The History of Literature

Latest Episodes:

515 The Plague by Albert Camus (with Alice Kaplan and Laura Marris) | My Last Book with Alison Strayer May 22, 2023

Show notes

What were you doing when the pandemic arose? And did you turn to The Plague by Albert Camus to help you make sense of it all? For two Camus scholars, the pandemic resonated in unexpected ways - and shed new light on a work they'd been studying for years. In this episode, Jacke talks to authors Alice Kaplan and Laura Marris about their book States of Plague: Reading Albert Camus in a Pandemic. PLUS Jacke talks to Alison Strayer, translator of French Nobel Laureate Annie Ernaux, about 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.

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514 Southern Gothic (with David van den Berg) | My Last Book with Jason Feifer May 18, 2023

Show notes

In the aftermath of a Civil War loss that shattered the region and exposed the moral and cultural fault lines in the populace, writers in the American South responded with stories filled with grotesque, macabre, and shockingly violent elements, developing a genre that came to be known as Southern Gothic. In this episode, Jacke talks to poet David van den Berg (Love Letters from an Arsonist) about growing up in Florida, his relationship with twentieth-century Southern Gothic literature, and how the elements of Southern Gothic have played out in his poetry. PLUS Jacke talks to entrepreneur and futurist Jason Feifer about his choice for the last book he will ever read.

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513 The Writers of Northern Ireland (with Alexander Poots) | My Last Book with Laura Lee May 15, 2023

Show notes

The literary world has long celebrated the incredible contributions of Ireland and its writers, with a special focus on Dublin-centric writers like James Joyce and W.B. Yeats. Meanwhile, Northern Ireland has been quietly turning out some excellent work as well, thanks to figures like C.S. Lewis and Seamus Heaney, among many others. Are there common themes uniting the Irish writers - and the Northern Irish writers in particular? How has the tumultuous history of Northern Ireland worked its way into the writings of its best novelists and poets? In this episode, Jacke talks to Alexander Poots about his new book The Strangers' House: Writing Northern Ireland. PLUS Jacke talks to author Laura Lee (Wilde Nights & Robber Barons) about her choice for the last book she will ever read.

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512 Hannah Arendt (with Samantha Rose Hill) | My Last Book with Scott Carter May 11, 2023

Show notes

Born to a German-Jewish family in 1906, Hannah Arendt became one of the most renowned political thinkers of the twentieth century. Her works, including The Origins of Totalitarianism, The Human Condition, and Eichmann in Jerusalem, have never been more relevant than they are today. In this episode, Jacke talks to author Samantha Rose Hill about her biography Hannah Arendt, part of the Critical Lives series by Reaktion Books. PLUS Jacke talks to producer, playwright, and podcast host Scott Carter about his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Samantha Rose Hill is a senior fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities and associate faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.

Scott Carter is an award-winning television producer (HBO, PBS) and playwright. His podcast Ye Gods discusses personal faith and ethics with a diverse roster of interfaith and non-faith celebrity guests to uncover what we believe and what we don't.

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511 Annie Ernaux, Winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize for Literature (with Alison Strayer) | My Last Book with Bob Blaisdell May 08, 2023

Show notes

Jacke talks to Alison Strayer, translator of several books by French author Annie Ernaux, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2022. PLUS he talks to author and Chekhov expert Bob Blaisdell about his choice for the last book he will ever read.

ANNIE ERNAUX (The Years, Getting Lost) has written some twenty works of fiction and memoir. She is considered by many to be France's most important writer.

ALISON L. STRAYER is a Canadian writer and translator. She won the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, and her work has been shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for Literature and for Translation, the Grand Pix du live de Montreal, the Prix littéraire France-Québec, and the Man Booker International Prize.

BOB BLAISDELL (Chekhov Becomes Chekhov) is Professor of English at the City University of New York’s Kingsborough College and the author of Creating Anna Karenina.

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510 The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James (Part 2) May 04, 2023

Show notes

Does a famous author's body of work contain a hidden meaning? Part Two of Jacke's look at the classic Henry James novella, "The Figure in the Carpet."

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509 The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James (Part 1) May 01, 2023

Show notes

Does a famous author's body of work contain a hidden meaning? With an assist from Jorge Luis Borges, Jacke explores the classic Henry James novella, "The Figure in the Carpet."

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508 Byron (with David Ellis) | My Last Book with Ariel Lawhon, Susan Meissner, and Kristina McMorris Apr 27, 2023

Show notes

The poet Lord Byron is well known as a passionate revolutionary and a brooding hero who harbors dark secrets. But what about his playful sense of humor? In this episode, Jacke talks to Byron biographer David Ellis (Byron) about the Romantic poet's flamboyant life and work. PLUS Ariel Lawhon, Susan Meissner, and Kristina McMorris, the bestselling authors of When We Had Wings, return for a discussion of the last books they will ever read.

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Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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507 The Class of 1989 - A Special Year in Black Cinema (with Len Webb and Vincent Williams) Apr 24, 2023

Show notes

For years, pop culture critics Len Webb and Vincent Williams have hosted the podcast The Micheaux Mission, which aims to watch and review every Black film ever released. In this episode, Jacke talks to Len and Vincent about their new limited-run series The Class of 1989, which focuses on six films (Harlem Nights, Lean on Me, Glory, A Dry White Season, Do the Right Thing, and Driving Miss Daisy) that helped spark a Black film renaissance.

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506 Black Shakespeare (with Ian Smith) | My Last Book with David Castillo and William Egginton Apr 20, 2023

Show notes

For centuries, Shakespeare's works have been scrutinized by scholars and fans eager to engage with and learn from the texts. And yet, in spite of the prominence of race in today's media headlines and public discourse, the questions of racialized blackness and whiteness raised by Shakespeare's plays are often resisted. In this episode, Jacke talks to Shakespeare scholar Ian Smith (Black Shakespeare: Reading and Misreading Race) about the role that systemic whiteness has played on the interpretation of Shakespeare's plays. PLUS authors David Castillo and William Egginton (What Would Cervantes Do? Navigating Post-Truth with Spanish Baroque Literature) select the last books they will ever read.

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