The Gray Area with Sean Illing

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The Gray Area with Sean Illing takes a philosophy-minded look at culture, technology, politics, and the world of ideas. Each week, we invite a guest to explore a question or topic that matters. From the the state of democracy, to the struggle with depression and anxiety, to the nature of identity in the digital age, each episode looks for nuance and honesty in the most important conversations of our time. New episodes drop every Monday.

Fareed Zakaria on our revolutionary moment
Fareed Zakaria reflects on the modern history of revolution and explains why we’re living in a uniquely consequential period.
Life is hard. Can philosophy help?
MIT professor Kieran Satiya on how philosophy can help us understand and survive life’s most difficult times.
The American dream is a pyramid scheme
Journalist Jane Marie joins Sean to discuss the history and pervasiveness of multilevel marketing schemes and how they fit into the mythology of America.
The chaplain who doesn't believe in God
Devin Moss is a chaplain who doesn’t believe in God. He recently spent one year counseling a death row inmate through his final days.
Can a friend be our most significant other?
Guest host Sigal Samuel is joined by her friend and journalist Rhaina Cohen, author of The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center.
The power of climate fiction
Stephen Markley is the author of the novel, “The Deluge.”
The denial of death
Filmmaker Jef Sewell discusses his new documentary on the work and thought of anthropologist Ernest Becker.
A brief history of extinction panics
Tyler Austin Harper joins Sean to talk about who’s panicking about AI, what they actually believe, and how panics of the past compare to the current moment.
The new(ish) world order
Journalist Alex Ward describes how foreign policy consensus is beginning to crack.
The free-market century is over
Sean Illing is joined by economist and author Brad DeLong, whose new book tells the economic history of mankind's most consequential era — and explains how and why it just ended
Music and mysticism
New Age music pioneer Laraaji on the mysticism of music and the sanctity of laughter.
The case for banning...millionaires?
Sean talks with political philosopher Ingrid Robeyns, whose new book Limitarianism makes the case for imposing limits on personal wealth.
The joy of uncertainty
Maggie Jackson, author of Uncertainty: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure, explains why the feeling of uncertainty is actually a pathway to better understanding and empathy.
A pro-worker work ethic
Political philosopher Elizabeth Anderson explains how “the biggest killjoys in European history” hijacked the way we think about work.
How psychedelics can reinvent learning
Guest host Sigal Samuels interviews neuroscientist Gul Dolen about her groundbreaking research, which points to a future where psychedelics might be the master key that unlocks conditions from strokes and autism to deafness and blindness… while helping us all to learn like little kids again.
Seeing ourselves through the darkness
A philosopher's new book on dark moods aims to help us escape the damage of our culture's most pervasive metaphor
Living Mindfully
Jon Kabat-Zinn has been a mindfulness pioneer since the 1970s. He joins us to reflect on its skyrocketing popularity.
Taking anarchism seriously
Philosopher Sophie Scott-Brown tells us why she is an anarchist
3,000 years of The Iliad
Emily Wilson on why the poem persists and what it teaches us about death
Late-stage liberalism
A discussion with political philosopher John Gray about his new book, The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism.

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Episodes