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Eleanor Gordon-Smith & Slavoj Žižek - The age of doubt, reason and conspiracy

The In-Between  /  EP04
Available Now
Against the pillars of Enlightenment, how can we make sense of conspiracy theories, tribalism, and deepening divisions between our beliefs? In a conversation moderated by Simon Longstaff, Eleanor Gordon-Smith and Slavoj Žižek discuss the proliferation and saturation of knowledge, the rise of conspiracy theories, and whether or not the Age of Enlightenment is coming to an end.

Delve even deeper into the speakers and themes discussed in this episode:

Eleanor Gordon-Smith – Little Bad Thing
Slavoj Žižek: Let us be realists and demand the impossible (FODI 2011)

Download transcript here.

We live in an era when knowledge is utterly drenching us from all corners. So much so that its value, has been subject to a kind of inflation.
Eleanor Gordon-Smith
The secret premise of conspiracy theories is that we live in a godless world.
Slavoj Žižek

Eleanor Gordon-Smith

Eleanor Gordon-Smith is a philosopher and radio producer currently at Princeton University, where she is a Graduate Fellow of the University Centre for Human Values. She writes the weekly advice column ‘Leading Questions’ for The Guardian Australia. Her first book Stop Being Reasonable has been published in 9 countries. She was producer of Radio National’s The Philosopher’s Zone, has broadcast pieces with NPR, This American Life, and around Australia, and hosts The Ethics Centre’s 8-part podcast Little Bad Thing. Her printed work has appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, and New Humanist Magazine.

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Slavoj Žižek

Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural theorist. He is a professor of philosophy at The European Graduate School, a senior researcher at the Institute for Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana, Global Distinguished Professor of German at New York University, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, and founder and president of the Society for Theoretical Psychoanalysis, Ljubljana.

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