Enlightened By Love: The LIfe and Thought of Simone Weil

This series was first  broadcast in 2002.  Inspired by the admiration Canadian philosopher George Grant felt for her, I began reading Simone Weil in the 1980's and have never really stopped since.   The first programme of the set gives an account of Weil's short life - she was only 34 when she died in England in 1943 - and the remaining four take up her ideas.  Because  I wanted listeners to be aware that they were listening to the thoughts of a young woman, I asked my daughter Kate, then 24, to read the selections I had made from Weil's works.   I was scolded afterwards for doing this and told that even her superb performance did not mitigate the appearance of nepotism.  I responded, in vain, that Felipe Alou who managed his son Moises with the Montreal Expos and the San Francisco Giants played the kid because he was a great outfielder, not because he was his son.  I like Kate's reading as much today as when she did it and think this series provides a good introduction to Weil's thought...

Markets and Society: the Life and Thought of Karl Polanyi

Karl Polanyi started a revolution in economic anthropology when he argued, in The Great Transformation and subsequent books, that the modern market is a modern invention, and not a natural growth from primordial roots, as the liberal tradition had supposed.  This five-hour series about him was first broadcast on Ideas in 2005.  Using readings from Polanyi's work, the reminiscences of family and friends, and the comments of contemporary Polanyi scholars, it traces his life and thought from his childhood in 19th century Budapest to his final days in southern Ontario.  A final programme examines his contemporary legacy.