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What does it mean to live a good life? How can we accomplish it? For more than two thousand years, Western civilization has looked to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics to help answer those questions. In this episode, Jacke talks to translator Robin Waterfield and scholar John Sellars about their new edition of Aristotle's classic text. PLUS Daniel Olivas (Chicano Frankenstein, Waiting for Godínez) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.
On Sale Now! For more information and to order Great Detective! An Adventure for Two People [2-Book Boxed Set] by Jacke Wilson, visit press.historyofliterature.com. SPECIAL OFFER! For a limited time, enter promotion code LOVE26 to get 20% off! And if you help us get the word out by posting two people enjoying the book on social media (plus a link to our website), we will refund money to your account. Learn more at press.historyofliterature.com!
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
What do Iranians - both home and abroad - think of race? Does "blackness" exist in Iran? And what can we learn about race and slavery in Iran from folklore, ethnography, literature, and films? In this episode, Jacke talks to author Amy Motlagh about her book Colorblind: Racial Thinking and Cultural Production in Modern Iran and the Diaspora. PLUS James Baldwin biographer Nicholas Boggs (Baldwin: A Love Story) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.
On Sale Now! For more information and to order Great Detective! An Adventure for Two People [2-Book Boxed Set] by Jacke Wilson, visit press.historyofliterature.com. SPECIAL OFFER! For a limited time, enter promotion code LOVE26 to get 20% off! And if you help us get the word out by posting two people enjoying the book on social media (plus a link to our website), we will refund money to your account. Learn more at press.historyofliterature.com!
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
Shakespeare himself didn't attend a university - and yet, for centuries, the world's greatest scholars have studied his works to learn about everything from poetry to politics. But have they missed the lessons that Shakespeare had for them in particular? In this episode, Jacke talks to author Sean Keilen about his book Shakespeare's Scholars: Three Lessons from the Liberal Arts, which examines three plays with scholars as protagonists to see what advice the Bard might have for modern-day academics.
On Sale Now! For more information and to order Great Detective! An Adventure for Two People [2-Book Boxed Set] by Jacke Wilson, visit press.historyofliterature.com. SPECIAL OFFER! For a limited time, enter promotion code LOVE26 to get 20% off! And if you help us get the word out by posting two people enjoying the book on social media (plus a link to our website), we will refund money to your account. Learn more at press.historyofliterature.com!
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
Everywhere we look, we see the benefits of the modern world. But what have we lost? In this episode, Jacke talks to Malcolm Guite about his new book Galahad and the Grail, the first of a four-volume Arthuriad, which poetically retells the Arthurian legend of Galahad's quest to find the Holy Grail.
On Sale Now! For more information and to order Great Detective! An Adventure for Two People [2-Book Boxed Set] by Jacke Wilson, visit press.historyofliterature.com. SPECIAL OFFER! For a limited time, enter promotion code LOVE26 to get 20% off! And if you help us get the word out by posting two people enjoying the book on social media (plus a link to our website), we will refund money to your account. Learn more at press.historyofliterature.com!
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
As we recently discussed with Hadley Suter, nineteenth-century French novelist Stendhal (1783-1842) came of age in an era when identity was up for grabs. So who was he? How did he view himself? What did he write, and why do we care so much about him now? In this episode, which originally ran in July of 2000, Jacke takes a look at the life and works of Stendhal, whose innovative novels The Red and the Black and The Charterhouse of Parma made him one of the greatest and most influential novelists of all time.
On Sale Now! For more information and to order Great Detective! An Adventure for Two People [2-Book Boxed Set] by Jacke Wilson, visit press.historyofliterature.com. SPECIAL OFFER! For a limited time, enter promotion code LOVE26 to get 20% off! And if you help us get the word out by posting two people enjoying the book on social media (plus a link to our website), we will refund money to your account. Learn more at press.historyofliterature.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
When times are tough, can literature help? After sharing an email from a listener, Jacke talks to author Rachel Pastan about her novel We're So Lucky to Live Here, in which a woman copes with a tragic loss by staging a production of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard in her childhood home. PLUS David Denby (Eminent Jews: Bernstein, Brooks, Friedan, Mailer) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.
On Sale Now! For more information and to order Great Detective! An Adventure for Two People [2-Book Boxed Set] by Jacke Wilson, visit press.historyofliterature.com. SPECIAL OFFER! For a limited time, enter promotion code LOVE26 to get 20% off! And if you help us get the word out by posting two people enjoying the book on social media (plus a link to our website), we will refund money to your account. Learn more at press.historyofliterature.com!
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
We often say it's important for a person to be "authentic," but what does that mean? Why is that necessarily a good thing? In this episode, Jacke talks to author Hadley Suter (Becoming Stendhal: The Performance of Authenticity and the Making of a Novelist) about the French novelist Stendhal (1783-1842) and his classic realist novels The Charterhouse of Parma and The Red and the Black. Writing in the aftermath of the French Revolution, when individuals suddenly found themselves with the opportunity to become someone new, Stendhal was acutely aware of the blurred lines between performance and authencity. How did he and his characters figure out who they wanted to be - and what happened when they tried to achieve it? What can their efforts tell us about our own understanding of identity and self-actualization? PLUS Jacke provides a literary tribute to singer-songwriter, actress, celebrity, and philanthropist Dolly Parton, who passed away on August 25, 2026.
On Sale Now! For more information and to order Great Detective! An Adventure for Two People [2-Book Boxed Set] by Jacke Wilson, visit press.historyofliterature.com. SPECIAL OFFER! For a limited time, enter promotion code LOVE26 to get 20% off! And if you help us get the word out by posting two people enjoying the book on social media (plus a link to our website), we will refund money to your account. Learn more at press.historyofliterature.com!
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
Charlotte Brontë and Elizabeth Gaskell, two of the leading novelists of the 19th century, shared a remarkable literary friendship. After Charlotte's death, Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë became one of the most famous--and controversial--literary biographies ever written. In this episode, Jacke talks to Susan Dunne about her new book Charlotte Bronte and Elizabeth Gaskell: Their Lives, Friendship and Writings, which tells the deeper story of the friendship between the two women. PLUS Jacke looks at the Odyssey kerfuffle that has entangled film director Christopher Nolan, translator and scholar Emily Wilson, and American novelist Joyce Carol Oates--including a surprising new development. AND previous guest Travis Franks, expert in Cherokee writer John Rollin Ridge, stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.
On Sale Now! For more information and to order Great Detective! An Adventure for Two People [2-Book Boxed Set] by Jacke Wilson, visit press.historyofliterature.com. SPECIAL OFFER! For a limited time, enter promotion code LOVE26 to get 20% off! And if you help us get the word out by posting two people enjoying the book on social media (plus a link to our website), we will refund money to your account. Learn more at press.historyofliterature.com!
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
What do we know about the Chinese philosopher and teacher Confucius? Although people have written biographies of Confucius for over 2,000 years, a recent discovery of a Chinese tomb containing the oldest written account of his life gives us a chance to look at Confucius afresh. In this episode, after some reflections on his experiences as a young teacher in Taiwan, Jacke talks to Confucian scholar Mark Csikszentmihalyi about his book Confucius: A New Tradition. PLUS a conversation with Rachel Pastan about her role as literary director of the recently opened independent bookstore Celia Bookshop in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.
On Sale Now! For more information and to order Great Detective! An Adventure for Two People [2-Book Boxed Set] by Jacke Wilson, visit press.historyofliterature.com. SPECIAL OFFER! For a limited time, enter promotion code LOVE26 to get 20% off! And if you help us get the word out by posting two people enjoying the book on social media (plus a link to our website), we will refund money to your account. Learn more at press.historyofliterature.com!
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
The second half of the twentieth century was marked by an extreme increase in America's prison population, from roughly 250,000 inmates in 1940 to well over two million by 2008. At the same time, American readers were devouring mysteries, thrillers, detective novels, police procedurals, and other forms of crime fiction. In this episode, Jacke talks to Theodore Martin about his book, American Literature's War on Crime: Novels and the Hidden History of Mass Incarceration, which explores the connection between crime novels and the making of mass imprisonment in America. PLUS Jacke takes a look at W.E.B. DuBois's famous statement that he "sit[s] with Shakespeare and he winces not."
On Sale Now! For more information and to order Great Detective! An Adventure for Two People [2-Book Boxed Set] by Jacke Wilson, visit press.historyofliterature.com. SPECIAL OFFER! For a limited time, enter promotion code LOVE26 to get 20% off! And if you help us get the word out by posting two people enjoying the book on social media (plus a link to our website), we will refund money to your account. Learn more at press.historyofliterature.com!
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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