Welcome to Chomsky-World (w/ Bev Stohl)

Current Affairs

This episode originally aired on August 22, 2024. Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs!

Bev Stohl ran Noam Chomsky's office for over two decades. In her wonderful book Chomsky and Me(OR Books) she discusses the sometimes chaotic, never boring inside of Chomsky-world, with thousands of correspondents and visitors from around the world descending on a cramped MIT office laden with books and papers. She joins today to talk about her decades working with the most-cited living intellectual and keeping his life organized. She addresses the question so many have wondered: how did he manage to answer everyone's emails, in addition to publishing over 100 books and giving thousands of lectures?

My mind's eye lit up with images of Noam’s body hunching, hands hammering out thesis drafts, editorial letters, articles, statements of solidarity, petitions, lectures, professional correspondence, recommendation letters, arguments, and email. For decades. On countless keyboards. On manual and electric typewriters, then word processors, then progressively streamlined and ergonomically correct wireless keyboards, all the way to the smaller keys of his compact laptop, none of which cramped his fingers or hurt his wrists. His body, unlike mine, seemed to be built for endless typing. - Bev Stohl, Chomsky and Me