Ada Palmer on Viking Metaphysics, Contingent Moments, and Censorship
Conversations with Tyler
Conversations with Tyler
4.8 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 4 October 2023
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ada Palmer is a Renaissance historian at the University of Chicago who studies radical free thought and censorship, composes music, consults on anime and manga, and is the author of the acclaimed Terra Ignota sci-fi series, among many other things.
Tyler sat down with Ada to discuss why living in the Renaissance was worse than living during the Middle Ages, how art protected Florence, why she’s reluctant to travel back in time, which method of doing history is currently the most underrated, whose biography she’ll write, how we know what old Norse music was like, why women scholars helped us understand Viking metaphysics, why Diderot's Jacques the Fatalist is an interesting work, what people misunderstand about the inquisition(s), why science fiction doesn’t have higher social and literary status, which hive she would belong to in Terra Ignota, what the new novel she’s writing is about, and more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.
Recorded June 28th, 2023.
Other ways to connect
- Follow us on X and Instagram
- Follow Tyler on X
- Follow Ada on X
- Join our Discord
- Email us: [email protected]
- Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.
Photo Credit: Jason Smith
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Conversations with Tyler is produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, |
| 0:09.5 | bridging the gap between academic ideas and real world problems. |
| 0:13.6 | Learn more at mercatis.org. |
| 0:16.4 | For full transcript of every conversation, enhanced with helpful links, visit ConversationsWithTylar.com. |
| 0:25.7 | Hello, everyone, and welcome back to ConversationsWithTylar. |
| 0:29.4 | Today I'm chatting with Ada Palmer. |
| 0:32.1 | Ada Palmer is a difficult person to introduce, and in part I wanted to do this episode, |
| 0:36.9 | so I can introduce her better. |
| 0:39.2 | But let me tell you what I have now. |
| 0:41.2 | She's the author of an acclaimed four-volume series of science fiction novels, |
| 0:46.6 | known as Tera Ignota. |
| 0:48.5 | The first and most famous volume is Two Like the Lightning. |
| 0:52.4 | But that's really just the beginning of what she's about. |
| 0:54.9 | She is a tenured historian at the University of Chicago in the History Department. |
| 1:00.8 | She studies the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, radical free thought, |
| 1:04.8 | the history of censorship, information revolutions. |
| 1:08.5 | Oh, and by the way, her science fiction series was nominated for the Hugo Award for best series in 2022. |
| 1:15.4 | She composes music as well and participates in performing it. |
| 1:19.6 | She has a Viking mythology cycle called Sundown Whispers of Ragnarok. |
| 1:25.2 | She studies anime and manga, especially Osama Tizuka, post-World War II manga and feminist manga. |
| 1:32.5 | She consults for anime and manga publishers, blogs at xurbe.com. |
| 1:37.8 | That's exurbe.com, and she can be supported at Patreon just by googling Ada Palmer Patreon. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Conversations with Tyler, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Conversations with Tyler and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.