“If irony is the ethos of our age — and it is — then the hipster is our archetype of ironic living…the ironic life is certainly a provisional answer to the problems of too much comfort, too much history and too many choices, but it is my firm conviction that this mode of living is not viable and conceals within it many social and political risks.”
– Christy Wampole
Christy Wampole is an assistant professor in the department of French and Italian at Princeton, and the author of “Rootedness: The Ramifications of a Metaphor” and “The Other Serious: Essays for the New American Generation.” She has also written for the New York Times and the New Yorker.
In this episode, Christy shares the resources that would be on a syllabus for her life, conversations that cuts across party lines and her perspective on evolving toward a good kind of seriousness. You can learn more about Christy’s work at christywampole.com.
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EPISODE SHOW NOTES
Recent Books by Christy Wampole
- Rootedness: The Ramifications of a Metaphor
- The Other Serious: Essays for the New American Generation.
Resources Mentioned
- How to Live without Irony by Christy Wampole (2012 – New York Times)
- How to LIve without Irony (for Real, this Time) by Christy Wampole (2016 – New York Times)
- My Syllabus, My Self by Christy Wampole (2016 – New York Times)
- Thank You, President Trump by Christy Wampole
- The Need for Roots by Simone Weil
- Mythologies by Roland Barthes
- Empire of Signs by Roland Barthes
- Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism by Benedict Anderson
- Palomar by Italo Calvino
- The Complete Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
- The Divine Comedy by Alighieri Dante
- Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
People
- Walt Whitman
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Michel de Montaigne
- Michel Houellebecq
- Pope Francis
- Marion Jeanne Caroline Maréchal-Le Pen
Drinks Pairings
- Whiskey
Highlights
1m55s – When you hear the word “contemplative”, how does that moniker relate to you or your work, if at all?
5m50s – If you were going to create a syllabus for the life of Christy Wampole, what resources would be on it?
17m20s – What happened between your first piece on irony in 2012 to your latest article in 2016?
23m09s – How do you imagine we recoup a more embodied way of life during this age of digital dislocation?
28m50s – Can you share more about this call to seriousness with fierce humility and compassion without falling into victimhood?
32m50s – What projects do you have on the horizon?
34m40s – What drink would you pair with conversation?
Photo credit: Death To Stock Photo
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