Cynthia L. Haven on René Girard, Czeslaw Milosz, and Joseph Brodsky

Conversations with Tyler

Society & Culture, Education

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 24 August 2022

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As a little girl, Cynthia Haven loved reading classic works of literature. At sixteen, she began her career as a reporter. And years later, those two interests converged as they led her to interview and write books about three writers and thinkers whom she also came to call mentors: René Girard, Czeslaw Milosz, and Joseph Brodsky.

Cynthia joined Tyler to discuss what she’s gleaned from each of the three, including what traits they have in common, why her biography of Girard had to come from outside academia, Milosz’s reaction to the Berkley Free Speech Movement, Girard’s greatest talent—and flaw—as a thinker, whether Brodsky will fall down the memory hole, why he was so terrible on Ukraine, why Cynthia’s early career was much like The Devil Wears Prada, the failings of Twitter, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

Recorded May 18th, 2022

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Conversations with Tyler is produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University,
0:09.4	bridging the gap between academic ideas and real world problems.
0:13.5	Learn more at mercatis.org.
0:16.3	For full transcript of every conversation, enhanced with helpful links, visit ConversationsWithT Tyler.com.
0:26.2	Hello everyone and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler.
0:29.7	I'm very happy today to be chatting with Cynthia Haven.
0:32.9	She is listed as a visiting scholar at Stanford, but I think of her as an independent scholar
0:38.0	in the very best sense of that term.
0:40.4	Quite recently she has published the definitive biography of René Gerard, that is called Evolution
0:45.9	of Desire, a biography of Czechoslav Miloš.
0:49.5	She has written extensively on Joseph Brodsky and is published in just about every other
0:54.3	outlet you might imagine.
0:56.2	Cynthia, welcome.
0:57.2	Thank you.
0:58.2	It's wonderful to be here.
0:59.8	If I think of three of your main interests, Gerard Brodsky from then the Soviet Union Miloš,
1:05.8	they're all individuals in exile.
1:07.7	Why are you fascinated with the theme of exile?
1:10.8	That's an interesting question.
1:11.8	I've never thought about it that way.
1:13.2	I am interested and there were three people I happen to know.
1:16.5	But that's endogenous, right?
	...

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