to sign it, please email your comments to Christy Wampole
24 Nov, 2009
Please tell Prof. Harrison I think his reading of T.S. Elliot's Prufrock is excellent. If I was a teacher, I'd use it to introduce my students to poetry. Possibly, it's my age and my own personal experiences that have drawn me to the reading.
I just discovered and listened to the conversation by Abraham Verghese on The Medical Profession. It was very timely to me.
Keep them coming, please. What a great platform!
With regards,
Deborah McLaughlin
24 Nov, 2009
Professor Harrison,
Upon receiving my lowly BA from a lowly state university, an instructor warned me not to "get stupid" after I re-enter the real world. Although I laughed at the time, I subsequently discovered there is nothing funny about the dangerous, flattening weight of our contemporary society, a very real threat that seems particularly magnified in the small town where I find myself. Oh, what is worse Professor: Those who know nothing or those who assume to know everything? Surrounded by both--both equally allergic to broadening, deepening and challenging themselves--I cannot tell. (And when the two qualities meet in the same person, I duck for cover.)
But thanks to the efforts of you, your guests and your producers, I have spent hours experiencing the thrill of authentic intellectual discourse centered on the humanities. I swear, after a great show, I experience an accelerated heart beat, unobstructed breathing, a clarity of vision. I wish I could produce a doctor's chart to prove to you that I truly experience this physical reaction to Entitled Opinions.
And the show's fun! I never understood why some attempt to erect a wall between entertainment and intellectualism. If you'll allow me to derive an ought from an occasional is, intellectual conversations should be entertaining. Could this thesis of mine be lurking in the subtext of Entitled?
I have no criticisms to make of the show, nor do I have any suggestions. Whatever topic you choose, I either gain a new perspective on an old favorite or else expose myself to a new thinker who may in time become a favorite. I win in either case.
No, I just have boundless gratitude. Because we've never met, you obviously do not make the shows for me. And yet, because I consider myself your near-ideal audience member, you make every show for me. It would be shameful if I didn't acknowledge the large part Entitled Opinions plays in my life.
Thanks so much,
Matthew H.
21 Nov, 2009
I have been a steady listener for the past couple of years, and I must say your show continually amazes me in the quality, consistency, and integrity of your guest and topics. The recent show on the Unabomber I found to be the best, and most fascinating show you have ever done. I feel the show is becoming even more refined, and like a fine wine, is only getting better with age.
Thank you for putting so much effort into making a show like this. It is one that keeps me coming back for more everyday. I wish all things in life were like that.
-Patrick
20 Nov, 2009
To the "great and powerful Oz," dear Professor Harrison,
I wanted to share with you some amazing dreams I've had while listening to your show! About a month ago I began going to bed and placing my beloved Iphone next to my pillow and starting transmission of your podcasts. For some reason, your shows play one after the other all night long! The funny thing is that I'll be in a deep sleep and the voices of your podcast begin to seep into my dreams. I've had some fantastic dreams this way where I am dreaming that I am in some foreign land and a character will emerge and begin telling what I'm seeing and reacting to what I'm doing. I've had dreams where I'm in ancient Egypt or Persia and a Virgil-like character appears to advise me - like Virgil in Dante's Inferno - of what to see and do. Sometimes I awaken because of the extravagant visions and voices I hear only to discover the voices are coming from your show! Lol! From podcasts about Nietsche to Marcel Proust, I have had the most extradinary REM experiences ever. This occurs expecially after imbibing a few poetic glasses of my favorite Chardonnay mixed with a few hits of some green tambourine! The dreams are sometimes quite vivid and riveting...
Now I look forward to going to bed each night, wondering what crazy dream lies in store for me! Of course I do enjoy listening to your shows while upright and alert. But I am sure pleased that I have found a new and exciting way to experience your "beloved Dante" podcasts. Keep up the good work and I'll look forward to the next existential and surreal podcast experience.
With a warm handshake in mind, Jonny.
13 Nov, 2009
Hello,
Recently I have discovered the podcast (I know, my technological ignorance stuns even me), and I've become addicted to your "entitled opinions" broadcasts.
I just want you to know that I'm spending much time in my car or room, just you, me, your guest, and most importantly, the choice philosopher in each show, and I do this for hours each day.
Your show has become a great influence on my life in many ways, and I just thought you should know how grateful I am. Bravo.
Keep up the good work, Jason.
(P.S. you need to devote an entire hour to Voltaire, the spearhead of the enlightenment (and my personal liberator). You covered him a little already in your enlightenment show, but not nearly enough! Please accept my many, many pleas! I will be listening...)
2 Nov, 2009
Dear Professor Harrison:
I got hooked on Entitled Opinions once I heard your Ideas interview on CBC Radio last year. Thank goodness for podcasts, as I’ve been ever-so-slowly catching up with your programs – or at least trying.
I would love to hear your take on trials – what they are, and what they’re about. I’ve been thinking for quite a while that they are metaphors, but as I have an undergraduate degree in biology, this contemplation is somewhat above my pay grade. I’m sure, however, that there are no shortage of insightful lawyers on and around Stanford’s faculty who could engage you in discussion. I’m sure as well that your audience would enjoy and benefit from the discussion.
Continued success with your program.
Yours very truly,
Joel B. Kohm
Vancouver, BC
30 Oct, 2009
It will be a long autumn/winter without the weekly fix of Entitled Opinions. We will just have to subsist on periodic morsels, dispersed at odd intervals. I am looking forward to the Jim Morrison show. After the Hendrix and Blues shows, our host’s scholarly interpretation and appreciation of music is a welcome departure from the kind of posturing one sees in the mainstream entertainment press like Rolling Stone (even though Professor Harrison showed he is mortal by temporarily forgetting the names of Buddy Guy and Willie Dixon). We need a multilingual Renaissance man of letters to do justice to the Lizard King – his work (not only music but poetry) and his short and bizarre life.
This Fall respite has provided an opportunity to re-explore old shows from the archive and also to dive into Professor Harrison’s books on Forests, Gardens and the Dominion of the Dead. Speaking of which … how about a show on the Grateful Dead? It is unfortunate that the Band chose to leave its papers and paraphenelia to the University of Santa Cruz instead of Stanford (closer to Jerry Garcia’s hometown of Palo Alto and not far from the legendary La Honda Acid Test parties where the band played to an eclectic mix of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters and Hells Angels). Not sure if RPH shares the same passion for the Grateful Dead but would hope he does and has a few insights to share.
Regards,
John Driscoll
24 Oct, 2009
Brilliant discussion of Nietzsche (with Andrew Mitchell, May 2009) -- Encore! Encore!
Love,
s-mao
19 Oct, 2009
I'm just writing to say that I love the show. I have only recently discovered it, thank goodness for "Ideas", a show I have been listening to for years. It kept me company across Canada in the days before podcasts, and now has led me to this show.
I really enjoy listening to "Entitled Opinions". I hesitate to write, as I am a science nerd, and have no great gift for expressing myself. However, watching my husband jump through hoops and collate every review he's ever received, and paper he's ever written, in his (fruitful) attempt to become an Associate Professor, I figure a few more kudos can't hurt Professor Harrison. I hope you have the capacity to produce this show for many years, I know you'll never run out of ideas. I hope there aren't too many administrative hurdles to jump to produce the show. Does this count as "KT"? How does this show fit into CQI and TQM? When did these become acronyms academics (at least at my husband's university) had to know?
At any rate, as a woman with her career on hold to raise children, it is so reassuring to know that intellectual engagement and intelligent conversation are only a click away.
And hearing such bright people discuss Jane Austen with such respect makes me better able to look people in the eye when they discover I've read "Pride and Prejudice" and "Persuasion" more times than I could ever count. Oh yeah, well there are profs at Berkley and Stanford who love her too!! How dare they call it chick lit....
Thank you for an intelligent, engaging, wonderful show. The Beethoven shows were awesome, the Dante series with Rachel Jacoff was as well, I'm halfway through the Virgil show, I'm sure people who pass me in the park as I walk my dog, listening to the show on my ipod, wonder what I'm listening to! I "ah" and "oh" and laugh, or smile, or frown, and every day I swear I won't, I'll be straight-faced and normal, and every day I'm enthralled.
I must put in a word for my latest favourite author, please have a show about Ursula Le Guin (see, Lavinia, Virgil, it all ties in). I poo-pooed science fiction all my life, and then I read her Wizard of Earthsea book to screen it for my 9-year-old (she's too young!), which led me on to the whole Earthsea series, then Lavinia, and all her books. They are incredible.
Christie M.
Winnipeg, MB, Canada
17 Oct, 2009
I wanted you at Stanford to know that Prof. Harrison's program reached me via CBC One "Ideas", a show I have listened to regularly for many years. I am Canadian.
I look forward to listening to the program on Nabakov. I have subscribed to the podcast and I'm pretty sure it will be a regular listen for me. Thanks to all of you for making such rich programming available to the world.
Ken Hoffman
Budapest, Hungary
15 Oct, 2009
HARRISON! Thank-you very much for all of the energy you have put into “Entitled Opinions.”
I first discovered the show three years ago while preparing for grad school (literature, of course) digging around iTunes looking for some recorded lectures on Heidegger. Since then I have downloaded and listened to every episode.
But I miss the immortal Enigma soundtrack. I can remember riding my bike early in the morning to work (I work as a gardener when not a grad student). Riding through the wet coastal streets with your voice yelling against the techno furry—Latin, Italian, fragments of the past. "Blazing phrases shot through the rain." It was like a scene out of Pound’s Cantos—where your transmission resurrects, joins, and communes with the chorus of the dead.
Countless other great moments—your constant self-mockery of the soundtrack, the firing of that soulless Ratchet, the descent and return of Dante. A.R. Ammons, Freud, the Heideggarian interpretation of sport, Beethoven, Tom Thompson in Purgatory, yes, so many thanks. And the UnaBomber.
I wanted to write you to ask whether the UnaBomber had heard your show in prison, and if he had retorted to your taunts with some insane treatise. And then I realized that the one privilege that he might have trouble securing in prison would be mail privileges.
And just so you know, I think I can speak for your loyal audience when I say that we stood by you during the sometimes bizarre show on the Resurrection. Your spirit of generosity was there not unnoticed, even with the aggression of your guest. If there was any winner in that impromptu debate it was the spirit of exchange that you fought hard to move the conversation towards.
Jimi Hendrix I think picked up your show while playing his guitar somewhere in the outer planets. I think he must have paused and held his guitar against the wall of amplifiers, picking out the frequencies of “Entitled Opinions” among the hisses, squeaks, and thunder of distortion. I think he dug it, and sung back.
A final congratulation on speaking on the C.B.C. show “Ideas”—I used to listen to it with my father. It is very excellent show.
Thanks again,
James Mulvey
Victoria, Canada
10 Oct, 2009
Hey Robert,
I'm glad to see more and more new episodes of Entitled Opinions. The Hendrix show was almost spiritual.
I wanted to reiterate my support for a show on Richard Feynman. A physicist who solved the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster in addition to playing drums in a Brazilian samba school. There's a lot of material there, and I know Entitled Opinions would do him justice.
Keep them coming,
Andrew
7 Oct, 2009
I am one of those Canadians directed towards your program by way of the CBC's Ideas, though I've never had a reason to write until now (you have promised to do a program on Blake and you have already done a show on Nabokov). But your latest podcast on the game of Tennis made me wonder whether or not one on rowing - or, as Americans call it, crew - might be a possibility.
While an examination of the sport's appearances in history and literature would be interesting (I remember hearing Ulysses' speech in Canto 26 described as one of the greatest speeches a coxswain ever gave his crew), I think it would be the more mundane details that would be worthy of greater examination. In hearing you talk of gardens and of the patience and dedication required in their cultivation, I was reminded of the sheer volume of effort that went into the years of early mornings: winter training followed by the Springs spent waking up at four in the morning to take advantage of the virgin water.
Of all the sports, rowing is the one hides beneath the radar, only entering into the popular imagination every four years when the Olympics role around. There are no weekly or monthly games swarmed by hundreds of thousands of fans, there is no grand drama that takes hold of the public the week before a regatta. But there are the countless mornings and evenings spent practicing, repeating the same stroke over and over in order to make it as innate as breathing - perhaps even more so: you may forget to do the latter for a few seconds during those last dozen meters, but you will never, ever forget to do the former. I am reminded of those Irish monks who spent their entire lifetimes creating and copying illustrated manuscripts while the rest of Europe was subject to the Dark Ages, if only for their single-minded dedication to cultivating some sort of perfection, or as close as we might ever come to it, and patiently waiting for the rest of the world to come to their senses and recognize in their work something profound that stretches beyond the pages, or the photograph finishes, or the medals.
I write this not because I feel that rowing deserves the attention your show might give it, but because that line you gave, "The body has ideas that the mind can't fathom," struck a such a sympathy with the image I have of the sport that I could only think of the wonders your show might make of it. But if I haven't convinced you, I take solace in the fact that there is, someday, a show on Blake coming my way.
Thanks for your time,
Sam Zucchi
20 Sept, 2009
Dear Professor Harrison,
As a fan of your podcast, I want you to know that I appreciate your efforts very much. I listen to them as I undertake my daily walks home from work, and experience a mental rejuvenation.
Here are my suggestions for topics: 1) The Brother Karamazov; 2) Charterhouse of Parma.Ray Banks
Ottowa, Canada
17 Sept, 2009
I have feasted on Entitled Opinions! You have certainly provided the key to an Aladdin's cave of literary delights.
Congratulations - and don't stop.
Dr. P. Alexander Hulley
Cape Town, South Africa
17 Sept, 2009
Sending e-mails of appreciation to shows is not something I have done before. This time I am doing it to tell you that I really appreciate your "Entitled Opinions" Show.
I found your show looking for material on Dante. I am a student of Dante, especially about Dante's path on spiritual (and any transformation) in particular related to Roberto Assagioli, Italian psychologist, developer of psychosintesis and a student of Dante himself. The book by Richard Schaub "Dante's Path" is also very interesting. Dante and psychological trasformation would be an interesting theme for a future program (I promised myself not to make request, because you probably are getting plenty of them and it is your entitled opinion what I like, not the ones from your public. !!!!)
I came to your program by the way of Dante, but I am now an interested aficionado, I have listened to your past shows and I will be expecting the ones in the future.
Thank you
From san Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, México
16 Sept, 2009
Hello Robert Harrison,
I just found your podcast recently and I LOVE IT.
I find you to be very great to listen to - smart, "cosmic", funny.
I am glad I found it.
Rebecca
16 Sept, 2009
As we would say in Scotland this show is quality, or totally amazin' man. Not having anyone to discuss such matters with, finding these podcasts was... totally amazin' man. The Nabokov and Proust episodes have been my favourites so far. I am allowing these recordings to inflate my head with knowledge, then, I fly about my local streets proclaiming to know absolutely everything. I have found these shows an invaluable help in not only accumulating knowledge, but have also found them to have cultivated my discussion technique, which formerly consisted of aggression and shouting - the Scottish way.
Frank Purvis
14 Sept, 2009
Hello. I recently discovered the podcast and wish to convey my appreciation. As I am now unable to read due to sight loss and audio is vital to my mental well being. I often disagree with Robert but enjoy the programme even more as a result.
He has a superb radio voice and I am going slowly through the archive to make the pleasure last.
Congratulations on a superb show.
ChrisT
9 Sept, 2009
Hi there, I just wanted to pass on my thanks and appreciation for the show. I discovered Robert Harrison and his show while listening to his interview for the CBC's radio show Ideas, and Entitled Opinions has saved me from many a dreary day at work with little to think about. I am eagerly looking forward to what he has in store for the coming months. Thank you for bringing some interesting and worthwhile conversation to radio and the internet.
I do have one question regarding his last show on Jimi Hendrix. I wanted to know what album the version of Voodoo Child he played came from. It is different from what I've heard, and I am keen to find it for myself. If you could pass that on to me, it would be most appreciated!
Thanks again, and continue to express your entitled opinions!
kyle, from Calgary, AB, Canada
6 Sept, 2009
I am a devoted listener to Entitled Opinions and I was wondering if you could do a show on Igor Stravinsky. It surprises me that Stravinsky did not come up when you discussed the avant-garde and Schoenberg because Stravinsky was such a great advocate of atonal music. Although Stravinsky got some mention in your show about "Americans in Paris" I do think he deserves a show of his own.
Thanks as always for the fascinating talks.
Beni Ransom
Seattle, Washington
5 Sept, 2009
Dear Prof Harrison,
Yours is the best thing (and sometimes seems like the only thing) on the internet.
Thank you for the conversations on such of one's intellectual heroes as Proust, Auden, Henry James, and Nabokov. Thanks also for the entree into Musil (difficult to find elsewhere, as you observed).
Now please consider programmes on Kierkegaard, Montaigne, Beckett, Thomas Mann and (a counter to all that scepticism about human nature) the Plato of the Symposium and the Phaedrus.
Harry Underwood
(trial lawyer et canadien errant)
5 Sept, 2009
Dear Prof Harrison
A brief word of thanks for your excellent podcast. I discovered it shortly before departing on a long overland trip across Asia. I brought the whole archive with me, and your shows provided stimulating company on many bus, car, and train rides. I hope that you find the energy to resume the show after the summer break, and that you don't change the format one jot.
Eamonn Conlon
Dublin, Ireland
3 Sept, 2009
Professor Harisson,
With this little comment I would like to thank you and the staff of Entitled Opinions for the interviews you have made available on the iTunes Store. I have no connection with Stanford wathsoever, but discovered your program just a few months ago while I was looking for philosophy podcasts (to listen to during some, well, fitness activities, hope you don't mind). An Entitled Opninions interview happened to be one of the first podcasts I listened to. After that, it didn't take me long to download the whole archive of EO. I've started with the first ones and am now steadily closing the gap to the most recent ones at a rate of a show a day.
Needless to add that I really enjoy your radio show, not in the least because of the courtesy and respect you show your guests. I admire this as much as the intellectual solidity of the discussions.
My background is one of philosophy, so it won't surprise you to read that I really loved the shows with René Girard and Michel Serres.
I realize how central literature is in your show, but am nevertheless especially fond of those interviews where humanists and so-called hard scientists are brought around the same table to discuss some of the philosophical and ethical implications of evolutions in science, such as nanotechnology, bio-engineering, quantum-computing etc.
I'm sure you will never run out of topics, but I wonder if you would ever consider inviting someone from Stanfords own AI lab (http://ai.stanford.edu/) to talk about machine intelligence and artificial life. Just an idea.
Anyhow, I'll continue listening. Consider me a fan.
Joachim Willems,
from Ghent, Belgium.
1 Sept, 2009
Dear Prof. Harrison,
Thank you, your guests, and the rest of the team behind Entitled Opinions for a wonderful show. It is a great source of learning and inspiratiom (I recently bought a Girard book after listening to the program on Mimetic Desire). Having heard a guest lecture at our university by him, I wanted to encourage you to invite Dr. Joseph Carroll for a talk about Literary Darwinism.
Regards,
Per,
Denmark
22 Aug, 2009
Dear Professor Harrison,
What a treat. I listen to Ideas (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) regularly and take much inspiration and encouragement from them. I am not a scholar but I like what I've read of Dante and commentaries and was most intrigued by your comments on a recent Ideas program about Dante.
Now I've discovered your website and look forward to many interesting hours. I started with the monologue on the Heart of Darkness, which I read in my last year of high school.
Thanks so much for this 'university' around the world!!
Saralee Turner
Singapore
22 Aug, 2009
Hi,
Does Robert Harrison have a blog? twitter? anything of the like? I think the time has come for more people to hear his thoughts.
Cheers,
Nina Ilnyckyj.
20 Aug, 2009
Dear Dr. Harrison,
Thank you for your excellent show. (To repeat what must seem tiring already:) Like many other Canadian fans of your show, I was introduced to Entitled Opinions via your interview with the CBC program 'Ideas,' and have enjoyed your podcast ever since.
I definitely enjoy the range of topics of your show, many of which fall outside my own field of study (English Renaissance Literature). That said, as far as I can tell, you've never done a show on John Milton. I will offer you a passage from William Hazlitt's 'Lectures on the English Poets' in an attempt to sway you to do a show on this eminent literary figure:
"There is a decided manly tone in the arguments and sentiments, an eloquent dogmatism, as if each person spoke from thorough conviction; an excellence which Milton probably borrowed from the spirit of partisanship, or else his spirit of partisanship from the natural firmness and vigour of his mind. In this respect Milton resembles Dante, (the only modern writer with whom he has anything in common) and it is remarkable that Dante, as well as Milton, was a political partisan."
With warm regards and great anticipation of the coming season,
Mauricio Martinez
PhD Student,
University of Guelph
Canada
9 Aug, 2009
Dear Prof. Harrison,
My expression of gratitude to you, your program, and all the people who made it possible.
I agree with one of your listerners who said perhaps you are a god. I enjoy all of the programs I have listened. Your recent program on Byzantine is a pearl. La perle, quoi.
Merci enormement, et bonne contiuation.
pricha, bangkok8 Aug, 2009
Just want you to know it’s a long hot summer here in Houston without the prospect fresh Entitled Opinions on early morning walks on the levee. Your rich archives are nearly exhausted. Gardens (6/20/06) is an insightful, moving gem. Thank you (and all your guests) for “making” several days a week.
Noel, UCB-67, PCIndia-69, XOM-09
7 Aug, 2009
dear professor harrison
thanks a million for a fantastic time on entittled opinions , as i travel around the world for my job i always bring you emulating podcasts with me on my ipod. just listened the Marcel Proust podcast recently and thanks to your enthusiasm and insight on memory i felt compelled (being french) to discover le monde de l`homme a la madeleine.merci encore pour ces cours magistraux de litterature ,enfin ,internet a l`ere de la desolation culturelle et insipide ambiante n`a pas ete invente en vain. et vous avez entierement raison:ceux qui ne lisent pas passe a cote de la plaque!!! keep up the good work professor.
regards nicolas cros from Paris
7 Aug, 2009
Bonjour à toute l'équipe,
Just a word to say how much I appreciate the show. Selfishly, I hope it will continue for many years, but I know firsthand how busy is the academic life and the show must take a long time to prepare. Thank you for all the good work.
Encore félicitations pour votre travail exemplaire et merci de rendre l'émission disponible à tous, spécialement à nous vos auditeurs de l'autre côté de la grande mare.
Cordialement,
Alexandre Guay
Un philosophe qui croit qu'il n'existe pas de véritable distinction entre philosophie analytique et continentale.
Université de Bourgogne
Dear (Dr) Robert (Harrison),
5 Aug, 2009
Dear Professor Harrison:
Please keep your excellent show “on-air” for many years to come.
If there is a more intelligent pod-cast available, I’m not aware of it. I came across your program via your interview on CBC Radio One – Ideas. If I may so bold as to suggest an interviewee, I would look forward to your speaking with Gwynne Dyer.
I’d also like to thank Harris Feinsod and all the other people who help with show.
Best regards
James Portman
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
30 July, 2009
Dear Mr Harrison and all the team at 'entitled opinions',
After having exhausted the current episodes listed on Itunes I felt compelled to contact the show, firstly to extend my thanks for what is an absolutely top notch production, and also to perhaps make a suggestion for a potential episode. It seems to me that a show such as entitled opinions presents the perfect forum for consideration of the Argentinean author and father of the modern Latin American novel (Carlos Fuentes' words not mine!) Jorge Luis Borges. Intellectual and fervent anglophile I couldn't think of a better subject for one of your shows. On another note I am delighted that the show remains buoyant and can still be seen as a bastion of cerebral programming amid a sea of vapid pop culture.
Keep up the good work and many thanks,
Nik, 17, London
30 July, 2009
Dear Mr. Harrison,
I found your show through iTunesU, looking for philosophy programs, coming across your interview with Richard Rorty. That show was wonderful, illuminating, though bleak at times, too. I listened to it several times and played it for a lot of friends.
Now I´m in Argentina doing a Fulbright grant and that Rorty show came up in conversation and I started downloading more EO interviews.
What a pleasure to listen to them on long bus rides while backpacking from city-to-city in the Andes...the rolling landscape, the steady hum of the bus, a perfect way to clear your head and focus on the words, the ideas.
The other day I listened, at home, to the interview with Vinton Cerf. The show was playing in Windows Media Player, with the visualizer automatically on. To listen to the show, to hear Cerf on the beautifully simple concepts behind the Internet, and the future of the Internet, to see all that converted into exploding colors and patterns and rhythms...wow...Platonic synesthesia, I think.
Thank you, keep up the good work. Your show is a well of light in American culture.
Tim Peters
P.S. With the turn to talking of the earth and the environment that EO often makes, can I suggest an interview with Derrick Jensen, a radical environmentalist author based out of the Pacific NW?27 July, 2009
Entitled Opinions on Pink Floyd is an excellent idea. I'll be looking forward to it. I always have a section on this band in my Cultural Anthropology course.
Dr. Jacques-Jude Lépine
21 July, 2009
Dear Robert Harrison, dear Entitled Opinions team,
I am a Hungarian living in Paris, who was introduced to the programme by my mother living in Belgrade who was listening to Ideas on CBC, and so on… and I listen to your podcasts during my long commuting to the office in the Parisian traffic jams. Thanks for the discussion about the Man without Qualities, it made me decide to read it after having stared at it on my bookshelf for years without gathering my courage to start it. It is a lot of fun actually, I guess even more from a Hungarian perspective. And of course thanks for the one on Dante’s Divine Comedy that I had read when I listened to the show but the passionate discussion shed a new light on it retrospectively… So a big international bonjour to you all, et bonne continuation!
Looking forward to the next season!
Nora
16 July, 2009
I consider myself very fortunate for having discovered “Entitled Opinions” one day in June as I searched iTunes for a recording of T.S. Eliot reading “The Waste Land”. While browsing through the list iTunes turned up, I happened to find the episode entitled “Dante and Prufrock” and knew immediately what a wonderful program I had fallen upon. I am sixteen years old and currently an intern at a theater in Manhattan and the commute from Long Island every morning and evening is made much easier by an episode of your show. I downloaded all 94 episodes available and I have so far listened to about fifteen or sixteen and I look forward to hearing the rest!
“Entitled Opinions” is like a breath of pure oxygen for someone who has thus far only taken in the stale air of a high school English course. Not only does the commentary on great literature and history stimulate my intellect, but the music often ties everything together and the discussions on composers and artists appeals to the teenage rocker buried deep within. Having always been familiar with The Doors and “The Alabama Song”, your show led me to discover Kurt Weill, who is now one of my favorite composers.
Thank you for providing such a brilliant and insightful program!
Sincerely,
Sean
14 July, 2009
I would like to extend my gratitude and admiration for these podcasts which I have thoroughly enjoyed. This is coming from a physician in Burlingame with almost no education in literature.
I love the opening monologues, and the guests all seem to have a bizarre personal connection. The Dante series - while in med school in Boston, I spent many weekends cycling around Wellesley's beautiful campus, Rene Girard - his granddaughters are classmates of my daughters, Matt Farley from Saint Ignatius College Prep - I just happened to visit the school at an open house. Your conversations are so happily devoid of the current stressors of our society, that I feel so reinvigorated after listening while walking the dog each night. Thank you so much. I imagine that this may be some burden added to your responsibilities as a professor, but I hope that you will be able to continue this production for many more years.
A lovely thank you note from a patient for discovering her breast cancer early gives me resolve to continue doing what I do, and I hope that you receive many more thank you's from people like me.
Sincerely,
Kelly C. Broderick, M.D.
12 July, 2009
Professor Harrison,
I just wanted to drop a line and thank you for the "Entitled Opinions" program. I particularly value it because it's inspired a theory-loving former English lit student to go back to the sources: the novels, poetry, plays, and other literature -- broadly conceived -- that I've sometimes neglected for theory.
I did want to make some suggestions for future programs (and forgive me if you've already addressed these in past programs -- I haven't yet had a chance to listen to all of them):
* You seemed to indicate in one program that film takes something of a back seat to literature. I was wondering if you might challenge yourself -- and your listeners -- to a conversation with someone who works in the area of film studies.
* There have been a few programs -- one on crowds comes to mind -- where I've wondered what light an Asian studies perspective might shed on the topic. A show with an Asian studies faculty member would be a welcome treat.
* A conversation with Franco Moretti on the novel would be fascinating (if Professor Moretti's writings on the topic are any indication).
Thanks for listening, and thanks again for sharing the entitled opinions of you and your guests.
Best,
Chris Benda
11 July, 2009
Mr. Harrison
Simply
your show is
indispensable to me.
Thank you and the one's that aid you
John
30 June, 2009
Dear Professor Harrison,
Thank you and your staff very much for preparing and sharing Entitled Opinions with the global commons. While we may be as Heidegger warned and Bradley described, technological giants and ethical infants, your good works help us to think, examine life, know ourselves better, and thereby take a step back from oblivion. Bravely done, and well. For providing your academy with interesting and informed perspectives of complex subjects with incomparable style,
I remain gratefully yours,
Michael Johnson
Colonel, United States Army
The Joint Staff
23 June, 2009
Hi,
Enjoying your Hendrix show. I always thought Little Wing was about his mother, just to further the recurring tropes of the mother figure and flying.
Al Haley
11 June, 2009
Hi,
I am a new listener to your show and I am also now a loyal listener to your show. I can't believe there is a show like this actually. I am not a university trained and educated person but I have a vast thirst for knowledge and the disscution of ideas. This show has a near perfect mix of high level esoteric language mixed with real feeling and honest talk. I just love it.
Anyway, I have a question for Mr. Harrison; How does a regular Joe like myself begin to read Dante's Inferno? Is there a volume that is in a language of a non-scholar but keeps to the original faithfully?
I also enjoyed Mr. Harrison's interview on the CBC program Ideas. That's what brought me here to begin with.
Thanks for the show at any rate.
Ken
from Vancouver BC, Canada
10 June, 2009
Dear Robert,
I'm yet another new fan who found your podcast after hearing your CBC interview.
About three years ago, I moved from working in a University to a Community College. It's a strange place to be teaching philosophy, but I greatly enjoy the challenge of convincing the skeptial students that they have something to learn from William James. There are days however when I still miss the intellectual liveliness of a graduate seminar --either as a student or a teacher, Your program is a wonderful way for me to return to that place for an hour every week. Many thanks for that.
Doug (Toronto, Canada)
10 June, 2009
Professor Harrison is inspired and inspires. Perhaps he is Divine. The format is hypnotic. I am hooked. More .. More … and More.
The Earthly Paradise – An Epilogue ….did he really just “throw it together on short notice”? Can any mortal launch into such a profound spontaneous rap? I plan to listen to it again this weekend on my nanopod, jogging through the Botanic Gardens at the break of dawn.
Put me on your lists, blogs, emails, etc. .... AND THANK YOU
Cheers,
John Driscoll Class of ‘76
34 Greenleaf View
Singapore 279273
9 June, 2009
Hi all, I discovered Entitled Opinions on ITunes and have now consumed (with relish) most all of your offerings. Living in the toolies of northern california has great benefits, surrounded by national forest on all sides with plenty of solitude and the largess of a pristine environment. However, some times the need for philosophical and cultural discourse rears its lovely head and that is where Entitled Opinions comes in. I am grateful for the good work presented by Robert Harrison et al.
If there is any service I can preform for you please feel free to ask.
Joe Mercier
Trinity National Forest
31 May, 2009
Dear Professor Harrison,
I love Entitled Opinions, of course. Thank you.
Having dedicated shows to Heidegger and Arendt, might the next logical philosopher of choice be Giorgio Agamben, or perhaps his other major influence, Walter Benjamin? A discussion of either thinker would be quite engaging, in my humble opinion.
All the best, and thank you again for your work inside and outside the studio.
-Nathaniel
Boston, MA
31 May, 2009
Dear Robert Harrison
Tonight I listened to Entitled Opinions in front of the open fire in northern tasmania on the eve of the first day of winter .
I feel asleep intermittently during The existentialism of Satre. This was a conscious decision.
...I have to accept responsibility for the decision to have a Tasmanian pinot noir with dinner and therefore
the decision to fall asleep is also my responsibility .
But the reason I am writing is because of what I heard at the end of the podcast
.. Some funky blues ..Wow. Who was it ?
“my medical vocation “ with Abraham Verghese is my “ entitled ‘ favourite
It is on my iPod play list and I have listened to it several times as I walk to work .
If you can help me with the title and performer of the song i’d be grateful
best wishes
Damien Meagher
Latrobe Tasmania . Australia
21 May, 2009
Dr Professor Harrison;
I am one of those souls from Canada who over the internet share your passion for insightful dialogue and knowledge. It is really wonderful to have you back. All this months without you, your intros and your interesting guests have been really dreadful. I am looking forward to your program in Nietzsche and Foucault. perhaps you could consider doing something about Zizek or postcolonial feminism. It will be much appreciated.
Again, thank you so much for your presence.
Thank you
Hollman Lozano
20 May, 2009
Cher Robert,
Like many of my fellow Canadians, I was turned on to your show, and to podcasts in general in fact, after hearing you being interviewed on CBC Radio. In listening to "Entitled Opinions", one finds both spiritual sanctuary and intellectual stimulation. A heady mix, that! So far, I've particularly enjoyed your shows on Sartre, Heidegger, Michel Tournier, Nabokov, Conrad and Arendt and your chats with Michel Serres and René Girard. Since I am also wary of the soul-crushing dullness of Analytic Philosophy (for years I thought I just didn't get it - now I know that I just don't like it! LOL), it's lovely to find a vocal kindred spirit out there. Interestingly, several of your shows have encouraged me to return and have a second look at some authors and thinkers whose work I have hitherto found indigestible, Virgil and Freud, dto wit. Guided by the Imp of the Perverse, I suggest that a show on the virtues of Analytic Philosophy might be interesting:) Two other possible topics/themes are 'American Gothic' and 'Out of Africa'.
Merci pour vos initiatives multiculturelles et multilingues. J'aime bien vous suivre au gré de vos élans philosophiques et poétiques. J'espère butiner avec vous longtemps encore.
Lorraine Doré
Montréal, Québec
10 May, 2009
Dear Professor Harrison,
Thank you very much for what you're doing on air.
I'm one of the many Canadians who was recently introduced to you thanks to our own radio bastion of thoughtfulness, CBC's Ideas. I'm also a young organic farmer, learning the craft. But as learning on the farm is frequently interrupted by long period of repetition--weeding and harvesting and hauling things about--I regularly have your podcasts coming in one ear (and not out the other--I just need to leave it un-earphoned to make sure I'm not entirely tuned out to what's going on around me).
There are times when this life seems too good, and one of those times is when I find myself outside in the sun, doing this thing that engages my body and creativity, and at the same time with my mind back in the classroom, listening to your conversations, being exposed to big ideas in an environment that is only bounded by the forestline and where big ideas feel right at home.
Thank you for the program; I hope it continues for years and years.
Eric
6 May, 2009
Dear Professor Harrison,
Although I'm a PhD student in the humanities, I enjoy your podcasts on science and technology as much as those on poetry and philosophy. I would suggest a podcast on face transplants.Best wishes,
Carli Cutchin
30 Apr, 2009
Dear M. Feinsod, dear M. Harrison,
I am a graduate student in a French university and I greatly appreciate the show, which is a real delight (be it in French or not! But what a pleasure to hear sometimes the language of Rabelais on American air!). The last show on Romanticism was extraordinary. Merci de vos précieux efforts pour contribuer à la vie de l'esprit !
I work in comparative literature and I concentrate on Eastern Europe literatures, so I was greatly interested by the couple of shows you made some time ago about Isaac Babel or Nabokov and I'm always waiting with great excitment for another member of the Slavic Dpt at Stanford to come on air. Unfortunately, it hasn't been the case since a while, so I was wondering whether you were considering inviting some Slavic scholar again some time? I'll be even more thrilled than ordinary.
Thank you again for this show.
Best,
Victoire Feuillebois (Paris, France)
Thank you Robert Harrison .
A great fan of Entitled Opinions in Athens Greece .
Nikolaos Floros
20 Apr, 2009
Thank for not listening to your new publicist.
Yours
Samir Mishra
An Electrical Engineer who fantasises about being an author.
20 Apr, 2009
Dear Professor Harrison,
I enjoy your program a great deal, I've learned so much just by listening! Keep doing what your doing, you make all the topics you choose insightful and relevant. If you are taking requests, I would really like to hear a show about J.J Rousseau. All the best, and thank you!
Ion
19 Apr, 2009
Now up the road from you dwells Dreyfus in Berkeley. I think he thinks that Sarte remained in a Cartesian framework locked up in the idea of conciousness as a thing: "I think." All power (responsibility and irresponsibility) to the "I". So then it's down to the nature of the res cogitans vis a vis res extensa. But whatever is the nature of this hyperdualist complex (cogitans and extensa) it is the starting point for disembodied, brain-in-a-vat, hopes for full artificial intelligence. So if Dreyfuss has any cred ,then Sarte is implicated too, as belonging in the world of thinkers who hold consciousness as an objectified thing. Am I wrong here?
Tom
18 Apr, 2009
Greetings,
I love your podcasts. I also often love the music that you close with. I have been familiar with some of it, but not all. Do you think that you might post musical credits for each show on your website? That would be lovely. Thanks. And keep up the great work.
Best wishes,
Chris Georgen
Morgan Hill, California
18 Apr, 2009
Hi Robert,
Surprise, surprise, when I tuned into CBC's Ideas radio show and heard your interview!
It's about time you got recognized for the wonderful work you do on Entitled Opinions. And for the knowledge and interests you share each episode. Never a disappointment. Well, maybe, just once. On the CBC interview you never mentioned your love of hockey. Fellow Canadians everywhere would have taken notice. Maybe sent you tickets to see a real team, like the Maple Leafs. Jokes come in all sizes.
Thanks again for your wonderful show.
And I did smile when Dante was worked into the CBC interview.
Ken Dafoe
Canadian, and dedicated listener.
14 Apr, 2009
Hi,
I discovered this show last week, and have been listening to it while in the
gym. I used to HATE going but now I find myself really looking forward to
working out, which I never thought would happen.
I especially enjoyed the discussions with Rene Girard and the show on Proust.
Thank you,
Carmel
10 Apr, 2009
I just found "Entitled Opinions" on iTunes.
Great, great job. This is the most interesting (and dare I say entertaining?) podcast in my library
--
Marcy Montross
5 Mar, 2009
I would be happy if you can add my name to the Guestbook of Entitled Opinions (Robert Harrison). Very touched by the CBC presentation this evening and the interview with Robert Harrison. Perhaps the world is not totally a lost cause with people with such opinions as those of Robert Harrison. Thank you.
Barbara Aspinall
11 Feb, 2009
Robert (if I may),
Just a quick note to say I've been listening to, and enjoying immensely, your
radio show (via podcasts on iTunes). They're really wonderful
conversations: humanistic in the best sense. I did my graduate work at
Stanford ('87-'93), so I guess we overlapped there; I regret that we never
crossed paths (as far as I recall). Listening to your show almost (almost)
makes me feel like I'm right back on the Farm.
Taylor Carman
(Stanford PhD '93)
Department of Philosophy
Barnard College
9 Feb, 2009
I moved to Corpus Christi TX four years ago. I came for the warm weather, but left civilization, it seems. Thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing it to me and rescuing my soul from the predations of the lone star state's ignorance and sloth. Thank you for challenging my mind to keep thinking, to keep thinking about hard things. Know that the world is full of us, people who need to drink from the fountain of Entitled Opinions to keep our minds from drying up. I have my library and Entitled Opinions. They should keep me digging deeper by my lonesome self until I return to a place where people love to read and write and think about...hard things.
Ray Turner
Corpus Christi TX
24 Jan, 2009
Dear Professor Harrison,
Please add me to the ever-lengthening tally of admirers.
The program is an intellectual feast and it was a brilliant stroke to cast yourself, straight-faced, in the role of The World´s Most Pretentious Person in order to extract the maximum fun out of each episode.
To turn to less serious matters, however, I particularly enjoyed your two-part session with Thomas Sheehan on the resurrection (rather more than you did, I suspect) but felt that you allowed him to elude your grasp a bit.
What I, and others no doubt, would still like to know is just what Sheehan, who despite being a practicing Catholic by his own admission, and having demolished virtually every cornerstone of that religion, finds left to believe in any more. Very little, it would appear, which is fine with me, but I think we should be told.
Also, I would like to know when the episodes were originally broadcast. There is probably some perfectly easy of finding out, but I am rather dim about such matters.
Yours truly,
Patrick O´Gara
23 Jan, 2009
Dear Professor Harrison,
Thanks for your Erudite Radio Offerings, in "Entitled Opinions.
I especially love the Theme Song, (it stays glued to my head, all day long).
Additionally, I find it quite exhilarating, when you begin the Show speaking one Language after another, and to my Surprise, (being Brasilian Portugese-Speaking,. by Birth), I understand most of it.
Your Shows, even through iTunes, are the Highlights of my Day, I've even given up some TV, just so I may listen to your Archived Shows.
Interestingly, until hearing your Show, I thought i was being Erudite, listening to NPR's "Fresh Air" Episodes, (well, until they began interviewing too many Stars, at which point, I no longer liked it as much).
Once I heard your Show, i KNEW, in my Heart that "Fresh Air's" Terry Gross, had lost a Member of her Audience, for I much prefer to listen to "Entitled Opinions, even if repeatedly, more than her Show.
Thank you!
I just wish iTunes wouldn't be so Volative, in its Memory, for my iPod keeps losing your Shows, each time I synch it, with my MacBook. It Drives me Nuts!!!
Bon Soir,
Clarisse L. Dodge,
A listener in York, Pennsylvania, USA
20 Jan, 2009
I discovered Entitled Opinions late last year. I can't fully express how
impressed I am by the quality and scope and depth of the discussion. It's
wonderful! This has quickly become my favorite podcast, and want you to know
I am looking forward to new episodes even as I catch up with the older ones.
Come back soon!
Tom McDonald
19 Jan, 2009
Dear Mr. Harrison,
I have just found your podcast through iTunes serendipitously.
I listened to the Camus, Historical Jesus and am now listening to the Kurt Weill episodes. I love your show. I wish they were longer to get more in.
I'm a filmmaker in Hong Kong and the topics you cover interest me greatly. I just want to let you know how I enjoy your shows.
Happy Chinese New Year
Best
Kenneth Bi
13 Jan, 2009
Dear Professor Harrison,
I am currently a senior in college and was fortunate enough to discover Entitled Opinions last year after reading your books Forests, Dominion of the Dead, and Gardens. I have since listened to nearly every episode, and it is with great anticipation that I await the Spring season. Should you find an appropriate guest, I would love to hear a discussion of Ann Hamilton's work or the use of text in visual art.
Many thanks for sharing your love of learning,
Sarah Henson
11 Jan, 2009
Dear Mr Feinsod, Prof. Harrison,
For the past two years I have had the pleasure and privilege of tuning in to your programme via my iPod.
Since I am an anthropologist and my region of specialisation happens to be a remote island group in the South West Pacific, as well as a nomadic population of Tibetan pastoralists in High Asia, this means that I have sometimes had the strange opportunity of listening in on EO, and reflecting on its delicious and provocative ideas while being located in the most unlikely places.
In particular, I wanted to share with you the recent experience of having taken a fully charged iPod to a very small village (Lunharigi) on a very small island (Loh) in the Torres Group, which is located in the North of the Vanuatu archipelago. It is from this village that I have conducted most of my field studies into ecology, ritual and kinship in Island Melanesia throughout the past decade.
More to the point: for a period of two weeks (while my batteries lasted; since there is no electricity, no running water, and certainly no solar-powered source to speak of in Lunharigi), your programme became my early morning source of enjoyment while I conducted recent fieldwork into the intricacies of a very complex and rare set of initiation rituals and dances in the Torres Islands. While it lasted, I would listen to your show from 4-5AM, basking in the cool of my mosquito net, while the Melanesian inhabitants of Lunharigi slowly woke to the cry of their roosters in conjunction with a great many wild fowl, birds and wild parakeets.
Specifically, I recall having almost had epiphanies while I listened to your discussions about Hannah Arendt, and then to your two-part show on agriculture. These, in particular, became points of reference for my own reflections on the agricultural and ritual cycles of my Torres Island friends and hosts - how to square the increasingly nuanced approaches to hunting-gathering and semi-sedentary societies in early Eurasia with the millenarian agricultural systems that I know so well in Vanuatu? More interestingly, how to square Arendt's thinking on the State and society with the very complex (if apparently simple) forms of social organisation and kinship relations in my ethnographic stomping grounds?
I do not want to go on and on, I simply wanted to let you in on the fact that your programme continues to sustain and nourish my thinking and my intellectual enjoyment both at home and during fieldwork, and that as such it has virtually become an indispensable part of my personal and professional "mental" gastronomy.
With many thanks and wishing you the very best for a continuing series of programmes,
Carlos Mondragón
Associate Professor, Anthropology of Asia and the Pacific
Centre for African and Asian Studies
El Colegio de México
Mexico City
7 Jan 2009
Robert and all involved in Entitled Opinions
I thoroughly enjoy the show. As a child my mother took us, her children and a few others on occasion, to the Westhampton Beach, NY library every week. After years of wondering why I should study the classics (mom felt it important) and more recent, Proust, Joyce, James. I started rereading them about 15 years ago with great difficulty; often setting them aside for years before returning for another try. Entitled Opinions has been very helpful in creating a greater appreciation for these writings and all literature.
Thank you, please continue, Win Dunwell
p.s. I found Entitled Opinions after reading Gardens. My review is at http://www.ca.uky.edu/HLA/Dunwell/oehbooks.html
4 Dec 2008
I just discovered this site while searching for Ezra Pound on iTunes. The discussion between Marjorie Perloff and Robert Harrison was marvelous. I am hooked. Thank you.
Kathleen Le Mons
Senior Vice President-Investment Officer
Wachovia Securities, LLC
Newport News, VA
2 Dec 2008
Bob,
I just listened to your interview with a friend of mine - and much younger brother in the Jesuits - Matt Farley. I wrote Matt thanking him for introducing me to your website and program. I enjoyed the interview and the way you conducted it. I will return to listen to more interviews. Nice job.
Dan
Daniel Ross, SJ
Coordinator for Higher Education
Jesuit Chinese Province
2 Dec 2008
Unlike religionists, Humanists don’t need the reward or victory of wining a spot on heavens team. We move mountains of injustice, by ourselves, in order to improve the human condition and we do JUST BECAUSE WE CAN……..
Thank you,
Patricia Cornelius
“Changing the world - one bible at a time.” P.C
29 Nov 2008
Dear Mr. Harrison:
It is with great plesasure that I listen to your program "Entitled Opinions". However I do not appreciate the demeaning remarks on Europe which you made in one of your broadcasts.
First of all the situation in your own country leaves much to be desired. Before you criticize us, please do something about the state of your own country.
Yes, it is true that we in Europe, spend a lot of time discussing healthcare and how to prevent that people arrive below a certain level of poverty. We consider this as a duty for every civilised nation.
In the meantime Europe is developping quite nicely even though with a lot of problems. We are working on our unity, which after more than 2,000 years of warfare is quite an accomplishment. Do not forget that in the 20th century many families were broken up because of this warfare. Many villages lost all their young men in the first WW and lost all their young men again in the second WW.
Many Eastern European countries want to join the European Union, but they lack a democratic tradition. Those countries are introduced to democracy. This also causes a broad discourse on democracy. Without desiring so, the European Union has become an immigration country. This causes a broad discourse on what the European Culture is or should be.
Many cabinet members and also parliament members in Europe are born outside of Europe and probably are Moslims. When the Maroccan born Mr. Aboutaleb was appointed mayor of the city of Rotterdam, the only concern was that he talked with the accent of the rival city of Amsterdam. His birthplace nor his religion posed a problem. We are joking that next he wants to become our queen. (We had female heads of state since 1890).
We do have problems, but we talk about possible solutions freely. Once again European culture is developping. It is an exciting time to live here.
For your information: I live in the Netherlands. My father's ancestors came from Swirtzerland in 1711, as Amish-Mennonites to live here amidst religious freedom. My mother's ancestors came from the Ural Mountains, looking for economic opportunities. Many Europeans have such mixed backgrounds, knowing that while moving from one country to another they left behind many relatives, while still other relatives went to countries on other continents.
It is an exciting time to live in Europe, while forming again our own changing identity and moving into a future which is very different from what we imagined it to be, in 1945. You must understand that because we had so many wars over such a long period of time that we are not very eager to start again new wars, as the U.S. seems to be. I think that the US would have another opinion if your wars were fought on your own soil. Then the American people would understand better how wars destroy all social fabric.
Europe is a much more exciting place to live than you think.
Many greetings, sincerely,
Anje Voulon-Jonker.
I am living in the city of Deventer, where Erasmus and his brother went to school. My appartment is next to the 13th century church of Geert Grote, the one of the movement of the Modern Devotion.
+++
Dear Anje,
You have gifted me with some very thoughtful reflections about Europe, thank you for taking the time to make your views known to me. It is true that I have sometimes spoken in an off-handed way about the the loss of what Nietzsche called "grand politics" in Europe. (I believe you're referring specifically to a show in which I said I would prefer to fight over whether a fetus is a person than bicker about how many days of vacation a citizen is entitled to.) You are right to remind me that many far-reaching and substantive issues are being engaged in the EU these days. You are also right to remind me that the disastrous history of Europe in the 20th century is responsible for many of these efforts to stabilize the societies within Europe so that similar tragedies will not occur in the future. On the history question, I should mention that I recently did a show with Peter Stansky in which I revisit the terrible catastrophes of 20th century European history. I myself grew up in Europe, my family still lives there (in Rome, Italy), and I in fact aspire to what Nietzsche called "good Europeanism." The question for me is what does good Europeanism mean -- or what can/should it mean -- these days? What worries me is that Europe (at times) seems to be aspiring toward a kind of petite bourgeoisie for everyone. My impression, which is no doubt distorted and partial, is that a certain pettiness has taken over the public sphere and that a consumerist materialism has come to represent -- or is being proposed as -- the ultimate aspiration of the good European. The exciting changes you mention -- I hope you are right that they are part of a greater European idealism. I am not yet convinced of it.
As for the provinciality, self-complacency, and belligerent bravado of my own country -- you are of course right, and I have no excuses there. I suppose what I was trying to suggest in the show you allude to is that it's only because we have not been sufficiently or completely civilized in the US that we still have the luxury of "grand politics." The fact that we can elect the likes of Bush, then turn around and elect the likes of Obama is evidence enough that everything comes into play in American politics, at the most fundamental ideological levels.
Your family history sounds quite fascinating. I am a great admirer of the Amish Mennonites. As for the Ural mountains, I imagine them as one of the most sublime and romantic places on Earth, though I have never been there myself. It sounds also as if you live in a a very special district there in Deventer. Erasmus is one of my great heroes, and I hope to do a show on him one day soon -- as soon as I can find the proper guest.
Best,
Robert Harrison
Host of Entitled Opinions
4 Oct 2008
Dear Robert, Harris and all who work on Entitled Opinions,
First, I'd like to add my voice to those clamouring for a show on
Foucault. That would be great. I read him as an undergrad but always
feel I can benefit from new approaches and angles on his thought.
Second, I'm writing an MA dissertation on how mimetic desire is
constitutive of culture and I'd like to apeal to Entitled Opinions
listeners for any links they may know of to material I could read on
this but may not know about or have access to.
Robert, I read Girard first in Polish (I''m an Englishman studying in
Kraków) and finding it very demanding I sought English sources for
back up. Then, as if by magic, I happened upon the two interviews you
did with Rene Girard.
That was the beginning. I'm very glad it happened.
Thanks for turning us on to Vico and Dante. Thanks also for dealing
with current issues in the natural sciences in a way that helps near
illiterates such as myself get some grasp of that area (e.g., the
'What is Life' interviews). Also, what about a programme on Vico? What
about convincing KZSU to do a poetry reading show? What about an
Internet based reading club around Entitled Opinions? I say this
because I would love to have spent a few weeks with the philosophy
reading group you have referred to on the show.
Finally, please play my band's songs (not on EO, but pass them on if
you like them). We're two Americans and two Englishman living in
Krakow who have had a band here for five years now). We're called
Gasoline.
Many, many thanks for all the pleasure you've given us and please keep going.
--Mark
Oct 1 2008
Dear Professor Harrison and all who cultivate Entitled Opinions,
I remember when I first heard Entitled Opinions I said to myself "as long as they continue to discuss interesting topics I shall continue to listen". I had no idea the long term commitment I was making. Professor Harrison continues to illuminate the great conversations of human culture, with many other splendid conversationalists as well, particularly Joshua Landy, Marjorie Perloff and Thomas Sheehan. The convivial and mindful probing of Proust revealed the truths of the content. The discussions of 20th century modernist and avant garde art were both concise and comphrensive. And the analyses of Christian scripture enrichingly contextulised matters, enabling me to appreciate what I didn't before.
To make some wishful requests, besides to have the guests noted above return, I would really enjoy discussion on Latin American literature (like Borges, Marquez or Neruda) and 20th Century French thought (particularly my lastest adoration Maurice Blanchot, a Heideggerian who found a sense of mystification to life via literature).
I'll end here by saying I can't help but think of Nietzsche's notion of la gaya scienza when i think of Entitled Opinions. Welcome back from hiatus and I hope the spirit of Entitled Opinons continues to flourish.
Appreciatively Luke, from Melbourne Australia
19 Sept 2008
Dear Professor Harrison,
I discovered your program while looking for podcasts in preparation for a long drive across three states. I listened to seven episodes during the course of that roadtrip and enjoyed every minute. Now I listen to the program during my twice-weekly commute to Mankato, where I attend graduate school. The long drive is less tedious and much more enjoyable when Entitled Opinions is riding shotgun.
Grazie molto,
Thomas Flynn
Minneapolis, MN
4 Sept 2008
Greetings.
This message comes to you in the spirit of clarity, and it is my hope it is received as such. My observations are based within the context of just having listened to several Entitled Opinion podcasts, which include three episodes with your friend Thomas, an episode regarding the advent of agriculture, and most recently, an episode on Schrodinger. I enjoyed them very much, as well as benefitted intellectually. I would like to point out a couple of my hesitations regarding your reasoning on the show.
It is evident to me that you strongly adhere to the feelings or notions of wonder, spirituality, transcendence, and mysticism. These terms seem to have their place within certain conversations, but seem out of place when used on your show. By out of place I mean used as antonyms to science, reductionism, reason, etc. I infer that the framework for your understanding of science does not include wonderment, spirituality, etc. It seems as though if one were able to explain existence and experience in scientific terms, beauty and wonder would vanish. On the contrary, I submit to you that beauty, wonder, and feelings of transcendence can flourish just as wildly regardless of being a reduction-bent mad scientist or a boxcar-jumping poet. Once a month, I find myself floating in the tropical waters of the Gulf of Thailand. The "transcendent" experience that occurs, to me, is indescribable and inexplicable. If God or neuroscientist Sam Harris raced to my location to interrupt my experience of wholeness and bliss in order to explain why this experience is occurring, I would would kindly offer them both a "thanks, but maybe later, for the validity and joy of my ethereal experience does not rely upon having a scientific or mystical reason." Later at the beachside cafe, I imagine hearing Sam's neurologically-based explantation, as well as God's spiritual one--neither amplifying or muffling what had occurred while floating in the sea. Because an orgasm can be explained in scientific terms doesn't negate the fantastic adjectives the poets ascribe to it. Let the poets and scientists wax on as humanity revels in their experiences and existence.
There seems to be a nebulous quality in the idea of mysticism, spirituality, and magic that lends itself to an opposition of scientific understanding. For quite some time, I have sought out the reason for such interest in things that are magical, spiritual, and mystical. The best I can come up with is that the commonalities which ties these ideas together is ignorance: a lack of understanding causes. There is something so attractive about experiencing an unexplainable phenomenon such as ESP or "divine revelations". Would such phenomena be as attractive if they could be explained? My observation is that often, a large portion of people don't want to hear scientific reasoning. From this I conclude that many people find some sort of affective utility in all things magical, mystical, or spiritual. I urge audiences to engage the question as to why they so ardently deviate from a data-driven understanding.
I feel it is accurate to point out that science does not provide all of the answers. However, is it really such a bad place to start? Let's explore our unexplainable experiences through a variety of lenses and filters. Let's engage how these experiences may be linked to unobservable entities. In an attempt to achieve a deeper and more accurate relationship with reality, experience, and existence, it is my hope that the experiencer refrain from patterns of thought that lend to cognitive dissonance and slippery and disjointed scaffolding. I don't feel that science and scientifically-minded individuals will ever be able to claim the peak of Complete Understanding, and it would be arrogant to do so. Let's make the same point clear to our mystics, scribes, messiahs, and the people who buy their books.
On a more specific note, you quoted Sherington on a recent broadcast: The mind has no native home in the brain. I would like to know how accurate that statement is when very small parts of the brain, like the Brocca's region, can get damaged and result in very profound loss of cognitive ability. Minor physical damage to the brain often results in loss of very profound and "unexplainable" cognitive faculties such as memory, emotion, etc. How does Sherington's statement remain accurate today? Sherington's statement seemed to be used by you as ammunition against science, and as a tool for mysticism. If that was in fact your intension, I hope you bring your intension under further scrutiny. (In addition, would it really be so bad if consciousness could one day be explained in reductionist terms? Would our wonderment and joy cease to thrive in the presence of empiricism and scientific methodology? Would the poets and clergy go mute, the passion for life evaporate?)
I eagerly look forward to further broadcasts of Entitled Opinions. Please keep them coming.
Nathaniel Joseph Van Heuveln
Bangkok, Thailand
I just finished listening to the show discussing Erwin Schrodinger's "What is Life" and "Mind and Matter". (And by the way, all these shows are a definite international public service so thanks to Stanford and Prof. Harrison)
The net effect or conclusion that listening to that particular show had on me was that it appeared to be creating more space for religion (and those who are religiously inclined) and less space for science (and for scientists, or for "believers in the faith of science"....who instead almost seemed to be being chastised)
Whether this was due to Schrodinger's own arguments, beliefs or understandings or the way those arguments have been presented and interpreted
I do not know for sure. (I have read some Schrodinger but not those particular books) " Objectivist science" currently (and maybe never) does not have all of the answers to the phenomenology(ies) of brain (let alone of mind) and reductionist arguments that try to reduce consciousness and mind....(whether human or animal) (and can anyone prove" that dogs don't have minds?) to the laws of physics, (the ones we happen to have either for anthropic principle reasons or for some other reasons as yet not well understood) neglects several so called intermediate "emergent phenomena" (including the periodic table of the elements, biochemistry, and evolution through natural selection) (however updated) .
So it is definitely well and good to always wonder in awe and to ponder the sheer mystery of it all and to be very modest and never arrogant. But it seems to me even more of a reductionist argument to then turn from such legitimate awe and wonder (and recognition of ignorance) towards transcedentalism, mysticism and spiritualism. Which apart from the experiential states that they can produce (and that can be observed) in some human beings basically can explain and predict next to nothing and whose "body of theory" (or even of experience) fails to meet elementary principles of logic let alone of evidence and empiricism.
I also was not able to figure out what Prof. Harrison meant when he referred to "vulgar atheists"....such as Richard Dawkins and his God Delusion. I am assuming that since he teaches in the Italian and French Department he may have been using the term in its archaic (or at least in its lesser) usage or meaning i.e. "pertaining to the common people" or Latin vulgaris/vulgus much as Dante wrote in "the vulgar language" (Italian) (and not in its more commonly understood meaning or usage as a state "characterized by ignorance or lack of good breeding or taste"). In any case I failed to see the appropriateness of the term to describe Dawkins' work in either meaning and found it unfortunate that it should be one of the very last references in the talk to leave the listener with. (by way of an overall anti-atheist conclusion but "attributable" to one of the key scientific figures in quantum mechanics?)
Schrodinger was first and foremost a physicist and secondarily a philosopher. Although I certainly would agree that it
is always very good to also be "a thinker". Similarly Dawkins is primarily an evolutionary theorist but doesn't seem to do too poorly at being some sort of a thinker too.
I would prefer to read both within their main areas of expertise. (and have done so) And just as Darwin has probably been improved upon by Dawkins and Weinberg and Gell Mann and many others have "improved upon" Schrodinger in their own areas of expertise, surely the last word has not been uttered either onevolutionary theory or on quantum physics, ......nor (obviously) regarding the relative merits (explanatory or other) of religious philosophies and scientific ones. We have plenty of time (hopefully) before the sun burns out to find out. Assuming of course that the religious right in the United States doesn't get the ideological upper hand and helps to end the planetary experiment a bit (or a lot) earlier.
(So let's go with is more likely and most useful)
Max Iacono
Thailand
20 Aug 2008
Mr. Harrison, let me start by noting that I have long had a soft spot in my heart for Stanford University, as it genuinely is one of the top universities in the world. My dad graduated for Stanford with a PhD in Physics years ago and growing up I always looked up to him for his many insights into life. He always told me that in this world there wasn't much evidence of intelligent human life. Well, he was partially wrong on this insight because after listening to you and your talented guests I have come to realize that yes, there is some very intelligent life in this world as evidenced by the many hours of intellectual conversation you and your guests have provided. Thanks for being on the air for us listeners to enjoy. I sometimes feel guilty because I'm getting what seems like a free education from you…on so many subjects. I also love the Doors and Hendrix. One small point, your monologs are so talented, superior and cultivated I suggest you compile them in book form and make them available to us average beings. Also, I bought your book Gardens and am looking forward to reading and enjoying it.
Norm Marks
14 Aug 2008
I am a regular listener to your podcast Entitled Opinions here in Bangkok, Thailand. It sure is a brain saver and nurturer of a program. Sometimes I find the posturing of the host irritating but that is only because the topic is beyond him or there is no chemistry with the guest.
You are doing a good service to improve somewhat the quality of humanity's intellect (for those who have no access to great libraries and hunger for knowledge).
from an ardent anti-American, in solidarity with your good intentions. A big hand of applause. Bravo!
Ramon C. Sevilla
Bangkok, Thailand
11 Aug 2008
Dear Professor Harrison
Your program is exceptional.
Can I propose Professor James Klugel – author of ‘How to Read the Bible’ (a tome on the modern scholarship and the Hebrew bible) as a follow up to your interviews with Professor Sheehan?
Many thanks for all your efforts.
Peter Richards
Brisbane Australia
5 Aug 2008
Hello, prof Harrison!
It really is a great combination of knowledge and pleasure You give us, thank You very much! Nowadays I look forward to my jogging in the evening, since I now have You and Your interesting guests and topics in my ears. In that way I will hopefully be in a better shape both in my mind and body, thanks to You… Thank You again!
Jonta Gustafsson
Sweden
31 Jul 2008
Dear Robert,
For all of us who divide our annual calendar as much by the schedule of Entitled Opinions as by the seasons, you should feature on your Web site--in bold 48-point type--the exact date of your return to the airwaves.
A fan in Chicago,
Bryon Giddens-White
18 Jul 2008
Hello,
Several weeks ago I discoverd the podcast versions of Entitled Opinions and am writing to thank you for the program. How wonderful it is to hear ideas, theories, literature, theology and, yes-thinking itself-discussed at adult levels! I have listed to as many as five a day since "discovering" the program and I might say that it has been a constant source of delight. I have listened to several more than once to take in nuance and to more fully understand both your questions and the provided answers. In this world of simplistic sound bites, there is very little media of any sort that bears listening to/watching even once. the only other media that I have listened to more than once is Krista Tippett's Speaking of Faith.
I am especially fond of your passion for Danté, and the many ways you weave literature into cosmology and theology into abstractions far removed fro anything liturgical. So a wildly enthusiastic 'Thank You!" from Atlanta, Georgia.
Please continue the fine work, bravo!
Cordially,
Terre Spencer
8 Jul 2008
Dear Prof. Harrison,
I'm a big fan of "Entitled Opinions" and find almost all of your shows very enlightening. Your April 10, 2008 broadcast about Schroedinger, however, was an exception.
To fully understand Schroedinger's philosophy requires some study of physics and math. The same could be said of Bohr or Einstein or a host of other modern physicists. The fact that you haven't spent much time learning physics or math is no discredit to you; you've been plenty busy with other things, after all, and it's no longer possible to be a true renaissance man.
For someone who knows just enough to be dangerous, it's easy to find statements by prominent scientists and use them out of context as the basis for one's own crackpot theories about the ultimate nature of reality. The movie "What the *bleep* Do We Know?" is a textbook example. And, I'm afraid, your own musings on Schroedinger also fall into that category, although they're arguably less egregious.
Nevertheless, I eagerly look forward to a new season of broadcasts.
Warm regards,
zenbum
San Jose, CA
8 Jul 2008
Dr. Harrison
I very recently discovered your wonderful podcast via Itunes and so far I only listened to your conversations with messr. Erlich, Linde, Pamuk and Rodrigue.
There is nothing more that I can add to the compliments I read on your guestbook; I hope that one day my kids will have the opportunity to study in Stanford and meet teachers like you.
I left Stamboul as a kid to grow up in Milan.
Iskenderiya, Selanik, Izmir, Rodi, Istanbul, and ….Beirut: cities where you believed firmly in your own God, but you knew how to worship in two or three other religions; conversations where not one single sentence finished in the same language it started with.
How it happened that everything disappeared in one generation? where did all the people go? Are there some spots left in this ethnic cleansing desert?
How it is ever possible to transmit that feeling to our children?
Enis Kapuano
7 Jul 2008
I have nothing to say other than thank you for this show. I just discovered it the other day while tooling around the internets.
Great stuff, thank you!
If only all radio (or at least more radio!) were like this.
Radio is an extremely difficult medium to master, but its potential is limitless. Thanks for keeping alive the classic spirit of radio.
Peter
7 Jul 2008
Hello Professor. I'm a high school student from New York who really enjoys your show. Allow me to suggest Foucault as the subject for a future program.
Best Wishes,
Harmon Siegel
26 Apr 2008
Dr Harrison,
I would like to thank you for the excellent radio show you continue to deliver on a weekly basis. Having recently graduated I feel fortunate to be able to take part in the academic community to a certain extent while broadening my understanding of life and literature. Of course I have to make a suggestion for a future show; how about having Dr. Joseph Frank on to discuss Dostoyevsky and Bakhtin?
Cheers,
Jessica from Mobile
24 Apr 2008
Hello. I have been listening to your show for about four months now. I am a student of theology in Canadian Mennonite University's (Winnipeg, MB - Canada) Masters of Arts in Theological Studies program. I started listening to your show after reading your book: The Dominion of the Dead. I love your work there and its intersections with theology, ecclesiology, martyrology, and Tradition. I would love to hear a show where you could deal with some of these kinds of concepts. There is an excellent dissertation in theology on the topic of martyrdom and politics by a guy named Tripp York, titled "The Purple Crown" (Herald Press). Your chapter "Hic Non Est" reminds me a lot of work done by the theologian/philosopher Graham Ward in his book: Christ and Culture (Blackwell Publishers). His book touches on the role of Tradition, our participation in Tradition
and its participation in ordering our lives today. Sounds like some of your stuff.
I love your show,
Marco Funk
19 Apr 2008
Hello Prof. Harrison -
While many of the guestbook contributors give voice to my own sentiments re Entitled Opinions, I must add a few words of gratitude and appreciation for this gift of time and erudition you've given me and the other listeners. I discovered Entitled Opinions while browsing iTunesU's Stanford section and downloaded one or two for persusal, intrigued no doubt by the idea of some thoughtful conversation about Austen, Proust . . . and pretty much every other topic you've covered. I'm now working my way through the entire back list of Entitled Opinions shows, largely to the exclusion of everything else on my iPod (and the stack of books on my nightstand).
A quick note concerning the music selected to end each show: brilliant! The finishing, master stroke -- each piece as thoughtful, provocative and delightful in its way as the discourse preceding it. More than once, I've been tempted to sneak ahead to the podcast's conclusion to hear the song -- the coda, as it were, of each show. A lapsed Doors fan (of many years), even my old enthusiasm for Mr. Morrison and company has been reawakened.
Truly, an oasis in the desert. Thank you so much.
Judy Wilson
Nashville, TN
18 Apr 2008
Dear Prof Harrison,
I am a PhD student in French and Comparative Literature at Cambridge and I am just writing to you in order to congratulate you to your radio program 'Entitled Opinions'. I enjoy listening to it so much - it is so enriching and encouraging. I always look forward to your next topic and I can only hope that you will put many more shows together!
Best Regards,
Anna
12 Apr 2008
"Entitled Opinions" ....andante molto vivace !!
Saludos
Humberto Moya Morux
Costa Rica
11 Apr 2008
Dr. Harrison:
I recently found Entitled Opinions while searching for podcasts concerning the likes of Thomas Nagel and John Searle. I listened to the podcast concerning Heidegger twice and was consequently hooked. I want to thank you, those that work with you, along with those that join you on your show for creating an oasis within a desert. While I'm clearly not the first to state such, you have another avid listener in Alaska. Once again, thank you.
Peter House
"Wir müssen wissen, wir werden wissen" - David Hilbert
3 Apr 2008
This show has become an addiction. It is like having a very interesting guest for dinner and having a wonderful evening of conversation. I metaphorically bring a bottle of fine wine to each podcast.
Many thanks
j2
20 Mar 2008
Dear Professor Harrison:
Thank you for your brilliant interviews with leading intellectuals on some of the most intriguing topics available on the web. Your guests are, of course, incredibly insightful---but so are you! I think that your work sets a standard of the highest level for public radio.
Best wishes,
Bob
Robert L. Leahy, Ph.D.
Director, American Institute for Cognitive Therapy
18 Mar 2008
Dear Professor Harrison,
I have just finished listening with great interest to your program on the poetry of Robert Service, referred to me by my English Grad student son in Winnipeg, Canada.
I have spent many years with this poetry and their stories, as a musician and drama teacher, and as a producer of a CD of Service poems by my 92 year-old Godfather.
I am attaching, in the hope you can listen, however, to a great recording of 'The Spell Of The Yukon' by the great Canadian and Nashville star Hank Snow - recorded about 40 years ago.
Now that I am aware of your show, I will be sure to tune in regularly.
Thank-you
Loyd Bishop
Clearwater, British Columbia, Canada
18 Mar 2008
Dear Professor Harrison,
I am a new listener of "Entitled Opinions" via the iTunes podcast. I found your radio show there recently and enjoy it tremendously. I listened to this week's episode on Jane Austen with great pleasure. In the show, you commented that you don't know how many listeners you have. I'll tell you this: you have at least one listener in Alaska. Thank you for making it available to the public outside of Stanford.
Best Regards,
Teresa Nunes
Meadow Lakes, Alaska
Hi Prof. Harrison,
I have been avidly listening to the your podcast of the "Entitled Opinions" radio show ever since I became aware of it through iTunes. Since then, I have delved into your program archives and eagerly gobbled up every show posted online since its inception, a couple of years ago. I particularly enjoyed your two-part discussion with Prof. Rene Girard and his theories of mimesis and scapegoating as the basis of religion, as well as, more recently, your discussions on the origins of agricultural society with Prof. Michael Shanks.
I eagerly anticipate your podcasts as they are released every week, as I know that each program guarantees a heady, powerful insight into the domain of the humanities, literature and philosophy. So much so that I even experience withdrawal symptoms when your program goes off the air! For example, this week, when your weekly podcast wasn't posted online!
I look forward to listening to many more of your engaging discussions on varied subjects in the future! My heartiest congratulations on a brilliant, successful run so far!
Best regards,
Uday Gunjikar,
Los Angeles, CA.
6 Feb 2008
Hi!
I've been an Entitled Opinions fan for the past two years--and I reaped many profound insights, personal and universal, from Robert and his guests. The recent show with Orhan Pamuk was particularly interesting in
that it seemed that the show was exploring a different yet complementary worldview in discussing what is at times considered to fall outside the walls of world literature/outside the center of Europe at least in
amnesic present terms.
Although every show of Entitled Opinions offers so much on various levels to its listeners, I think that perhaps it should venture to have more shows that, like the one on Pamuk, talks about those other literary giants that have been doing the work of Sisyphus in a Western-centered literary stage.
Keep up the great programming...
Carolina Beltran
P.s. I'm dying for a show on Borges or maybe even cannibalism (old and
new world variants)...
2 Feb 2008
Dear Prof. Harrison !
First of all, I love your show. You are a God amongst insects, never let anyone tell you differently.
There are perhaps many things I can say about your show, but the one thing that I really love about your
show is your selection of music at the end. Would you be so kind as to give me a list of every album you played on every show since 2005 !? Okay...that's asking for a bit too much. What can I say...I love all of your music.
I must know the names of all of your music on your show !
Regards,
Tony Alexander from Japan.
1 Feb 2008
Dear Robert Harrison,
as a student in Germany I have only recently discovered your show and find it very interesting. I specifically liked the shows on Thoreau, Heidegger, and the interview with Rorty was fantastic.
Is there any chance of you doing a show on Foucault and/or Nietzsche? I would love that and am sure that many other of your listeners would enjoy it, too.
Best wishes,
D. Timothy Goering
1 Feb 2008
Dear Robert,
The interviews are intellectually invigorating experiences of the best quality. Thank you for picking up high caliber guests and not dumbing down the issues. NPR with a serious kick!
Dr. Jacques-Jude Lepine
Media Center Director
Profile School
Bethlehem, NH
16 Jan 2008
Professor Harrison,
Thank you so much for your show.
I am an English teacher, and I often listen to your show before I go to sleep. It has such a breadth and depth of ideas, and I’m often moved and invigorated by the ideas you discuss. It inspires me in my teaching and in my own thinking and writing.
You’ve given us all a Treasury in which you will always live.
-David Kidd
12 Jan 2008
To Robert Harrison,
I recently discovered your show "Entitled Opinions" through i-tunes U. I'm a photographer, and your downloaded conversations are the perfect fare with which to feed my mind while I work in the darkroom.
I've particularly enjoyed your programs on Epicureanism and on René Girard's theory of Mimetic Desire.
On your show you frequently wonder "is anybody out there," and with this email I just want to add my voice to the many who have already said, "yes."
But, inevitably, I have the same urge as so many ardent fans: to be not only a fan, but also a critic and an editor. My criticism however, is really just a plea for More. I still haven't finished listening to all your past shows, but as I scroll through the list of topics, a name close to my heart is missing: Goethe. Perhaps that's just a sign of the richness of the field that you're mining. Three years of amazing programs, and there's still the creator of Dr. Faustus waiting in the wings.
Thank you for your shows, and I look forward to this coming season.
Sincerely,
Alexandra Huddleston
29 Dec 2007
Hello,
I enjoy Robert Harrison's conversations very much. I subscribe to the podcast. I work in the business world and enjoy a classical education from a Jesuit University (1973) in the midwest. It is refreshing to listen to these thoughtful discussions in this world of noise and inane banter. Please tell him thank you and to keep up the good work!
Charles Brown
Woodside, CA
11 Dec 2007
hello professor harrison,
I've only recently discovered your wonderful talk show on itunes and have been podcasting you like crazy. (stop my beating heart . . . ) I can't wait for them to resume in january as I've just about exhausted the archives.
in case you'd like to know, I'm a 58 year old artisan, silversmith, living in quiet isolation in rural maine. without the lifeline of the internet and access to minds like yours, this would, of course be impossible for me. so I thank you and bless you.
in addition to wanting to thank you for your good work, I'd also like to find out what is the music you use for your theme? I really like it and can't quite put my finger on who or what the group is that does it. it's haunting me.
ciao for now,
merry christmas
and my very best wishes to you and yours
for the new year,
dede schmitt
www.sorrentosilver.com
10 Dec 2007
This is a wonderful program. The Prof Sheehan interviews were particularly interesting. In this regard, any chance of an extended interview with John Dominic Crossin in 2008?
Best wishes
Peter Richards
Brisbane Australia
26 June 2007
Absolutely wonderful. Your show has reinvigorated my interest in a wide range of authors and subjects. You have even helped me get a bit of a handle on Heidegger (not an easy task). Many thanks.
Brad Coates
Toronto, Canada
24 June 2007
Dear Robert,
Thank you for your wonderful show. A pleasure and privilege to hear such
consistently witty, profound, beautiful, and inspiring dialogues. Easily one of the best and most vital programs on radio and indeed online today. We are currently trudging through the demands of fixing up our new apartment in Vancouver, Canada and your show is helping us navigate the wastelands of late night labor in our "Globe"! We can't wait for the show to resume again in 2008. A few [sic] suggestions for people and topics for the future: Edmund Spenser, Slavoj Zizek, Sherlock Holmes, Jacques Lacan, Emily
Dickinson, The Beatles, Ovid, Fawlty Towers, Herbert Marcuse, Beethoven,
English Romantic Poets, Bright Eyes...
In the meantime, let us just say that your show like
Poetry enlarges the circumference of the imagination by replenishing it with thoughts of ever new delight, which have the power of attracting and
assimilating to their nature all other thoughts, and which form new intervals and interstices whose void ever craves fresh food. -- Percy Bysshe Shelley
Best regards and heartfelt thanks,
Paul Kingsbury (Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University)
and
Melinda Kingsbury (Ph.D. Student, Department of English, Indiana University)
06 June 2007
I just wanted to say how refreshing this show is. It seems like the only things my friends talk about is why that other guy should have won American idol.
Keep up the great work
Scott Maniates
11 May 2007
Professor Harrison,
Thank you.It is indeed a pleasure to have Entitled Opinions back on the air. It was greatly missed.
If you or the Stanford podcast department are interested in my opinion, I hope it is back on the air for the long term.
Thank you again for your all your hard work to put together such interesting and thought provoking shows.
May God bless you in all your future endeavors.
Sincerely,
John Stoll
12 April 2007
Overjoyed that the show is finally back on the air! And such a wonderful, lyrical start to the new season. Here's to many, many more.
--Josh
12 January 2007
What an amazing show! I started listening to the podcasts last summer. Is it coming back? many thanks for many pleasurable and stimulating hours of listening!
--Dennis (http://www.middlemania.com)
8 January 2007
Hello Robert:
Just a short note to express my gratitude for your many interesting programs on your Stanford ipod series 'Entitled Opinions'. I graduated in Philosophy with a second degree in Literature, and find great enjoyment listening to the many diverse subjects that you have brought forth on the program. I particularly enjoy your introductions, which I find rich with language, imaginative, and embedded with intellectual intrigue. Loved the dedication to Birds program, which portrayed a poetic appreciation for one of nature's most beautiful gifts. I would very much like to see a hard copy of your introduction essay which you read. What a great arena to dwell in; The infinite concepts of thinkers, and I am very much looking foreword to an extended series which I hope you plan on conducting in the near future. I am sure there are many dedicated listeners to your program, and again want to assure you that you are deeply appreciated, and creating a worthy deed with your life energies.
Sincerely,
James Garrahan
www.jamesgarrahan.com
3 January 2007
I ran across "Entitled Opinion" by chance and now I can credit it with helping take my literary perspective to a higher and much more meaningful level (with a relevance placed firmly on life experiences.) The 2005 November show titled "Literary Vocation and Marcel Proust" along with the ending song dedication to Proust's fictional character, Albertine, was a real joy to listen to; I found myself compelled to jot a note or two about desire, self-deception and will & power to knowledge. Profound stuff.
--Carolina Beltran
25 October 2006
Dear Prof. Harrison,
I just wanted to let you know that I recently discovered your program through its podcasts, and I think it is wonderful! I am working on a dissertation in early-modern French history, and your program has been a pleasant and informative diversion from the narrowly defined study I'm involved in at the moment. You do a wonderful job with each interview, and I am always impressed by your erudition. I hope you decide to pick it up again someday.
Best regards,
Douglas Powell
8 July 2006
I must tell you how much I have enjoyed your radio program. I discovered Entitled Opinions a few weeks ago and it has been a real treat. The intellectual after market of your show has been quite fascinating for me as well. I listened to your discussion with your brother and immediately ordered 1910: Emancipation of Dissonance. Further intrigued, I searched for the Metaphysics of Death by Simmel but could only find a similarly titled work by John Martin Fischer (also a Stanford professor). A very interesting collection of essays.
I was once an academic--but that was many years ago (Ph.D. Psychology from NYU; Assistant Professor in Social Psychology at George Washington University. I long ago left that life, but still am compelled to search out intelligent conversation (even if it's simply eavesdropping on the conversation of others). Stumbling across your little oasis in the desert has been a highpoint of the summer.
Thank you and job well done!
Carlos
24 June 2006
Feeling really bereft knowing that I can no longer look forward to Tuesdays. Thank goodness I have all the I Tunes recordings of thel past programs, and can continue to listen to them again and again. They bear up so very well. The last program was hugely touching and affecting. I'll remember the birds for a long time. Hope the program will be rescheduled at a future date.
Frances Alston
19 June 2006
Thank you for sharing the radio shows with iTunes. I just found these podcasts a couple of months ago and have been catching up with a delightful year of 'Entitled Opinions'. I just love feeling like I am eavesdropping as a couple of professors talk over coffee! ...Please continue with these podcasts soon!
Meanwhile, you will be missed...
Tracy Kennedy
19 June 2006
What a wonderful find. Ive enjoyed this series immensely I hope there is
another on the way.
Tim Burrows
Sydney, Australia
15 June 2006
I've been listening either live by internet or by podcast from the beginning sharing many of the files with friends and colleagues. Two that has lead to some eloquent discussion are "A conversation with Professor Andrei Linde about the theory of the inflationary universe" Jan 17, 2006. and "A conversation with Novelist Shirley Hazzard" Jan 10 , 2006 leading to an enjoyable read of "The Great Fire"
Have enjoyed Stanford Radio for the year that I have known of it, your program the highlight of the program schedule.
Also enjoyed reading your brother Thomas's book and has gotten back into Proust.
Many thanks
John Drewe
San Diego
14 June 2006
I was engaging in my weekly podcast from entitled opinions and noted the title (with trepidation) "concluding opinions"--not good news...I would hope this break is just that--"provisional"...what do I need to do to ensure this stays on...this is my only respite from the madness....colonel keith essen
14 June 2006
I've been listening to podcasts of "Entitled Opinions" and have found them all good, and many of them excellent. I've especially enjoyed the interviews with Sheehan (and await a promised second installment), Girard, Hazzard, and Nightingale.
Thanks so much; I've listened to many engaging and highly interesting lectures from Stanford in the past year via podcasts, but yours are my favorites.
Barry Brinker, AB 1974 (English and French)
Wayne, PA
3 June 2006
As a graduate student of politics and public administration, I truly enjoyed listening to Drew Gibson’s entitled opinion on the philosophy of corporations. Throughout the entire spectrum of the installment, I remained fascinated by the continuous unfolding of the existing paradox between organizational productivity and administrative ethics—in other words, would it ever be possible for any corporate shareholder, or human resource manager, to arrive at a “true” synthesis between such two opposing notions?
I would like to applaud both, Dr. Harrison, and Drew Gibson for directing the thesis of the dialogue back to its roots in the fundamental question between productivity and ethics.
Rodney Faridi
Turlock, CA
3 June 2006
I truly hope this doesn't indicate the demise of your wonderful radio show.
I am not a radio listener but I do download the interviews. I think they are just great! Truly, there are few things that are more
enjoyable to me than to listen to your intensely informed guest discuss philosophical topics in their current context. Your opening remarks are always provocative and your role as interlocutor is well done.
If its true that you are going off the air, I am sad to hear it. If I am mistaken, consider this note high praise and I look forward to more!
David Leech
3 June 2006
As a recent convert to Entitled Opinions, I want to say thank you for this amazing, intellectually stimulating program. I am a bit concerned that the upcoming show "Concluding Opinions" may indicate that the program is ending.
Is this the case? I'm hoping that Robert Harrison is just taking a much deserved break for the summer! If the show does continue, I would love to hear a discussion of colonial/postcolonial theory, the Virgin Mary in the Americas,and a comparative discussion of Nietzsche and Emerson. As an aspiring literary scholar married to an aspiring philosophy scholar, I appreciate the ways in which the program bridges these two fields -- as well as others.
Tereza M. Szeghi
Tucson, Arizona
21 May 2006
Great show with Dr. Michael Hendrickson -- very smart guy! The introductory monologue was terrific too. Science as a force not just for disenchantment but also for re-enchantment: a vital corrective to the standard line. Keep up the great work.
Josh Landy
7 May 2006
Dear Sirs,
I just discovered your radio show and podcasts on the internet, and I love them! I can't believe that such consistently excellent material is being broadcast. What a great way to showcase the faculty of one of the finest universities in the world and to open up its treasures to a broader public, of which I count myself lucky to be included. Thank you so much! I look forward to many more shows; please keep them coming.
Fr. Michael Darcy, Pittsburgh, PA
P.S. Please have Prof. Girard on again!
7 May 2006
Your podcast is wonderful. I have learned so much and the show has encouraged my developing interest in the humanities and above all philosophy. Thank you for all the time and effort you have put into these shows.
Sheryl Bartlett
Ottawa, Canada
29 April 2006
Paul Floris
Like some of the other (international) listeners, I happened upon the
Entitled Opinions site when roaming the Internet. In my case, in search
of information on René Girard whose theories featured in a series of
articles in my local newspaper. How fortunate, therefore, I was to find
your recordings with Girard of September and October of last year. What
a great and fascinating shows!
I do enjoy the diversity of topics, and especially the global scope of your program (how interesting to have me my European mind explained by Russell Berman!...). Please continue with your program, as it's fresh and stimulating, and provides such excellent food for thought. And, as I'm not able to listen to the live shows, please also continue posting the recordings on your web site; highly appreciated!
Best regards,
Paul Floris
Leiden
The Netherlands
26 April 2006
Aaron Wez
My big thanks to Stanford and to Robert Harrison for a marvelous program. I found Entitled Opinions quite by chance as I wondered if universities were using podcasting as a tool for courses and special projects; on searching through iTunes and internet search engines, this program was one of the top results. How correct that is.
While I, much like Prof. Harrison, have my own opinions - be they entitled or not - the wealth of information and referral, the joy and discovery of debate and active dialogue, is brought to fruit so well, here. I appreciate very much the global scope of these conversations. So many could be hopelessly trapped only in the U.S. experience.
20 April 2006
John Steele
Thanks Robert Harrison for an excellent program it's one of the highlights of my week. I've recently retired and am able to listen to the podcasts in series. Please continue the programs are pitched at just the right level. Maybe some more Heidegger, some Husserl, Foucault, Derrida and in the literary field Kafka, Hesse and Rilke. More discussions on classical literature too.
Is it possible to invite Peter Brown, the historian of late antiquity onto your program?
Thanks
John Steele
Sydney
Australia
19 March 2006
John Steele
Thanks to Prof. Harrison for a very enjoyable program. A highlight of my week.
John Steele
9 March 2006
Fred Jones
Just listened to "entitled opinions" for the first time.
I enjoyed it greatly!
please keep the episodes coming!!!
thankyou
2 March 2006
Nicole Schultheis
Although I only just broke down and bought an iPod the other day, I am already a fan of "Entitled Opinions." I listened enthusiastically yesterday to the two segments with René Girard. I am going to the library again soon and hope to check out "The Man without Qualities." I was about halfway through Robert Persig's "Lila," and got fed up. It seemed interesting at first, but got increasingly dopey, and still it dragged on and on and on. Will I like Musil better? The gender preference thing you were talking about with Prof. Gumbrecht is interesting, and challenges me. I am wondering about the parallels between Musil and Persig. I also liked the one on Heidegger, but need to listen again, as I kept being interrupted.
Thank you,
Nicole Schultheis
27 February 2006
Glen Palm
This is one of the best, informative, and unique podcast I've had the honor to listen to. If you'd added a something like this link http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/research.shtml it would be
over the top. I know it would add more work and suck more hours out of your life. I have no access to learned dissuasion on issues of any sort. As a person goes from the stage in their life from student to worker/earner it becomes harder and harder to pause to listen and think about ideas and movements. Now I have time, access, and effort to go back to the state I've enjoyed the more in my life.
Again -- thank you
Glen Plam
21 February 2006
Abigail Acton
Just a quick line to tell you how much I'm enjoying your 'Entitled Opinions' series. I listen to the podcasts whilest doing my artisanal bookbinding course, in Belgium, and the two fit well together. Have you come across the 'In Our Times' podcasts, hosted by Melvyn Bragg, BBC Radio 4? If not, I think you might enjoy them, they're easily found at iTunes.
Best regards,
Abigail Acton
12 February 2006
Joseph Perloff
I heard with great pleasure, your splendid interviews on Robert Musil and and Thomas Sheehan's historical Jesus. I was enthralled by The Man Without Qualities which I have read and reread. Biblical archeology and biblical scholarship are high on my list of interests, and I was impressed and informed by Sheehan's erudition. I will surely get his book on the historical Jesus. But why wasn't the James Ossuary discussed? Keep broadcasting. I'm a devoted fan.
Cordially,
Joe
7 February 2006
Rodney Faridi
For the listeners who may want to catch the show in real time (live), you can do so through iTunes. When you have the iTunes program open, choose 'Radio' from under the 'Source' section (with a single click), and choose 'Public' from under the 'Stream' section (with a double click). Then, look for 'KZSU FM' and choose it (with a double click). KZSU FM broadcasts in 24kbps for slower, and 128kbps for faster Internet connections.
Best regards,
Rodney Faridi
7 February 2006
s. morgan
Just how much I enjoy such engaging, cutting-edge talk radio, and
would love to hear another show continuing the conversation with
philosopher Richard Rorty. Have you considered adding a call-in
segment to your shows, perhaps organizing particular shows featuring
call-in dialog with a guest, or even using the audience callers as
"guest" exchanging ideas on a given subject? Thank you very much.
28 January 2006
Makiko Orito
Hi, thank your so much for your great show! I'm a Japanese who is currently studying interpretation and is doing some interpretation jobs at the same time. As someone like me who would like to be a English-Japanese interpreter, mastery of language is very important and that's why I began to listen to your show through podcast. It was a mere coincidence that I foud your show, but it was the greatest radio show I've ever heard. I love your beautiful introduction and amazing quotes and all the books you deal with are masterpieces and actually I feel I'm cheating on those students who are studying at grad schools because your show is like one of the best lectures on literature that we can attend at free.
26 January 2006
Ken Vallerio
http://www.kenvallario.com
Here is another entitled opinion from a very happy subscriber to your show. One of things I find the most refreshing about your show, besides the seriousness of it, is the way you pause occasionally to await the right question. I know this is stylistic but I like it all the same. One of my pet-peeves about modern culture is the non-stop requirement in conversation, it's so tiring. I will continue to listen and I have been telling people about your show. I listened to the episode on the Aeneid last night. My favorite moment was in the introduction when you were speaking about the work politically and you went to compare it to our modern leaders and you stopped yourself, very sincerely said outloud that you promised you wouldn't go there, and you didn't. I find it very exciting when people place boundaries on themselves for a higher purpose and I admire it. So many times you hear people say 'i promised i wouldn't say this, but....'
26 January 2006
joe dietzgen
Great show. I first heard your show when you interviewed a French Professor in French. Marvelous, I couldn't believe what I was hearing over the airwaves. Was this radio Canada in the Bay Area? I also loved your interview of the Russian mathamatican on inflation theory. I admit I thought you must be a graduate student because you had such a young voice. During your first show I listened I did not know this was radio Stanford. Sincerely thanks
22 January 2006
Rodney Faridi
I ran into 'Entitled Opinions' on accident while randomly surfing the web sometime back in Nov.2005. What an aesthetic encounter!!! To make a long story short, I have not missed a show ever since. Not only does each show bloom into an utterly gorgeous dialogue, but also, that the very choice of music surrounding each session appears as somewhat of a philosophically decorated boundary around each segmentóa paradoxical type of boundary which perhaps knows no limit, but the very limit of itself, as itself, as infinity.
Keep up the good work!
7 December 2005
Screddy
Wow, great show. It's so great to hear Robert Harrison -- who is so
articulate and interesting -- talking to, for example, Rene Girard. What a
great idea, Dr. Harrison.
2 December 2005
Aaron Cord
Nothing like this show, anywhere else on the net, much more so amongst
the toddlers of contemporary podcasting. Thanks for the discourse.
20 November 2005
Stephanie
unitedstates
I appriciate your project. See you soon.
14 November 2005
Stern, Howard
You'll be hearing from my lawyers, Harrison.
My hair is COPYRIGHTED, Dude, so lose that second-rate knock-off I saw on your web site.
[For the original, check: http://www.eonline.com/On/Howard/]
And if you want an audience, remember the secret of success: tits, not wits.
Later.
Howard
10 November 2005
Keith Essen
Is there anyway I can procure lectures by Andrew Mitchell on Heidegger... I don\'t care how much they cost, his commentary was stunning and frankly would love to hear more....Heidegger is so impenetrable yet fascinating...yet the discourse was so compelling, I would really like to hear more on this topic--for once it seemed within reach...kee
10 November 2005
Colonel Keith Essen
Dr. Harrison
You need to know that your show has been a distinct pleasure; cspecifically I thoroughly enjoyed the show on Heidegger....(I have listened to this several times already...and todays feast on epicurean thought was sheer delight... I am learning something with each encounter...and indeed I do feel part of the conversation...discussions on Proust, Girard on mimetic desire...where does it end...please continue to press on...would love to send my combined federal campaign donation to you all...do you have a code??? kee
9 November 2005
Mariah Isely
I have very much enjoyed the last three shows and wish the previous
ones were still available as pod-casts.
I suggest that you include in your shows or on the website after each
show a list of recommended readings, or at least a list of works cited in
the program. I'd love to know what you would recommend as a good
introduction to Epicureanism and its central texts.
Mariah
23 October 2005
Simon De Keukelaere
Congratulations for this new program! I especially enjoyed the two talks with Stanford-professor RenÈ Girard. I will send a link to your program to some friends in France and Belgium interested in this kind of insightful radio programs. Keep up the good work!
All the best,
Simon
(Ghent, Belgium)
19 October 2005
Alessandra Andrisani
Anche se non sono un'accademica, trovo la tua trasmissione davvero
accattivante...
11 October 2005
Alison Lovell
Dear Professors Harrison and Girard:
I would like to add that in versions of Agamemnon's sacrifice of his
daughter Iphigenia (another example of human sacrifice, carried out in
Aeschylus's version of the drama), the daughter is replaced by an
animal or an image of the girl. So the instance in the Hebrew Bible of
Isaac's sacrifice by Abraham (Isaac replaced by an animal) is not in fact
the *only* written document where a human is replaced, though plays
are not in the same genre category as a book from the Hebrew Bible, a
sacred text.
Thanks for a wonderful and stimulating discussion. I was listening!
Best,
Alison Lovell (new IHUM fellow)
11 October 2005
Lisa Dornell
I hereby nominate Dr. Robert Harrison, host of "Entitled Opinions," for
a Bad A** Mo Fo Award. His show has definitely raised the intellectual
level of KZSU to off the scale.
Yesterday's show was an interview with Rene Girard on "Ritual Sacrifice
and the Scapegoat." It was absolutely fascinating (and made it damned
difficult to prepare for my show.) Ranging from Christ to Oedipus to
commentaries on Freud it was the most intellectual hour I've ever heard
in my time at KZSU.
Aside from the coolness factor of having a faculty member back on the
airwaves, yesterday's show convinced me that this is one new show
going on my "must listen to every week" list.
Great stuff!
Decca
3 October 2005
Kenny Gundle
I am greatly enjoying listening and reflecting on the show from Kobe,
Japan. I guess it will have to be my stand-in for the Philosophical Reading
Group while I am away from campus.
I'd love to hear more about who is not entitled to an opinion, as well
as about choosing one's ancestors.
29 September 2005
Gary Wesley (BluJi)
Really enjoyed your enlightened show!
Only caught the last 30 mins while working in the
music library.
Keep it up!
BluJi