Meet your hosts

• Agnes Callard

  Professor of Philosophy, University of Chicago

  Anges is Professor of Philosophy and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Chicago. Her first book, Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming, argues that the process of value-acquisition is a form of rational agency, and her second book, Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life, defends Socratic intellectualism. She received her B.A. from the University of Chicago in 1997 and her PhD from Berkeley in 2008. She has written publicly for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Harper's, The Atlantic, Boston Review, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.

• Tim Blake Nelson

  Actor, writer, director, producer

  Tim is an actor, writer, director, and producer who has appeared in over 100 feature films, including Lincoln, Old Henry, The Thin Red Line, Just Mercy, Minority Report, Holes, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Captain America: Brave New World, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? He has directed six feature films, O, Eye of God, The Grey Zone, Leaves of Grass, Anesthesia, and the soon-to-be-released The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd, the last five of which he also wrote and produced with his production company, Red Barn Films. His first novel, City of Blows, was published in 2023, and his second novel, Superhero, was released in 2025.