Podcast Episodes
Back to Search146 Power Ranking the Nobel Prize for Literature
The Nobel Prize for Literature has a special place in the literary landscape. We revere the prize and its winners - and yet we often find ourselves p…
7 years, 11 months ago
145 Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know - The Story of Lord Byron
The Later Romantic poet George Gordon Byron, once described by Lady Caroline Lamb as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know," lived 36 years and became wor…
8 years ago
144 Food in Literature (with Ronica Dhar)
Food, glorious food! We all know its power for nourishment, pleasure, and comfort -- and we’ve all felt the sharp pangs of its absence. How has this …
8 years ago
143 A Soldier's Heart - Teaching Literature at the U.S. Military Academy (with Professor Elizabeth Samet)
Since ancient times, societies have used rousing lines of poetry to inspire soldiers to acts of heroism, courage, and sacrifice. But what about liter…
8 years ago
142 Comedian Joe Pera Talks with Us (with Joe Pera)
Comedian Joe Pera has been hailed as one of the top "Comedians Under 30," "20 of the Most Innovative Comedians Working Today," and the "Cozy Sweater …
8 years ago
141 Kurt Vonnegut (with Mike Palindrome)
"The year was 2081," the story begins, "and everyone was finally equal." In this episode of the History of Literature, Jacke and Mike take a look at …
8 years, 1 month ago
140 Pulp Fiction and the Hardboiled Crime Novel (with Charles Ardai)
In 1896, an enterprising man named Frank Munsey published the first copy of Argosy, a magazine that combined cheap printing, cheap paper, and cheap a…
8 years, 1 month ago
139 A Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka
In 1922, the miserable genius Franz Kafka wrote a short story, Ein Hungerkünstler (A Hunger Artist), about another miserable genius: a man whose “art…
8 years, 1 month ago
138 Why Poetry (with Matthew Zapruder)
In his new book Why Poetry, the poet Matthew Zapruder has issued "an impassioned call for a return to reading poetry and an incisive argument for its…
8 years, 1 month ago
136 The Kids Are All Right (Aren't They?) - Making the Case for Literature
Why does literature matter? Why read at all? Jacke Wilson takes questions from high school students and attempts to make the case for literature.
Wor…
8 years, 2 months ago