Podcast: Carl & Company

In conversation with host René Freudenthal, Cahill shows that surfaces are never merely facades: they are membranes, thresholds, promises—the first thing that attracts us, and perhaps also the last thing that remains after all content has faded away. Cahill’s sophisticated art-historical narrative unfolds before our eyes like a change of light: precise in its analysis, yet at the same time floating, tentative, always aware that images conceal their secrets in the visible. The second voice we hear is that of artist and curator Lorena Juan, who curated this year’s Freiburg Biennale. Here, we encounter the surface not in the silence of the museum, but in public space, where art is exposed and exhibited, visible, vulnerable, permeated by the gaze of passersby. The result is a transatlantic-inspired conversation about the shimmer of modernity, about surfaces that entice, deceive, or simply shine—and about the question of whether depth is even conceivable without surface.

Shownotes:

James Cahill: “The Violet Hour”

Moderator & Editor: René Freudenthal
Production & Collaboration: Hanna Langreder
Original Logo for the Podcast: Simon Krause
Original Music for the Podcast: Edward Fernbach

When supporters of this president stormed the U.S. Capitol, Romney delivered a thunderous speech in the Senate accusing his Republican colleagues of inciting the insurrection. Despite such moments of courage, Romney has revealed very little about what he has seen behind the scenes during his three decades in politics—in the back rooms of the Republican Party and at caucus lunches, in his intimate meetings with Donald Trump and his family, in his encounters with John McCain, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Mitch McConnell, Joe Manchin, and Kyrsten Sinema. Only journalist McKay Coppins (“The Atlantic”) was offered insights into Romney’s most private thoughts: His biography, Romney: A Reckoning, is based on dozens of interviews with the Mormon multimillionaire from Utah, who comes across as very different from the man we got to know in his campaign against Barack Obama 12 years ago – the last time a conservative US presidential candidate was not named Donald Trump. Coppins tells us how Romney feels today about his career and the radicalization of his party in the 21st century – and what Romney discusses with President Biden, who has become a late personal friend, on the golf course. Next, we sort through the current lineup of the GOP with Arthur Landwehr, foreign correspondent for ARD radio in Washington, D.C. from 1999 to 2006 and 2018 to 2022, and author of the bestselling nonfiction book “Die zerrissenen Staaten von Amerika” (The Torn States of America). — “MAGA” martyr Donald Trump and his vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance.

Shownotes:

McKay Coppins: “Romney: A Reckoning”

Arthur Landwehr: “Die zerrissenen Staaten von Amerika”

Moderator & Editor: René Freudenthal
Production & Collaboration: Hanna Langreder
Original Logo for the Podcast: Simon Krause
Original Music for the Podcast: Edward Fernbach

On the same day, Israel began air strikes on the Gaza Strip. Once again, the region has become the starting point for a war. However, the underlying conflict and its causes extend far beyond Gaza – and back centuries, if not millennia. In a permanent state of polycrisis surrounding us – from COVID to Ukraine to inflation and the climate crisis – this renewed Middle East conflict seems to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back in German society. For months, the battle to interpret these appalling developments has been raging in the public arena here too. A broad debate about a new or perhaps just suddenly much more visible anti-Semitism is preoccupying the country that launched the Holocaust in the 1940s and nearly wiped out Europe’s Jewish population. Emily Tamkin is one of the most prominent young Jewish voices in the US media landscape and has already published two books on the subject – “The Influence of Soros” and most recently “Bad Jews.” She writes for the Washington Post, Slate, and Foreign Affairs. We talk to her about the American Jewish community’s view of the Middle East conflict. Afterwards, we talk to Julia Wolrab, scientific director of the Documentation Center National Socialism Freiburg since 2020, about a historian’s view of the resonance of the Gaza war in Germany – and how the current democratic protests against right-wing extremism fit into the picture. A disclaimer: Several weeks have passed between the two conversations – but the topics we discuss remain relevant beyond the events of the day.

Shownotes:

Emily Tamkin: “Bad Jews”

Moderator & Editor: René Freudenthal
Production & Collaboration: Hanna Langreder
Original Logo for the Podcast: Simon Krause
Original Music for the Podcast: Edward Fernbach

Or is Barbie (Margot Robbie) mistaken – and does Mattel’s slender plastic icon no longer stand for the liberation of the modern woman today? With plenty of self-irony and brightly colored sets, Barbie became the most popular film of the year, a marketing phenomenon, one of those rare movies you simply had to see to be part of the conversation. But what does Barbie have to do with the biblical story of the Fall, with Adam and Eve’s expulsion from paradise? Alissa Wilkinson, Senior Culture Writer & Critic at Vox, Lecturer at King’s College in New York City and non-fiction author (How to Survive the Apocalypse: Zombies, Cylons, Faith, and Politics at the End of the World) explains the astonishing cross-references from Gerwig’s ultimate blockbuster to one of civilization’s most influential primordial narratives. But of course, it’s also about feminism, American turbo-capitalism – and a tiny bit about Ken. Afterward, we talk with our adult language course instructor Ashley Matthäus, who has a Master’s in Visual Anthropology, leads our filmmaker club “Schurz Shorts,” and won a “Next Cohen Brothers’ Award,” about her view of Barbie as a cinephile American.

Shownotes:

“In the Beginning, There Was Barbie” by Alissa Wilkinson

Moderator & Editor: René Freudenthal
Production & Collaboration: Hanna Langreder
Original Logo for the Podcast: Simon Krause
Original Music for the Podcast: Edward Fernbach

She follows an Indian woman celebrated as a saint who seeks religious fulfillment in healing temples in Kerala; an African-American mother imprisoned for infanticide who struggles for her family’s forgiveness after recovering from psychosis; a man in the midst of a midlife crisis who dedicates his life to revenge against his psychoanalysts; and a young woman from a wealthy background who, after a decade of defining herself entirely by her diagnosis, decides to stop taking her medication—because without pills, she no longer knows who she really is. Imbued with her deep sense of empathy, Aviv’s exploration of inner life is enriched by her own account of how, at the age of just six, she was hospitalized with a diagnosis of anorexia and met a fellow patient who became her doppelganger—until their life paths and self-discoveries diverged again, in a radical way. Afterwards, we talk to Dr. Ismene Ditrich, senior physician and specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy at the University Medical Center Freiburg and co-host of the podcast “Jung und Freudlos” (Young and Joyless), about her practical work as a physician and communicator of psychiatric topics, and how she deals with the fact that much in her field is constantly changing.

Shownotes:

“Stangers to Ourselves – Unsettled Minds and the Stories the Make Us” von Rachel Aviv

Moderator & Editor: René Freudenthal
Production & Collaboration: Hanna Langreder
Original Logo for the Podcast: Simon Krause
Original Music for the Podcast: Edward Fernbach

The world as such is no longer the same as it may have been on February 23, 2022. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin toast the unbreakable alliance between Eurasia’s top autocrats in Moscow; shortly before, US President Joe Biden walked fearlessly through the free capital of Kyiv, accompanied by Ukrainian war president Zelensky, amid the wail of air raid sirens. Kyiv should have fallen long ago and been firmly in the hands of the Kremlin, if the neo-tsar and his distorted understanding of history had had their way. We take stock of a bloody year in two tried-and-tested ways and try to look ahead as far as possible: Norman Thatcher Scharpf, our first guest, has been Consul General at the US Consulate General in Frankfurt since August 2021, the largest in the world and therefore also responsible for us in Freiburg. From August 2018 to December 2020, he was Deputy Chief of Staff in the Office of the US Secretary of State, headed its Secretariat, and was responsible for organizing the Secretary of State’s foreign trips. Thatcher Scharpf has been stationed as a senior diplomat in many Central and Eastern European capitals. His local German counterpart is Melanie Arndt, who has been Professor of Economic, Social, and Environmental History at the University of Freiburg since April 2020 and specializes in Eastern European studies. She is therefore just as knowledgeable about Ukraine as she is about energy issues.

Moderator & Editor: René Freudenthal
Production & Collaboration: Hanna Langreder
Original Logo for the Podcast: Simon Krause
Original Music for the Podcast: Edward Fernbach