Can society have a common interest? With Professor Jacob Sider Jost

Send us Fan Mail Can society have a common interest when everyone has interests of their own? Samuel Woodall and Jack Thomson welcome Professor Jacob Sider Jost, Professor and Chair of English at Dickinson College, for an audio-only conversation about the many meanings of interest in eighteenth-century life. Beginning with Robinson Crusoe, we explore how a single word connected money, storytelling, political allegiance, friendship and patronage. Lord Hervey's memoirs reveal a world of personal networks, while Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative brings emotional involvement, financial independence and the abolitionist cause into conversation. We ask when connections become exclusion, whose interests count as the common good, and whether self-interest must be selfish. The discussion closes with Adam Smith, sociability and the desire to be worthy of other people's approval. Hosted by Samuel Woodall and Jack Thomson. Guest: Professor Jacob Sider Jost. JACOB'S BOOK Jacob Sider Jost, Interest and Connection in the Eighteenth Century: Hervey, Johnson, Smith, Equiano (University of Virginia Press, 2020). https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/5566/ FURTHER READING DISCUSSED Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719). Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789). J. A. W. Gunn, Politics and the Public Interest in the Seventeenth Century (1969). Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and The Wealth of Nations (1776). Explore Beyond the Text: https://beyondthetext.co.uk The Intellectual Historian: https://theintellectualhistorian.com CHAPTERS 00:00 Welcome and the question of common interest 01:21 Robinson Crusoe and two kinds of interest 05:21 Interest across eighteenth-century life 10:14 Method, selfishness and self-interest 17:33 Lord Hervey, patronage and networks 23:29 Human scale, merit and life writing 29:04 Equiano's Interesting Narrative 34:26 Groups, loyalty and nationalism 39:41 Whose interests count as the common good? 47:49 Adam Smith, sociability and recognition 49:53 Closing thanks Support the show