Скачать или смотреть Thomas Kendall & Christopher Zeischegg in Conversation

Author Thomas Kendall talks with Christopher Zeischegg about his novel How I Killed the Universal Man, science fiction as a philosophical form, and what it means to write against inherited ideas of progress, universality, and cultural coherence.

We discuss writing as compulsion rather than ambition, the anxiety of making work for small audiences, and the quiet erosion that happens when creative practice starts to feel like homework. Thomas reflects on curiosity as a guiding principle, the dangers of over-specialization, and how How I Killed the Universal Man interrogates Enlightenment thinking, technological rationalism, and the fantasy of a single, totalizing worldview.

We also get into contemporary literature, political and philosophical worldbuilding, interior psychology over plot, and how science fiction can be used to dismantle dominant narratives rather than reinforce them. Other topics include: creative burnout, rediscovering excitement through reading, resisting productivity metrics, the collapse of grand narratives, and why some books matter precisely because they refuse clarity, comfort, or consensus.

A thoughtful, searching, and wide-ranging conversation about art, literature, and what remains after the idea of the “universal” has been dismantled.