The History Of Literature

Jacke talks to Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro about his new book, Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future, which looks at eight contentious periods in American history to see how Shakespeare plays and performances illuminated the concerns of each era. PLUS Jacke continues his journey through Emily Dickinson's poems with Poem 165 ("I have never seen 'Volcanoes' - "). Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke talks to author William Egginton about his new book Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality, which uses the examples of three profound thinkers to explore the differences between reality "out there" and reality as we experience it. PLUS Jacke continues his journey through the poetry of Emily Dickinson with a look at Poem 138 ("To fight aloud is very brave - "). Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke talks to Professor Maaheen Ahmed, editor of The Cambridge Companion to Comics, about the popular, multifaceted, and dynamic art form of manga, graphic novels, and other comics. PLUS Elizabeth Winkler (Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies: How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature) selects her choice for the last book she will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke talks to author Ed Simon about his new book Heaven, Hell, and Paradise Lost, which considers Paradise Lost within the scope of Simon's alcoholism and recovery. PLUS Jacke continues his journey through the poetry of Emily Dickinson with a look at Poem 134 ("Did the Harebell loose her girdle"). Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Jacke and Mike discuss Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee's stunning 1999 novel about sex, violence, salvation, and ruin in post-apartheid South Africa. Telling the story of David Lurie, a fiftysomething professor who has fallen from grace after a sexual misconduct case involving one of his students, the novel explores themes of guilt, isolation, and the inescapability of history. PLUS a look at Emily Dickinson's Poem #129 ("Our lives are Swiss"). Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rome! The Eternal City! It's a place for celebrating lives both present and past - and in addition to all the art and culture and architecture and food, it's a place to think deeply about the meaning of life. In this episode, Jacke talks to author Scott Samuelson about his new book Rome as a Guide to the Good Life: A Philosophical Grand Tour, which offers a thinking person's guide to the pleasures of Rome. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke begins with a look at Emily Dickinson's poem #122, then continues (and concludes) his reading and analysis of the Henry James masterpiece, "The Altar of the Dead." Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During a horrible period of grief, literary failure, and general bewilderment, Henry James turned to art - and created some of his greatest masterpieces. In this episode, Jacke takes a look at one of James's best (and most underappreciated) stories, "The Altar of the Dead." Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke kicks things off with a look at Emily Dickinson's Poem #90, then welcomes author Vanessa Riley for a discussion of her new historical novel Queen of Exiles, which tells the story of Haiti's Queen Marie-Louise Christophe. PLUS author Jolene Hubbs selects her choice for the last book she will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke and Mike take a look at the stormy Fitzgerald marriage and F. Scott Fitzgerald's fourth novel, Tender Is the Night, which many consider to be his masterpiece. (Yes, even better than Gatsby!) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke continues his Emily Dickinson series with a reading of Poem #32. Then Professor Patrick Whitmarsh stops by for a discussion of his new book Writing Our Extinction: Anthropocene Fiction and Vertical Science, which examines works by Don DeLillo, Karen Tei Yamashita, Reza Negarestani, and Colson Whitehead (among others) to see how post-Oppenheimer authors have responded to the existential crises of climate change and the nuclear age. And finally, Kurt Vonnegut's biographer Christina Jarvis selects two books to be the last ones she will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke talks to Professor Hamid Dabashi about his new book The Persian Prince: The Rise and Resurrection of an Imperial Archetype, which replaces Machiavelli's Il Principe with a bold new figurative ideal. Drawing on works from Classical Antiquity to postcolonial literature, Dabashi reveals an archetype of a Persian Prince - leader, rebel, prophet, and poet - deeply rooted in the collective memories of multiple nations, Muslim empires, and the wider Mediterranean world. PLUS Jacke starts a new series reading his way through the poems of Emily Dickinson, beginning with Poem #23. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's a trip to the Big Easy! The city of New Orleans is so famous for its music, its food, and its Mardi Gras mentality that it's sometimes overlooked as a magnet for writers like Walt Whitman, Zora Neale Hurston, and William Faulkner. In this episode, Jacke talks to New Orleans scholar T.R. Johnson, author of the new book New Orleans: A Writer's City, about the neighborhoods of New Orleans and the writers who've been inspired by them. PLUS Len Webb and Vincent Williams, hosts of the podcasts The Class of 1989 and The Micheaux Mission, stop by to select the last book they will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Australia! After promising listeners an episode about Australia for years, Jacke FINALLY gets his act together - and luckily he has the perfect guest to help him out. In this episode, Australian novelist Pip Williams, who achieved international bestsellerdom with her debut novel The Dictionary of Lost Words, joins Jacke for a discussion of literary culture in Australia, her life as a reader and writer, and her new novel The Bookbinder. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The hits keep coming at the History of Literature Podcast! In this episode, Jacke follows up on last week's episode on Crime and Punishment with a look at the short story that literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin called "practically a complete encyclopedia of Dostoevsky's most important themes." (Don't worry if you haven't read "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" before - we read the short story as part of the episode.) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's another packed episode! First, Jacke talks to Langston Hughes scholars Vera Kutzinski and Anthony Reed about their new book, Langston Hughes in Context, which shows how Hughes was much more than just a poet of the Harlem Renaissance. PLUS Melissa Homestead, who last joined us for a look at Willa Cather and her creative partnership with Edith Lewis, selects the last book she will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"It is directly obvious," said Virginia Woolf after reading Crime and Punishment, "that [Dostoevsky] is the greatest writer ever born." In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the classic novel of murder, guilt, and redemption, including the letter Dostoevsky wrote proposing his book, a likely source for inspiration, and the two young men in Chicago who set out to prove themselves worthy of one of the novel's more nefarious propositions. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke talks to fairy tale expert Jack Zipes about his new book Buried Treasures: The Power of Political Fairy Tales, which profiles modern writers and artists who tapped the political potential of fairy tales. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke and Mike discuss the life and works of novelist Martin Amis (1949-2023), who recently died of esophageal cancer. The son of writer Kingsley Amis, Martin forged his own path, writing fifteen novels and several other works of essays and memoirs, with a devotion to style that earned him comparisons with Joyce and Flaubert. For decades, Amis was a fixture on the Anglo-American literary scene, dominating the landscape even as his books were famously snubbed by critics and prize committees. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke talks to Shin Yu Pai, currently the Civic Poet of Seattle, about her career as an artist and her podcast Ten Thousand Things, which explores a collection of objects and artifacts that tell us something about Asian American life. PLUS Ross Benjamin (translator of The Diaries of Franz Kafka) selects the last book he will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices