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The New Society | culture from the New Statesman
The New Statesman
Your weekly review of culture, life and society from the New Statesman, hosted by Tanjil Rashid.
Featuring interviews with literary and artistic greats, reviews of the latest cultural moments, and in-depth discussion to help you understand how culture shapes society – and our place in it.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- 20 episodes
- Updated Yesterday
Episodes20
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July 25 · 54 minWhy is sex political?
To hear more conversations like this search "The Exchange" wherever you get your podcasts. When Amia Srinivasan published The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century in 2021, it sparked widespread debate about the politics of desire, consent, and sexual justice. In this episode of The Exchange, the Oxford academic joins Tanjil Rashid to discuss how philosophy can illuminate some of the most contentious questions in contemporary culture: from incels and pornography to whether our desires are shaped by society. Find more from Amia Srinivasan here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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July 18 · 32 minCan we separate great art from bad artists?
Throughout history, art, and artists, have caused moral outrage. For a long time we had the liberal notion that we could separate great art from bad artists, but we do seem to live in a time of heightened moralisation around works of art and their creators. Why is that? Tanjil Rashid is joined by Daisy Dixon, who has written the book Depraved: The Story of Dangerous Art. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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July 11 · 1 hr 5 minOdyssey mania is upon us
Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation of Homer’s epic poem is one of the most anticipated films in recent cinema history. But what is it about this story, first told maybe 3000 years ago, that so fascinates us? Who really wrote it and why does it represent, with Homer’s other great work The Iliad, the foundation of western literature? Tanjil Rashid is joined by The Odyssey’s latest translator, classical scholar and literary critic Daniel Mendelsohn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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July 4 · 35 minWas the American revolution really American?
Hot dogs, fireworks, old glory, it’s the 4th July. This year marks the 250th anniversary of the USA’s Declaration of Independence. What led up to these crucial events in 1776? Was the revolution truly American? And what does this anniversary represent today? Tanjil Rashid is joined by Sarah Pearsall, historian and author of Freedom Round the Globe: How the World Made the American Revolution. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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June 26 · 32 min"I thought Jimmy Carter was black" | Tayari Jones interview
Tayari Jones is one of America's most celebrated novelists, twice chosen by Oprah, shortlisted for prizes on both sides of the Atlantic, and read by presidents. Her newest book was meant to be a tale of gentrification in the American South, she found herself an entirely different story. Kin follows two motherless girls coming of age in 1950s Louisiana, the Jim Crow South.It's a novel about female friendship, class, race, and motherhood. Jones discusses her latest book, about growing up "bourgeois and segregated" in Atlanta as the daughter of civil rights activists, and what it's like to watch America try to turn the clock back on progress as it approaches its 250th birthday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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June 20 · 42 minWill Hockney be remembered as one of the greats?
Andrew Marr and the New Statesman's art critic Michael Prodger join Tanjil Rashid to discuss the life and legacy of David Hockney, who passed away last week. A Bradford boy who became one of the most famous artists in the world. A gay man who made desire visible decades before it was safe to do so. A painter who took on the iPhone and the iPad and bent new technology to the oldest of artistic impulses. What do the pools, hedgerows and iPad drawings add up to? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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June 13 · 43 minDoes travel actually broaden the mind?
“The traveller sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.” Andrea Wulf joins us to discuss her new book The Traveller, about George Forster - the forgotten naturalist who sailed with Captain James Cook at seventeen and came back convinced of something radical: that all human beings are equal. We ask why that idea was so scandalous in the Enlightenment, why Forster has been largely written out of history, and whether travel really does broaden the mind - or whether, as G.K. Chesterton suggested, it might do the opposite. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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June 6 · 1 hr 10 minThis house believes that Britain’s best days are behind it
There is in Britain today a widespread mood of public despair, a deep premonition of imminent national decline. According to Ipsos, just over half of Britons feel worse off since Keir Starmer was elected. Going further back, 60% feel the country has gone backwards since 2022. Are Britain's best days really behind it? Pratinav Anil, Rachel Clarke, Tanjil Rashid, John Kampfner, Gary Stevenson, and Polly Toynbee debate the issue. This debate was chaired by Anoosh Chakelian and recorded at the Cambridge Literary Festival. Find out more here: cambridgeliteraryfestival.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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May 30 · 38 minCan architecture be democratic?
What is the relationship between politics and the built environment? between the spaces inhabited by the public and the policies that govern them? From parliaments to monuments… from open squares to closed off palaces… there clearly is a connection, but how that manifests itself remains deeply contested. Tanjil Rashid is joined by Jan Werner-Muller, a German philosopher and historian, whose latest book, Street, Palace, Square: The Architecture of Democratic Spaces investigates this relationship between place, people and politics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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May 23 · 50 minKatja Hoyer: How fascism takes hold of a city
Political instability, democratic decline, the rise of populist movements - politicians and headlines today are quick to diagnose things as modern day Weimar. But what was Weimar actually like, and how did a city associated with culture and intellectual life become bound up with the rise of Nazism? Historian Katja Hoyer joins us to discuss her new book on Weimar, the process of fascism taking hold at a local level, her previous book Beyond the Wall, and what today’s politics, including the rise of Alternative for Germany, may and may not have in common with the past. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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May 16 · 22 minMunya Chawawa: Trump's presidency is based on WWE
Donald Trump’s political style has often been compared to reality TV - but what if the better comparison is professional wrestling? Satirist Munya Chawawa joins Luke O’Reilly to discuss his new documentary, Wrestling With Trump, which explores the connections between WWE spectacle and modern American politics. Wrestling with Trump is available to stream now on 4. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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May 9 · 36 minWilliam Boyd on spy fiction and the British psyche
What makes someone a good spy? And does the fiction writer, in many senses a professional liar, share the traits of a double agent? Novelist and screenwriter William Boyd first explored the theme of espionage in his 2002 novel Any Human Heart and went on to pen a James Bond continuation novel called Solo. His latest trilogy (Gabriel's Moon, The Predicament and Cold Sunset) explores what happens when a travel writer becomes entangled in Cold War Espionage. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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May 2 · 30 minJames Baldwin would be a leading progressive voice today
For decades, James Baldwin has stood as one of the most piercing moral voices of the 20th century, But Baldwin himself has remained, in his own words, elusive. A new biography by Nicholas Boggs - Baldwin: A Love Story - sets out to change that. Drawing on newly uncovered archives and decades of research, Boggs reframes Baldwin’s life through an intimate and sometimes unsettling lens: love. Luke O'Reilly sits down with Nicholas Boggs to discuss Baldwin’s loves and contradictions, the relationship between intimacy and politics, and why Baldwin’s insistence that “love is the only reality” might matter more now than ever. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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April 25 · 28 minMark Gatiss: What it's like to play Hitler
The Resistible rise of Arturo Ui, Bertolt Brecht's darkly comic allegory of authoritarianism is a play that straddles past and present. Written in 1941, it was conceived as a warning; a grotesque gangster-inflected retelling of the rise of Adolf Hitler. It holds out the warning that such a rise is not, in fact, inevitable – it can be resisted. In a new production, Mark Gatiss steps into the role of Arturo Ui, a character who is at once absurd, ridiculous, sinister, and terrifying. It's a part that delicately walks the tightrope between satire and menace. So how does a play rooted in 20th century politics land in Britain today? What does it mean to stage breath in an era saturated with political performance and media spectacle? And can satire still function as a warning rather than just a mirror? Tanjil Rashid speaks with Mark Gatiss in this fascinating and wide-ranging interview. Mark Gatiss is speaking at the Stratford Literary Festival on Sunday 10 May. Book tickets: https://www.stratfordliteraryfestival.co.uk/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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April 18 · 21 minAre we truly living in 'Orwellian times'?
Or has the term lost its meaning? It’s a label that’s everywhere now: used by political commentators, thrown around on social media, and increasingly a part of everyday conversation. In recent months it's been used to describe matters including Indian cricket, Sainsbury's use of facial recognition, the 'Dubai Dream'. But what did George Orwell actually warn us about, and how closely does our modern world resemble it? Nick Harris speaks to acclaimed Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck, whose latest film Orwell: 2+2=5 revisits Orwell not as a distant, dystopian novelist, but as a deeply political thinker, shaped by his own life experience: his birth in colonial India, his immersion in the working class, his wartime fight against fascism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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April 11 · 30 minWhen it comes to the Moon, we've only scratched the surface
Last night, the Artemis II crew splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after a 10-day mission to space and a lunar flyby. The voyage, which included the first woman and a non-US citizen to take part in a lunar mission, is part of a program to place humans once again on the Moon by 2028, a return after 56 years apart. But why do we bother? Where does this fascination come from? Can the moon teach us something about ourselves? Is it a hunger for something different? Tanjil Rashid is joined by Rebecca Boyle, science writer and author of Our Moon: A Human History. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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April 4 · 32 minWhat was life like before capitalism?
It's almost impossible to separate how we think about modern life from the phenomenon that is capitalism, and to think, what would life look like without it? Tanjil Rashid is joined by Sven Beckert, Professor of History at Harvard University and author of Capitalism: A Global History, to trace the long emergence of capitalism, and to ask what the world looked like before it took hold. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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March 28 · 52 minWhat do mushrooms have to do with consciousness? with Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan, a writer best known for his work on the effect of psychedelics, has taken a journey into the inner mind. For much of modern history, we’ve understood the mind in comparison to our most advanced machines. Once it was clockwork, then looms, now computers. Each metaphor promises clarity - the ability to be mapped and modelled - but each, in its own way, falls short. Drawing on philosophy, literature and his own experiments with altered states, in Michael Pollan takes aim at this habit of thinking. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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March 21 · 28 minHow Elon Musk redefined power
In 2025, Elon Musk took on an extraordinary role inside Washington, leading something called the Department of Government Efficiency - or Doge. What followed was a radical experiment: an attempt to remake the machinery of the state using the logic of Silicon Valley and the language of memes. To understand that moment, it helps to understand Musk himself. This is a figure shaped by his upbringing in apartheid South Africa and by coming of age alongside the early internet. He built his reputation by disrupting entire industries - even extending his reach beyond Earth - by moving fast, ignoring convention, and pushing his teams to extremes. So what happens when you apply that philosophy to the state? Tanjil Rashid is joined by Ben Tarnoff and Quinn Slobodian. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.