Arts
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The History of Literature #360 – FMK Shakespeare! (with Laurie Frankel) | Tolstoy’s Gospel (with Scott Carter)
It’s a good day for cooking! First up: Scott Carter, author of the play Discord: The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens, and Count Leo Tolstoy, joins Jacke for a look at the gospel as updated by Leo Tolstoy. Then novelist Laurie Frankel (author of One Two Three) stops by for a special Shakespeare… Continue reading
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The History of Literature #359 – Forgotten Women of Literature 6 – Eliza Haywood and Fantomina | PLUS Keats’s Letter on Shakespeare and “Negative Capability”
During her stormy and mysterious life, Eliza Haywood (1693?-1756) was one of the most prolific writers in England. Her “amatory fictions” were unapologetically sensationalistic, earning her the opprobrium of her mostly male critics. But in spite of being described (some might say slandered) by Alexander Pope in his Dunciad, Haywood kept going – acting, writing, translating,… Continue reading
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The History of Literature #358 – Jasmine Griffin) | Charles Dickens’s Gospel (with Scott Carter)
In her new book Read Until You Understand, beloved professor Farah Jasmine Griffin entwines memoir, history, and art in exploring the culture of Black genius and the lessons and legacies of Black lives and literature. In this episode, Professor Griffin joins Jacke for a discussion of her father, the role literature played in her life… Continue reading
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The History of Literature #357 – Little Women Remixed (with Bethany C. Morrow) | Thomas Jefferson’s Gospel (with Scott Carter)
It’s a literary feast! National bestselling author Bethany C. Morrow joins Jacke for a discussion of her novel So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix, in which four young Black sisters come of age during the American Civil War. PLUS playwright Scott Carter, author of Discord: The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens, and Count Leo… Continue reading
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The History of Literature #356 – Louisa May Alcott
“I could not write a girls’ story,” Louisa May Alcott protested after a publisher made a specific request that she do so, “knowing little about any but my own sisters and always preferring boys.” But she agreed to try, and the result was Little Women, an immediate bestseller and now a world-famous and well-loved classic. But… Continue reading
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The History of Literature #355 – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Brilliant and contentious, the Swiss-born political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (`1712-1768) is one of the key figures of the Enlightenment, with a fame and influence that continues to this day. But although we know him best for his Social Contract, which influenced both the American Constitution writers and the French revolutionaries, in his own time he was… Continue reading
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The History of Literature #354 – Treasure Island Remixed (with C.B. Lee)
Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic adventure Treasure Island gave the world a number of familiar pirate tropes, like parrots on shoulders and X marks the spot. But it also helped lock us into a somewhat limited view of life on the high seas. Pirates and piracy have existed in many eras in many different oceans–and not every would-be… Continue reading
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The History of Literature #353 – Oscar Wilde in Prison (with Scott Carter)
Even the best biographical depictions of Oscar Wilde often skip over the years he spent in prison, perhaps because the episode is so sad and painful. But in doing so, they miss the profundity of his life and writings. In this episode, Scott Carter, author of the new play Wilde Man, joins Jacke to talk about… Continue reading
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The History of Literature #352 – Charles Baudelaire (with Aaron Poochigian)
The American poet Dana Gioia calls Charles Baudelaire “the first modern poet,” adding “In both style and content, his provocative, alluring, and shockingly original work shaped and enlarged the imagination of later poets, not only in his native France but across Europe and the Americas.” In this episode, acclaimed translator and poet Aaron Poochigian joins… Continue reading
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The History of Literature #351 – Mary Wollstonecraft (with Samantha Silva)
The writer, philosopher, and trailblazing feminist Mary Wollstonecraft is perhaps best known as the mother of the author of Frankenstein, but this amazing figure deserves more attention than a line in Mary Shelley’s biography. As the author of classic works like Thoughts on the Education of Daughters and A Vindication of the Rights of Women, Wollstonecraft advanced arguments hundreds… Continue reading
Jacke Wilson 