Wanderers Above the Sea of Digital Fog: A state of the discourse episode

Reading List:

• The zeitgeist is changing. A strange, romantic backlash to the tech era looms, by Ross Barkan

• Notes Toward a New Romanticism, by Ted Gioia

• The Invisible College: Modern British Literature, by John Pistelli

• The Three Segments of American Culture, by Ross Barkan

• Major Arcana: Preface, by John Pistelli

My guests on the show today are writers Ross Barkan and John Pistelli, and they’re here to help me launch something new on the podcast, which is a series of shorter episodes that are dedicated to taking stock of the state of the intellectual discourse.

I don’t have a grand schema for what means. I’ve just been reaching out to a bunch of interesting people, some of them prior guests on the podcast, and asking them to “pick one idea, writer, cultural encounter, or text that you think has been significant in the past year or so.”

My only other criterion is that I’ve asked folks to try to avoid going too directly at the culture wars topics that suck up so much energy in the discourse right now. Those topics are important, of course, and no doubt we’ll touch on many of them in the course of things, including in today’s episode, but I didn’t want to start there.

John proposed today’s texts, which are two connected essays that suggest that we may be entering, if not necessarily a new romantic age, then at least a period in which certain romantic tendencies swirl more forcefully than they have in a long time. One is Ross’s December 2023 essay in the Guardian, “The zeitgeist is changing. A strange romantic backlash to the tech era looms.” The other is “Notes Toward a New Romanticism,” a Substack essay by cultural critic Ted Gioia.

I’d add to this mix some of the writing that John has been doing on his Substack, Grand Hotel Abyss; some of Ross’s work on his Substack, Political Currents; and maybe also some of the modern British literature lectures that John has been beaming out via his substack to his paid subscribers, of whom I’m one.

Ross Barkan is the author of three books, including the novel The Night Burns Bright. He's a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine and his reporting and essays have appeared in a wide array of publications, including New York Magazine, The Nation, and the Guardian. He teaches journalism and writing at NYU. 

John Pistelli has written four novels, as well as short fiction, poetry and criticism for venues as diverse as Rain Taxi, The Millions, Tablet, and The Spectator. At his Substack, Grand Hotel Abyss, he publishes a weekly newsletter on literature and culture, serializes his latest novel, and offers independent literature courses, including on the writers of the Romantic era.