Humanities Center

What is literature? For much of western history, the word simply designated “educated writing” or “discourse,” a meaning it still retains. However, since the turn of the nineteenth century, literature has usually meant “imaginative writing,” and some kinds of literature, like the genre of romance, is more, shall we say, “literary” than others, more rooted in imaginative flights of fancy. Our guest is Scott Black, Professor of English literature and chair of the English department at the University of Utah. Professor Black is the author of Without the Novel: Romance and the History of Prose Fiction, published in 2019 by the University of Virginia Press, and it makes the compelling case that literature, especially in its most playful, most unrealistic, most imaginative, most romantic forms is precisely what we need today.

Interview by Matthew Wickman, Founding Director, BYU Humanities Center

Produced and Edited by Brooke Browne and Sam Jacob

Scotland is a small nation that has exerted an outsized influence on the modern world, an influence ranging from politics and economics, to university disciplines, the arts, and even the study of literature. But Scotland also bears a fascinating history within Britain, a history of influence, resistance, and self reflection. The guest of this episode of the BYU Humanities Center Podcast is Professor Cairns Craig, the Glucksman Chair of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen. Over a long and distinguished career, Professor Craig has written widely about Scottish literature, culture and history. He’s the author most recently of The Wealth of the Nation: Scotland, Culture, and Independence published in 2018 by Edinburg University Press. Professor Craig talked to us about what Scotland’s rich history can teach us about the modern world and about the role of the arts in forming our identities, culturally and even nationally.

Interview by Matthew Wickman, Founding Director, BYU Humanities Center

Produced and Edited by Brooke Browne and Sam Jacob

What do we need in violent times? Stronger weapons systems? Better intelligence so that we can root out threats before they arise? A more robust police force or rules for governing its use? Emily Katz Anhalt, who teaches classical languages and literatures at Sarah Lawrence College, believes we need stories. And not just any stories — ancient Greek myths. We talked with Professor Anhalt about her book Enraged: Why Violent Times Need Ancient Greek Myths, published in 2017 by Yale University Press. How do ancient Greek myths teach us about the consequences of rage, especially in society? What do they tell us about how to remove ourselves from feelings and situations of rage, or how to channel rage more productively? And how can they help us empathize with those who we perceive as our opponents, those who perhaps stoke our rage?

Interview by Matthew Wickman, Founding Director, BYU Humanities Center