Jacke Wilson

October 26, 2017

HoL 113 Special Episode – Introducing the Smart Awesome Show!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:03:37 — 44.0MB) | Embed Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Email | RSS | More Are you frustrated by the news? Looking for inspiration? you’re not alone! On this special episode of the History of Literature, host Jacke Wilson introduces The Smart Awesome Show, a brand new podcast in which he talks to a series of guests about the work Continue reading

Podcast

Education, gates foundation, rahim rajan

October 15, 2017

History of Literature #112 – The Novelist and the Witch-Doctor – Unpacking Nabokov’s Case Against Freud (with Joshua Ferris)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:41 — 35.1MB) | Embed Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Email | RSS | More “I admire Freud greatly,” the novelist Vladimir Nabokov once said, “as a comic writer.” For Nabokov, Sigmund Freud was “the Viennese witch-doctor,” objectionable for “the vulgar, shabby, fundamentally medieval world” of his ideas. Author Joshua Ferris (The Dinner Party, Then We Came to the End) joins Jacke for a Continue reading

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

joshua ferris, sigmund freud, vladimir nabokov

September 26, 2017

History of Literature #111 – The Americanest American – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:01:45 — 42.7MB) | Embed Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Email | RSS | More In 1984, the literary scholar Harold Bloom had this to say about Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Emerson is the mind of our climate, the principal source of the American difference in poetry, criticism and pragmatic post-philosophy…. Emerson, by no means the greatest American writer… is the inescapable Continue reading

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

Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, ralph waldo emerson, transcendentalism, Walt Whitman

September 23, 2017

History of Literature #110 – The Heart of Darkness – Then And Now

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:36:32 — 66.6MB) | Embed Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Email | RSS | More Jacke and Mike discuss Joseph Conrad’s short novel Heart of Darkness, Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now, and Eleanor Coppola’s documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse. Then Jacke offers some thoughts on the recent events in Charlottesville, compares them with the themes in Conrad, and argues that Continue reading

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

apocalypse now, eleanor coppola, francis ford coppola, Heart of Darkness, hearts of darkness, Joseph Conrad, short novels, twentieth century

September 13, 2017

History of Literature #109 – Women of Mystery (with Christina Kovac)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:04:16 — 44.4MB) | Embed Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Email | RSS | More Author Christina Kovac (The Cutaway: A Thriller) joins Jacke for a discussion of crime fiction, writing a strong female protagonist, working in the local news business, and her “holy trinity” of female crime writers: Laura Lippmann, Tana French, and Megan Abbott. Learn more about the Continue reading

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September 8, 2017

History of Literature #108 – Beowulf (aka Need a Hero? Get a Grip…)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:48 — 39.3MB) | Embed Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Email | RSS | More The poem called Beowulf (ca. 850 AD) was composed in Old English during what is known as the Middle Ages. Telling the tale of a hero who fights two monsters and a dragon, the three-thousand-line poem is traditionally viewed as one of the few bits of brightness Continue reading

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September 1, 2017

History of Literature #107 – The Man and the Myth – Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle (with Mattias Bostrom)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:01:59 — 42.8MB) | Embed Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Email | RSS | More Continuing our series on literary myths, we’re joined by Mattias Bostrom, author of From Holmes to Sherlock: The Story of the Men and Women Who Created an Icon, for a conversation about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his astonishing creation, Sherlock Holmes. Would you like to Continue reading

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

arthur conan doyle, doctor watson, J.K. Rowling, mattias bostrom, sherlock holmes

August 27, 2017

The History of Literature #106 – Literature Goes to the Movies Part Two – Flops, Bombs, and Stinkeroos

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:07:11 — 46.4MB) | Embed Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Email | RSS | More Ah, the sweet smell of success… and the burning stench of failure. Continuing their two part conversation on literary adaptations, Jacke and Mike choose ten of the worst book-to-movie projects of all time. How could so many people, working so hard and with such great source Continue reading

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

adaptations, battlefield earth, breakfast at tiffanys, cinema, enduring love, hollywood, movies, zardoz

August 23, 2017

The History of Literature #105 – Funny Women, Crimes Against Women, George Orwell, and More (with Kathy Cooperman)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:06:28 — 45.9MB) | Embed Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Email | RSS | More Kathy Cooperman, author of the new novel Crimes Against a Book Club, joins the show to discuss everything from the secret lives of book clubs to her own journey from improv to lawyering to becoming an author. She also tells Jacke about an inspiring Bette Davis Continue reading

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

bette davis, book clubs, George Orwell, kathy cooperman, plastic surgery, sarah silverman

August 19, 2017

The History of Literature #104 – King Lear

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 58:32 — 40.5MB) | Embed Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Email | RSS | More We all know that Shakespeare’s King Lear is one of the greatest tragedies ever written. But was it too tragic? Dr. Johnson thought it might be. Leo Tolstoy thought it was just a bad play – causing George Orwell to come valiantly to Shakespeare’s defense. Jacke Wilson takes a Continue reading

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

christopher plummer, king lear, olivier, Shakespeare