A Rumor of Empathy How Things Were Done in Odessa

May 20, 2015
Hosted by Lou Agosta

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Guest Information

Episode Description

Join Lou for a conversation with Jonathan Brent, Executive Director of Yivo about how things were done in Odessa. This refers to a celebrated story by Isaac Babel. In 1925, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research was founded in Vilna (Wilno, Poland; now Vilnius, Lithuania), by key European intellectuals, including Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, to record the history and pioneer in the critical study of the language, literature and culture of the Jews of Eastern Europe. From its inception, YIVO was deeply concerned that the language and culture of East European Jewry were undergoing radical change in a rapidly modernizing world. YIVO's founders were tireless in collecting the documents and archival records of Jewish communities across Eastern Europe, years before anyone could have predicted the devastation that would befall them. Join Lou and Jonathan for an amazing conversation about the work being done at Yivo and about Jon's pending biography of Soviet-Jewish writer Isaac Babel.

A Rumor of Empathy

Archives Available on VoiceAmerica Empowerment Channel

A Rumor of Empathy is committed to providing a gracious and generous listening, empathy, in conversation with its guests and listeners. Join the host in chasing down and confirming or debunking an unsubstantiated report of empathy in the community and engaging in an on the air conversation in transforming human struggle and suffering into meaningful relationships, satisfying results and contribution to the community. When one is really listened to empathically and heard in one’s struggle and effort, then something shifts. Possibilities open up that were hidden in plain view. Action that makes a difference occurs so that empathy becomes less of a rumor and an expanded reality in your life and in the community. When all the philosophical arguments and psychological back-and-forth are over and done, in empathy, one is quite simply in the presence of another human being. Join Lou for an empowering conversation in which empathy is made present.

Lou Agosta

Lou Agosta’s commitment is to provide a gracious and generous listening empathy, in conversation with his guests on the show and the empathy consulting and psychotherapy work he performs with individual and corporate clients. Graduating as an unemployed philosopher from the University of Chicago with a Ph.D. on Empathy and Interpretation, Lou trained in data management technology and consulted in technology with Blue Cross of Illinois, Greenbrier and Russel, Giga Information Group, and IBM before realizing that the world does not need more data, the world needs expanded empathy. After undergoing over ten years of psychoanalyses, dynamic psychotherapy, and related training to recover from childhood and adolescent traumas, Lou teaches empathy in the history and systems of psychology at Argosy University. He is the author of three books on empathy from Palgrave Macmillan including A Rumor of Empathy: Resistance, Narrative, and Recovery, forthcoming from Routledge. Lou says that when all the philosophical arguments and psychological labels are over and done, in empathy, a person is quite simply in the presence of another human being. Join Lou and be present for an empowering conversation in which empathy is made present and makes a difference.

Episode Directory

July 2015

June 2015

May 2015

  • 5/27/2015: Empathy, Self-Esteem, and Neuropsychological Challenges Listen Now
  • 5/20/2015: A Rumor of Empathy How Things Were Done in Odessa Listen Now
  • 5/13/2015: Human Rights and Empathy - Philosophy and Fiction? Listen Now
  • 5/6/2015: How to Know if You Are in an Abusive Relationship: The War Against Domestic Violence Listen Now


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