74 | Stephen Greenblatt on Stories, Hist...

At any given moment, an uncountable number of events are happening, but only some of them matter to us. What does it mean for something to matter, and more importantly, what does it mean for us to matter -- to ourselves as well as to others? The need to matter can be motivation t ... Show More

It's become increasingly clear that the Turing Test -- determining whether human interlocutors can tell whether a conversation is being carried out by a human or a machine -- is not a good way to think about consciousness. Modern LLMs can mimic human conversation with extraordina ... Show More

Time for the holiday message! Rounding off the year with a brief and casual reflection on some issue that doesn't quite rise to the level of a full solo podcast. And hopefully something uplifting.This year, I offer a short apologia for higher education in the liberal arts and sci ... Show More

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

The German polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe considered his monumental book known in English as The Theory of Colours to be his greatest achievement. The book is a record of hundreds of Goethe's observations about the way colour affects our mood, as well as a long and heated po ... Show More

<p>In this conversation, we talked to Naomi Shihab Nye about her career in prose and poetry writing<strong>.</strong> Nye is the recipient of numerous honors and awards for her work, including the Ivan Sandrof Award for Lifetime Achievement from the National Book Critics Circle, ... Show More

Salman Rushdie, internationally bestselling author and ‘Best of the Booker’ winner, is a storyteller of the highest order, illuminating truths about our society and culture through his dazzling prose. Best known as a novelist, he is also a compelling essayist and last month he ca ... Show More

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 Professo ... Show More

Born George Mpanga, George the Poet is a British spoken-word artist and podcast host. Having started out as a rapper, he made his name as a spoken-word performance poet after leaving Cambridge University. His debut collection Search Party was published in 2015. The same year he w ... Show More

In their latest collection of poems, Cave Canem Poetry Prize winner Brionne Janae dives into the deep, unsettled waters of intimate partner violence, queerness, grief, and survival. This event took place on July 6, 2023. “I’ve decided I can’t trust anyone who uses darkness as a m ... Show More