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Discussion of books and ideas for our tangled times. Read along with us or just listen in.
Episodes
Friday Sep 01, 2023
Friday Sep 01, 2023
We go slightly off-book for this episode to explore whether we can find something to affirm in the Garden of Eden myth.
Mentioned:
Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent
Per Faxneld, Satanic Feminism
Peter Grey, Lucifer: Princeps
-*- our Discord community for further discussion -*-
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood. "Earth Wakes Up" by Sarah Louise. Cover image by Thomas Little @a.rural.pen
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
Wednesday Jul 26, 2023
Wednesday Jul 26, 2023
A close look at the early days of cultivation and domestication.
Check out our Book on Fire EXCLUSIVE timeline of dates and places from the chapter
Mentioned on the show:
"Engels was Right: Early Human Kinship was Matrilineal" by Chris Knight
"Anatomy of a Backlash: Concerning the Work of Marija Gimbutas" by Charlene Spretnak
"The Dangerous Populist Science of Yuval Noah Harari" by Darshana Narayanan
A random mainstream anthropology site delineating "horticulture" as a subsistence strategy
-*- our Discord community for further discussion -*-
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood. "That Glow in the Morning" by Sarah Louise.
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram ]]
Saturday Jun 24, 2023
Saturday Jun 24, 2023
The rest of our discussion of Chapter 5. Towards the end of this episode we share thoughts about where the book has taken us so far.
- Mentioned on the show:
"Why foragers choose acorns before salmon: Storage, mobility, and risk
in aboriginal California" by Shannon Tushingham and Robert Bettinger
Jasper Bernes' essay on Revolutionary Motives
- For more on wild tending in California and in general:
Tending the Wild by M. Kat Anderson
Wild Tending series at the Ground Shots podcast
-*- our Discord community for further discussion -*-
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood. "Maintenance in Loving" by Anna Luisa. "Barbarism Begins at Home" by the Sm/ths.
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
Monday Jun 05, 2023
Monday Jun 05, 2023
Why are people different from their neighbors? The first half of our discussion of Chapter 5.
Since we recorded this we learned that the Northwest Coast Hall of New York's Museum of Natural History, created by Franz Boas in 1899, and which we describe on the podcast as being outdated, recently underwent a 5-year renovation in which a member of the Huupa‘chesat-h First Nation participated, and reopened in 2022. (New York Times)
Mentioned on the show:
Zora Neale Hurston's anthropological work
-*- our Discord community for further discussion -*-
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood. "That Glow in the Morning" by Sarah Louise.
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
Friday Apr 28, 2023
Friday Apr 28, 2023
The continuation of our conversation about Chapter 4 of The Dawn of Everything: Free People, the Origin of Cultures, and the Advent of Private Property.
Mentioned:
What is Politics? podcast (youtube)
An article by David Wengrow about Graham Hancock's Ancient Apocalypse Netflix series
The Songs of Trees by David George Haskell
-*- our Discord community for further discussion -*-
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood. "Offering" by Anna Luisa.
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram ]]
Friday Apr 07, 2023
Friday Apr 07, 2023
Recorded during a windstorm amidst trees falling around the house, the first half of our conversation about Chapter 4: Free People, the Origin of Cultures, and the Advent of Private Property.
Mentioned:
"The Original Affluent Society" by Marshall Sahlins
-*- our Discord community for further discussion -*-
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" and "Thank you for the Path" by Big Blood. "That Glow in the Morning" by Sarah Louise.
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram ]]
Wednesday Mar 22, 2023
Wednesday Mar 22, 2023
In Chapter 3, Graeber & Wengrow use elaborate ice age burials and impressive building projects, along with more recent examples of cultures who changed their social structures according to the seasons, to suggest that perhaps our original political freedom is the freedom to erect and dismantle hierarchies at will.
We're experimenting with including visual timelines to help us keep track of all the history that's included in the book. See the timeline for Chapter 3. (A different presentation of the same timeline, in website form, is here.)
Mentioned in the episode:
"Resetting History’s Dial? A Critique of David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything" by Walter Scheidel
Seasonal Variations of the Eskimo, by Marcel Mauss and Henri Beuchat
-*- our Discord community for further discussion -*-
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood. "Deliberation" by Sarah Louise.
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
Wednesday Mar 08, 2023
Wednesday Mar 08, 2023
In this episode we put the book down and explore some anthropology that the Dawn of Everything is at odds with. Take it slow--it's a long one and there's a lot to cover.
Mentioned on the show:
Hierarchy in the Forest by Christopher Boehm
Sarah Hrdy, primatologist and anthropologist
"Gender Egalitarianism Made us Human" by Camilla Power
"Did Communism Make us Human?" by Chris Knight
The Evolution of Beauty by Richard Prum
The First Domestication by Raymond Pierotti and Brandy R. Fogg
-*- our Discord community for further discussion -*-
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood. "Earth Wakes Up" by Sarah Louise.
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
Wednesday Feb 22, 2023
Wednesday Feb 22, 2023
"Wicked Liberty: The Indigenous Critique and the Myth of Progress", in which we see how indigenous Americans' devastating critique of European society caused a stir when it made its way back to Europe. This one ends on a spicy note--Dave is not happy with how the chapter ends.
Mentioned: Chapter 3 of Caliban and the Witch, "Taming the Rebel Body" on how the Age of Enlightenment made way for capitalism.
NEW: We've started a Discord community in case folks are interested in more discussion around these books and ideas. Join us!
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" and "Thank you for the Path" by Big Blood.
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram ]]
Wednesday Feb 08, 2023
Wednesday Feb 08, 2023
We return! In our new season we are reading The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber & David Wengrow, a fascinating and controversial book of anthropology and social theory.
There's enough groundwork laid in Chapter 1 to make this episode a longer one than we're used to releasing. We hope you find it stimulating.
The Dawn of Everything at archive.org
NEW: We've started a Discord community in case folks are interested in more discussion around the books and ideas we engage with. Join us!
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood. "That Glow in the Morning" by Sarah Louise.
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com