What Does It Mean to Be “Authentic”?

Skye C. Cleary chats with Luis Jaramillo about her new book on Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophy-from-life method

Finding your “authentic self” is often taken to mean: “Let’s turn inward and look for the blueprint that’s going to tell us what decisions we should make and that will make us happy.” But Beauvoir argued that we’re humans who are always growing, always changing....

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What Does It Mean to Be “Authentic”?

“Emily in Paris” and American Francophilia

Past Present Podcast, Episode 252

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: Emily in Paris is a hit on Netflix, perhaps due in equal parts to escapism and hate-watching. Natalia referenced her Well + Good roundup of Parisian fitness, and the show Younger. Niki discussed the novel The Ugly American. Neil referred ...
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“Enjoy without Restraint!”

Fifty Years Ago in Paris

This is an introduction to an in-depth narrative recollection on one of the most significant episodes of the 20th Century, May 1968 in Paris, from one of its participants, famed psychoanalyst Sergio Benvenuto. The full essay can be found here. This is the first time this essay has been published ...
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“Enjoy without Restraint!”

Paris Terror Events and the Dramaturgies of the Aftermath

Daniel Dayan is a fellow of the Marcel Mauss Institute (School of Advanced Study in the Social Sciences) and a professor at the Levinas European Institute. Dayan has been Research director at CNRS-Paris, and a visiting professor at Sciences-Po and the universities of Stanford, Geneva, Tel Aviv, and Oslo. He has also been an Annenberg scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, and for many years a ...
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Climate Policies After Paris

Toward the end of 2015, leaders from around the world convened in Paris for the latest round of international climate talks. This marks the 21st annual Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. More than 40,000 people from over 150 countries attended the conference, representing ...

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Climate Policies After Paris

Let’s Change the Future

On reclaiming our humanity in times of fear

I have a strange feeling, like I’ve been here before.

Everything looks familiar. The highly coordinated Islamist attack on a “Western” nation; the bloodthirsty demand for revenge; the calls to war abroad and the suspension of liberties at home; the simplification of the world into ...

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For the Last Time: “The West”

Revisiting the myth of the clash of civilizations

As information about the attacks in Paris, which left at least 128 people dead, gradually unfolds, I feel overwhelmed and disturbed. I am overwhelmed by the quantity of affective response to which I add my own grief, but I am also deeply disturbed by the way in which ...

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