AmLit Readers: American Literature, Culture, and History Podcast

Introduce yourself to Tara Westover’s Education (2018) with a book-club discussion of its first line.

Texts/authors mentioned in passing: Virginia Woolf, John Dewey, Toni Morrison’s Sula, Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle (vol. 3), Milan Kundera’s Art of the Novel, Unbearable Lightness of Being, Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face, Elizabeth Gilbert’s City of Girls

You can also watch this episode on  https://youtu.be/HYqB-lt_gA0

Get in touch @profomalley

Introduce yourself to Madeline Miller’s Circe (2018) with a book-club discussion of its first line.

Texts/authors mentioned in passing: Miller’s Song of Achilles, Illiad, Odyssey, Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad, Rick Riordan, David Vann’s Bright Air Black, James Joyce’s Ulysses, Margaret Atwood’s “Circe/Mud Poems” in You Are Happy (poetry), Margaret Atwood’s poem “Spelling” (poetry), Anne Carson, “Autobiography of Red” (poetry), Gregory Maguire's Wicked, Charles Dicken’s David Copperfield, James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s Epistemology of the Closet (literary history), Nicholas Paige’s Before Fiction (literary history)

You can also watch this episode on  https://youtu.be/KXBe_313aTk

Get in touch @profomalley

Introduce yourself to “It” books of 1970 with a book-club discussion of first pages of Michael Crichton’s Andromeda Strain, Erich Segal's Love Story, and Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude

Texts/Authors also mentioned in passing: Jurassic Park (book and movie), Congo (book and movie), ER (television series), Love Story (movie), Over Her Dead Body (literary theory), Clarissa, Lolita, The Scarlet Letter, As I Lay Dying, Edgar Allen Poe’s “Philosophy of Composition” (essay), Hillary Clinton’s What Happened (memoir), Stephanie Coontz, from NYTimes, “For Women, Redefining Marriage,” Maya Angelou, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Thomas Hardy’s fiction Wessex County, William Faulkner’s fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Li-Young Lee poems, Slowness, Lady Oracle, Abraham and Isaac story in Genesis, Tina Jordan article in NYTimes: LINK

You can also watch this episode on YouTube

Get in touch @profomalley

Introduce yourself to Elizabeth Gilbert's novel "City of Girls" (2016) with a book-club discussion of its first line and opening pages.

Texts also mentioned in passing -- Eat Pray Love, Educated (non-fiction), Committed (non-fiction), Signature of All Things, The Nightingale, All the Light You Cannot See, Stage Door (movie), Marked Woman (movie), Guys & Dolls (musical, movie), The Ring and the Book (poem), Aurora Leigh (poem), Bridges of Madison County, Madame Bovary, Don Quixote, and Jude the Obscure, "Any Fool Can Get into an Ocean" (poem).

You can also watch this episode on YouTube

Get in touch @profomalley

Introduce yourself to Elizabeth Gilbert's novel "City of Girls" (2016) with a book-club discussion of its first line and opening pages.

Texts also mentioned in passing -- Eat Pray Love, Educated (non-fiction), Committed (non-fiction), Signature of All Things, The Nightingale, All the Light You Cannot See, Stage Door (movie), Marked Woman (movie), Guys & Dolls (musical, movie), The Ring and the Book (poem), Aurora Leigh (poem), Bridges of Madison County, Madame Bovary, Don Quixote, and Jude the Obscure, "Any Fool Can Get into an Ocean" (poem).

You can also watch this episode on YouTube

Get in touch @profomalley

Introduce yourself to Elizabeth Gilbert's novel "City of Girls" (2016) with a book-club discussion of its first line and opening pages.

Texts also mentioned in passing -- Eat Pray Love, Educated (non-fiction), Committed (non-fiction), Signature of All Things, The Nightingale, All the Light You Cannot See, Stage Door (movie), Marked Woman (movie), Guys & Dolls (musical, movie), The Ring and the Book (poem), Aurora Leigh (poem), Bridges of Madison County, Madame Bovary, Don Quixote, and Jude the Obscure, "Any Fool Can Get into an Ocean" (poem).

You can also watch this episode on YouTube

Get in touch @profomalley

14.2 Appendix to Career Episodes

(or watch YouTube video here)

College Bucket List (things to do before you graduate)

____ Buy a stapler

____ Find your trusted news site

____ Identify role models (from history, business world, or family)

____ Get a passport

____ Bike or walk the Kearney trail from Cottonmill to Ft. Kearny

____ Attend a free play put on by the Theatre dept (bonus points for trying out for a play)

____ Go to MONA at least once every semester

____ Identify your craft (writing, photography, music, arts and craft, drawing, etc.)

____ Attend a reading by an author or poet

____ Find your favorite outdoor spot on campus

____ Identify your coffee habit (if not at all)

____ Find your perfect writing instrument

____ See a music performance at the Fine Arts Building

____ Recreate on the quad in spring

____ Go to a campus speaker sponsored by a different college from your major (bonus points for raising your hand during the Q&A)

____ See a foreign language film at the World Theater

____ Identify the country you most want to visit (bonus points for checking out study abroad possibilities even if you think don’t have the time or money)

____Volunteer in the community or in a campus imitative

____ Figure out your health regime (what to eat/ how and when to exercise)

____ Take on a leadership role in campus organization

____ Study or write a paper in a café (like Baritas or Calico Coffee)

____ Check out a library book you want to read for fun

____ Write a dream resume that you’d like to have by the end of your senior year

____ Make a list of 12 people you would call if you were desperate for a job; then see if you can increase the number to 40 (it’s easier to make this list when you’re not so desperate)

____ Follow up with professors/staff who put themselves forward as a mentor

____ Write and send a “letter to the editor” to the campus newspaper

____ Find a group of friends to go see the Sandhill Cranes in the spring

____ Learn to cook one infallible dish (for various potlucks that come up)

____ Identify your study spots (where will you go when you really need to study)

____ Take a Myers-Brigg personality test

____ Buy a writing handbook and an business etiquette book

____ Buy interview clothes (don’t forget shoes!)

____ Study a foreign language even if it’s not required

____ Try a new sport

____ Start a business

____Aim to visit each of your professor’s office hours at least once every semester

____Befriend an international student (bonus points if you make plans to visit them one day) or befriend an American student

____Take a poetry writing, creative writing, or screenwriting class

____Vote in an election

____Learn about investing and 401k plans for after college

____Witness a celestial event

14.1 Appendix to Career Episodes

My picks for best career advice books (or that were recommended to me)

Further Reading

“Are You My Mentor” chapter from Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg and

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain

Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi

Brag: The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn by Peggy Klaus

“You Attitude,” https://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/technical/resume/cover-tips.htm (Links to an external site.)

* The Corner Office by Adam Bryant

* You’ve Only Got Three Seconds by Camillle Lavington

Corporate Confidential by Cynthia Shapiro [for the those w/o a mentor]

Graduate Study for the 21st Century by Gregory Semenza

The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki

$100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau

Rich Dad, Poor Day by Robert T. Kiyosaki

Family Freedom by Paul and Becky Kortman [for those who want to travel the world]

Going back to school for a Teaching Certificate: http://www.unk.edu/academics/ted/transitional_certification/index.php

Episode 2 of 2 on Careers for Humanities Majors Part II offers my take on the cultural imperative to find one's passion or to find one's life calling through work. 

Watch the Youtube episode here: https://yhttps://youtu.be/R56DVKokb3U

Further reading: The book cited in the episode is Scott Kelly’s memoir, Endurance: A Year in Space; a New York Times article on an experimental college can be found here https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/opinion/sunday/college-anti-college-mainstream-universities.html. Also mentioned in Jane Austen's novel Sense and Sensibility.  My bucket list for college students can be found in Module 3Bc (and in an upcoming episode).

Episode 1 of 2 on Careers for Humanities Majors Part II offers advice on starting a job and adapting to a work culture

Watch the Youtube episode: https://youtu.be/zrxF6mBQZbM 

Further reading: For more information starting a job or career see Camile Lavington’s book You've Only Got 3 Seconds and Cynthia Shapiro's Corporate Confidential for the inside scoop from individuals who work in corporate HR and training