New Books in Literary Studies

Interviews with Scholars of Literature about their New Books

Arts
2026
David N. Gottlieb, "Second Slayings: The Bindin...
Gottlieb explores the decisive - and, until now, under-appreciated - influence exerted on Jewish memory by the Akedah, the Binding of Isaac narrative in the Book of Genesis...
63 min
2027
Great Books: Ava Chin on Kingston's "The Woman ...
What stories should we remember, and which ones are we forced to forget?
43 min
2028
Simon Brodbeck, "Krishna's Lineage: The Harivam...
While typically circulating as a separate text, The Harivamsha forms the final part of the Mahabharata storyline...
45 min
2029
Emilia Nielsen, "Disrupting Breast Cancer Narra...
Nielsen argues that the happy stories of breast cancer survivors are so common that any other types of narrative almost require an apology...
21 min
2030
Claire Chambers, “Making Sense of Contemporary ...
Chambers outlines Muslim cultural production during this period through a literary analysis of the senses, especially those beyond the visual...
44 min
2031
Eleanor Parker, "Dragon Lords: The History and ...
For all of their prominence in the popular imagination today, the historical record of the Viking presence in England is limited...
19 min
2032
Alberto Cairo, "How Charts Lie: Getting Smarter...
We’ve all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, but what if we don’t understand what we’re looking at?
54 min
2033
John L. Brooke, "'There Is a North': Fugitive S...
Inspired by brave fugitives who escaped slavery and the cultural craze that was "Uncle Tom’s Cabin," the North rose up to battle slavery, ultimately waging the bloody Civil War.
64 min
2034
Kerry Driscoll, "Mark Twain among the Indians a...
Driscoll charts the development of the writer’s ethnocentric attitudes about Indians and savagery in relation to the various geographic and social milieus of communities he inhabited at key periods in his life...
94 min
2035
Claudia Moscovici, "Holocaust Memories: A Surve...
As Holocaust survivors pass away, their legacy of suffering, tenacity and courage could be forgotten. It is up to each generation to commemorate the victims...
28 min
2036
Caroline Weber, “Proust’s Duchess” (Knopf, 2019)
Weber has done the painstaking research to find out who were the real-life people on whom Proust modeled some of the most memorable characters...
69 min
2037
Ann K. McClellan, "Sherlock’s World: Fan Fictio...
McClellan explores fan fiction inspired by one of the most-watch BBC series in history...
66 min
2038
Richard F. Thomas, "Why Bob Dylan Matters" (Dey...
When the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Bob Dylan in 2016, a debate raged...
64 min
2039
Lian Xi, "Blood Letters: The Untold Story of Li...
In 1960, a poet and journalist named Lin Zhao was arrested by the Communist Party of China and sent to prison for re-education...
75 min
2040
Kelsey Rubin-Detlev, "The Epistolary Art of Cat...
Rubin-Detlev evaluates the place that Catherine sought to occupy in the intellectual and cultural landscape of her time...
56 min
2041
Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne, "Holding Onto Nothi...
Lucy Kilgore has her bags packed for her escape from her rural Tennessee upbringing...
23 min
2042
Mark Alizart, "Dogs" (Polity, 2019)
Alizart offers us a surprising new portrait of the dog as thinker―a thinker who may perhaps know the true secret of our humanity...
44 min
2043
Liz Gloyn, "Tracking Classical Monsters in Popu...
What is it about ancient monsters that popular culture still finds so enthralling?
65 min
2044
Jim Clarke, "Science Fiction and Catholicism: T...
Science fiction has had an obsession with Roman Catholicism for over a century...
42 min
2045
Paula McQuade, "Catechisms and Women’s Writing ...
McQuade opens up an entirely new field for the study of early modern women’s writing,..
32 min
2046
John Shelton Reed, "Dixie Bohemia: A French Qua...
In the years following World War I, the New Orleans French Quarter attracted artists and writers with its low rents, faded charm, and colorful street life...
47 min
2047
Annabel L. Kim, "Unbecoming Language: Anti-Iden...
Kim tangles with the question of difference so central to French feminism, theory...
58 min
2048
Emily Wilson, trans., "The Odyssey" (Norton, 2017)
Wilson’s "Odyssey" captures the beauty and enchantment of this ancient poem...
65 min
2049
Kathryn Conrad on University Press Publishing
What do university presses do, and how do they do it?
37 min
2050
Tamara Hundorova, "The Post-Chornobyl Library: ...
Hundorova has written a compelling study of the literary changes that mark Ukrainian literature at the end of the 20th century...
45 min