Podcast
Beyond the Text
Long-form conversations about the ideas, texts and historical contexts that have shaped public life.
Montaigne: Self, Doubt and Difference
Three conversations with Samuel Woodall and Jack Thomson: self-portraiture, living and dying, and cultural judgement. Episode 1 is available now. The next website companions are scheduled for 7 and 9 October at 10 pm UK.
Why Did Montaigne Make Himself His Subject?
Why did Montaigne write about himself? Explore his Essays, changing identity and self-knowledge with Samuel Woodall and Jack Thomson.
How Should We Learn to Live and Die? Montaigne on Philosophy and Experience
Explore Montaigne on death, education and everyday experience with Samuel Woodall and Jack Thomson in the second Beyond the Text conversation.
Who Gets to Call Whom Barbarous? Montaigne on Custom and Cruelty
Montaigne on custom, cruelty and cultural judgement: Samuel Woodall and Jack Thomson ask who gets to call another society barbarous.
Hobbes: the complete trilogy
All three conversations are available. Each companion includes the video, an episode-specific audio link and reading notes.
Episode 1: Who Was Thomas Hobbes and What Was He Afraid Of?
Episode 2: Why Should We Obey the State? Hobbes on Political Obligation
Episode 3: When Does Disagreement Become Faction? Hobbes on Political Division
THE JOINT PROJECT
Beyond the Text has its own dedicated home.
The full Beyond the Text website brings together the podcast, articles by Samuel and Jack, the History of Ideas Club and forthcoming seminar programmes.
Ideas in context
Beyond the Text is co-hosted by Samuel Woodall and Jack Thomson. It brings intellectual history and political philosophy into an accessible public conversation, without reducing difficult arguments to quick takes.
The title reflects a guiding conviction associated with Quentin Skinner: to understand a text, we must also recover what its author was doing in a particular political, intellectual and linguistic setting. Episodes move between close discussion of major works, interviews with scholars and conversations about why historical ideas still matter.
What you’ll hear
Scholar interviews
Conversations with historians, philosophers and public thinkers about their research, books and intellectual journeys.
Texts and traditions
Long-form explorations of political thought—from social contract theory and liberty to conservatism, revolution and existentialism.
History of Ideas Club
Recorded discussions from our reading groups, bringing classic works into conversation with students and a wider public audience.
Listen now
The player below is updated automatically with the latest episodes.
Notable conversations
Anthony Pagden
Empire, Enlightenment and the making of the modern political world.
Ritchie Robertson
The Enlightenment, its history and its continuing significance.
Denis Lacorne
Toleration, religion and the political cultures of Europe and America.
Jesse Norman
Political thought, public life and the intellectual legacy of major thinkers.
Topics and series
- Rousseau and The Social Contract
- Locke, Burke and Paine
- John Stuart Mill and liberty
- Sartre, de Beauvoir and Camus
- Hayek and the rule of law
- Rapin de Thoyras and the rage of party
Join the conversation
We welcome suggestions from scholars, authors and listeners. If you would like to propose a guest, a book or an idea for a future episode, please get in touch.