The Bat of Minerva is a regional cable interview show produced and directed by Peter Shea, who received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Minnesota and has worked as an instructor at Gustavus Adolphus College and Minnesota State University in Mankato.
On Thoughtful Lives
For about 14 years, the Bat of Minerva has featured thoughtful people–scholars, activists, artists, farmers–talking about their life journeys, trajectories, stumblings. From these conversations, hints emerge about the landscape of the academy and the world outside, the varieties of scholarly and thoughtful lives. The interviews also communicate a strong sense of the energy or passion or even which annoyance keeps creative people thinking and working, year after year.
Watch the Bat
The Bat airs at midnight between Saturday and Sunday on Minneapolis/Saint Paul regional channel 6, serving the Twin Cities metro area. Over the years, many IAS collaborators, fellows and guests have been interviewed and their conversations with Peter Shea can be viewed in their entirety. Also now available is an A to Z listing of all University of Minnesota faculty who have been interviewed on the Bat of Minerva.
Most Recent Interview
This talk is also available as an audio download (.mp3 – 55.0 MB) or as a video podcast (.m4v – 309.7 MB).
Pick from the Archive
Roger Hart is a professor of History and Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He works in Chinese history and the history of science, specializing in the history of Chinese mathematics. He is currently working on an online sourcebook, “Early History of Linear Algebra: Chinese Sources,” and Western Learning” in Seventeenth-Century China: A Microhistorical Approach to World History. Here, he’s interviewed during a visit to the University of Minnesota in November of 2007 to discuss the Global Middle Ages Project (G-MAP).
The interview can also be downloaded as a video podcast (123.8 MB) or as an audio file (.mp3 – 53.6 MB).