Peter speaks to the philosopher Edward S. Casey about the philosophy of place and the ecology of emotion, drawing insights from Casey’s book Turning Emotion Inside Out: Affective Life Beyond the Subject (Northwestern University Press, 2021). Central to their discussion is the concept of eco-affectivity, the idea that emotions are deeply rooted in and shaped by our environment. Why then does place matter today? Where do emotions come from? How are our hearts and minds already embedded in the landscape that surrounds us? To what extent is an emotion an environmentally oriented phenomenon? These questions guide a broader reflection on how art can reveal the emotional atmosphere of place in ways that language alone cannot.

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Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction

(00:35) Who is Ed Casey?

(07:32) How Casey’s upbringing influenced his ideas on place

(11:22) Why place matters

(18:24) How our sense of place is heightened by illness

(22:50) To what extent is a landscape an extension of the body?

(27:30) Where do emotions come from?

(40:05) Remembering Mikel Dufrenne

(45:00) The extraversion of emotion

(53:41) The problem with subjective accounts of emotion

(58:22) How is the emotional atmosphere of place shaped by the artist’s state of mind?

(1:08:05) Is the pictorial view of the world the same space that our bodies live, feel and experience?

(1:18:19) The historical dimension of emotion

Peter interviews the philosopher Erin Plunkett about the 20th-century Czech thinker Jan Patočka, exploring how his thought can help guide us through the problems of truth and beauty in the 21st century. Erin is currently Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Hertfordshire. She is a co-editor of The Selected Writings of Jan Patočka: Care for the Soul, published in 2022 by Bloomsbury.

Patreon: ⁠https://www.patreon.com/thelandbehind⁠

Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/thelandbehindpodcast

Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction

(00:42) Who is Erin Plunkett?

(04:04) Who was Jan Patočka?

(08:40) Patočka as a philosophical hero

(12:03) The best way to think about Patočka’s thought

(17:20) Meaning as disclosure

(18:03) Patočka’s phenomenology

(21:30) Aletheia

(31:25) The Solidarity of the Shaken

(35:14) The relationship between philosophy and art

(48:48) The essence of art before it has been institutionalised

(52:21) Truth, Beauty and Goodness

(1:00:46) Beauty and the Limits of Truth

(1:07:40) How to Identify the Truth in 2024

Peter speaks to the author and researcher Kat Hill about bothies and what they can teach us about histories of dwelling and place. Kat is the author of Bothy: In Search of Simple Shelter, published in 2024 by William Collins.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelandbehind

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelandbehindpodcast

Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction

(00:58) Who is Kat Hill?

(04:03) What is a bothy?

(05:08) How did your interest in bothies begin?

(09:18) What happens to old bothy guestbooks?

(11:16) When did you decide to write a book about bothies?

(14:08) What was the development of the book like?

(16:21) Why did you choose the title?

(18:42) How did bothies open a space for you to better understand yourself?

(23:58) What is it that defines a bothy?

(26:22) When we emphasise a bothy as a place of retreat what kind of meaning is being lost?

(28:59) What can the military history of Cape Wrath tell us about the meaning of wilderness?

(34:00) How can bothies help guide us through the environmental questions of our age?

(38:49) What can bothies tell us about what it means to dwell?

(44:06) How can bothies help inform new architectural models?

(53:20) Sandy, the Cape Wrath Hermit of Strathchailleach Bothy

(57:18) How can bothies open up the skies for us?