Project Narrative

In this episode of the Project Narrative Podcast, Julia Watson and Jim Phelan read and discuss a particularly moving piece of life writing, Alice Walker’s “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self,” first published in Ms. Magazine and then in Walker’s collection of nonfiction, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens in 1983. Julia Watson is an Academy Professor Emerita of Comparative Studies and a former Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences at the Ohio State University and a Core Faculty Member of Project Narrative.

In this month’s episode, Karen Winstead and Jim Phelan read and discuss two excerpts from Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, “How Arthur was Born” and “The Knight with the Two Swords.” Karen Winstead is Professor of English and Core Faculty Member of Project Narrative at the Ohio State University. She is a Distinguished Teacher, repeat winner of various teaching awards, and is the author of four monographs.

In this month’s episode of the Project Narrative Podcast, Amy Shuman, Professor of English at the Ohio State University and Core Faculty Member of Project Narrative, joins Jim Phelan for a conversation about two stories of “waiting” from Charles Rutenesha’s memoir in progress about his experiences in Rwanda in the early 1990s and then later as a refugee. The stories are entitled, “Waiting to Be Arrested” and “Waiting to Be Released.”

In this episode of the Project Narrative Podcast, Jim Phelan sits down with Angus Fletcher, Core Faculty Member of Project Narrative with joint appointments in the Department of English and the Department of Theatre, Film, and Media Arts at the Ohio State University, to read and discuss Tim O’Brien’s 1990 short story, “The Things they Carried.”

In this month’s episode of the Project Narrative Podcast, Robyn Warhol, Distinguished Professor of English at the Ohio State University and Core Faculty Member of Project Narrative, joins Jim Phelan to discuss Zadie Smith’s 1999 short story, “The Waiter’s Wife,” which Smith also incorporated into her award-winning novel, White Teeth, published the following year.

In this month’s episode of the Project Narrative Podcast, Brian McHale, Distinguished Professor of English at the Ohio State University and one of the founders of Project Narrative, sits down with Jim Phelan to discuss a series of poems that contain significant narrative gaps. The poems discussed include a Hebrew nursery rhyme entitled, “Yonatan Hakatan,” a British border ballad called “When I Was on Horseback,” a Spanish poem by Federico García Lorca called “Rider’s Song,” and Bob Dylan’s lyric, “All Along the Watchtower.”

“When I Was on Horseback” (traditional; as recorded by Steeleye Span, 1972)

Einojuhani Rautavaara’s setting, with lyrcis, from his “Lorca Suite” (1973)

Bob Dylan, “All Along the Watchtower,” from John Wesley Harding (1967)

Jimi Hendrix’s cover version of “Watchtower” (1968)

In the first episode of the Project Narrative podcast, Katra Byram, Associate Professor of German Language and Literature and Core Faculty Member of Project Narrative, sits down with Jim Phelan to read and discuss a text from a slam poetry performance called, “Hinter uns, mein Land,” or, “Behind Us, My Country,” by Babak Ghassim and Usama Elyas. As this is a narrative poem for two voices, Jim and Katra read the poem together before engaging in a discussion of its form and contents.

The authors’ names are Babak Ghassim and Usama Elyas, and the title of the poem in German is “Hinter uns, mein Land.”