Episodes

  • 676 "Mrs Spring Fragrance" by Sui Sin Far (with Mike Palindrome)

    676 "Mrs Spring Fragrance" by Sui Sin Far (with Mike Palindrome)
    Feb 6 2025
    Mike Palindrome, the President of the Literature Supporters Club, joins Jacke for a reading and discussion of "Mrs. Spring Fragrance" by Sui Sin Far. The story, which takes place against a backdrop of waves of immigration to America in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (and the racist anti-Asian laws that followed), depicts an enterprising "Americanized" Chinese woman with a taste for matchmaking as she navigates the worlds of Seattle, San Francisco, and her own marriage. While acknowledging the achievement of the pioneering Sui Sin Far, Mike explores his personal reaction to the story, especially the highly patriarchal world of Asian immigrant communities. Additional listening: 667 Sui Sin Far (with Victoria Namkung) 529 Ten Thousand Things and the Asian American Experience (with Shin Yu Pai) 410 What Is American Literature? (with Ilan Stavans) The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 26 mins
  • 675 Zora Neale Hurston (with Cheryl Hopson) | Jack Kerouac's Newly Discovered Writings

    675 Zora Neale Hurston (with Cheryl Hopson) | Jack Kerouac's Newly Discovered Writings
    Feb 3 2025
    Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was the most published African American woman writer of the first half of the twentieth century; her signature novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is still read by students, scholars, and literature lovers everywhere. In this episode, Jacke talks to Hurston biographer Cheryl R. Hopson (Zora Neale Hurston: A Critical Life) about the life and creativity of this remarkable figure. PLUS Jacke takes a look at some newly resurfaced works by Jack Kerouac, which shed light on his dalliance with Buddhism. Additional listening: Zora Neale Houston and Langston Hughes (with Yuval Taylor) 431 Langston Hughes 644 Jack Kerouac (with Steven Belletto) The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 10 mins
  • 674 Nabokov vs Freud (with Joshua Ferris) [Ad-Free Re-Release]

    674 Nabokov vs Freud (with Joshua Ferris) [Ad-Free Re-Release]
    Jan 30 2025
    “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 discussion of the author of Lolita and his special hatred for “the Austrian crank with a shabby umbrella.” [This episode was originally released on September 30, 2017. It is presented here without commercial interruptions.] Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    51 mins
  • 673 Edna Ferber (with Julie Gilbert) | My Last Book with Jessica Kirzane

    673 Edna Ferber (with Julie Gilbert) | My Last Book with Jessica Kirzane
    Jan 27 2025
    Novelist and playwright Edna Ferber (1885-1968) lived a wondrous life: residing in Manhattan as a member of the famed Algonquin Round Table, writing a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel (So Big), and producing works that Hollywood turned into twentieth-century classics, including the Kern & Hammerstein musical Show Boat and George Stevens's Giant, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean. Along the way, she also served as a caretaker and mentor for her grandniece, who was wowed by her great aunt's style, presence, and celebrity connections. In this episode, Jacke talks to Julie Gilbert, that little girl who grew up to become a writer herself, about her new book Giant Love: Edna Ferber, Her Best-Selling Novel of Texas, and the Making of a Classic American Film. PLUS Jacke talks to Yiddish literature expert Jessica Kirzane about her choice for the last book she will ever read. Additional listening: 567 Your Dream Guest: Jessica Kirzane on Translating Yiddish Literature 316 Willa Cather (with Lauren Marino) 64 Dorothy Parker (with Mike Palindrome) The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • 672 The Little Review (with Holly A. Baggett) | My Last Book with Phil Jones

    672 The Little Review (with Holly A. Baggett) | My Last Book with Phil Jones
    Jan 23 2025
    Founded in Chicago in 1914, the avant-garde journal the Little Review became a giant in the cause of modernism, publishing literature and art by luminaries such as T.S. Eliot, Djuna Barnes, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Gertrude Stein, Jean Toomer, William Carlos Williams, H.D., Amy Lowell, Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Stella, Hans Arp, Mina Loy, Emma Goldman, Wyndham Lewis, Hart Crane, Sherwood Anderson, and more. Perhaps most famously, the magazine published Joyce's Ulysses in serial form, causing a scandal and leading to a censorship trial that changed the course of literature. In this episode, Jacke talks to scholar Holly A. Baggett about her book Making No Compromise: Margaret Anderson, Jane Heap, and the Little Review, which tells the story of the two Midwestern women behind the Little Review, who were themselves iconoclastic rebels, living openly as lesbians and advocating for causes like anarchy, feminism, free love, and of course, groundbreaking literature and art. PLUS Phil Jones (Reading Samuel Johnson: Reception and Representation, 1750-1970) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read. Additional listening: 600 Doctor Johnson! (with Phil Jones) 564 H.D. (with Lara Vetter) 165 Ezra Pound The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    59 mins
  • 671 Shakespeare's Tragic Art (with Rhodri Lewis) | My Last Book with Joel Warner

    671 Shakespeare's Tragic Art (with Rhodri Lewis) | My Last Book with Joel Warner
    Jan 20 2025
    It is a truth universally acknowledged that tragedy is one of the world's highest art forms, and that Shakespeare was one of the form's greatest practitioners. But how did he do it? What models did he have to draw upon, and where did he innovate? In this episode, Jacke talks to Shakespeare scholar Rhodri Lewis about his new book Shakespeare's Tragic Art, a new account of Shakespearean tragedy as a response to life in an uncertain world. PLUS Joel Warner (The Curse of the Marquis de Sade: A Notorious Scoundrel, a Mythical Manuscript, and the Biggest Scandal in Literary History) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read. Additional listening: 518 The Curse of the Marquis de Sade (with Joel Warner) 548 Shakespeare in a Divided America (with James Shapiro) Shakespeare's Best | Sonnet 116 ("Let me not to the marriage of true minds") The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr
  • 670 The Parable

    670 The Parable
    Jan 16 2025
    Inspired by an email (from a listener?) with mysterious origins, Jacke takes a look at the brief narrative form the parable. How did parables get their name? What are their key features? Why did Jesus rely on them so heavily to communicate to his listeners? And what meaning does "A Parable" have for us today? Additional listening: 634 The Bible: A Global History (with Bruce Gordon) 368 The Story of the Nativity (with Stephen Mitchell) 41 The New Testament (with Professor Kyle Keefer) The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 43 mins
  • 669 Obsessed with Melville (with Jennifer Habel and Chris Bachelder) | My Last Book with Alexander Poots

    669 Obsessed with Melville (with Jennifer Habel and Chris Bachelder) | My Last Book with Alexander Poots
    Jan 13 2025
    What happens when a woman becomes obsessed with Herman Melville during the pandemic? What if the process of sorting fact from fiction in Melville's work inspires a midlife reckoning with her own marriage and ambition? And what if she (a poet) and her husband (a novelist, by the way) write a book about all of it? Well, the result would be something like Dayswork: A Novel, which has been called "a supremely literate achievement that wears its erudition lightly." In this episode, Jacke talks to the poet and her novelist husband, Jennifer Habel and Chris Bachelder, about what Melville means to them. PLUS Alexander Boots (The Strangers' House: Writing Northern Ireland) discusses his choice for the last book he will ever read. Additional listening suggestions: 513 The Writers of Northern Ireland with Alexander Poots 481 Moby-Dick: 10 Essential Questions (Part One) 482 Moby-Dick: 10 Essential Questions (Part Two) The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    56 mins