To finish off Season 1 of Seldon Crisis and the completion of the first book in the original trilogy, Foundation, this special episode consists of an interview with Professor of Philosophy Nathaniel Goldberg. He will discuss his long running course, Philosophy and Science Fiction, in which he asks students to compare Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy with Plato's The Republic. Professor Goldberg talks about his passion and enthusiasm for Asimov's works, including the short stories Nightfall and The Last Question, how his students react to the challenge or analyzing these great works, and the lessons he has learned from them in their essays.
Transcript: Web (Read/Listen) | PDF | MS Word
Acknowledgements:
Jeremy MacKinnon, Video Editing and Podcast Support (Linkedin | Twitter)
Tom Barnes, Theme Orchestration
Mike Topping, Graphics (Despotica)
Inspiration:
Trojan War the Podcast
Odyssey the Podcast
Literature and History Podcast
Planet and Sky, the Deeper Story (my first audio-drama podcast)
Tobias Cabrol - New Eyes review (Goodreads)
Listener Resources:
Foundation Era - Asimov Future Timeline (Youtube)
William Woolard - Asimov Chronology Project
Interview callouts:
Isaac Asimov - Nightfall (Wikipedia)
Isaac Asimov - The Last Question (Youtube)
Eric Cline - 1177 B.C., Revised Edition (Amazon)
David Deutsch - After billions of years of monotony, the universe is waking up (Youtube)
Mike Flynn - In the Country of the Blind review (Goodreads)
Transcript:
[music intro with voiceover by Nathaniel Goldberg:
“Philosophy and Science-fiction have this particular thing in common and that is that they’re both really good at thought experiments”
“The Galactic Empire is falling… so here’s a thought experiment... civilization is falling, what do we do?”
]
Welcome to a very special episode of Seldon Crisis – The Podcast! We won’t be diving in to the first chapter of Foundation and Empire, The General quite yet, so I am sorry to disappoint you on that front. Instead, we have something of an entirely different order – an actual guest appearance by someone very familiar with Foundation and Asimov who has studied the core trilogy in depth and has some special insights to offer (without breaking our no spoiler rule). Before introducing our guest, however, I want to briefly thank some of the people who have made this podcast a success beyond my wildest dreams in only a few months.
First, I want to thank someone in my own family who’s contributed more than anyone else, my own son Jeremy MacKinnon. When I started re-reading the Foundation series last summer I felt I had to share it with someone and was thrilled to find an accomplice in the joy of reading it in someone under my own roof. He started reading it before I’d even finished and read all seven volumes to my complete delight. He became a big fan of the idea of creating a podcast and lent his talents as a video editor in producing the video trailer for season 1 and designed and produced each of the mini-preview videos I’ve been posting on the Seldon Crisis video channel. He’s also been a great sounding board for podcast ideas and offers much needed
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