The American Age
What if your favorite college professors were willing to talk about everything from philosophy and politics to pop culture and love with the same kind of consideration and enthusiasm? Each week C. Travis Webb, Seph Rodney, and Steven Fullwood discuss life, culture, and art, and challenge their listeners to take fewer things for granted and all things more seriously.
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Episodes
Monday Sep 07, 2020
Monday Sep 07, 2020
141 – The hosts briefly extend their conversation on the middle class by picking through what constitutes a “majority” view. What are the consequences, for example, of proclaiming that the “majority” of “white” “women” feel a particular way about some particular issue?
Monday Aug 31, 2020
Monday Aug 31, 2020
140 – The hosts conclude this part of their conversation on the middle class. They discuss the preoccupation with royalty in American pop culture, and its implications for democracy. What does it mean to be a nation of individuals?
Monday Aug 24, 2020
Monday Aug 24, 2020
139 – The hosts extend their discussion of the middle class. They unpack the assumptions we make about the middle class and the aspirations of its members. Why do so many equate the middle class with being “white”?
Monday Aug 17, 2020
Monday Aug 17, 2020
138 – The hosts continue their conversation on gentrification, and wonder what outlets are left to present ideas in a more nuanced format.
Monday Aug 10, 2020
Monday Aug 10, 2020
137 – One of the hosts, Seph Rodney, who is a senior editor at Hyperallergic and contributor to the NYTimes, recently moved from the Bronx to Newburgh, New York—a distant suburb of NYC. The hosts ask if we can begin a more nuanced conversation about gentrification.
Monday Aug 03, 2020
Monday Aug 03, 2020
136 – With the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein is back in the news. The hosts continue their discussion of the American preoccupation with innocence--both literal and figurative.
Monday Jul 27, 2020
Monday Jul 27, 2020
135 – With the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein is back in the news. The hosts discuss his crimes, and both our cultural and institutional responses to them.
Monday Jul 20, 2020
Monday Jul 20, 2020
134 – The hosts continue their two part conversation about Kanye West and the musical Hamilton. What happens when social media informs our historical thinking?
Monday Jul 13, 2020
Monday Jul 13, 2020
133 – Before talking about Kanye West and the musical Hamilton, the hosts revisit last week's conversation. How comfortable are you with justified violence?
Monday Jul 06, 2020
Monday Jul 06, 2020
132 – Steven, Seph, and Travis discuss the difficult but necessary work of involving those we oppose in progressive reforms. Why is it okay to make sweeping generalizations about "the police"?
Why does the American flag look like this?
As you can see, our flag is different.
We believe in the American idea that all men and women are equal before the law and enjoy rights that are intrinsic and inalienable. We also believe, along with Thomas Jefferson, that because men and women are imperfect, and their wisdom is limited and fleeting, that this idea must be renewed periodically in order to remain vital...
Discover The American Age
The American Age is a salutary response to the disease at the core of American civic culture. It is a rejection of intellectual cynicism, historical amnesia, and the politics of dread. It is a rooster call to stir our fellow humanists awake.