Length: 60 minutes
Link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/monumental/id1709713467?i=1000646871775
Ashley C Ford is the host of this podcast. The name caught my attention when looking through podcasts to listen to. In the recent past there has been a lot of discussion about monuments and several monuments have been removed, so I wanted to see how this podcast addressed the issue.
The episode I listened to was Bringing Monuments Home. It focused mainly on the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery Alabama. I felt like the episode was too long and would have been better served as three separate podcasts.
The beginning focused more on how designers create monuments and how abstract art seems to be in fashion currently as Ford notes “Whatever you bring to the space becomes what the space is about.”
Next was the meat of the podcast documenting Fords trip to Montgomery. There are several clips of interviews with people associated with the monument.
Finally there is the third segment that addresses technology and monuments. It discusses Apps like Kinfolk that will allow you to visit a spot and see an AR (augmented Reality) image of a monument that has never been built.
If each segment had been its own 30 podcast I probably would have been interested in listening more but as a 1 hour podcast it didn’t capture my attention and make me want to listen again. I will not be adding this podcast to my library.
William Wilberforce has been called an agitator for his commitment to ending the slave trade. One of his well known speeches on the subject was given on May 12, 1789.
Cardinal Richelieu has been hailed as a great statesman and as a subversive authoritarian. Depending on who you talk to he was a man needed to strengthen the monarchy in France, or he was a tyrant seeking personal power. Next week I will have a book review that may shed more light on Cardinal Richelieu.
When Lenin was working on his major writing projects he would often pace across the room formulating the ideas that he would write down by saying them out loud. Once he had the idea for what he wanted to write he would often repeat the idea to Nadezhda Krupskaya, who would provide feedback. Once this process was complete he would then write the ideas down.
Here is an AI rendering of what that might have looked like when he was drafting What is to be Done.
This month this community will focus on political subversion. What is subversion? When is it justified? What is the interplay between subversion and agitation? These are some of the topics to be discussed this month.
“You get used to the despot’s shortcomings, when they are not great vices, and the change of an autocratic ruler leads to involuntary fear.”
Sergei Trubetskoi
