Hold That Thought

This episode features two experts: Derek Hirst, professor of history, and Steven Zwicker, professor of English, from Washington University in St. Louis. For decades now, the scholars have been researching Andrew Marvell, a 17th century English politician and poet. Marvell presents a challenge because the details of his life are relatively unknown, but what survives are his political texts, his poems, and the works his contemporaries wrote about him. Professors Hirst and Zwicker explain how they used their areas of expertise to bring these two seemingly-disparate versions of Marvell, the politician and the poet, together into one man.

Oskar Kokoschka, an Austrian expressionist painter and playwright in early 20th century Vienna, had a torrid affair with a woman--his muse--named Alma Mahler. When it ended, Oskar was devastated, feeling that he couldn't live or work without her. So, he did what any man would do: he had a life-size doll likeness of Alma made, which he continued to live with to inspire his work. Henry Schvey, a director, playwright, and professor of drama and comparative literature at Washington University in St. Louis, wrote a play based on this period of Kokoschka's life. He tells the story of how he first met the artist and explains how he turned the historical facts into a play.

Today, we consider the memoir. How do authors write about their own histories as well as family and loved ones who might very well read their book? Does time change the way we right about these stories and personal tragedies? Kathleen Finneran, a writer in residence at Washington University in St. Louis, talks about her memoir, The Tender Land: A Family Love Story, which focuses on her family and how their lives are altered by the suicide of her younger brother, Sean. She considers how writing the book affected her personal grieving process and chronicles her family's surprising reaction to the book.

So far, we've considered how authors and historians portray lived-lives in their creative or academic works, but what about creative works from the past? Can they too be "reinterpreted" in the present? Poet Paul Legault, co-founder of the small press Telephone Books and a writer in residence at Washington University in St. Louis, tackled questions such as these with his 2012 book, The Emily Dickinson Reader: An English-to-English Translation of Emily Dickinson's Complete Poems. He'll discuss how he sought to connect present readers with these works from the past by translating these beloved poems back into English, and how translation is a broader concept than simply substituting one language for another.

Historical fiction is an ongoing balance between fact and fiction, but what if the story takes place outside of reality? What if much of the story takes place in a dream? How do you keep readers rooted in time and history? Author Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, a Visiting Hurst Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, addresses questions such as these in her award-winning novel Madeleine is Sleeping. She explains how her favorite historical novels never feel "historical," and together we examine the role of time in fiction.

History and fiction are sort of antonyms, so how do historical fiction writers bring fact and fiction together? How closely must historical fiction mirror recorded history? Author Marshall Klimasewiski, Senior Writer-in-Residence at Washington University in St. Louis, discusses the precarious balance writers of historical fiction must strike even when creating alternate histories. He also talks about two stories from his collection Tyrants and a novel-in-progress following Salomon August Andrée, a 19th century Swedish aeronaut who attempted to float to the North Pole in a hydrogen balloon.

In the spring of 1940, then-unknown writer Albert Camus and budding biologist Jaques Monod quietly joined the French Resistance as they watched their beloved Paris fall to the Nazis. Decades later, after stumbling across a few lines in a biography, Sean B. Carroll, an evolutionary biologist, author, and alumnus of Washington University in St. Louis, set out to prove that these two great minds were also friends. Rooting through French archives and talking to people at the heart of the French Resistance, Dr. Carroll uncovered documents no one expected to find and illustrates the exciting turns historical research can take.

In 1957, Ghana declared its independence from colonial rule, and a new leader named Kwame Nkrumah rose to take the helm. Jean Allman, professor of history and director of the Center for the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis, has been studying the surprising networks that formed around Nkrumah, and in her research, she's discovered documents never meant for her eyes. She raises questions about the morality of the archival process and reveals how the NSA may change the future of history research.

In the early years of the United States, how did the federal government operate on a day-to-day basis? What responsibilities did the government take on, how many people did it employ, and what crises did it face? Peter Kastor, professor of history at Washington University in St. Louis, sheds light on how debates over government have evolved over time, from the country's earliest days to the 2012 presidential election. For more information, visit Washington University's Humanities Digital Workshop.

"Creating a Federal Government" first aired in fall 2012 as part of Hold That Thought's ongoing series People, Places, and Ideas to Explore.

Philosophy professor Carl Craver from Washington University in St. Louis tackles some fundamental questions about the importance of memory. Is it our personal memories that make us distinctly human? Does our capacity for memory make us morally accountable for our actions? How does our ability to remember the past relate to how we think about the future? And where do all these questions leave people with amnesia?

"Amnesia and Identity" first aired in fall 2012 as part of Hold That Thought's 6-part series on Memory.