Podcast Episodes
Back to Search304 Kazuo Ishiguro (with Chigozie Obioma)
Episode 304
In this episode, we talk to Chigozie Obioma, whom the New York Times has called "the heir to Chinua Achebe." We discuss his childhood in Nigeria, his…
5 years, 4 months ago
303 The Search for Darcy - Jane Austen, Tom Lefroy, and the World of Pride and Prejudice
Episode 303
In our last episode, we examined the evidence of Jane Austen's 1795-96 dalliance with her "Irish friend," the gentlemanlike (but impoverished) young …
5 years, 4 months ago
302 Jane in Love - The Story of Jane Austen and Thomas Lefroy
Episode 302
In the Christmas holidays of 1795-96, a young Irishman named Thomas Lefroy left his legal studies in London to visit some relatives who lived in the …
5 years, 4 months ago
301 Reading Proust with Strangers
Episode 301
Jacke kicks off the next hundred episodes with a discussion of the Netflix series Lupin, the story of Proust begging his neighbors for quiet and secr…
5 years, 4 months ago
300 Frederick Douglass
Episode 300
Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was born into the anonymity of slavery and died as the most famous African American of the nineteenth century. After a…
5 years, 4 months ago
299 The Cherry Orchard
Episode 299
In 1971, critic J.L. Styan wrote: "In The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov consummated his life’s work with a poetic comedy of exquisite balance." In this epi…
5 years, 4 months ago
298 Amyra León!
Episode 298
Jacke talks to Amyra León, author of the new book Concrete Kids, about her background, her artistic projects, and how influences like James Baldwin, …
5 years, 5 months ago
297 The Scarlet Letter
Episode 297
Following our last episode on Nathaniel Hawthorne, Jacke takes a look at The Scarlet Letter (1850), which tells the story of a 17th-century New Engla…
5 years, 5 months ago
296 Nathaniel Hawthorne
Episode 296
In this episode, Jacke discusses the life and works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), including his major themes, the distinction he drew between "…
5 years, 5 months ago
295 The Past, The Future, and Chekhov
Episode 295
It's still Chekhov month! In this episode, Jacke sets the table for the History of Literature's analysis of The Cherry Orchard (1904) with a look bac…
5 years, 5 months ago