What does it mean to be alone? Is aloneness, as Thoreau said, necessary to live deliberately? Or is it perhaps a curse of modern life made worse by mass media and cultural fragmentation? In this episode, American Studies scholar Ina Bergmann talks about the cultures of solitude in past and present. 

MindPop

MindPop 39: Solitude

A podcast about ideas, politics, and culture. Each episode, David Sehat and his guests break down the questions of the day with a bigger picture perspective. If you want engaging discussion with interesting thinkers, welcome to MindPop. About the host: David Sehat normally teaches history at Georgia State University but this year is the John G. Winant Visiting Professor of American Government at the University of Oxford. He is also the author of The Jefferson Rule (2015) and The Myth of American Religious Freedom (2011).