The Literature Humanities Radio Hour on WKCR 89.9FM: Literary Classics in Conversation

The Literature Humanities Radio Hour on WKCR 89.9FM: Literary Classics in Conversation

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The Literature Humanities Radio Hour on WKCR 89.9FM: Literary Classics in Conversation episodes

  • Sor Juana | Early 17th Century Proto-Feminist Poetry?

    Thomas, Katrina & Tamara discuss the poetry of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a 17th Century Mexican literary figure who swore off the life of the court (and the requirements to marry) in order to preserve her intellectual independence, writing instead from her cloister. Alongside her poetic verses, they discuss in particular Sor Juana's First Dream, a strange abstract journey into the body towards the soul, and follow it on its strange hovering movements.

    1 hr 1 min
  • Shakespeare's King Lear (1606)

    Thomas, Larry & Katrina spend a good half an hour discussing the opening scene of King Lear and the mad king's division of his kingdom among his three daughters, all the while discussing the problems of intrigue, inheritance, betrayal, trust and (human) nature in Shakespeare's big beast of a play.

    1 hr 2 min
  • Dante's Inferno | The Divine Comedy (1321-ish)

    Thomas, Katrina & Larry join to discuss Dante Alighieri's Inferno, published after Dante's exile from Florence in the early 13th Century. They discuss the text's allegorical and richly intertextual opening passages, the Ancient Greek philosophical basis of this Roman Catholic text, and its metanarrative commentary on reading and interpreting.

    1 hr
  • Ibn Arabi | 13th Century Mystical Sufi Lyric

    Thomas, Katrina & Larry meet to discuss Ibn Arabi's Translator of Desires, a collection of 61 poems that propose a theological concept of the Divine that sees its collapse into the Beloved and the natural world. Born in Al-Andalus (today Andalucia), Ibn Arabi lived from 1165 until 1240, journeying to Mecca in 1202 and subsequently publishing a series of poetic and philosophical works that would cement his status as a preeminent Sufi mystic philosopher and spiritual authority.

    1 hr
  • Augustine's Confessions | Autobiography & Theological Philosophy (397-400CE)

    Thomas, Larry & Katrina grapple with Augustine's Confessions - a text which combines highly stylized autobiographical writing with philosophical meditations on the the divine, the presence of evil in the world, and how one must go inside oneself to come closer to the divine. To what extent does both the self, and the divine, remain a mystery? Join us as we grapple with this incredibly complex text.

    1 hr 2 min
  • Claudia Rankine's Citizen (2014): An American Lyric

    Thomas Preston is joined by colleagues Katrina & Larry to discuss the first text on the Spring syllabus, Claudia Rankine’s Citizen (2014), an award-winning, essayistic-poetic work that “recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media” (Graywolf Press).

    1 hr

About The Literature Humanities Radio Hour on WKCR 89.9FM: Literary Classics in Conversation

From the publisher's feed

Ever wanted to talk about the “classics” in a relaxed, accessible setting? This podcast brings together Columbia University Core Curriculum lecturers to discuss their favorite moments from the texts we read in class. Each year, roughly 1,800 students work through the same sequence of literary classics, from Ancient Mesopotamia to Toni Morrison. We follow that arc in conversation.