In this episode of Bookaholics, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte speaks with historian Jacob Soll about his book Free Market: The History of an Idea. Soll argues that what we call “free-market thinking” is built on misunderstandings: modern economists and politicians often project their own ideas backward onto history, turning figures like Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Adam Smith, or the early Dutch merchants into symbols that bear little resemblance to the complicated realities of their time. Drawing on decades of archival work, Soll shows that Colbert was not the rigid “mercantilist” later writers imagined but a pragmatic reformer who built institutions, standards, and trust – revealing that early markets were always shaped, and often improved, by statecraft.

Soll then traces the deeper origins of market thinking through unexpected sources: Cicero and the Stoics, whose moral philosophy shaped Adam Smith’s worldview, and the medieval Franciscans, whose reflections on poverty and value laid early groundwork for economic theory. He contrasts this tradition with the radical anti-statism of twentieth-century thinkers like Hayek and Friedman, whose influence looms large today despite what Soll views as their distorted readings of the past.

Returning to Smith, he stresses that the philosopher never celebrated greed; he believed markets only function when embedded in morality, judgment, and civic responsibility. The conversation ultimately reframes the history of economics as a history of institutions, ethics, and human character – far removed from the simplistic myth of the “free market” that dominates contemporary debate.

In this conversation, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte speaks with David Kilpatrick – professor, writer, and lifelong student of football’s cultural, historical, and political entanglements – on the occasion of the controversial 2022 World Cup in Qatar. What begins as a simple inquiry into the origins of the tournament quickly expands into a far richer meditation on football’s global evolution, its chronic exposure to corruption, and its uneasy coexistence with power. Kilpatrick traces the World Cup’s lineage from its amateurish beginnings to the big-money machine it became after the 1966 tournament, highlighting how commercialization, entrenched leadership, and geopolitical ambition have shaped the competition. Qatar’s hosting, he argues, is not an aberration but an unsurprising outcome of a system long structured to reward influence, money, and strategic alliances rather than sporting integrity. Yet he also stresses that the popular narratives in Western media – especially Anglophone coverage – often flatten the complexities of the region, turning Qatar into a caricature rather than a nation with its own historical arc, tensions, reforms, and contradictions.

As the discussion deepens, Kilpatrick reflects on the clash between cosmopolitan ideals and local traditions, pointing out how FIFA’s rhetoric of inclusion regularly collides with the realities of legal systems, sponsorship pressures, and political maneuvering. The controversies surrounding migrant workers, environmental waste, alcohol restrictions, LGBTQ+ rights, and broken promises are framed not as isolated missteps but as symptoms of a governing body that has long operated within – and contributed to – a culture of hypocrisy. From the failed courage of European federations over the “One Love” armband to FIFA’s own theatrical defensiveness, Kilpatrick argues that nearly every actor in the system is implicated.

This broader critique provides a natural bridge to his recently published 95 Theses on the Reformation of Football, through which he imagines the stadium as a modern cathedral, football as a quasi-sacred phenomenon, and reform as urgently necessary but worth pursuing from within rather than through schism. Drawing on religious history, design theory, and the sport’s own tangled past, he calls for a revitalized vision of the game – one that honors its artistry and communal power while confronting the institutions that distort it.

Even though the conversation concludes on a lighter note, what should remain is the quest for intellectual clarity, affection for the game, and a lucid understanding of why football matters so deeply to so many.

In this episode of Dates with Death, Jan Age Sigvartzen, adjunct professor in Old Testament studies at Andrews University, joins Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte to explore death, resurrection, and the afterlife as depicted in apocryphic, apocalyptic, and pseudepigraphic literature. The discussion bridges ancient Jewish traditions, post‑Exilic developments, and the evolving ideas that later influenced rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity.

Sigvartzen shares how his personal experiences – including the early loss of his mother – sparked his lifelong interest in how cultures understand mortality and the afterlife. He explains that while the Old Testament offers only limited views on individual resurrection, later Second Temple period literature begins to explore personal afterlife in depth, marking a significant shift from collective, national concerns to questions about individual destiny.

The conversation delves into the diversity of these texts, highlighting 18 distinct conceptualizations of the afterlife, each reflecting different interpretations of sacred scripture, communal values, and notions of justice. Sigvartzen emphasizes that these writings often respond to crises – such as exile or foreign domination – seeking to reconcile observed injustices with faith in a just and merciful God.

Listeners also learn about the influences of Greek, Persian, and Babylonian thought on Jewish afterlife concepts, while noting that these ideas were always reinterpreted through a distinctly Jewish lens, blending foreign inspiration with continuity in tradition. The episode emphasizes that sacred texts were actively interpreted, re‑used, and adapted over time to remain relevant to evolving communities.

Throughout the discussion, Sigvartzen underlines a recurring theme: life in the present matters profoundly, and justice – divine or cosmic – will ultimately be enacted in ways that reflect each community’s understanding of righteousness. The episode also raises thought-provoking questions about the nature of inspiration, interpretation, and how religious traditions maintain continuity while allowing for necessary change.

For anyone intrigued by theology, biblical studies, or the historical evolution of beliefs about death and the afterlife, this episode offers a deeply informative, intellectually rich, and accessible exploration of how humans have sought to make sense of mortality across centuries.

In this episode of Bookaholics, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte speaks with philosopher Benedict Beckeld about his book Western Self-Contempt: Oikophobia and the Decline of Civilizations. Beckeld explores the idea of oikophobia – a term coined by Roger Scruton to describe cultural self-hatred or the contempt a society turns toward its own traditions and foundations. Drawing on examples from ancient Greece and Rome through the modern West, Beckeld argues that oikophobia arises cyclically at particular stages in a civilization’s development: when a society becomes wealthy, secure, and intellectually confident enough to turn inwards, self-critique can overgrow its constructive function and harden into self-denigration. He contrasts this with xenophobia, which he sees as the opposite extreme, and suggests that moral clarity – much like Aristotle’s golden mean – lies in a measured self-critique that avoids both self-loathing and blind self-glorification.

The conversation also follows the social dynamics of oikophobia, which Beckeld sees as historically rooted in intellectual elites but increasingly diffused through modern egalitarian societies. He connects these patterns to contemporary political tensions, reactionary movements, and the ways in which both elites and non-elites may come to resent their own civilization for different reasons. Though the historical arc he traces is often bleak, Beckeld resists the idea that his account is fatalistic: describing a pattern, he argues, is not the same as prescribing it, and the possibility of reflection and dialogue remains essential.

The discussion ends on a personal note, with Beckeld recounting the difficulties he faced publishing the book and the ideological resistance he encountered in academic circles. Yet the very fact that the work found a home at Cornell University Press, he suggests, signals that open-minded engagement is still possible – and that honest philosophical disagreement, like the one at the heart of this conversation, remains one of the few antidotes to the self-destructive tendencies he describes.

In this episode of Dates with Death, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte hosts Rabbi Simcha Paul Raphael, a psychotherapist and the founding director of the DAAT Institute for Death Awareness, Advocacy, and Training, to explore Jewish perspectives on death, the afterlife, and resurrection. Rabbi Raphael opens by recounting a deeply personal story: in his early twenties, a close friend died in a car accident, a traumatic event that shaped his lifelong engagement with death. Experiencing the profound presence of his friend during mourning rituals and meaningful coincidences sparked both emotional and intellectual curiosity. This journey eventually led him to write his dissertation and later the book Jewish Views of the Afterlife, blending historical, mystical, and therapeutic approaches.

Raphael challenges the modern assumption that Judaism lacked interest in the afterlife, pointing out that this misconception stems from post-Enlightenment rationalist readings of Jewish texts. In reality, Jewish traditions have long engaged with death and the afterlife, from sacred burial sites like the Cave of Machpela and Rachel’s Tomb to rituals like sitting shiva and symbolic acts of feeding the dead. Ancient texts, such as the story of King Saul consulting the Witch of Endor to summon the prophet Samuel, reflect a belief in the underworld and interaction with deceased spirits. Concepts like Sheol initially represented a neutral underworld without moral judgment, but over centuries evolved into more complex and morally stratified ideas, such as Gehenna. This evolution was influenced by surrounding cultures, including Persian, Hellenistic, and Canaanite traditions, as well as apocalyptic literature and later rabbinic writings.

The conversation also explores Jewish notions of resurrection and Messianic expectation. Early biblical texts emphasized the collective restoration of Israel rather than individual afterlife, with imagery such as Ezekiel’s Valley of Dry Bones illustrating the revival of the nation. By the Book of Daniel, dualistic ideas of reward and punishment appear, laying the foundation for later mystical elaborations. Kabbalistic and contemporary Jewish thought further expanded these notions, incorporating stages of postmortem consciousness, reincarnation, and influences from other traditions like the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Rabbi Raphael emphasizes that modern Jewish engagement with death is once again evolving, reclaiming mystical insights and reframing death as a “window, not a wall,” offering a perspective where consciousness may persist beyond physical life.

Throughout the episode, Raphael interweaves historical scholarship, personal experience, and mystical interpretation, showing that Jewish engagement with death has always been multifaceted, dynamic, and deeply human. The discussion highlights how grief, ritual, and culture shape our understanding of mortality and the afterlife, encouraging listeners to consider death as both a philosophical and personal journey rather than a final barrier.

In this episode of Bookaholics, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte speaks with philosopher and writer Nina Power about her book What Do Men Want? Masculinity and Its Discontents. Power frames the book as a response to the cultural climate in which “toxic masculinity” is often treated as an ontological truth rather than a behavior, producing a blanket hostility toward men that she argues neither reflects women’s lived experience nor serves the social good. Drawing on thinkers like Ivan Illich, Judith Shklar, and René Girard, she challenges the contemporary tendency to moralize desire, to infantilize adults, and to cultivate resentment between the sexes. Instead of accepting the idea that men are fundamentally tainted, she argues for a more complex understanding of human imperfection – one in which both men and women are capable of harm, responsibility, and moral growth. Her aim is not to deny wrongdoing but to resist the slide toward simplistic victim–villain narratives that ultimately dehumanize everyone involved.

The conversation then broadens into a critique of a culture Power describes as simultaneously infantile and punitive: a world in which desire is treated as sacred, institutions demand conformism, and victimhood has become a coveted moral identity. She contrasts this with the older humanist traditions that emphasize restraint, duty, and the tragic limits of human life, as well as with Illich’s defense of difference and his warnings about institutions that flatten distinctions in the name of economic rationality.

Ultimately, Power argues that the real task before us is to restore adult playfulness and graciousness between people – to rediscover the possibility of lightness, attraction, respect, and genuine encounter between men and women (and everyone else) without collapsing into stereotypes or moral panic. What she defends is not a return to rigid roles, but a return to maturity: the ability to live with difference, to accept ambiguity, and to meet one another with curiosity rather than fear.

In this episode of Dates with Death, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte is joined by Dr. Annik Wüthrich, an Egyptologist working at the Austrian Archaeological Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, to explore ancient Egyptian approaches to death, the afterlife, and the moralization of the beyond. Wüthrich opens by explaining that her interest is not in death itself, but in how humans manage the passage from life to death and the rituals, beliefs, and knowledge created to ensure survival beyond death. She recounts her early fascination with the construction of the Cheops Pyramid, which gradually evolved into a focus on the ways the Egyptians conceptualized eternity. For the ancient Egyptians, she notes, death was pervasive but never gloomy; it was intimately linked with life and continuity, and almost all surviving texts, monuments, and artifacts reflect the desire to preserve identity, dignity, and social bonds in the afterlife.

The discussion emphasizes that understanding ancient Egyptian death practices requires rejecting modern Western biases, which often interpret these cultures through Christian frameworks. Wüthrich highlights the complex Egyptian conception of the person, composed of multiple elements such as the ba (roughly the mobile soul), the ka (double vital force and moral essence), the name, and the shadow. Mummification and funerary rituals were designed not merely to preserve the body, but to reunite these components, ensuring the deceased could continue to exist, interact, and even enjoy life in the afterworld. The afterlife, represented in texts like the Book of the Dead, was conceived as a continuation or idealized reflection of earthly life, where the deceased could plough fields, enjoy pleasures, and maintain social relations. Death, however, also carried risks: neglect of the funerary cult or destruction of the tomb could result in the so-called “second death,” a permanent rupture from both the living community and the divine order.

Wüthrich further explains that the Egyptian afterlife was morally structured through the principle of ma’at, representing cosmic and social order, justice, and truth. Deeds in life needed to conform to this principle to pass the judgment before Osiris, often represented in the “Weighing of the Heart” ritual. The Book of the Dead was a central guide to navigating these spiritual and practical challenges, containing spells, hymns, and instructions for preserving the body, warding off dangers, and maintaining social and divine connections. While the texts could appear formulaic, the ethical and ritual investment required – along with the ongoing funerary cult – meant that survival in the afterlife was never guaranteed and depended on both preparation and continued remembrance by the living. Wüthrich emphasizes that the preparation and knowledge embedded in these texts reflect a profound engagement with life, ethics, and social bonds, rather than fear or obsession with death itself.

The conversation also addresses social stratification, noting that most surviving evidence comes from elites, while the experiences of ordinary Egyptians are harder to reconstruct. Excavations suggest that non-elite burials were simpler, with natural preservation often substituting for elaborate mummification, but the fundamental beliefs and symbolic practices were shared. Finally, Wüthrich explores the monumental and textual nature of Egyptian funerary culture: tombs, mastabas, pyramids, and valley tombs served both as eternal homes and as interfaces between the living and the dead, with inscriptions, hieroglyphs, and texts functioning performatively to preserve memory and transmit essential knowledge. Even though the afterlife could be depicted as idealized or fantastical, it was never entirely divorced from ethical conduct, social integration, or the lived experience of the deceased.

Throughout the episode, Wüthrich weaves together historical, textual, and archaeological insights to convey a nuanced vision of ancient Egyptian death as a continuation of life, embedded in moral and social frameworks. Death is acknowledged as unavoidable and a potential rupture, but the careful preparation of tombs, rituals, and texts allowed the Egyptians to envision an afterlife where life, community, and identity endured – an approach that emphasizes continuity, ethical responsibility, and the transformative power of human knowledge and action in the face of mortality.

In this Bookaholics episode, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte speaks with philosopher Felix Ó Murchadha about his book The Formation of the Modern Self: Reason, Happiness, and the Passions from Montaigne to Kant. Their conversation traces how the modern self emerges from deep theological and philosophical tensions – Augustinian fallenness, Pelagian self-sufficiency, Stoic self-mastery, and skeptical doubt – each inherited from earlier traditions but transformed by the crises that define early modernity. Ó Murchadha explains that the self becomes a central concern because modern thinkers found themselves in a world stripped of old certainties: fractured religious authority, new scientific horizons, and profound political instability. In this context, the turn inward becomes both an existential anchor and a philosophical problem. Through figures such as Montaigne, Descartes, Pascal, Spinoza, Hume, and finally Kant, he shows how reason, desire, and the longing for happiness become intertwined with anxieties about finitude, salvation, and the limits of knowledge.

As the dialogue unfolds, the two explore how modernity never truly “left” God behind, but rather reconfigured the divine in subtler, more interior ways, turning theology into questions of will, reason, and morality. They discuss the shift from Montaigne’s gentle, playful, almost serene acceptance of uncertainty to Kant’s tragic vision of reason’s impossible desire for what it can never attain. Skepticism remains a constant undercurrent – sometimes comic, sometimes anguished – exposing modernity’s own fragility even as it strives for certainty.

In the end, Ó Murchadha suggests that modernity may be less a completed project than an ongoing crisis, one that eventually exhausts itself and gives way to something new. The book, he notes, can be read as both an intellectual history and a kind of elegy for the modern self, tracing the arc of a worldview that began in theological turmoil and now confronts the dissolution of its own foundational concepts.

In this episode of Dates with Death, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte is joined by Professor Charles W. King, a specialist in Roman history and religion, to explore Roman concepts of death, the afterlife, and the cult of the dead. King begins by explaining his interest in Roman death as arising from both methodological and thematic considerations: the challenge of reconstructing Roman religious practice from fragmented sources, and the broader curiosity about how different societies conceptualize death differently from modern Western assumptions. He notes that studying Roman paganism requires a “competitive plausibility” approach, building models from scattered evidence rather than relying on coherent theological texts, which drew him to the subject for his dissertation and ultimately his career.

King then contrasts traditional scholarship on Roman afterlife with his own work. Conventional accounts often emphasize Greek influence, focusing on underworld imagery, posthumous judgment, and notions like Tartarus and Elysium. These frameworks tend to treat Roman death as a storage problem - where do the dead go - rather than an ongoing interaction between the living and the dead. King argues that this perspective neglects the indigenous Roman tradition of deifying the dead, which extended beyond emperors to ordinary citizens. The Romans worshipped the dead as gods, or Manes, through funerary rituals, domestic shrines, and annual festivals like Parentalia. Tombstones frequently invoke the Manes, indicating the enduring significance of these deities. The Manes were believed to possess real powers, including extending life, protecting the living, witnessing oaths, and influencing outcomes. Worship of the dead was deeply tied to family loyalty, inheritance, and pietas, creating a system that was both relational and democratic.

Not all interactions with the dead were benevolent, however. King highlights the distinction between Manes and Larvae, unrecognized spirits who could be hostile or dangerous, potentially causing madness or death. Rituals like the Lemuria were designed to manage these restless spirits, illustrating a continuum of engagement with the dead, from protective and reciprocal to threatening. These practices underscore the porous boundary between life, death, and divinity in Roman thought.

A central theme of King’s analysis is the interplay of belief and practice in Roman religion. Unlike Christianity, Roman religion emphasized orthopraxy - correct ritual practice - over orthodoxy or rigid creeds. Beliefs could coexist in “clusters,” with overlapping variations anchored in core ideas such as the existence of the dead and their ability to intervene. This model allows for diverse interpretations of the Manes, Larvae, and afterlife without requiring enforced doctrinal conformity. Rituals themselves became the focal point for negotiating these beliefs, providing structure and shared identity even amid significant variation.

King also critiques modern scholars’ tendency to deny that Romans truly “believed” in their myths or the afterlife, pointing out that much of this stems from applying Christianized definitions of belief to non-Christian societies. He argues for a broader understanding, where belief is measured by confidence in certain truths rather than adherence to creedal formulas, allowing for the rich, varied, and relational practices surrounding death in Rome to be properly appreciated.

Ultimately, the episode reframes Roman death as an active, relational process. The dead were present, powerful, and engaged with the living, and Roman rituals structured these interactions while accommodating a diversity of beliefs. The discussion challenges longstanding assumptions about secularism, Greek influence, and the afterlife in Roman culture, emphasizing a sophisticated system in which the living and dead coexist in mutually sustaining and occasionally dangerous ways.

In this episode of Bookaholics, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte sits down with his colleague Carlo Salzani to discuss Salzani’s new book Walter Benjamin and the Actuality of Critique: Essays on Violence and Experience. Salzani explains that the book gathers more than a decade of his work on Benjamin, but that the essays form a unified argument: that Benjamin’s thought remains profoundly actual – not simply timely, but readable and newly illuminating when placed in the right constellation with our present. He traces Benjamin’s idiosyncratic understanding of actuality, not as mere relevance, but as the moment when a work’s truth becomes legible, when past and present strike sparks together. This, Salzani argues, is what keeps Benjamin alive today despite the so-called “Benjamin industry” and the fear of interpretive exhaustion: the distance between Benjamin’s world and ours is not an obstacle but the very condition that allows his thought to interrupt our assumptions and reveal what has survived within it.

Much of the conversation turns to the two pillars of the book – violence and experience. Salzani explores Benjamin’s notoriously difficult essay “Critique of Violence,” a text long ignored until Derrida, and later Agamben, revived it as central to contemporary political philosophy. He explains why the essay’s strange mixture of politics, law, messianism, and religious vocabulary has become newly legible in a world marked once again by violent political ruptures. The discussion then shifts to Benjamin’s reflections on the transformation – and impoverishment – of human experience in modernity, seen through themes like boredom, children’s play, and laughter. For Benjamin, these states are not trivial but potential sites of interruption: cracks in the smooth surface of capitalist modernity where new forms of experience might emerge.

Vanhoutte and Salzani end by discussing Benjamin’s methodological extremism, his readiness to push concepts to their limits while remaining acutely aware of how easily critique can slip into its opposite. This combination of daring and hesitation, Salzani suggests, is precisely what makes Benjamin’s thought both risky and indispensable – and why it continues to speak so powerfully to a present that, unfortunately, resembles his own more than we might wish.

In this episode of Bookaholics, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte speaks with philosopher Adam Kadlac about his new book The Ethics of Sports Fandom, a work born from Kadlac’s personal reckoning with the sheer amount of time he had devoted to watching sports and his discomfort with the violence embedded in American football, the sport he most passionately follows. The conversation explores how this mixture of personal unease and intellectual curiosity pushed him to examine the meaning, value, and moral stakes of dedicating so much of one’s emotional life to teams and athletes. Kadlac describes his project as a form of philosophical self-examination – an attempt to understand the place of fandom within a flourishing human life, and to unravel the complex relationship between fans and the athletes whose performances shape their moods, loyalties, and weekend routines. He hopes not to dictate conclusions but to encourage reflection: to show that fandom can be meaningful and ethically rich, but only if it is examined rather than taken for granted.

As the discussion unfolds, the two delve into the competing ideas of fandom as a reflection of society versus fandom as an escape from it, with Kadlac resisting both claims and insisting instead that sports are part of everyday life, neither mirror nor refuge but one of the many human activities that structure our identities. They also explore his controversial argument that fans should resist speaking of teams as “we,” not to dampen passion but to preserve clarity about the difference between those who play and those who watch, and to appreciate the drama of sport as something unfolding beyond one’s control. This leads naturally into questions of love – why familial love, rather than romantic love, offers the better model for understanding our attachment to teams – and into Kadlac’s call for fans to “adopt” women’s teams, a proposal rooted in his years of coaching and in his recognition of the striking gap between the widespread participation of girls in youth sports and the comparatively thin fan culture surrounding women’s professional athletics.

The episode closes with reflections on ethics itself: on how thinking through sports from the ground up reveals something essential about moral life more broadly, about the value of starting from lived experience rather than abstract theory. What emerges is a portrait of fandom not as trivial spectacle but as a space where identity, vulnerability, joy, and philosophy intertwine – messy, passionate, and very much worth taking seriously.

In this episode of PICT Voices, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte speaks with historian Sophia Rosenfeld, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, whose work on truth, democracy, and common sense has gained particular resonance in an age marked by “alternative facts,” populist truth-claims, and deep political polarization.

The conversation opens by unpacking the deceptively simple notions of truth and common sense, both of which – Rosenfeld shows – carry multiple meanings, shifting historical uses, and powerful political implications. She explains how factual, moral, and logical truths intersect uneasily with democratic life, while common sense, often imagined as a neutral, shared bedrock of judgment, is in fact culturally shaped, historically contingent, and frequently invoked in moments of crisis. Rather than accepting narratives that treat the current “post-truth” moment as wholly new, Rosenfeld insists on the importance of historical depth: the tension between truth and democracy long predates social media and populist leaders, and understanding its evolution helps us better grasp what is genuinely new today, and what is simply recurring in updated form.

As the discussion turns to media, populism, and the politics of expertise, Rosenfeld highlights how expectations of objectivity emerged only recently and are inseparable from the rise of modern science and technocratic authority. She traces how both experts and ordinary citizens misinterpret the limits of objectivity, contributing to mistrust, polarization, and parallel truth-claims – sometimes with devastating consequences, as in the clash between vaxxers and anti-vaxxers. The pair then explore Rosenfeld’s research on the politics of common sense, showing how a concept once mobilized for revolutionary ends has, in the contemporary moment, become a favored tool of populist movements seeking to elevate “ordinary people” against allegedly corrupt elites, often at the cost of democratic pluralism.

In closing, Rosenfeld reflects on the role of the historian: not to predict the future or prescribe policy, but to widen our field of vision, reveal hidden assumptions and political mythologies, and help us imagine alternatives beyond the narrow debates of the moment. The result is a rich and remarkably clarifying conversation – one that offers not easy solutions, but a deeper, steadier way of thinking about truth, knowledge, and democracy in our unsettled times.

In this episode of Dates with Death, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte is joined by Professor Sarah Iles Johnston, a classicist specializing in ancient Greece and a distinguished professor of religion at Ohio State University, to discuss Greek understandings of death and the afterlife. Johnston begins by reflecting on her personal trajectory into the study of death, noting that her fascination with ghost stories and supernatural tales began in childhood, drawn by questions of the rules governing life and the afterlife. Her scholarly focus, she explains, was catalyzed by a personal crisis when her second son became gravely ill, prompting her to investigate how ancient societies coped with infant mortality and death more broadly. This personal context frames her broader inquiry into Greek conceptions of death, emphasizing that interest in the topic often emerges from a combination of curiosity, existential reflection, and lived experience.

Johnston outlines the basic contours of Greek beliefs about the afterlife, noting that early Greek thought did not feature a sharply dualistic division between reward and punishment as in Christian heaven and hell. Most souls were thought to enter a shadowy, dull realm called Hades, largely forgetful and uneventful, although the Greeks gradually developed ideas of posthumous justice, particularly for those who committed violent or morally transgressive acts. She describes the development of mystery cults, such as those of Demeter and Persephone or Dionysus, which promised a more pleasant afterlife to adherents, illustrating the evolving complexity of Greek conceptions of death. Johnston emphasizes the profound porosity of boundaries between the living and the dead, which could be navigated both directly, through offerings and rituals at gravesites, or indirectly, via experts or magicians capable of summoning the restless dead.

A significant focus of the conversation is on the “restless dead,” a category that includes those who die prematurely, violently, or without proper burial, and who could return to the living as potentially malevolent forces. These spirits could disrupt the living in varied ways, from causing madness or illness to interfering with childbirth, and certain liminal spaces such as crossroads or thresholds were consistently thought to facilitate their appearance. Johnston notes the remarkable cross-cultural consistency of these beliefs, observing parallels in ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and even 19th-century Polish rural communities. She connects these beliefs to broader social values, demonstrating that the qualities prized in life - such as producing children for women or achieving glory for men - shaped expectations of the afterlife, and that failure to meet these standards could render the dead restless.

Johnston also situates Greek ghost stories within a long literary tradition, highlighting both canonical texts like the Odyssey and the Oresteia and local anecdotal traditions. In these stories, ghosts often serve as agents of justice or as reminders of social obligations, and their return reinforces cultural norms. She contrasts these narratives with modern ghost stories, which, unlike ancient ones, often challenge religious beliefs rather than confirming them, while noting the persistence of motifs such as haunted houses, chains, and liminal spaces.
Throughout the discussion, Johnston emphasizes that ideas about death reflect ideas about life. Understanding the dead in ancient Greece reveals what was valued, feared, and expected in the living world. By examining historical attitudes toward death, contemporary audiences can gain insight into human concerns that persist across time, including social obligations, family structures, and cultural anxieties. Studying Greek death practices, Johnston argues, not only illuminates the past but also acts as a mirror, prompting reflection on modern assumptions about mortality, ethics, and the human condition.

The episode concludes with the idea that engagement with the history of death can inspire self-reflection and a deeper awareness of life, underscoring the enduring relevance of studying past cultures to understand our own.

In the inaugural episode of Dates with Death, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte welcomes Professor Sheldon Solomon, social psychologist and co-author of The Worm at the Core, to explore the role of death in human life. The conversation opens with Solomon recounting his early encounter with mortality as a child, a realization that eventually drew him to the work of cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker, whose insights into death’s psychological influence inspired both Solomon’s research and the development of terror management theory.
Vanhoutte and Solomon then discuss the distinction between philosophical and psychological approaches to death. Whereas philosophers like Cicero and Heidegger emphasize meditation on death as a path to authentic living, Solomon explains that psychology reveals how much of human behavior is unconsciously driven by death anxiety. Freud’s notion of the dynamic unconscious laid important groundwork, though Becker and Solomon argue Freud could not fully confront his own mortality.

Terror management theory is presented as a scientific elaboration of Becker’s ideas. Humans, aware of their mortality, manage existential terror by embracing cultural worldviews that provide meaning and social roles that confer value. Modernity and the scientific worldview, with its focus on health and progress, can serve as substitutes for traditional sources of meaning, yet the inevitability of death remains inescapable.

Solomon illustrates how reminders of mortality affect behavior - strengthening in-group loyalty, intensifying hostility toward outsiders, and influencing leadership preferences - while emphasizing that confronting death intentionally can foster authentic living. Drawing on Heidegger, he argues that accepting the ever-present possibility of death allows individuals to act with purpose, care for others, and embrace the richness of life, balancing inevitable anxiety with profound joy.

The episode closes with the reflection that meditating on death is not merely a philosophical exercise but a practical tool for living more consciously, fully, and meaningfully in the present.

In this episode, anthropologist Joseba Zulaika talks with Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte about what terrorism really means – beyond headlines, numbers or labels. Zulaika draws on decades of ethnographic research – including studies of political violence, counterterrorism, and his own background in the Basque Country – to argue that “terrorism” isn’t a self-evident category but a contested, symbolic, and socially charged label. He shows how violence, fear, myth, identity, and narrative intertwine – often turning political conflict into something that looks like “evil,” “savagery,” or “terror,” rather than a complex social and historical phenomenon. This framing, he warns, can obscure root causes, social contexts, and the experiences of people/populations caught in conflict.

The discussion shifts from abstract definitions to the human dimension: what does it mean to live in an environment where violence is normalized, where labels like “terrorist” or “militant” mask deeper social fractures, histories, and tragedies? Zulaika emphasizes empathy, historical awareness, and critical understanding – rather than reductive moralizing.

Rather than offering easy answers, Zulaika invites listeners to question commonly accepted assumptions: who gets to define “terrorism”? Who gets protected, who gets criminalized, who gets erased, and under what justificatory regimes?

In this interview with Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte, Wolfgang Streeck explores the dynamics of capitalism, crises, and the recent pandemic. Challenging the notion that economic crises spread like diseases, Streeck argues that crises typically originate “vertically” from decisions at the top, while capitalism itself spreads like a pandemic, expanding into new territories and imposing its logic on societies. He emphasizes that capitalism inherently disrupts traditional ways of life, often functioning similarly to imperialism, and that the system is characterized by continuous tension, resistance, and instability. The pandemic, in his view, illustrates the risks of capitalist expansion into previously untouched ecological and social spaces, exposing humanity to crises that are partly self-generated.

Streeck also discusses the role of public and private debt in modern economies, highlighting how financial mechanisms, central bank policies, and the management of trust allow the system to postpone crises rather than resolve them. He describes capitalism as a system of “buying time,” where economic, social, and even medical interventions serve to temporarily manage instability. Modern financialization, he notes, has created enormous inequality: capital accumulates among the already wealthy, while workers face stagnant wages and increased demands on labor participation. For Streeck, these dynamics are not anomalies but structural features of capitalism, reinforced by inheritance, social institutions, and the very logic of profit-making.

Ultimately, the interview paints a picture of a system that survives through provisional fixes, postponing crises and managing instability, rather than achieving permanent balance or equity.

In this episode of Bookaholics, Kristof Vanhoutte and Jonathan Rée explore the enduring significance of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, published a century ago. Rée emphasizes that the Tractatus is best approached as a poetic work rather than a conventional philosophical treatise, inviting readers to experience its propositions as a journey rather than a set of rigid conclusions. Wittgenstein’s project, inspired by the work of Bertrand Russell and Gottlob Frege, was not to establish a separate, transcendent world accessible only to the mathematically or logically gifted, but rather to show that ordinary thought and language are already orderly and sufficient. The Tractatus functions as a form of intellectual relief, guiding readers through a structured process of reflection that ultimately encourages acceptance of mystery and silence in the face of what cannot be meaningfully articulated.

The discussion also highlights the remarkable role of Bertrand Russell in enabling the publication of the Tractatus, helping Wittgenstein overcome his perfectionism and facilitating the dissemination of the text despite initial obstacles. The book’s impact on philosophical thought, particularly on the Vienna Circle and the development of logical positivism, is explored, alongside Wittgenstein’s caution that these later interpretations often misrepresented his intentions. Rée underscores that the Tractatus is structured in a highly unique numerical format, designed to guide readers step by step to a vantage point of understanding, after which the ladder of propositions can be discarded.

Ultimately, the work’s enduring value lies not in providing answers or doctrines but in offering a model for intellectual humility, honesty, and the careful navigation of philosophical anxieties, culminating in the famous injunction to remain silent about what cannot be spoken.

In this episode of Bookaholics, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte speaks with David Cayley about his new book, Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey, which explores the life, thought, and enduring influence of Illich. Cayley emphasizes that the book is not a conventional biography but an intellectual exploration, tracing Illich’s ideas and their development over time. The discussion begins with Illich’s formative years in Europe, his clashes with the Roman Catholic Church, and his subsequent life in exile, moving through Italy, Austria, the United States, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. Cayley highlights Illich’s constant sense of pilgrimage, both geographically and intellectually, portraying him as a missionary for a radically new, declericalized church. In Latin America, Illich engaged with local Christian practices and the lives of marginalized communities, championing grassroots initiatives while maintaining a careful distinction between spirituality and politics, which set him apart from the liberation theology movement he indirectly influenced but never fully joined.

The conversation then shifts to Illich’s most productive period during the 1970s, centered on the Centro Intercultural de Documentación (CIDOC) in Cuernavaca, where he developed many of his influential works, including Deschooling Society. Cayley explains that Illich’s critiques of modern institutions – schools, medicine, and other societal systems – were so fundamental that they could not be assimilated into existing structures. His focus was on identifying limits, points of sufficiency, and the dangers of institutional overreach, rather than proposing conventional reforms.

The discussion concludes with Illich’s later years, highlighting his explorations of scarcity, gender, and history, particularly the ongoing tension between modernity and church history. Cayley underscores Illich’s enduring concern with the corruption of ideals when institutionalized, framing his thought as an unflinching and deeply original critique of Western civilization and modern institutions. The episode celebrates Illich’s intellectual courage, complexity, and the subtlety of his enduring insights.

This conversation between Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte and Professor Laurie Zoloth revolves around how the COVID-19 pandemic exposed long-standing injustices in health, economics, and social life, especially in the United States. The speakers describe how illness, risk, and vulnerability follow the contours of race, class, and geography: who has space to isolate, who has access to healthcare, who can work from home, who is forced into danger. The pandemic becomes a magnifying glass rather than an anomaly, revealing patterns of inequality that were always present but easier to ignore. They reflect on how epidemics historically illuminate social fractures, and how modern societies struggle to respond because systems designed for profit – healthcare, technology, even philanthropy – cannot fully address the needs of ordinary people.

At the same time, the discussion turns philosophical. They question how fear affects moral judgment, how technology promises efficiency but often deepens dependence, and how institutions shape behaviour in ways that both protect and constrain. Throughout, examples – from malaria programs to gun violence to vaccination campaigns – illustrate the tension between scientific capability and political or economic limitation. The speakers return repeatedly to the need for solidarity, compassion, and clearer moral imagination: the capacity to care for strangers, to recognise shared vulnerability, and to resist reducing life to metrics or markets.

Ultimately, the conversation suggests that pandemics force societies to confront who they truly are – and who they might yet become.

In this episode, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte speaks with Peter Knight, Professor of American Studies at the University of Manchester, about the long history, shifting meanings, and modern resurgence of conspiracy theories. Knight explains that while conspiratorial thinking is often dismissed as fringe or irrational, it has deep historical roots and once functioned as a respectable way to interpret political events. Today, however, conspiracy theories are defined less by the literal presence of secret plots than by a distinct worldview: nothing is as it seems, nothing happens by accident, everything is connected, and – crucially – truth is always understood to run counter to official narratives. This framework, Knight argues, offers coherence and agency in a complex world, especially for those experiencing social precarity or a loss of trust in elites.

As the conversation unfolds, Vanhoutte and Knight explore why intelligent and otherwise reasonable people find these narratives appealing, and how conspiracy thinking offers both emotional reassurance and a misplaced sense of mastery. They discuss the paradox of attributing world-shaping power to elites who are, in reality, often mediocre or improvising as they go, and they examine how conspiracy theories channel legitimate grievances – economic insecurity, political distrust, and resentment toward technocratic authority – into simplified stories of hidden puppet masters.

Turning to COVID-19, Knight notes that the pandemic created ideal conditions for conspiratorial explanations: global fear, scientific uncertainty, personal isolation, and the powerful accelerant of social media. Yet rather than revealing a secret plot by Bill Gates, China, or 5G networks, the crisis instead exposes the real structural issues that conspiracy theories obscure – the privatization of global health, deep inequalities in vulnerability and care, and the political decisions that determine who suffers most.

In this PICT Voices episode, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte speaks with Ivan Oransky, co-founder of Retraction Watch and executive director of the Center for Scientific Integrity, about what science can and cannot tell us—and what really happens behind the scenes of scientific publishing. Oransky challenges the popular phrase “follow the science,” arguing that science is not a monolithic body of truths but a constantly shifting landscape of evidence. Knowledge is always provisional, always incomplete, and always subject to revision. During crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the public often demands certainty, and political actors use “science” as a rhetorical tool, transforming it into something tribal, ideological, and strangely religious. Oransky stresses that real science thrives on doubt, self-correction, and the willingness to overturn accepted ideas – qualities that often disappear once science becomes entangled with identity, prestige, and institutional incentives.

The conversation then turns to retractions—the formal withdrawal of published papers – and to the widespread misconception that retractions signal the collapse of scientific credibility. Oransky explains that retractions are a crucial part of science’s self-correcting mechanism, even if they reveal uncomfortable truths about misconduct, sloppy work, and perverse incentives within academia. The rise in retractions over the past decades, he notes, is driven less by growing fraud than by growing scrutiny: more eyes on more papers, better tools for detection, and a research culture pressured to publish at speed. COVID-19 amplified this dynamic, producing a surge of both genuine breakthroughs and hasty, error-filled studies. Yet even when flawed work is retracted, it often continues to circulate in citations, media stories, and public memory – a phenomenon Oransky associates not with pseudoscience per se but with the human tendency to simplify, misremember, and repeat what aligns with pre-existing narratives.

Throughout the discussion, Oransky underscores that the deeper issues lie in the structure of contemporary science: the prestige economy of publishing, the reluctance to admit error, and the lack of transparent systems for flagging unreliable research. He insists that most scientists are not malicious but human, embedded in institutions that reward the wrong behaviours. Retraction Watch exists to counter these tendencies – not to undermine science, but to strengthen it by exposing weaknesses, documenting corrections, and reminding the public that real scientific integrity requires openness, humility, and sometimes uncomfortable honesty.

In this conversation, Cardinal Michael Czerny reflects on the role of the Church during the COVID-19 pandemic, pushing back against the idea that the Vatican was inactive by highlighting the countless local initiatives carried out by parishes, religious communities, and Catholic organizations. He stresses that spiritual, cultural, and human needs were very much tended to on the ground, even if the public eye often focuses solely on Rome. When discussing the painful reality of “death without closure” during COVID, he acknowledges the tragedy but also reminds us that loneliness in dying long predates the pandemic, revealing a deeper societal failure in how we treat the elderly. He shares moving examples of priests and chaplains who, despite restrictions, found creative and courageous ways to accompany the dying.

The dialogue then turns to the broader lessons of the pandemic. Czerny warns against believing that technical solutions alone – vaccines, procedures, systems – can resolve deeper human crises. For him, COVID exposed a far more damaging pandemic: radical individualism and the global economic logic that exalts self-interest over solidarity. These, he argues, are the real ailments requiring a spiritual cure and a collective reorientation of how we live together. Shifting to migration, he recounts how working closely with displaced people awakened him to the lasting imprint of his own childhood as a refugee. He challenges the Western narrative of a “migration crisis,” insisting the real crises are war, persecution, and environmental destruction – not the movement of people, which he sees as a natural human response to hardship. He presses for practical solutions like community sponsorship and for dismantling the fear-based rhetoric that clouds public debate.

The conversation concludes with environmental concerns, particularly climate-driven displacement, and his conviction that while current action is still insufficient, hope remains central: hope in God, in human generosity, and in the possibility of guiding political will toward real transformation.

In this PICT Voices episode, host Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte speaks with Nadine Strossen, former president of the ACLU and one of the world’s leading defenders of free speech, to unpack what freedom of expression truly protects – and what it doesn’t – both in the United States and across Europe. Strossen clarifies that American free speech law is far less absolute than many assume: the government may restrict speech only when it poses a direct, imminent threat of serious harm, the so-called emergency principle. What the state may never do, she stresses, is silence ideas simply because they are offensive or unpopular. This sharply contrasts with many European democracies, where “hate speech” restrictions allow punishment based purely on disfavored viewpoints. From this starting point, the conversation turns to the suspension of Donald Trump from major social media platforms, a decision Strossen views as legally permissible for private companies but deeply troubling for democratic discourse – especially when political pressure from government blurs the line between private moderation and state-driven censorship.

The discussion widens from headline controversies to deeper philosophical and practical questions. Strossen argues that censorship often backfires, driving harmful ideas underground, martyring extremists, and amplifying the very messages it seeks to suppress. Counter-speech – including, she notes, the strategic choice of silence – can be far more effective at defusing hatred and reducing harm. She and Vanhoutte explore how vague laws, emergency decrees, and the hyper-regulation seen throughout the COVID-19 pandemic risk empowering governments in ways that are difficult to reverse, all while failing to address the underlying social problems they claim to solve.

The two also examine the growing crisis of free expression in universities, where fear of saying the “wrong” thing leads to widespread self-censorship; Strossen insists that intellectual diversity and open debate are essential to education and democracy alike. Throughout, she returns to a simple, resolute principle: protecting freedom of expression – even for speech we despise – is not a luxury but the foundation of a free and pluralistic society.

In this episode of PICT Voices, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte speaks with Burghard Baltrusch, professor of Lusophone literature and international José Saramago Chair, about why Saramago’s Blindness resurfaced so powerfully during the COVID-19 pandemic. Baltrusch explains that readers instinctively returned to the novel not because it predicts a pandemic in any literal sense, but because it dramatizes the fragility of social structures and the moral choices exposed when they collapse. Unlike Camus’ The Plague, he argues, Blindness offers a more universal and politically charged critique of human behavior, highlighting cowardice, solidarity, power, and the survival of ethical responsibility under extreme conditions. The central figure of the doctor’s wife becomes, for him, a milestone in modern literature: a female protagonist who resists patriarchal patterns and represents a mixture of tragic heroism, existential agency, and even early eco-feminist intuition. For this reason, Baltrusch sees Blindness as one of the most incisive political metaphors for neoliberal, post-democratic societies, where people fear how quickly freedom can be restricted and how easily governments reveal their incapacity to address large-scale crises without sacrificing fundamental rights.

The conversation uses Blindness as a point of entry into Saramago’s broader project – his constant effort to reveal what official history silences. Baltrusch discusses the writer’s fascination with forgotten voices, from medieval Lisbon to the precarious present, showing how Saramago insists that historians and novelists alike are “choosers of facts” and that fiction can expose the distortions of dominant narratives. Works like The History of the Siege of Lisbon and Seeing extend this political critique: in the former, a simple inserted “not” rewrites national mythologies; in the latter, a population that votes overwhelmingly with blank ballots forces the state into panic, exposing the hollowness of supposedly democratic institutions. For Baltrusch, these novels are not allegories in the traditional sense but experimental, essayistic paradigms – literary situations that test what could happen if people acted with lucidity, freedom, and responsibility.

Despite Saramago’s reputation as a pessimist, Baltrusch ultimately sees something hopeful in his work: a conviction that ordinary people, when abandoned by institutions, can nevertheless act ethically, collectively, and with a form of pragmatic hope grounded in agency rather than illusion. He closes by noting the many forthcoming events marking Saramago’s centenary and the continuing importance of his philosophical and political legacy.

In this Bookaholics episode, Christophe Van Gaalte speaks with intellectual historian Edward Baring about his book Converts to the Real: Catholicism and the Making of Continental Philosophy. Their conversation traces the unexpected yet decisive role that Catholic thought – its institutions, networks, and internal tensions – played in spreading phenomenology across Europe in the early twentieth century. Baring explains how the movement of Husserl’s and Heidegger’s ideas beyond Germany cannot be understood simply through translation or academic fashion, but through the work of Catholic scholars who adopted phenomenology as a philosophical ally, a modern method capable of renewing or challenging their own traditions. What emerges is a portrait of continental philosophy not as a purely secular intellectual formation, but as one shaped and carried by clerical institutions, neo-scholastic debates, and Catholic intellectuals eager to engage with modernity even as they remained marginal within their national philosophical establishments.

The discussion also delves into the meaning of “conversion,” both as a historical reality within these Catholic circles and as a conceptual thread running through Baring’s narrative. Philosophy, he argues, often advances through encounters and attempts at persuasion – moments when thinkers adopt the language, concerns, or methods of interlocutors who stand far from their own commitments. This dynamic blurs the stark divisions we draw between the secular and the religious, revealing instead a shared intellectual space in which ideas migrate, hybridize, and transform.

At the end of the episode, Baring and Vanhoutte reflect on how deeply continental philosophy remains marked by religious heritage – even when it proclaims itself secular – and how acknowledging this lineage opens richer ways of reading both past and present thought.

In this episode of PICT Voices, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte speaks with Sunetra Gupta, Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at the University of Oxford, about the thinking behind the Great Barrington Declaration and the often-heated debate it sparked. Gupta explains that she and her co-authors proposed “focused protection” because they believed the social, economic and health costs of prolonged lockdowns were too severe to justify. Since COVID-19 poses vastly unequal risks across age and health profiles, she argues that society could have shielded those most vulnerable while allowing the rest of the population to continue their lives, thereby building immunity more quickly and avoiding the wide collateral damage of blanket restrictions. The conversation also explores Gupta’s long-standing interest in narrative – how scientific understanding always involves constructing a coherent story around data – and how competing narratives led scientists to radically different interpretations of the same early pandemic numbers.

Vanhoutte and Gupta then examine the political and emotional storms that followed the Declaration. Gupta reflects on the intensity of the backlash – from accusations about motives to public mockery – and expresses surprise that fellow academics resorted to ad hominem attacks rather than debating the proposal’s practical merits. They discuss how the term “herd immunity,” once a neutral epidemiological concept, became so politically charged that it distorted public debate, overshadowing what Gupta sees as the real issue: the long-term harms of lockdowns, especially for the poor and for multi-generational households whose “essential” work exposed them to greater risk. She emphasizes the need for nuanced protection strategies that respect personal autonomy, acknowledge varying levels of vulnerability, and avoid isolating people in dehumanizing ways.

The episode concludes with a discussion of vaccines – promising not because they erase the virus, Gupta says, but because they provide exactly the targeted protection needed to shield high-risk groups while allowing society to reopen fully.

In this episode of Bookaholics, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte interviews Frank Furedi about his forthcoming book Why Borders Matter: Why Humanity must relearn the Art of Drawing Boundaries, exploring the philosophical, social, and political significance of borders in contemporary society. Furedi challenges the common perception that borders are merely obstacles or outdated relics, arguing instead that they are essential structures for shaping human judgment, responsibility, and moral reasoning. Throughout the discussion, he emphasizes that borders – whether national, social, or symbolic – help individuals make decisions, develop empathy, and navigate complex ethical landscapes.

The conversation also highlights the paradoxes of modern border debates, including the tensions between free movement, cosmopolitan ideals, and the rise of identity politics. Furedi shows how public and private spheres, institutional norms, and cultural practices interact with borders, shaping collective and individual understanding of responsibility and accountability. He critiques binary thinking and postmodern approaches that often ignore the foundational role of boundaries in moral and civic life, arguing for a nuanced conception of borders as both practical and symbolic markers of social organization.

Ultimately, the episode situates Furedi’s work as a timely reflection on how societies define inclusion and exclusion, the moral dimensions of belonging, and the intellectual and political consequences of ignoring the significance of borders. By linking philosophical concepts with contemporary social issues, Why Borders Matter provides a framework for understanding the enduring relevance of boundaries in shaping ethical, political, and cultural life.

In this episode of Bookaholics, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte interviews David Newheiser about his book Hope in a Secular Age: Deconstruction, Negative Theology, and the Future of Faith. The conversation explores the nature of hope, its ethical and political dimensions, and its significance in a secular context. Newheiser explains that the book grew out of both personal experience and broader societal questions: despair and complacency challenge hope in everyday life, while secularization raises questions about the role of religious faith in public life.

Newheiser situates his account of hope at the intersection of deconstructive philosophy (Derrida) and negative theology (Dionysius the Areopagite), arguing that both traditions share a focus on persistent affirmation in the face of uncertainty. Contrary to common readings, he contends that Derrida does not reject negative theology but rather engages with it to develop a form of hope that is robust, resilient, and ethically grounded. This hope is not a passive emotion or a rational calculation; it is a practice, a discipline, and a model for political and ethical action, capable of sustaining effort in uncertain circumstances.

The episode also situates hope as a bridge between religion and politics in the secular age. Drawing on historical and theological insights, Newheiser highlights how hope can offer an alternative to both radical secularism and theocratic dogmatism. He emphasizes that hope is persistent but uncertain, allowing religious and secular actors alike to contribute meaningfully to public life without claiming absolute certainty or control. The discussion closes by connecting these ideas to contemporary challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, where hope serves as a framework for action, ethical engagement, and resilience in the face of crises.

In this PICT Voices episode, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte speaks with Ruth Finkelstein, a leading scholar of public health and aging, about how the COVID-19 pandemic has shaped the lives and mental well-being of older adults. Finkelstein challenges the usefulness of the category “the elderly,” arguing that biological aging cannot be separated from lifelong social conditions – poverty, work, environment, and exposure to stress all accumulate to create vast differences among people of the same age. She explains how the early pandemic narrative, fueled by devastating outbreaks in nursing homes, created a distorted picture of risk and fed into preexisting ageist assumptions. This, she suggests, encouraged societies to treat older adults as a monolithic, fragile group that could simply be sealed off “for their own good,” a stance that overlooked structural inequalities and misrepresented who was actually at risk.

The conversation then turns to the deeper psychological and social consequences of the pandemic. Finkelstein highlights how isolation has harmed mental health across all generations, not only the old, and points out that younger adults are often suffering even more acutely from loneliness and anxiety. She criticizes the infantilization of older people – rooted in long-standing stereotypes – and shows how public-health messaging has sometimes reinforced these attitudes by treating elders as if they were incapable of making decisions for themselves.

Yet despite these challenges, Finkelstein ends on a hopeful note, emphasizing the resilience, activism, and collective wisdom older generations bring to crisis moments. From surviving wars and political upheavals to building mutual-aid networks, many older adults model the creativity and steadiness needed to navigate difficult times, offering younger people valuable examples of how to adapt, persevere, and remain connected.

In this PICT Voices conversation, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte speaks with Karl Van den Broeck, editor-in-chief of the Flemish investigative outlet Apache, about the shifting landscape of journalism and the mounting pressures surrounding truth, trust, and the business of news. Van den Broeck resists the idea that “fake news” is a novel plague – humans have always lied – but argues that today’s dangers lie in speed, scale, and the corrosion of authority. When political leaders themselves participate in disinformation or discredit the institutions meant to ground public trust, the entire informational ecosystem becomes unstable. Added to this is a deeper structural crisis: the traditional economic model of newspapers has collapsed under the combined forces of the internet, social-media platforms that enrich themselves on journalistic content without paying for it, and a long period in which newspapers gave away their digital work for free. As advertising revenue drained away, the industry consolidated, leaving only a few powerful owners and narrowing the range of voices that reach the public.

The discussion widens into the political, ethical, and practical struggles facing contemporary media. While the internet has undermined legacy journalism, it has also enabled new, leaner, high-quality digital publishers like Apache, though these outlets must operate without the state subsidies that still prop up traditional print. Van den Broeck warns that poorly designed public support risks entrenching old media rather than sustaining pluralism, and he outlines fairer models – reader revenue, tax-deductible giving, and carefully structured public funding insulated from political interference. At the same time, he describes more troubling forms of pressure: aggressive civil lawsuits, strategic attempts to force article removals, and judicial tactics that function as de facto censorship. Even in a country with strong protections for journalistic sources, these maneuvers drain resources and generate fear. Yet, he notes, every case brought against Apache has ultimately failed, and the public backlash has only strengthened their resolve.

The conversation closes with a reflection on the parallels between independent journalism and independent education: both rely on critical inquiry, both unsettle dominant narratives, and both must continually defend the space in which truth can be pursued without intimidation.

In this PICT Voices episode, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte speaks with Iain T. Benson, legal philosopher, poet, and professor of law, about the challenges that pluralistic societies face in navigating rights, freedoms, and shared life under COVID-19. Benson explains how true pluralism requires acknowledging real differences – cultural, religious, moral – and protecting the space in which communities can govern themselves according to their own norms. The pandemic, he argues, exposed how fragile this commitment has become. Decisions about which institutions could remain open were often strikingly inconsistent: hardware stores, alcohol shops, and strip clubs were deemed “essential,” while churches and other spiritual communities remained closed even when they could have operated safely. For Benson, this reveals a deeper cultural blind spot – one that undervalues the non-material dimensions of human life and reduces public policy to a narrow calculus of biological risk.

The conversation then broadens into Benson’s long-standing concerns about subsidiarity, the erosion of local decision-making, and the increasing dominance of top-down, technocratic governance. He contrasts today’s value-obsessed political language with the older tradition of virtues, arguing that when societies lose a sense of purpose, they resort to vague terms – “values,” “inclusivity,” “equality” – that obscure rather than clarify moral reasoning.

Benson and Vanhoutte also touch on the fraught terrain of conspiracy theories, not to endorse them, but to highlight how distrust grows when official narratives are inconsistent, poorly explained, or insulated from scrutiny. For Benson, genuine democracy depends on vibrant local communities, transparent public reasoning, and a willingness to ask difficult questions – even, and especially, in moments of crisis.

In this PICT Voices episode, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte speaks with Philip Alcabes, epidemiologist and professor of community health at Hunter College, about how pandemics are never just biological events but always unfold simultaneously as physical realities, social crises, and narrative constructions. Alcabes explains that COVID-19 is unprecedented because, for the first time in history, the narrative is being written in real time, globally and instantaneously, through a constant flood of information that makes reflection nearly impossible. The speed of communication outruns the speed of thought, collapsing scientific, political, and emotional narratives into a single chaotic stream. At the same time, he warns that many countries have responded without the most basic public-health measures – testing, tracing, and local containment – forcing societies into lockdowns not out of strategy, but out of failure. This dual condition of narrative overload and institutional inadequacy, he argues, shapes much of the fear, confusion, and political volatility surrounding the pandemic.

The conversation moves from Alcabes’s earlier work on the “postmodern germ theory” to the present moment, showing how old patterns of meaning-making have intensified. He reflects on how society continues to treat mathematical models as prophetic, even though they are always wrong in detail, and how experts, officials, and commentators are still cast as truth-telling wizards at times when certainty is impossible. Alcabes also examines the power of declarations – how calling something an epidemic or a pandemic is less a scientific act than a cultural one, determining which threats become urgent and which are ignored, often with stark global inequalities. The notion of exception, he notes, can bring needed attention to a disease but can also reinforce privilege and neglect.

In closing, he insists that the future remains fundamentally unknowable, and that pretending otherwise leads to dangerous forms of control. Instead of trying to master uncertainty through prediction, he suggests cultivating humility, clarity, and a more honest public conversation about risk, responsibility, and the limits of foresight.

In this conversation, philosopher Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte speaks about his work on concepts that risk fading from understanding – especially crisis and limbo. He explains that crisis, once a sharply defined moment of decision situated in the present, has stretched into an indefinite condition in modernity. What used to be a brief culmination point—like the turning moment in an illness or a judicial verdict – has slowed, elongated, and in many ways stalled. Modern societies, he argues, have grown comfortable with postponement: we prolong the moment of judgment, we delay decisions, and we live in time that feels permanently suspended. In this sense, contemporary life resembles a crisis that never resolves, a present that cannot move forward, and a temporality that thickens rather than flows. The pandemic, he suggests, only made visible what was already structurally true: time stretched, decisions wavered, and crisis became a kind of perpetual atmosphere rather than an event.

This state of suspension leads Vanhoutte to revisit the old theological notion of limbo, not as a religious doctrine but as a structural analogy. Limbo was historically imagined as a place without punishment yet without fulfilment – an endless condition without transition, defined by the absence of an ending. Modernity’s perennial crisis, he argues, mirrors precisely this logic. We remain stuck between worlds, endlessly deferring the moment when real decisions must be made, filling the vacuum with what he calls “logoration” – the appearance of action through waves of announcements, statements, and declarations that do not truly alter anything. Just as limbo was neither heaven nor hell, our present exists neither in catastrophe nor resolution, but in an unending in-between. Escaping this condition requires recovering the genuine act of decision, the courage to end the endless present, and the willingness to confront rather than endlessly postpone the structural problems that crisis – and its secularized descendant, limbo – only illuminate by their very persistence.

In this episode, sociologist Frank Furedi reflects on his long-standing research into fear, risk, and the emotional climate of contemporary societies. He explains how fear has shifted from a response to concrete dangers into a pervasive cultural framework that shapes everyday life, public policy, and personal identity. What once functioned as an instinctive reaction to immediate threats has expanded into a generalized orientation toward uncertainty, encouraging people to imagine worst-case scenarios and to interpret ordinary difficulties as psychological crises. Furedi argues that modern societies cultivate a sense of vulnerability that narrows emotional resilience and encourages individuals to view themselves through the language of mental fragility. This, he warns, results in a growing inability to confront the normal tensions and discomforts of life without perceiving them as signs of pathology.

As the conversation turns to education, intergenerational change, and the effects of the pandemic, Furedi emphasizes how institutional responses often reinforce dependency rather than autonomy. He notes that children and young adults are increasingly socialized into a therapeutic worldview that frames even basic challenges as exceptional burdens requiring emotional management. Coupled with political narratives of precaution and doom, this fosters a culture in which fear becomes both an organizing principle and a mode of governance.

Yet Furedi insists that alternatives remain possible: reclaiming agency, cultivating moral courage, and re-embracing the uncertainties inherent in living with others. For him, overcoming the culture of fear depends less on eliminating risk than on restoring the confidence that individuals and communities can meet the future without being paralyzed by their own anxieties.

In this conversation, David Cayley revisits Ivan Illich’s Medical Nemesis to illuminate how the COVID-19 response exposed deep assumptions about medicine, suffering, death, and professional authority. Illich argued that modern institutions pass a threshold beyond which their helpfulness turns counterproductive. In medicine, this manifests not only in clinical harm but in “social” and “cultural” iatrogenesis: people unlearning how to suffer, care for one another, or die in a way that is truly their own. Cayley notes how the pandemic intensified this dynamic – death became visible only as a tragic statistic, stripped of meaning, while political leaders claimed to be following “the science,” effectively transferring sovereign authority to medical professionals. This, he suggests, is exactly the kind of professional power Illich warned about: the power to declare emergencies, define risks, and shape reality through technical language.

Cayley also reflects on Illich’s understanding of prophecy. Illich rejected the label for himself, insisting that prophecy in the biblical sense ended with the Incarnation and that any modern prophetic role should take the form of friendship and mutual truth-telling. Yet Cayley observes that today’s modelers, epidemiologists, and risk forecasters speak about the future with a strange, prophetic certainty – predicting waves, seasons, and outcomes as if they were reading fate. This creates a world governed not by political judgment but by hypothetical projections and modelled realities, which people increasingly internalize as self-descriptions. The declaration of a “pandemic,” he suggests, functioned as a performative act: a word that didn’t just describe a situation but created a new social reality and licensed extraordinary powers. Viewed through Illich’s lens, the crisis reveals how thoroughly modern life has been shaped by the desire to eliminate uncertainty and control risk – and how easily that desire can overturn older human capacities to endure, interpret, and share the burdens of suffering and death.

In this PICT Voices episode, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte speaks with philosopher Claude Mangion about the profound communication failures revealed during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mangion argues that political communication has become uncoupled from ethics, truthfulness, and even basic coherence. Leaders across the world shifted abruptly from dismissing the virus to invoking unprecedented emergency measures, often without acknowledging their own contradictions. This inconsistency, he suggests, is not simply incompetence – it reflects a deeper transformation in political communication, which has been absorbed into the logic of instrumental manipulation. Rather than informing the public, politicians increasingly rely on messaging as a performance, a way to appear active while masking uncertainty, hesitation, or an inability to act. As Mangion notes, the very medium – short-form, low-content statements pushed through digital platforms – conditions communication toward superficiality, contradiction, and spectacle.

The conversation then turns to the media, which Mangion sees as amplifying confusion rather than clarifying it. News outlets, driven by competition and spectacle, reported rising case numbers with dramatic insistence, leaked sensitive political plans that fueled panic, and focused so exclusively on the pandemic that the rest of the world seemed to disappear. Instead of offering calm, contextualizing information, the media helped cultivate fear and disorientation, often repeating contradictory claims with little accountability. Mangion draws on thinkers from McLuhan to Habermas to show how communication has increasingly become an arena of noise rather than understanding, shaped by speed, competition, and sensationalism.

Yet the conversation ends on a hopeful note: if political and media institutions have abandoned the ethics of communication, citizens can resist by thinking critically, refusing panic, and reclaiming the everyday spaces where genuine dialogue and reasoning still flourish.

In this first episode of Bookaholics, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte interviews Jonathan Rée about his new book A Schoolmaster’s War. The book tells the story of Rée’s father, a young British schoolmaster and initially a conscientious objector, who joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II to assist the French Resistance. Drawing on personal papers, wartime notes, and retrospective writings, Rée reconstructs his father’s activities in occupied France, including sabotage operations, organizing resistance efforts, and coordinating supply drops.

The conversation highlights the personal and historical dimensions of the book. Jonathan Rée emphasizes that his father’s experience combined both danger and unexpected moments of joy, reflecting the complex, ambivalent nature of wartime life. The discussion also explores why World War II continues to captivate the public imagination: it was framed as a morally clear conflict, yet individual experiences, like those of Rée’s father, reveal nuanced realities that complicate simple narratives of good versus evil.

A central theme of the book is the ordinary heroism of unsung figures. Rée’s father resisted the allure of glamorous heroism, instead valuing quiet acts of courage by ordinary people, such as civilians who risked their lives to shelter or support agents like him. This emphasis on ordinariness parallels discussions of moral responsibility and challenges simplistic narratives of heroism or villainy, drawing attention to the human costs and ethical complexity of resistance work.

The episode also examines Rée’s approach to historical storytelling, balancing objective history with personal accounts. He navigates contradictions between official histories and his father’s writings while preserving the fragmentary nature of memory, resisting the temptation to create a neat, linear story. Rée’s father deliberately remained silent about his wartime exploits to honor others’ sacrifices, highlighting the ethical considerations involved in narrating one’s life.

In this two-part PICT Voices conversation, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte speaks with philosopher and theologian David Newheiser about what the COVID-19 pandemic reveals when viewed through the lens of religious thought, uncertainty, and the human need for meaning. Newheiser begins by addressing the widespread temptation to frame the pandemic as a form of divine intervention, punishment, or eschatological sign. While he understands why people gravitate toward such narratives – because uncertainty is destabilizing and grand explanations offer a sense of reassurance – he argues that these interpretations are ethically dangerous. Claiming to know God’s will, he suggests, risks projecting one’s own biases onto the divine and discourages meaningful action to alleviate suffering. Drawing on figures like Dionysius the Areopagite and Jacques Derrida, he emphasizes instead the virtue of acknowledging the limits of human knowledge and resisting the impulse to impose certainty where none can exist. For Newheiser, a more honest religious and philosophical response lies in recognizing that the future is fundamentally unknowable, and that genuine hope begins not in certainty but precisely in this open space of vulnerability.

The discussion then shifts to the more practical and political implications of religion during the pandemic – especially the tension between communal worship and public health. Newheiser insists that religious conviction does not exempt believers from acting responsibly, yet he acknowledges that faith traditions inevitably involve commitments that go beyond rational calculation. This tension leads into a broader reflection on the “exceptional” nature of political action in crises, drawing on Carl Schmitt’s analogy between states of exception and miracles: both represent disruptive interventions that exceed the normal order. Newheiser agrees that extraordinary measures are sometimes necessary, but he warns against allowing emergency powers to solidify into permanent structures. The second episode deepens the exploration by turning toward hope and despair, which he views not as simple opposites but as intertwined responses to uncertainty. True hope, as he describes it, is not a cheerful optimism but a difficult discipline that persists without guarantees. This form of hope is essential, he argues, if we are to face the profound mourning that the pandemic demands – from the visible tragedies of mass death to the quieter grief over the disappearance of normal life. Yet precisely because the crisis has shattered our assumptions about what is possible, it also provides a rare opening for political and moral imagination. Newheiser sees in this rupture a chance to rethink long-standing inequalities, to resist the fatalism of “there is no alternative,” and to envision more just forms of social solidarity.

His reflections close on the possibility that, if we hold steady in uncertainty with honesty, compassion, and imaginative courage, the shock of this moment might become the ground for a better world rather than merely a return to the one we had before.

In this PICT Voices episode, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte speaks with philosopher Carlo Salzani about the relevance of Giorgio Agamben’s theory of the state of exception in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Salzani explains how Agamben’s long-term philosophical project, Homo Sacer, identifies the state of exception not as a rare emergency measure but as a central mechanism through which modern power operates. Under such conditions, law is suspended in the name of protection, and life is reduced to its most basic biological form – what Agamben calls “bare life.” Salzani stresses that the pandemic offers a clear illustration of this process: governments grant themselves extraordinary powers, often through temporary decrees that bypass normal democratic procedures, all while presenting these measures as necessary for public safety. Although Agamben’s early comments downplayed the virus and provoked anger, Salzani insists that the real focus of his critique is not medical judgment but political structure – the ease with which emergencies become normalized and exceptional authority becomes routine.

The conversation deepens as Vanhoutte and Salzani reflect on the delicate balance between genuine public-health necessity and the political risks embedded in emergency governance. They note that fears about the virus are legitimate, yet fears about the erosion of civil liberties are equally so, especially when measures adopted “only for now” tend to linger once the crisis passes, as happened after 9/11. Salzani points to recent European developments – such as Viktor Orbán’s effectively unlimited emergency powers – as concrete examples of Agamben’s warnings materializing in real time. While Agamben may have misread the severity of the pandemic’s medical dimension, Salzani argues that his critique of exceptionalism remains crucial: it helps us question what we too easily accept as natural or inevitable.

The episode concludes with a call to use this moment of forced stillness to revisit Agamben’s work – not as a guide to virology, but as a tool for thinking critically about how power functions, how rights can be suspended, and how emergencies reshape the political world in ways that remain long after the danger has faded.