In the second installment of our look at Chekhov's four major plays, Jacke takes a look at Uncle Vanya (1898), the story of an estate manager struggling to make sense of his life.
Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. (We appreciate it!) Find out more at historyofliterature.com, jackewilson.com, or by following Jack ... Show More
Oct 12
836 Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (with Robin Waterfield and John Sellars) | My Last Book with Daniel Olivas
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 Sellar ... Show More
56m 58s
Oct 8
835 Blackness in Iran (with Amy Motlagh) | My Last Book with Nicholas Boggs
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 Th ... Show More
46m 4s
Oct 5
834 Shakespeare's Scholars (with Sean Keilen) | My Last Book with Nan Z. Da
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 ta ... Show More
57m 9s
Apr 2021
Feed Drop: The History of Literature - Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
This isn't an episode of Overdue, it's a Feed Drop! We wanted to share with you an episode of The History of Literature, a podcast about great stories and why we love them.To use host Jacke Wilson's words, the show "takes a fresh look at some of the most compelling examples of cr ... Show More
1h 1m
Sep 2021
GOOSEBERRIES by ANTON CHEKHOV
Ivan Ivanovich tells his friends the story of his brother who, after working in a small office in the city for many years, finally bought an estate in the country, where his life changed- but did it change for the better? Get all of our shows at one website: https://.1001storiesp ... Show More
28m 39s
May 2026
THE SCHOOL MISTRESS by ANTON CHEKHOV
🎙️ 🎙️ SHOW NOTES — "The Schoolmistress" by Anton Chekhov In this quietly heartbreaking story, Anton Chekhov turns his attention to the life of a rural schoolteacher whose world is shaped by duty, exhaustion, and the small indignities of life on the edge of poverty. "The Schoolm ... Show More
24m 30s
Sep 2021
THE MAN IN THE CASE by ANTON CHEKHOV
Chekhov's 1898 story "The Man In A Case", like many of his stories, was a comment on the social and political atmosphere prevalent in Russia at the time, and for that he was criticized often. This story was the first part of what has become known as "The Little Trilogy", along wi ... Show More
35m 37s
Apr 2021
Art and Action in Chekhov’s “The House with the Mezzanine”
In this story, there are two sisters: one introverted, frail, and bookish; the other dominant, opinionated, and politically active. In meeting them, an accomplished artist seems to be confronted with a dilemma. Should art subordinate itself to the project of creating a just socie ... Show More
1h 20m
<p>Part Two of the sleepy Herman Melville classic. </p><p>For a searchable, tagged index of all the stories or to make a request, go to <a href="https://www.listentosleep.com/">https://www.listentosleep.com</a>. </p><p>If you'd like to support the podcast, please leave ... Show More