story Behind the Word" (Princeton UP, 2022)

    Michael Sonenscher, "Capitalism: The Story Behind the Word" (Princeton UP, 2022)
    Jun 30 2024
    What exactly is capitalism? How has the meaning of capitalism changed over time? And what’s at stake in our understanding or misunderstanding of it? In Capitalism: The Story Behind the Word (Princeton UP, 2022), Michael Sonenscher examines the history behind the concept and pieces together the range of subjects bound up with the word. Sonenscher shows that many of our received ideas fail to pick up the work that the idea of capitalism is doing for us, without us even realizing it. “Capitalism” was first coined in France in the early nineteenth century. It began as a fusion of two distinct sets of ideas. The first involved thinking about public debt and war finance. The second involved thinking about the division of labour. Sonenscher shows that thinking about the first has changed radically over time. Funding welfare has been added to funding warfare, bringing many new questions in its wake. Thinking about the second set of ideas has offered far less room for manoeuvre. The division of labour is still the division of labour and the debates and discussions that it once generated have now been largely forgotten. By exploring what lay behind the earlier distinction before it collapsed and was eroded by the passage of time, Sonenscher shows why the present range of received ideas limits our political options and the types of reform we might wish for. Michael Sonenscher is a fellow of King's College, University of Cambridge. His books include Sans-Culottes and Before the Deluge (both Princeton UP). Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter.
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    51 mins
Art World Literary History & Criticism
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