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What's the meaning of life? Why is there pain and suffering? How do you balance justice and love? These "accursed questions" have haunted humanity for centuries. Fyodor Dostoevsky sought to answer these questions through his characters' lives. His answers are prophetic for our time.

In this episode, I sit down with Northwestern University professor of Russian literature Gary Saul Morson. We discuss what Dostoevsky reveals about developing intellectual honesty, how to deal with suffering and brokenness, as well as his arguments for and against God.

His latest book, Wonder Confronts Certainty: Russian Writers on the Timeless Questions and Why Their Answers Matter, sets the stage for this interview sets the stage for this interview.

Topics:

• The "Accursed Questions" of Russian Literature
• Dostoevsky's Intellectual Honesty with Faith
• Battle-Testing Worldviews through Fiction
• The Dangers of Abstracting Individuals
• Notes from Underground: Human Freedom vs Determinism
• The Core of Ethics: Human Surprisingness
• "What books have had an impact on you?"
• "What advice do you have for teenagers?

Bio:

Gary Saul Morson is Lawrence B. Dumas Professor of the Arts and Humanities and Professor of Russian Literature at Northwestern University. His 21 authored or edited volumes and 300 shorter publications have examined major Russian writers, the philosophy of time, the role of quotations in culture, great aphorisms, and the ultimate questions about life taken seriously in Russian literature. His classes on Russian writers in translation have enrolled over 500 students, and he is the recipient of numerous teaching and research awards. Morson writes regularly for numerous national publications, including The New York Review of Books, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, First Things, Mosaic, and several others. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1995

Prof. Morson on the best Dostoevsky translations:

“The best translations of Dostoevsky are by Constance Garnett or revisions of Garnett. For Notes from Underground, use Garnett revised by Ralph Matlaw; for The Brothers Karamazov, Garnett revised by Susan McReynolds; and for The Possessed (Demons)be sure to use the Modern Library version of the Garnett translation with appendixes containing versions of a chapter he was not allowed to publish.”

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Lessons from Interesting People substack: https://taylorbledsoe.substack.com/

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As we enter a world of artificial intelligence, the question of what should be automated looms before us. Models need clear, objective metrics to train on. But, can jobs really be distilled to data points? In her book, The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World, Prof. Allison Pugh asserts many jobs have a relational component that can’t be caught in the metrics. In this episode, Prof. Pugh warns that devaluing connective labor leads to automation that overlooks the core issues and leaves us more isolated.

Topics:

• Connective Labor
• Undervaluation of Connective Labor
• Automation of Connective Labor
• Role of Data in Education
• Educational Inequality and Standardized Testing
• Artificial Intelligence and Relationships
• Growing Demand for Connection
• "What books have had an impact on you?"
• "What advice do you have for teenagers?

Bio:
Allison Pugh is a Research Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University, and the author of four books, most recently The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World (Princeton 2024). The 2024-5 Vice President of the American Sociological Association, Pugh was faculty at the University of Virginia for 17 years before moving to Hopkins this summer. She is a former journalist, and her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New Republic, and other outlets. She served as a US diplomat in Honduras, cofounded a charter school in Oakland, waited on tables at the US Tennis Open, packed salmon roe in Alaska, and was an intern at Ms. Magazine.

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Lessons from Interesting People substack: https://taylorbledsoe.substack.com/

Website: https://www.aimingforthemoon.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aiming4moon/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Aiming4Moon

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When we think of history of books, we often neglect the people who created them. We think of history as a figment of facts, connected together by time and advances in technology. But sometimes we overlook the humanity, the souls, the fingerprints in the ink-stained margins of long-forgotten tomes. In this episode, I sit down with Oxford's Prof. Adam Smyth to discuss his The Book-Makers: A History of the Book in Eighteen Lives. How a book was made tells us about the people who created it, as well as what the culture valued about books. The way a book was formed changes how we interact with it.

Topics:

• Humanizing the history of the book - the forgotten lives of the book-makers
• The book - a blend of prose and production
• How culture influenced the design of books
• How hand-printing influences your view of writing
• Do you think the abstract nature and accessibility of text have changed how we view it?
• "What books have had an impact on you?"
• "What advice do you have for teenagers?

Bio:
Adam Smyth is professor of English literature and the history of the book at Balliol College, University of Oxford. He is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books and the TLS. He also runs the 39 Steps Press, a small printing press, which he keeps in a barn in Oxfordshire, England.

Affiliate book links: (Support the show by buying through these links :D)

• The Book-Maker: A History of the Book in Eighteen Lives
• Books of impact: Short stories of Borges

Socials -

Lessons from Interesting People substack: https://taylorbledsoe.substack.com/

Website: https://www.aimingforthemoon.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aiming4moon/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Aiming4Moon