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Coming next year on Close Readings
As our Close Readings series come to an end this year, you’re probably wondering what’s coming in 2025. We’re delighted to announce there’ll be four …
1 year, 5 months ago
Human Conditions: ‘Sister Outsider’ by Audre Lorde
Season 8 Episode 12
In the final episode of Human Conditions, Brent and Adam turn to Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider, a collection of prose with exceptional relevance to c…
1 year, 5 months ago
On Satire: 'A Far Cry from Kensington' by Muriel Spark
Season 7 Episode 12
In the final episode of their series, Colin and Clare arrive at Muriel Spark, who would never have considered herself a satirist though her writing w…
1 year, 5 months ago
Political Poems: ‘Station Island’ by Seamus Heaney
Season 11 Episode 11
As an undergraduate, Seamus Heaney visited Station Island several times, an ancient pilgrimage site traditionally associated with St Patrick and purg…
1 year, 6 months ago
Among the Ancients II: Apuleius
Season 10 Episode 11
Apuleius’ ‘Metamorphoses’, better known as ‘The Golden Ass’, is the only ancient Roman novel to have survived in its entirety. Following the story of…
1 year, 6 months ago
Medieval LOLs: 'Tales of Count Lucanor' by Juan Manuel
Season 9 Episode 11
If you’re looking for advice on sustaining a marriage, or robbing a grave, or performing liver surgery, then a series of self-help stories by a 14th-…
1 year, 6 months ago
Human Conditions: ‘Black Music’ by Amiri Baraka
Season 8 Episode 11
In 'Black Music', a collection of essays, liner notes and interviews from 1959 to 1967, Amiri Baraka captures the ferment, energy and excitement of t…
1 year, 6 months ago
On Satire: 'A Handful of Dust' by Evelyn Waugh
Season 7 Episode 11
In 1946 Evelyn Waugh declared that 20th-century society – ‘the century of the common man’, as he put it – was so degenerate that satire was no longer…
1 year, 6 months ago
Political Poems: 'The Prelude' (books 9 and 10) by William Wordsworth
Season 11 Episode 10
Wordsworth was not unusual among Romantic poets for his enthusiastic support of the French Revolution, but he stands apart from his contemporaries fo…
1 year, 6 months ago
Among the Ancients II: Juvenal
Season 10 Episode 10
In this episode, we tackle Juvenal, whose sixteen satires influenced libertines, neoclassicists and early Christian moralists alike. Conservative to …
1 year, 7 months ago