Literary Studies

Literary Studies

episodes

Interviews with scholars of literature about their new books.

Rachel Gordan, "Postwar Stories: How Books Made Judaism American" (Oxford UP, 2024)

March 18, 2024

Postwar Stories

Rachel Gordan
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

The period immediately following World War II was an era of dramatic transformation for Jews in America. At the start of the 1940s, President Roosevel…

Umme Al-wazedi and Afrin Zeenat, "Veil Obsessed: Representations in Literature, Art, and Media" (Syracuse UP, 2024)

March 17, 2024

Veil Obsessed

Umme Al-wazedi and Afrin Zeenat
Hosted by Shobhana Xavier

In their edited volume Veil Obsessed: Representations in Literature, Art, and Media (Syracuse University Press, 2024), Umme Al-wazedi and Afrin Zeenat…

Anna Kornbluh, "Immediacy: Or, The Style of Too Late Capitalism" (Verso, 2024)

March 17, 2024

Immediacy

Anna Kornbluh
Hosted by David Maruzzella

What is the status of art and culture in a world dominated by apps, algorithms, and influencers? Anna Kornbluh’s newest book Immediacy, Or the Style o…

Eva De Clercq, ed. and trans., "The Life of Padma" (Harvard UP, 2023)

March 15, 2024

The Life of Padma, Volume 2

Eva De Clercq, ed. and trans.
Hosted by Kshitij Jain

The Life of Padma, or the Paümacariu, is a richly expressive Jain retelling in the Apabhramsha language of the famous Ramayana tale. It was written by…

Amy Lidster and Sonia Massai, "Shakespeare at War: A Material History" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

March 15, 2024

Shakespeare at War

Amy Lidster and Sonia Massai

Presenting engaging, thought-provoking stories across centuries of military activity, Shakespeare at War: A Material History (Cambridge UP, 2023) demo…

Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, "The Inhumans and Other Stories: A Selection of Bengali Science Fiction" (MIT Press, 2024)

March 13, 2024

The Inhumans and Other Stories

Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Kalpavigyan—science fiction written to excite Bengali speakers about science, as well as to persuade them to evolve beyond the limitations of religion…

Korey Garibaldi, "Impermanent Blackness: The Making and Unmaking of Interracial Literary Culture in Modern America" (Princeton UP, 2023)

March 13, 2024

Impermanent Blackness

Korey Garibaldi

In Impermanent Blackness: The Making and Unmaking of Interracial Literary Culture in Modern America (Princeton UP, 2023), Korey Garibaldi explores int…

Rebecca Rego Barry, "The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells" (Post Hill Press, 2024)

March 12, 2024

The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells

Rebecca Rego Barry
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells: Investigations into a Forgotten Mystery Author (PostHill Press, 2024) by Rebecca Rego Barry is the first biography of …

Amy Paeth, "The American Poet Laureate" A History of U.S. Poetry and the State" (Columbia UP, 2023)

March 11, 2024

The American Poet Laureate

Amy Paeth
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

The American Poet Laureate: A History of U.S. Poetry and the State (Columbia University Press, 2023) by Dr. Amy Paeth shows how the state has been the…

Jad Adams, "Decadent Women: Yellow Book Lives" (Reaktion Books, 2023)

March 10, 2024

Decadent Women

Jad Adams
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Decadent Women: Yellow Book Lives (Reaktion, 2023) by Jad Adams chronicles the vibrant and passionate women who wrote for the 1890s journal The Yellow…

Jeremy Black, "The Age of Nightmare: The Gothic and British Culture, 1750-1900" (St. Augustine's Press, 2022)

March 9, 2024

The Age of Nightmare

Jeremy Black
Hosted by Charles Coutinho

Historian Jeremy Black is comprehensive, as ever, but in his treatment of the British Gothic novel his greatest service is the preservation of the det…

Dune, Part Two: An Interview with Dr. Kara Kennedy

March 8, 2024

Dune, Part Two

Kara Kennedy
Hosted by Maggie Freeman

Part Two of director Denis Villeneuve’s Dune films embeds viewers among the Fremen, the Indigenous inhabitants of the planet Arrakis. The sole source …

AGNI magazine: A Discussion with Sven Birkerts

March 7, 2024

AGNI magazine

Sven Birkerts
Hosted by Dan Hill

Sven Birkerts is the co-editor of AGNI magazine, an essayist, and a literary critic perhaps best known for his book The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of…

Leona Toker, "Gulag Literature and the Literature of Nazi Camps: An Intercontexual Reading" (Indiana UP, 2019)

March 6, 2024

Gulag Literature and the Literature of Nazi Camps

Leona Toker
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

Devoted to the ways in which Holocaust literature and Gulag literature provide contexts for each other, Leona Toker's Gulag Literature and the Literat…

Angie Chau, "Paris and the Art of Transposition: Early Twentieth Century Sino-French Encounters" (U Michigan Press, 2023)

March 6, 2024

Paris and the Art of Transposition

Angie Chau
Hosted by Victoria Lupascu

A brief stay in France was, for many Chinese workers and Chinese Communist Party leaders, a vital stepping stone for their careers during the cultura…

Jessica Hooten Wilson, "Flannery O'Connor's 'Why Do the Heathen Rage?' A Behind-the-Scenes Look at a Work in Progress" (Brazos Press, 2024)

March 5, 2024

Flannery O'Connor's 'Why Do the Heathen Rage?'

Jessica Hooten Wilson
Hosted by Daniel Moran

When celebrated American novelist and short story writer Flannery O’Connor died at the age of thirty-nine in 1964, she left behind an unfinished thi…

Baidik Bhattacharya, "Colonialism, World Literature, and the Making of the Modern Culture of Letters" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

March 5, 2024

Colonialism, World Literature, and the Making of the Modern Culture of Letters

Baidik Bhattacharya

In a radical and ambitious reconceptualization of the field, Colonialism, World Literature, and the Making of the Modern Culture of Letters (Cambridge…

Roseen Giles, "Monteverdi and the Marvellous: Poetry, Sound, and Representation" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

March 4, 2024

Monteverdi and the Marvellous

Roseen Giles
Hosted by Kate Driscoll

The marvellous, a key concept in literary debates at the turn of the seventeenth century, involved sensory and perspectival transformation, a rhetoric…

Close Reading

March 2, 2024

Close Reading

Jonathan Kramnick

In this episode of High Theory, Jonathan Kramnick talks about Close Reading. Contrary to the name, it is less a form of slow or focused reading than a…

Marchella Ward, "Blindness and Spectatorship in Ancient and Modern Theatres: Towards New Ways of Looking and Looking Back" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

March 1, 2024

Blindness and Spectatorship in Ancient and Modern Theatres

Marchella Ward
Hosted by Corinne Doria

The use of disability as a metaphor is ubiquitous in popular culture – nowhere more so than in the myths, stereotypes and tropes around blindness. To …