Jacke Wilson

March 18, 2020

The History of Literature #194 – George Saunders

http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL7565545543.mp3 Jacke and Mike take a look at contemporary author George Saunders, author of Pastoralia, Tenth of December, and Lincoln at the Bardo, In spite of some inauspicious beginnings, Saunders somehow managed to ascend to literary greatness, setting aside a career in mining to become, in the words of poet Mary Karr, “the best short-story writer in English–not Continue reading

Arts, Authors, books, Fiction, history of literature, novelists

George Saunders, Lincoln at the Bardo, pastoralia

March 15, 2020

The History of Literature #193 – Macbeth

http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL1909581056.mp3 It’s been called “the great Shakespearean play of stage superstition and uncanniness.” It’s also one of Shakespeare’s four major tragedies, and for more than four hundred years it’s proved horrifying to audiences and captivating to scholars. And it’s a perfect play for October, with witches and prophesies, murder and mayhem, and a madly ambitious Continue reading

Arts, history of literature, Podcast

Macbeth, Shakespeare, the Scottish play

March 13, 2020

The History of Literature #192 – Alfred Hitchcock

http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL5756347776.mp3 Jacke’s joined by the Hall of Fame Guest Mike Palindrome (President of the Literature Supporters Club) for a look at the ten greatest films by the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock directed dozens of films, including masterpieces of the suspense genre like Strangers on a Train, Shadow of a Doubt, Saboteur, Notorious, Vertigo, Continue reading

Arts, history of literature, Podcast

Alfred Hitchcock, master of suspense, north by northwest, psycho, the birds, vertigo

March 10, 2020

The History of Literature #191 – Chinua Achebe

http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL6481062046.mp3 Chinua Achebe’s first novel Things Fall Apart (1959) ushered in a new era where African countries, which had recently achieved post-colonial independence, now achieved an independence of a different kind – the freedom of imagination and artistry, as African authors told the stories of their geography, their culture, and their experience from the point of view Continue reading

Arts, Authors, books, Fiction, history of literature, novelists, Podcast

african literature, China achebe, things fall apart

March 7, 2020

The History of Literature #190 – Blood and Sympathy in the 19th Century (with Professor Ann Kibbie)

http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL1450661738.mp3 “England may with justice claim to be the native land of transfusion,” wrote one European physician in 1877, acknowledging Great Britain’s role in developing and promoting human-to-human transfusion as treatment for life-threatening blood loss. But what did this scientific practice mean for literature? How did it excite the imagination of authors and readers? And Continue reading

Arts, Authors, books, Fiction, history of literature, novelists, Podcast

Adam smith, blood transfusions, bram stoker, dracula, George eliot

March 4, 2020

The History of Literature #189 – Weeping for Gogol

http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL8073950603.mp3 “Gogol was a strange creature,” said Nabokov, “but genius is always strange.” Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809 – 1852) rose from obscurity to a brilliant literary career that forever changed the course of Russian literature. Born in 1809, he and his contemporary Pushkin influenced the titans who followed, including Tolstoy and Doestoevsky and Chekhov. Best Continue reading

Arts, Authors, books, Fiction, history of literature, novelists, Podcast

dead souls, diary of a madman, gogol, Nabokov, russian literature, the nose

March 1, 2020

The History of Literature #188 – Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes (with Yuval Taylor)

http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL2710216578.mp3 They were collaborators, literary gadflies, and champions of the common people. They were the leading lights of the Harlem Renaissance. Their names were Zora Neale Hurston (1891 – 1960), the author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Langston Hughes (1902 – 1967), the author of “the Negro Speaks of Rivers” and “Let America Be Continue reading

Arts, Authors, books, Fiction, history of literature, novelists, Podcast, Uncategorized

harlem renaissance, langston hughes, zora neale hurston

February 27, 2020

The History of Literature #187 – The Brontes

http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL6589836731.mp3 Although their lives were filled with darkness and death, their love for stories and ideas led them into the bright realms of creative genius. They were the Brontes – Charlotte, Emily, and Anne – who lived with their brother Branwell in an unassuming 19th-century Yorkshire town called Haworth. Their house, a parsonage, sat on Continue reading

Arts, Authors, books, Fiction, history of literature, Podcast

anne bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Emily bronte, Jane Eyre, wuthering heights

February 24, 2020

The History of Literature #186 – Robert Louis Stevenson

http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL7032446443.mp3 Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 – 1894) went from a childhood in the western islands of Scotland to the heights of literary popularity and success, beloved and admired for his adventure stories Treasure Island and Kidnapped and his eerie portrait of a double life The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dismissed by Virginia Woolf as a writer Continue reading

Arts, Authors, books, Fiction, history of literature, novelists, Uncategorized

Jekyll and hyde, kidnapped, Robert Louis stevenson, scottish novelists, treasure island

February 21, 2020

The History of Literature #185 – Marcel Proust

http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL4076527235.mp3 Marcel Proust (1871-1922) did little of note until he turned 38 years old – but from that point forward, he devoted the rest of his life to writing a masterpiece. The result, the novel In Search of Lost Time, published in seven volumes from 1913 to 1927, stands as one of the supreme achievements Continue reading

Arts, Authors, books, Fiction, history of literature, novelists, Podcast, Uncategorized

french novelists, In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust, remembrance of things past