{"podcast":{"title":"New Books in Critical Theory","slug":"new-books-in-critical-theory-962622","podcast_index_feed_id":962622,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/LIT8251633117","website_url":"https://newbooksnetwork.com/category/politics-society/critical-theory/","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/2bb9f934-ef86-11e8-8d0f-63a25e571335/image/abfb67777e548da6b9f81c74ecfb67a9.png?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"New Books Network","episode_count":2248,"summary":"This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory","last_synced_at":null,"page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-critical-theory-962622"},"episode":{"title":"Drew M. Dalton, \"The Matter of Evil: From Speculative Realism to Ethical Pessimism\" (Northwestern UP, 2024)","slug":"drew-m-dalton-the-matter-of-evil-from-speculative-realism-to-ethical-pessimism-northwestern-up-2024","published_at":"2026-05-17T08:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-critical-theory-962622/drew-m-dalton-the-matter-of-evil-from-speculative-realism-to-ethical-pessimism-northwestern-up-2024","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-critical-theory-962622","url":"https://pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK2042128884.mp3","audio_url":"https://pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK2042128884.mp3","summary":"Most of us today would assume that morality and ethics, being value propositions, are questions for inspired leaders, religious creeds, poets—in other words, for the humanities. But what if I told you that we can construct a system of ethics and morality by studying math—more specifically: the laws of thermodynamics? That’s what Professor Drew M Dalton argues in his latest book. Dalton traces a line of metaphysical inquiry from Kant through Spinoza, Nietzsche, and others up to today to show how we get from E=mc2 to a full-throated call to resist evil and alleviate suffering to our very last breath. By overturning our assumptions about the nature and value of reality, The Matter of Evil: From Speculative Realism to Ethical Pessimism (Northwestern UP, 2024) presents a provocative new model of ethical responsibility that is both logically justifiable and scientifically sound. Dalton argues for “ethical pessimism,” a position previously marginalized in the West, as a means to cultivate an account of ethical responsibility and political activism that takes seriously the unbecoming of being and the moral horror of existence. Drew M. Dalton is a professor of English at Indiana University, having received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Leuven in Belgium. His research focuses on the normative implications of different metaphysical systems and, specifically, he’s interested in how questions of right and wrong, good and evil, beauty and pleasure are framed within aesthetics, literary theory, ethics, and political philosophy. He is the author of Longing for the Other: Levinas and Metaphysical Desire (Duquesne University Press, 2009), The Ethics of Resistance: Tyranny of the Absolute (Bloomsbury, 2018), and The Matter of Evil: From Speculative Realism to Ethical Pes…","meta_description":"Most of us today would assume that morality and ethics, being value propositions, are questions for inspired leaders, religious creeds, poets—in other wor…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":4363,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-in-critical-theory-962622/episodes/drew-m-dalton-the-matter-of-evil-from-speculative-realism-to-ethical-pessimism-northwestern-up-2024/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-critical-theory-962622/drew-m-dalton-the-matter-of-evil-from-speculative-realism-to-ethical-pessimism-northwestern-up-2024.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}