One of the great creative joys of my life has been to produce a podcast called Writ Large, a show about the books that changed the world. Today, I’m excited to share the final episode, on Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged.
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged explores the question: What happens when the creators of a society refuse to create?
Her answer was a work that is equal parts dystopian warning, philosophical manifesto, and cultural Rorschach test. Though critics panned it, the book’s characters, symbols, and moral vision continue to reverberate through American political life.
Our guest is Jennifer Burns, Edgar E. Robinson Professor in United States History at Stanford University. Burns is one of the world’s leading scholars of Ayn Rand and the history of American conservatism. In this episode, we explore Rand’s dramatic life—from her family’s business being seized by Bolsheviks, to her improbable career in Hollywood, to the fervent intellectual circle that formed around her—and unpack the philosophical and political legacy of Atlas Shrugged.
Atlas Shrugged has never gone out of print. It persists because it captures an enduring American anxiety: fear of an overreaching state, of a society that punishes excellence, and of a world where individual freedom might fall under collective control. It has become a continual source of inspiration for libertarians, business leaders, and generations of young conservatives.
EVENT TONIGHT AT HARVARD DIVINITY SCHOOL
In our era of machine-aided prediction and probability, the necessity of free and spontaneous play for human meaning and joy has become more clear.
In 2023, Cambridge University Philosopher of Religion Douglas Hedley gave a series of lectures entitled The Spirit of Play in which he probed the connection between play, imagination, and divinity in dialogue with thinkers such as Friedrich Schiller, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Johan Huizinga, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
In this conversation at Harvard Divinity School, Douglas Hedley will be joined by Wayfare Editor Zachary Davis to explore the deeper meanings and possibilities of poetry, philosophy, ritual, and other forms of sacred play. The event will be followed by a dinner.
WHEN: November 24th, 6pm
WHERE: Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Ave, Cambridge, MA
Douglas Hedley is Professor of the Philosophy of Religion at Cambridge University. He was educated at Keble College, Oxford and at the University of Munich, and has previously taught at Nottingham University. He is the Director of the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Platonism and co-chair of the Platonism and Neoplatonism section of the American Academy of Religion. Dr Hedley’s work centers on concepts of imagination, violence, and the sublime, and he has published widely, from early modern philosophy—particularly the Cambridge Platonists—to Coleridge. He is the Principal Investigator for the AHRC grant on The Cambridge Platonists at the Origins of Enlightenment: Texts, Debates, and Reception (1650-1730), and is co-editor of the Series Studies in Philosophical Theology. He is a former Templeton Fellow at the University of Notre Dame, Secretary of the British Society for the Philosophy of Religion, and President of the European Society for the Philosophy of Religion. He has also held the Directeur d’études invités at the EPHE of the Sorbonne, the Alan Richardson Fellow at the Theology Department in Durham, and was Teape Lecturer in India in 2006. Dr Hedley is a highly sought-after expert in his field. In 2023, Dr Hedley delivered the inaugural Sophia Lectures at Ralston College.
