24. An Economy of Bodies: Nietzsche, Sex, and Beauty.
- Author
- Jimmy Burke
- Published
- Tue 09 Sep 2025
- Episode Link
- None
Special Episode: An Economy of Bodies – Nietzsche, Sex, Beauty, and the Will to Power
This week’s episode is something different. I’m sharing the recording of my presentation at the annual Friedrich Nietzsche Society conference at Queen's University in Belfast (6th September). My paper, An Economy of Bodies, brings Nietzsche’s philosophy into dialogue with evolutionary psychology and behavioural science to explore sex, beauty, culture, social status, destiny, and what Nietzsche calls “ascending life.”
Though delivered in an academic setting, the ideas here cut straight into lived experience: why we find bodies beautiful, how our aesthetic sensibility shapes culture, and how power, desire, and valuation work at the most basic human level in our most primal impulses.
I’ll be developing this work into a concise, practical guide soon, but for now, here’s the raw presentation that set the discussion in motion.
Next episode will be our season finale released on the 26th September, slightly out of kilter with our regular schedule due to the Belfast conference. It's going to be a scorcher. Do not miss it!
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