'The Story of the Jews' Continues

Some time ago, the British journalist Sophie Elmhirst was reporting a story about people who try to escape the land and to live on the water. “I found myself trolling around as you do in these moments, online and on a website devoted to castaway stories and shipwreck stories,” sh ... Show More

“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself”: So reads one of the great opening lines in British literature, the first sentence of Virginia Woolf’s classic 1925 novel, “Mrs. Dalloway.”The book tracks one day in the life of an English woman, Clarissa Dalloway, living in ... Show More

On this week's episode, A.O. Scott joins host Gilbert Cruz to talk about the value of close reading poetry. And New York Times Book Review poetry editor Greg Cowles recommends four recently published collections worth reading.Books mentioned in this episode* "New and Collected He ... Show More

Simon Lancaster and Tom Clark touch upon the history of speeches 

Discussing Friedrich Schleiermacher's "On Religion; Speeches to its Cultured Despisers" (1799, with notes added 1821), first and second speeches. With guest Daniel Horne. 

When Deborah Friedell and Adam Thirlwell met twenty years ago, they started a discussion about Jewish identity they are still puzzling over today. Revisiting Philip Roth’s The Counterlife (1986), an American take on British antisemitism and the escapist allure of aliyah, Adam and ... Show More

On the debut of ’The Interview,' the actress talks to David Marchese about learning to let go of other people’s opinions. 

Authors Sharla Alegria and Catherine Yeh discuss the article, "Machine Learning and the Reproduction of Inequality" published in the Fall 2023 issue of Contexts. 

*Friend of the podcast Chris Beausang has started his own podcast! Subscribe to his show here on Apple Podcasts and listen to the entire episode* An interview with Conor McCarthy about the life and work of the Palestinian literary critic and activist Edward Said. Conor McCarthy i ... Show More

Today I talked to Roslyn Weiss, editor of Hasdai Crescas: Collected Writings (Library of the Jewish People, 2023).Hasdai Crescas spent his life in public service - as a rabbi and community leader in desperate times in 14th-century Spain. Despite having limited time for writing, h ... Show More