Teresa Bejan is Associate Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Oriel College. Her book, Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration (Harvard University Press) examines contemporary calls for civility in light of seventeenth-century debates about religious toleration in England and America. Many of the pressing questions facing liberal democracies today—such as what the proper scope of religious liberty should be, or how to handle partisanship and hate speech—closely recall early modern concerns about the limits of toleration and so-called “persecution of the tongue.”

In this episode, Teresa talks to Elizabeth about her book, the importance of building resilience when being confronted with ideas different from our own, and why not having a thick skin when it comes to critique, might be a good thing.