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Literary Studies
High Theory April 1, 2022

Welcome to High Theory!

Kim Adams and Soronik Bosu

Hosted by Kim Adams and Saronik Bosu
Welcome to High Theory! High Theory is a podcast in which we get high on the substance of theory. And we ask the three standard questions, to each other, and …

Literary Studies

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Interviews with scholars of literature about their new books.

African American Studies August 11, 2022

Or, on Being the Other Woman

Simone White

Hosted by Brittney Edmonds
In or, on being the other woman (Duke UP, 2022), Simone White considers the dynamics of contemporary black feminist life. Throughout this book-length poem, White writes through a hybrid of …
Burned by Books August 9, 2022

Vladimir

A Novel

Julia May Jonas

Hosted by Chris Holmes
Julia May Jonas is a writer, director, and the founder of theater company Nellie Tinder.  She has taught at Skidmore College and NYU and lives in Brooklyn with her family …
General History August 9, 2022

The Literacy Myth

Cultural Integration and Social Structure in the Nineteenth Century

Harvey J. Graff

Hosted by Nathan Moore
Harvey Graff's pioneering study presents a new and original interpretation of the place of literacy in nineteenth-century society and culture. Based upon an intensive comparative historical analysis, employing both qualitative …
Writ Large August 9, 2022

On Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God"

A Discussion with Joshua Bennett

Joshua Bennett

Hosted by Zachary Davis
Zora Neale Hurston was an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance, but her novels didn’t conform to the style of her contemporaries. As a result, her work was almost lost—until …
Literary Studies August 8, 2022

Decolonising the Conrad Canon

Alice M. Kelly

Hosted by Gargi Binju
With the pressing work of decolonising our reading lists gaining traction in UK higher educational contexts, Decolonising the Conrad Canon (Liverpool UP, 2022) shows how those author-Gods most associated with …
Burned by Books August 5, 2022

The Last White Man

A Novel

Mohsin Hamid

Hosted by Chris Holmes
Mohsin Hamid is the author of five novels -- The Last White Man, Exit West, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and Moth Smoke -- …
Literary Studies August 5, 2022

Spoon River America

Edgar Lee Masters and the Myth of the American Small Town

Jason Stacy

Hosted by Daniel Moran
A literary and cultural milestone, Spoon River Anthology captured an idea of the rural Midwest that became a bedrock myth of life in small-town America. Jason Stacy places the book …
Disability Studies August 5, 2022

Elusive Kinship

Disability and Human Rights in Postcolonial Literature

Christopher Krentz

Hosted by Autumn Wilke
Dr. Christopher Krentz is an Associate Professor at the University of Virginia, where he has a joint appointment with the departments of English and American Sign Language. He is also …
Writ Large August 5, 2022

On Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass"

A Discussion with Elisa New

Elisa New

Hosted by Zachary Davis
“These United States are themselves the greatest poem.” When Walt Whitman wrote this line, he was an unknown Brooklyn newspaper man. But his work would transform American poetry and offer …
Art August 5, 2022

Shelf Documents

Art Library as Practice

Heide Hinrichs and Jo-Ey Tang

Hosted by Pierre d'Alancaisez
How can a library change the world? How can an art library change the art school or the gallery? Or even an art practice? In Shelf Documents: Art Library as …
Writ Large August 4, 2022

On "The Story of the Stone"

A Discussion with Ronald Egan

Ronald Egan

Hosted by Zachary Davis
The 1750s are remembered as a high point of China's Qing Dynasty: a time of power, prestige, and social harmony. But The Story of the Stone paints a different picture …
Literary Studies August 3, 2022

The Obsolete Empire

Untimely Belonging in Twentieth-Century British Literature

Philip Tsang

Hosted by Gargi Binju
Modernist literature at the end of the British empire challenges conventional notions of homeland, heritage, and community. The waning British empire left behind an abundance of material relics and an …
Literary Studies August 3, 2022

Interwar Itineraries

Authenticity in Anglophone and French Travel Writing

Emily O. Wittman

Hosted by Nathan Moore
How people traveled, and how people wrote about travel, changed in the interwar years. Novel technologies eased travel conditions, breeding new iterations of the colonizing gaze. The sense that another …
Think About It August 2, 2022

Anne Fernald on Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway"

Book Talk 54

Anne Fernald

Hosted by Uli Baer
Halfway through Mrs Dalloway, Septimus Smith mutters to himself: "Communication is health; communication is happiness, communication.” It’s easy to write off his message that communication is vital for human existence …
Literary Studies August 2, 2022

Free Indirect

The Novel in a Postfictional Age

Timothy Bewes

Hosted by Iqra Shagufta Cheema
What is the purpose of a novel? What purpose or logic do literary critics assign to a novel? How has the novel changed? What does that mean for its readers …
Japanese Studies August 2, 2022

Sino-Japanese Reflections

Literary and Cultural Interactions between China and Japan in Early Modernity

Joshua A. Fogel and Matthew Fraleigh

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Joshua A. Fogel and Matthew Fraleigh's edited volume Sino-Japanese Reflections: Literary and Cultural Interactions between China and Japan in Early Modernity (de Gruyter, 2022) offers ten richly detailed case studies that …
Indian Religions August 2, 2022

After the War

The Last Books of the Mahabharata

Wendy Doniger

Hosted by Ujaan Ghosh
Wendy Doniger's After the War: The Last Books of the Mahabharata (Oxford UP, 2022) is a new translation of the final part of the Mahabharata, the great Sanskrit Epic poem about …
Writ Large August 2, 2022

On Jules Verne's "Around the World in 80 Days"

A Discussion with Joyce Chaplin

Joyce Chaplin

Hosted by Zachary Davis
When French author Jules Verne wrote Around the World in 80 Days in the late 1800s, scheduled global travel was practically science fiction, and 80 days seemed impossibly fast. But …
Writ Large August 1, 2022

On Martin Puchner's "The Written World"

A Discussion with Martin Puchner

Martin Puchner

Hosted by Zachary Davis
What is the world without literature? It’s hard to imagine. We’d lose novels, sure. But we’d also lose the philosophies, politics, and religions of today because these all grew out …