Martha Nussbaum And Overcoming Fear; Comic Studies And Graphic Novels

On this encore edition of The 21st: How do we overcome fear? We revisit our conversation with Martha Nussbaum about how fear is affecting our politics and political discourse, and ask what to do about it. Plus, we discussed the graphic novel adaptation of "Kindred," the difficulties of adapting a work into a comic or graphic novel, and the difference between the two.

Many people, on both sides of the political aisle, are filled with fear about the current state of our country. The solution, according to philosopher Martha Nussbaum, is to try to maintain the opposite of fear, or hope.

University of Chicago philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum’s work has explored the gamut of emotions, from love to shame to anger. And now, it’s fear. Her latest book looks at how fear is informing our politics and political discourse. Along the way, she looks at emotions like disgust and anger and how they relate to fear. And now just how that affects our democracy but even, for example, the rise in hate crimes.

Plus --

Octavia Butler’s book ‘Kindred’ is one of the most powerful American novels. It first came out in 1979 and last year it was adapted into an award-winning graphic novel.

We were joined by the two people behind the graphic novel adaptation of "Kindred" by Octavia Butler, Damian Duffy and John Jennings. Carol Tilley was also also with us. She’s the president of the Comics Studies Society and an associate professor at the University of Illinois’ School of Information Sciences.