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The History of Literature #184 – George Eliot
http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL6223856341.mp3 Perhaps the greatest of all the many great English novelists, George Eliot was born Mary Ann Evans in 1819 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. Her father Robert managed an estate for a wealthy family; her mother Christina was the daughter of a local mill-owner. Among her rather large family, Mary Ann stood apart as the Continue reading
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The History of Literature #183 – Samuel Beckett (with Nick Barilar)
http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL8195318887.mp3 We’re back! A newly reenergized Jacke Wilson returns for a deep dive into the life, works, and politics of Samuel Beckett. Yes, we know him as one of the key figures bridging the gap between modernism and post-modernism – but was he more than just a highly refined artist generating art for art’s sake? Continue reading
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The History of Literature #182 – Darkness and Light (with Jessica Harper)
http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL7295372840.mp3 Jessica Harper has had the kind of life it would take ten memoirs to capture. Born in 1949, she went from a childhood in Illinois to a career as a Broadway singer, a Hollywood actor and movie star, a songwriter, an author of children’s books, an author of cookbooks, and now a podcaster. Along Continue reading
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The History of Literature #181 – David Foster Wallace (with Mike Palindrome)
http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL6877722377.mp3 Frequent guest Mike Palindrome takes the wheel for another solo episode on David Foster Wallace, including a deep dive into Wallace’s unfinished manuscript The Pale King, published posthumously in 2011. DAVID FOSTER WALLACE (1962-2008) was an American author best known for his novels The Broom in the System and Infinite Jest, his story collection Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, his essay Continue reading
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The History of Literature #180 – Donald Barthelme
http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL4377919286.mp3 Donald Barthelme’s “The Balloon” (1966) is one of the strangest and most enduring short stories to come out of the second half of the twentieth century. Filled with Barthelme’s gift for observation and detail, his wild imagination, and his playful wit, “The Balloon” represents for many the work of a postmodern master at Continue reading
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The History of Literature #179 – The Oscars by Decade (with Brian Price)
http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL7916436314.mp3 Screenwriter and film scholar Brian Price (author of Classical Storytelling and Contemporary Screenwriting: Aristotle and the Modern Screenwriter) joins Jacke for a decade-by-decade look at the Oscar Winners for Best Picture. Which decade had the best movies? When did Hollywood get it right? And what does it tell us about the movies of the past Continue reading
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The History of Literature #178 – Shirley Jackson and “The Lottery”
http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL7740184186.mp3 In this episode, we take a look at the classic twentieth-century American short story, “The Lottery” (1948) by Shirley Jackson. Why did it cause such an uproar? Who banned it and why? And how well does it hold up today? We’ll be discussing all this and more with special guest Evie Lee. SHIRLEY JACKSON Continue reading
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The History of Literature #177 – Sherwood Anderson (with Alyson Hagy)
http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL6927210211.mp3 One hundred years ago, a collection of short stories by a little-known author from Ohio burst onto the literary scene, causing a minor scandal for their sexual frankness. In the years since, Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio (1919) became more famous for its insightful portrayal of a town filled with friendly but solitary individuals, who wrestle with Continue reading
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The History of Literature #176 – William Carlos Williams (“The Use of Force”)
http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL2977229302.mp3 Today, the American modernist poet William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) is famous among poetry fans for his vivid, economical poems like “The Red Wheelbarrow” and “This Is Just to Say.” But for most of his lifetime, he struggled to achieve success comparable to those of his contemporaries Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot. Toiling away as Continue reading
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The History of Literature #175 – Virgin Whore – The Virgin Mary in Medieval Literature and Culture (with Professor Emma Maggie Solberg)
http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL2977229302.mp3 Today, we know the Virgin Mary as quiet, demure, and (above all) chaste, but this wasn’t always the way she was understood or depicted. In her new book Virgin Whore, Professor Emma Maggie Solberg investigates a surprising – and surprisingly prevalent – theme in late English medieval literature and culture: the celebration and veneration of Continue reading
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The History of Literature #182 – Darkness and Light (with Jessica Harper)
http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL7295372840.mp3 Jessica Harper has had the kind of life it would take ten memoirs to capture. Born in 1949, she went from a childhood in Illinois to a career as a Broadway singer, a Hollywood actor and movie star, a songwriter, an author of children’s books, an author of cookbooks, and now a podcaster. Along Continue reading
Jacke Wilson 