Literary canons have come under fire for perpetuating privilege and exclusion. But some artists — including William Shakespeare and Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda — show us how canons can actually build community and democracy.
Guests:
Stephen Greenblatt, Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University and editor of the Norton edition of S ... Show More
Dec 2023
Genealogies of Modernity Episode 7: A Genealogy of Gun Violence
The problem of gun violence is as old as guns themselves. According to historian Priya Satia, America’s present epidemic of gun violence has its roots in the industrial revolution. Satia tells the story of British gun-maker Samuel Galton, Jr., who was called to task by his Quaker ... Show More
51m 20s
Nov 2019
74 | Stephen Greenblatt on Stories, History, and Cultural Poetics
An infinite number of things happen; we bring structure and meaning to the world by making art and telling stories about it. Every work of literature created by human beings comes out of an historical and cultural context, and drawing connections between art and its context can b ... Show More
1h 6m
Nov 2023
Shakespeare as inspiration
Matthew Sweet is joined by Professor Preti Taneja – author of a novel We That Are Young which sets the King Lear in Delhi, by Dr Iain Robert Smith who studies films from around the world, and by Andrew Dickson, journalist and author of Worlds Elsewhere: Journeys Around Shakespear ... Show More
44m 21s
Dec 2021
The Sunday Debate: Shakespeare vs Milton
Nearly four centuries after his death, no writer has matched William Shakespeare’s influence across drama, theatre and poetry but a few have come close. John Milton, say his fans, works on an altogether different, higher plane. In Paradise Lost – one of the most significant poems ... Show More
1h 59m
Nov 2020
Book at Lunchtime: Iconoclasm as Child's Play
Dr Joseph Moshenska, Associate Professor and Tutorial Fellow at University College, discusses his new book, Iconoclasm as Child's Play. Drawing on a range of sixteenth-century artifacts, artworks, and texts, as well as on ancient and modern theories of iconoclasm and of play, Ico ... Show More
1h 7m
Mar 2023
Jessica Brantley, "Medieval English Manuscripts and Literary Forms" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022)
Today’s guest is Jessica Brantley, Professor of English at Yale University. Professor Rosenberg is the author of the previous monograph, Reading in the Wilderness, published by the University of Chicago Press in 2007. Her articles have appeared in PMLA, Exemplaria, and the Journa ... Show More
50m 52s