Shows / Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
I would like this podcast to start a conversation with women of all ages, convictions and styles of life – wherever situated on the gamut of experience. In principle, there is no bar to men joining in, since how one defines women has a lot to do with what it means to be a man. But it is women I invite to pull up a chair at this virtual café table and put their questions and views into the conversation. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City…
Episodes
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Hundreds of People
My private walled-in house is whirling through the high winds. We’re not in Kansas any more. . . Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Men Worth Remembering
About the first insight: my father had always been quite mysterious to me. I’d gone into philosophy partly to try and understand him. Now at last, it seems, I…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Selling Yourself
What I fear is taking the real, unmasked me into a wider arena – or trying to. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
The Unconscious
.It’s Da King. Not Elvis. The Unconscious is the biggest thing around. Everything – everything you can mention – is under its iron heel. . . Abigail L…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Heroes and Patriots
When I heard that the American ambassador to Libya had been killed in a surprise attack on an U.S. embassy outpost in Benghazi, I felt it very much, as a wound…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Chivalry
I cannot advise anyone as to whose election to the presidency of the United States would be worse for the future of the republic. About that, I have no special…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
The Moral Drama of the World
When I focus my mind on the new anti-semitism, I see only evil, sui generis, immemorial, incurable as a human phenomenon and perennially prepared to spring its…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
When Animals Talk Back
Well, first of all, I’m a pretty literal girl. I never take things metaphorically or symbolically if there’s a literal way to take them. I try not to regard…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
The Completed ‘Confessions of a Young Philosopher'
I finished a life work. I mean, finished it to my satisfaction. It’s done – as I always hoped it could be. . . . Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
End Time
So what is this end time thing? By the way, don’t get me wrong. I’m just as susceptible to it as the next fella. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
The Case of Patricia Hearst
Usually, when I write the weekly column for “Dear Abbie,” I’m in a reasonably upbeat state of mind, but I’m moved to write this one by anger and indignation…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Sex and Porn
“Dear Abbie” was launched a few years back because I knew – having known some women who had it – that there is an art to being a woman. Abigail L. Rosenthal is…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
You CAN Go Home Again
Usually I wear sunglasses, because I don’t like the real colors of the world. In Downeast, I took them off. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
The Big Picture
Why Do We Need Philosophy? Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York. She is the author of A…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
The Real World
Is there a real world? There are those who deny it, and they are not the smallest fry in the ranks of the influential. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
A Forgotten Detour
As I finished the chapter of Confessions of a Young Philosopher that’s about my years as a graduate student at the Columbia University and Penn State…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Reminder To Tune In On Thursdays!
Join us Thursday, March 22 as my podcast will now be weekly on Thursdays only. Thank you so much for listening!
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Special Announcement!
Dear Listeners -my podcast is moving to Thursdays only! Listen now for the details . Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Getting Real
We continue with real life conversations with Jessica Cortes, my friend and creative helper. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Abigail Unrehearsed Continues
We continue with real life conversations with Jessica Cortes, my friend and creative helper discussing my upcoming book Confessions of a Young Philosopher…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Abigail Unrehearsed
Unrehearsed in real life conversations with Jessica Cortes, my friend and creative helper. Here’s what goes on off stage when we talk about themes in my…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
For Rabbi Delcau, July 8th, 2016
He didn’t try to prove that God exists. He knows enough to know that enterprise is not a fruitful one. In the sunshine of his own natural faith, we classmates…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Peace in the Eye of the Storm
Today in morning meditation I noticed a sense of large-scale peacefulness in me. (Don’t worry, friends. It’ll pass, it’ll pass! I’ll still be me.) Abigail L…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
God and Biography
When my journal entry doesn’t give me answers to the questions of my day, I sometimes ask myself: What would it have been like for me to live the same events…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Marriage
My belief is that there is no biochemical or compatibility criterion for happy marriages. The right marriage is beshert, destined. Abigail L. Rosenthal is…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Proof of Heaven
When my father was dying, and apparently in some sort of coma, he and I had several nonverbal communications of the most profound sort. In one of them, I got…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Abandonment
Léo Bronstein, my father’s best friend and a kind of mentor and godfather to me, said, after reading an earlier draft of my memoir – “Abigail has always felt…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Broken Pieces
I’ve never read Kafka and don’t want to, because I prefer happy endings. Elizabeth Bennett should marry Mr. Darcy, Peter Pan should never have to grow up, and…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Coping With Men
Meanwhile, on our national movie screen, the Courtship of the American Woman Voter is playing. We are being asked to say “yes” to one of the two presumptive…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Rudeness
BRING BACK GOOD MANNERS. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York. She is the author of A…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Personality
Why then do I now question the view I’ve long held: that people live and die by ideas? Apart from physical necessities, what else is there? There is…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Grace Under Pressure
Four years ago, I’d participated in the year-long search to find our new rabbi after the previous incumbent decided to move ahead to greener pastures. . . …
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
The Gang's All Here
I’ve always liked to be in situations where the whole gang was here. . .
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Unwrapping the Gift of the Jews
What’s the gift of the Jews? It’s to live with God chronologically. Is that all? Is that anything? Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Michael Wyschogrod
When the Jewish Review of Books arrived, I noticed with pleasure the cover article,“Michael Wyschogrod and the Challenge of God’s Scandalous Love.” Good! I…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Landscapes of the Heart
When we first moved to Bucks County, I used to go into New York once a week to “get my identity back.” . . . Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Final Proofs
He’d been working in D.C., living in Alexandria with me as newly-wed wife, running a higher ed organization and pretty much minding his own business when he ……
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Nostalgia and Yearning
For most of my life, I’ve lived under a low-hanging cloud of yearning. The Germans call it Sehnsucht. It’s romantic longing for a fog-enshrouded…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Birthday
The way you can tell that “I” don’t choose these topics (but respond – as if to an inner prompt) is instanced here: why would anyone (over twenty one) choose…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Philosophical Gossip
A powerful thinker wrestles with questions that are in the air, arising partly from the cultural or historical circumstances that surround him or her. But…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Put-Downs
In my early days in the profession, I used reflexively to say out loud, at every opportunity, that I was not a bona fide expert in whatever subject I was…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Where Are We Now?
What was and is the link between one’s work and one’s life? There must be a correlation. Even if one’s activity is just whittling down a stick, the whittler…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
A Philosopher’s and a Woman’s Place
The Woman Question (as it was called in the nineteenth century) was always a real question for me. The accomplished women philosophers of my youth had no…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
The Suffering Of the Situation
My own experience tells me that the Biblical period is not exactly over. By that I mean that things still happen, between us and God, somewhat like the things…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
What the Fortune Cookie said
“What the Fortune Cookie Said” In the last few weeks, whenever we’ve brought home supper from the Chinese take-out place, and opened the fortune cookie, mine…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
The Politics of Ideas
They say you are what you eat, but it’s been my experience that you are what you believe. People live and die for the ideas they believe to be true. What is…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Style
So many of the hurdles, which form impassible barriers to some, can be cleared at a bound with the right style. I say this because, in important cases, I have…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Living in History
That’s a theme of mine, though it’s easier to give the theme a name than to say exactly what it means. I can hone in on it by at least by saying what it’s not…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Jews and Christmas
So Jews and Christmas? What do I think of it all? Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Getting Thrown
One time, in my riding days in Downeast Maine, I went trotting up and down the neighborhood of Back Bay Road in search of the people who owned our right-of-way…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Thankfulness
It seemed to me that, if I were to get to real thankfulness, a kind of archeological dig would be needed, digging down to some original layer of self. . …
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Where is God?
Over the four-day period of our trip, while attending to one task or another, a number of people we encountered talked about how kids nowadays lack RE-SPECT…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Looking Out for Number One
Quoted in full, Rabbi Hillel’s famous saying goes like this: If I am not for myself, who will be? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Gossip
Slander is always believed. Even more so if it’s in print. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Reality and Unreality
Reality or unreality? Can we tell which is which? When does it matter? Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Fighting the Good Fight
When does the bugle blow? What’s the signal for the fight? I can’t give a rule. But there are fights that have one’s name on them. Abigail L. Rosenthal is…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Home Away From Home
What’s this got to do with “home”? Is “home” a place? Is it the earthly Jerusalem? Or is it a heavenly Jerusalem, more like a state of mind? Abigail L…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Ain't I a Person?
What’s a person? Am I a person? All the time? Is God? What’s going on when people say yes or no to questions like that? Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Meta-Narratives
There is a French post-modern philosopher who writes, “I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives.” By that is meant, there is no large story –…
- Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast
Unhappiness
If you’re anything like me, unhappiness is doled out in measures of vulnerability. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of…