The Global Novel: a literature podcast
Claire Hennessy
Subscribe
The Global Novel is a podcast that surveys the narratology of world literature and history of translation from antiquity to modernity with a critical lens and aims to make academic education in literature accessible to the world.
Available episodes
Newest first
Oldest first
2 days ago
New Grub Street (1891)
New Grub Street is a novel by George Gissing published in 1891, which is set in the literary and journalistic circles of 1880s' London.The story deals with the literary world that Gissing himself had experienced. Its title refers to the London street, Grub Street, which in the 18th century became synonymous with hack literature; by Gissing's time, Grub Street itself no longer existed, though hack-writing certainly did. Its two central characters are a sharply contrasted pair of writers: Edwin Reardon, a novelist of some talent with limited commercial prospects, and Jasper Milvain, a young journalist, hard-working and capable of generosity, but cynical and only semi-scrupulous about writing and its purpose in the modern world.
With us today to discuss this wonderful novel are Doctors. Katy Mullin, Tom Ue and Richard Menke. Dr. Mullin is professor of modern literature and culture at University of Leeds. Her research explores connections between late-Victorian and Modernist fiction, and sexuality and popular culture. She’s the author of James Joyce, Sexuality and Social Purity and another book titled Working Girls: Fiction, Sexuality and Modernity.
Dr. Ue is Assistant Professor in English of the Long Nineteenth Century at Cape Breton University and Advising Editor of The Complete Letters of Henry James at University of Nebraska Press. He is the author of Sherlock Holmes and Shakespeare. He also writes on George Gissing and Henry Ryecroft.
Dr. Menke is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Georgia. He is the author of Telegraphic Realism: Victorian Fiction and Other Information Systems and another book titled “Literature, Print Culture, and Media Technologies, 1880–1900: Many Inventions.”
Recommended Reading:
George Gissing, New Grub Street
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Support the show
playlist_add
Nov 15, 2023
The Aesthetic Cold War
How did superpower competition and the cold war affect writers in the decolonizing world? In the book The Aesthetic Cold War, Peter Kalliney explores the various ways that rival states used cultural diplomacy and the political police to influence writers. In response, many writers from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean—such as Chinua Achebe, Mulk Raj Anand, Eileen Chang, C.L.R. James, Alex La Guma, Doris Lessing, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, and Wole Soyinka —carved out a vibrant conceptual space of aesthetic nonalignment, imagining a different and freer future for their work. With us today is the book’s author Peter J. Kalliney. Dr. Kalliney is Professor of English at the University of Kentucky. His books include Cities of Affluence and Anger, Commonwealth of Letters, and Modernism in a Global Context.
Recommended Reading:
Peter J. Kalliney, The Aesthetic Cold War: Decolonization and Global Literature, 2022
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Support the show
playlist_add
Oct 30, 2023
Psychoanalysis and Literature
Taking Sigmund Freud's theories as a point of departure, Jean-Michel Rabaté's 2014 book The Cambridge Introduction to Literature and Psychoanalysis, explores the intriguing ties between psychoanalysis and literature. With me today is Professor. Jean-Michel Rabaté. He is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Rabaté has authored and edited more than 40 books on modernism, psychoanalysis, contemporary art, philosophy, and writers like Beckett, Pound and Joyce. Since 2008, he has been a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Recommended Reading:
Jean-Michel Rabaté, The Cambridge Introduction to Literature and Psychoanalysis (2014)
Recommended Merchandise:
Freudian Sip Coffee Mug for Psychoanalysis geeks
The Unemployed Philosophers Guild Freud After therapy Breath Mints
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Support the show
playlist_add
Oct 15, 2023
Shakespeare's Enigmatic Late Plays
The famous English poet, playwright, and actor William Shakespeare had during his lifetime produced 39 plays which are widely regarded as being among the greatest in the English language and are continually performed around the world, translated into every major living language. In recent years, modern criticism has labeled some of these plays "problem plays" that elude easy categorisation, or perhaps purposely break generic conventions, and has introduced the term romances for what scholars believe to be his later comedies. What is so enigmatic about these later plays? Today, the distinguished American scholar and professor of English, Dr. Seth Lerer is going to walk us through the major transitions of Shakespeare's plays as well as how to appreciate the aestheticism demonstrated in his later plays.
Dr. Seth Lerer specializes in historical analyses of the English language, and in addition to critical analyses of the works of several authors, particularly Geoffrey Chaucer. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Literature at the University of California, San Diego, where he served as the Dean of Arts and Humanities from 2009 to 2014. Dr. Lerer previously held the Avalon Foundation Professorship in Humanities at Stanford University and won the 2010 Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism and the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism for Children’s Literature: A Readers’ History from Aesop to Harry Potter.
*Recommended Readings:*
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Hamlet
The Tempest
*Music Credit:*
Artists: Dowland, Holborne, & Byrd. Album: Lifescapes Music in the Time of Shakespeare Song: The Fairie Rounde
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Support the show
playlist_add
Sep 15, 2023
Frankenstein (1818)
Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. It recounts the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature through an unorthodox scientific experiment. Though Frankenstein is infused with elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement, some scholars have argued for it as the first true science-fiction story. The novel has had a considerable influence on literature and on popular culture, spawning a complete genre of horror stories, films, and plays. Since the publication of the novel, the name "Frankenstein" has often been used, erroneously, to refer to the monster, rather than to his creator.
With me today is Dr. Glynis Ridley, Professor of English at the University of Louisville. Glynis received her Ph.D. from Trinity College, Oxford. She is best known as the author of Clara’s Grand Tour: Travels with a Rhinoceros in Eighteenth-Century Europe, which was winner of the Institute of Historical Research Prize.
Recommended Reading:
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818), ed. David Wootton
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.
Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Support the show
playlist_add
Aug 31, 2023
The Mahābhārata
In a most unsettling dice gambling game that is to determine the fate of its two players, a man loses his brothers, himself, his wife, and his kingdom to the servitude of the monster incarnate, thus meeting the threshold of an ominous age where the good and the just fight the battle against the evil and unjust. Thank you for tuning in to the Global Novel. I’m Claire Hennessy. The Mahābhārata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, and is often compared by Western scholars as important to world civilization as that of the Bible, the Quran, the works of Homer, Greek drama, or even the works of William Shakespeare. With me today are Dr. Nikhil Govind and Dr. Brian Black.
Dr. Govind has published in the areas of Indian aesthetic and political modernism . He is the author of Inlays of Subjectivity: Affect and Action in Modern Indian Literature (2019) and Between Love and Freedom: The Revolutionary in the Hindi Novel (2014).
Dr. Black* *is a lecturer in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University. His research interests include Indian religion and philosophy, comparative philosophy, the use of dialogue in Indian religious and philosophical texts, and Hindu and Buddhist ethics. He is the author of the book The Character of the Self in Ancient India: Priests, Kings, and Women in the Early Upaniṣads.
Recommended Reading:
The Mahābhārata
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Support the show
playlist_add
Aug 15, 2023
Robinson Crusoe After 300 Years
Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe, published in 1719. Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is presented as an autobiography of the title character – who is a castaway spending 28 years on a remote tropical desert island near the coasts of Venezuela and Trinidad, and encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers before being rescued. Robinson Crusoe was well received in the literary world and is often credited as marking the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre. It is generally seen as a contender for the first English novel. The work has been variously read as an allegory for the development of civilization; as a manifesto of economic individualism; and as an expression of European colonial desires.
Joining me today are Dr. Jakub Lipski, Dr. Glynis Ridley and Dr. Andreas Mueller. Dr. Jakub Lipski is an associate professor of English at Kazimierz Wielki University in Poland. He is the author of In Quest of the Self: Masquerade and Travel in the Eighteenth-Century Novel and Painting the Novel: Pictorial Discourse in Eighteenth-Century English Fiction.
Dr. Glynis Ridley is the author of Clara’s Grand Tour: Travels with a Rhinoceros in Eighteenth-Century Europe, which was winner of the Institute of Historical Research Prize. She is professor of English at the University of Louisville.
Dr. Andreas Mueller is professor and chair of English at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He is the author of A Critical Study of Daniel Defoe’s Verse and editor of Daniel Defoe’s Non-Fiction: Form, Function, Genre. He has published several essays on Defoe.
Recommended Readings:
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719)
Glynis Ridley, Andreas Mueller eds. Robinson Crusoe After 300 Years (2021)
Jakub Lipski ed. Rewriting Crusoe: The Robinsonade across Languages, Cultures, and Media (2020)
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Support the show
playlist_add
Jul 15, 2023
Apter's Politics of Untranslatability
Emily Apter’s Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability is a pivotal monograph in the study of comparative literature, published in 2014, ushering a significant turn in theorizing what is world literature and what it should be as a discipline in the US academia. Emily Apter is the major contributor to the recent debate about world literature theory. She* *is a Harvard graduate and her areas of expertise range from philosophizing in Languages, Political Theory, Translation theory, to continental philosophy, psychoanalysis, French and German literature. She is currently Professor of Comparative Literature and French at New York University.
Recommended Reading:
Emily Apter, Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability (2014)
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Support the show
playlist_add
Jun 30, 2023
Water Margin (16th century)
Water Margin (水浒传) is one of the earliest Chinese novels written in vernacular Mandarin, and is attributed to Shi Nai'an(施耐庵).It is also translated as Outlaws of the Marsh or All Men Are Brothers. The story, which is set in the Northern Song dynasty (around 1120), tells of how a group of 108 outlaws gather at Liangshan (梁山)Marsh to rebel against the government. Later they are granted amnesty and enlisted by the government to resist the nomadic conquest of the Liao(辽) dynasty and other rebels. It is considered one of the masterpieces of early vernacular fiction and Chinese literature. It has introduced readers to many of the best-known characters in Chinese literature, such as Wu Song(武松), Lin Chong(林冲), Song Jiang(宋江) and Lu Zhishen(鲁智深) to name just a few. Water Margin also exerted a towering influence in the development of fiction elsewhere in East Asia, such as in Japanese literature.
With us today is Professor. Andrew Plaks. He is Professor Emeritus of East Asian Studies and Comparative Literature at Princeton University. He is the author of Archetype and Allegory in the Dream of the Red Chamber as well as The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel.
Recommended Reading:
Water Margin
The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Support the show
playlist_add
Jun 15, 2023
Marxism and Literature
In today’s episode of the Global Novel, Dr. Daniel Tutt will review Marxism’s key concept of "alienation." He will also discuss the relationship between Marxism and literature.
Recommended Readings:
S.S. Solomon Prawer, Karl Marx and World literature
Terry Eagleton, Marxism and Literary Criticism
Raymond Williams, Marxism and literature
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Support the show
playlist_add
May 30, 2023
About Marxism
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical perspective to view social transformation. Today I speak with philosopher Daniel Tutt on several basic notions of Marxism and literature. Daniel’s research focuses on psychoanalytic theory and Marxist thought. He is the author of Psychoanalysis and the Politics of the Family: The Crisis of Initiation. He is also Adjunct Professor of philosophy at George Washington University, Marymount University and Senior Research Fellow at the Global Center for Advanced Studies.
Recommended Reading:
Robert C. Tucker, The Marx-Engels Reader, second edition
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Support the show
playlist_add
May 15, 2023
Don Quixote (1605)
Don Quixote is a Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. It was originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615. It is the most generative work of fiction of all time. There are literally thousands of works of fiction, theater, poetry, and music inspired, based on, or dealing in other ways with Cervantes’s novel. Don Quixote has been depicted by more artists than any other fictional character, which is part of the reason why he is the most easily recognized fictional character. A founding work of Western literature, Don Quixote is often labelled as the first modern novel and one of the greatest works ever written. It is also one of the most-translated books in the world and the best-selling novel of all time.
Guest-speakers:
Prof. Daniel R. Schwarz from Cornell University
Prof. Howard Mancing from Purdue University
Recommended Readings:
Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
Howard Mancing, Don Quixote: A Reference Guide
—The Cervante Encyclopedia
—Don Quixote Around The Globe…
playlist_add
Apr 30, 2023
Ancient Greek Novel: Aethiopika (350-375 AD)
Aethiopica is a fascinating and complex work that tells the story of a young Ethiopian princess named Chariclea and her lover Theagenes, a Thessalian nobleman. The novel is filled with adventure, romance, and intrigue, and it has captured the imagination of readers for centuries. Written in the third or fourth century AD, Aethiopica is considered one of the earliest surviving examples of the ancient Greek novel. It is a product of a rich literary tradition that flourished in the Hellenistic and Roman periods and is known for its vivid storytelling, complex characters, and exploration of themes such as love, identity, and fate.
We will explore the world of Aethiopica, its historical and cultural context, and the literary techniques that make it such a compelling work. We will delve into the characters, their motivations, and the complex relationships that drive the plot. We will also examine the enduring legacy of Aethiopica and its influence on later works of literature.
Recommended…
playlist_add
Apr 16, 2023
About The Novel
Consider, even English literature was a late comer to the academy, therefore the novel, being a late comer to the late comer, did not made it to the curriculum in the English departments world wide by the 1950. In fact, even by the mid 1980, it was so marginal that taking any graduate seminar related with fiction would be considered as side-tracked. Now, major theorists of the novel such as Franco Moretti hailed this field of study as “a great anthropological force,” highlighting its close examination on humankind by redefining the sense of reality and the meaning of individual existence. As now, scholars of the world celebrate the novel’s plurality as the borders of literature are continuously, unpredictably expanded, in today’s episode of the Global Novel, we will concentrate on the rise of the novel, especially its philosophical underpinnings and its main characteristics that set it apart from its predecessors—the epic and prose fiction as well as other earlier novel forms…
playlist_add
Mar 15, 2023
The Orphan of Zhao
The Orphan of Zhao(趙氏孤兒) is a famous play from the Chinese Yuan dynasty, in the 13th century generally attributed to the dramatist Ji Junxiang (紀君祥). The play is classified in the zaju (雜劇) genre of Chinese drama and revolves around the central theme of revenge and was the earliest Chinese play to be known and even translated in Europe.
Joining the show today is Dr. Patricia Sieber, associate professor of Chinese literature at Ohio State University. Prof. Sieber is the author of the book Theaters of Desire: Authors, Readers, and the Reproduction of Early Chinese Song-Drama and the editor of How To Read Chinese Drama: A Guided Anthology, among her other scholarly publications.
Recommended reading:
The Orphan of Zhao and Other Yuan Plays: The Earliest Known Versions
Video clip of the Royal Shakespeare production’s The Orphan of Zhao
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.
Buzzsprout - Le…
playlist_add
Feb 28, 2023
The Princesse de Clèves (1678)
La Princesse de Clèves is a French novel which was published anonymously in 1678. Many regarded the novel as the precursor to the modern psychological novel and a classic of world literature. Its author is generally attributed to Madame de La Fayette. The novel is unique for its highly realistic plot, introspective language that explored the characters' inner thoughts and emotions.
Joining the show today is Dr. Benjamin Fancy, author of the recently published essay titled ‘Fantôme de devoir’: La Princesse de Clèves’s Haunting Duty.
Recommended Readings:
Madame de La Fayette, Princesse de Clèves
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Support the show
playlist_add
Feb 15, 2023
Little Nemo In Slumberland (1905-1911)
Little Nemo in Slumberland is a comic strip created by American cartoonist Winsor McCay. It depicts Nemo having fantastic dreams that were interrupted by his awakening in the final panel. The strip is considered McCay's masterpiece for its experiments with the form of the comics page, its use of color and perspective, its timing and pacing, the size and shape of its panels, and its architectural and other details.
Joining the show today is Prof. Scott Bukatman, who is a cultural theorist and professor of film and media studies at Stanford University. His research explores how such popular media as film, comics, and animation mediate between new technologies and human perceptual and bodily experience. Among many of his works on these subjects, The Poetics of Slumberland: Animated Spirits and the Animating Spirit, celebrates play, plasmatic possibility, and the life of images in cartoons, comics, and cinema.
Recommended Readings:
Winsor McCay, Little Nemo In Slumberland (1905-6)
Scott…
playlist_add
Jan 15, 2023
The Arabian Nights and Its 2021 Translation
King Shahriyar and his brother King Shahzaman of India and China suspect their suffering to be unique in this world. Their wives have slept with other men, and this drives them to grief, to madness—Shahzaman skewers his wife and her lover. Shahriyar begins to take a new bride each night, only to have her killed the next morning. Parents grieve; the kingdom darkens. Eventually, Shahrazad, the vizier’s daughter, comes up with a plan. She offers herself as a bride, but holds Shahriyar’s attention, night after night, with stories that end on a cliffhanger. With every dawn, the king decides to let her live, burning to know what comes next. This goes on for one thousand and one nights, hence the name of the famous middle eastern folk tale collection. Here comes the good news: This 8-14 century compilation created in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age was recently re-translated in a new Norton edition by the British Syrian poet Yasmine Seale in 2021. Joining us today is its editor Dr.…
playlist_add
Dec 30, 2022
The Emergence of A Literary Genius: Anton Chekhov
In 1886, a twenty-six-year-old Anton Chekhov was publishing short stories, humor pieces, and articles at an astonishing rate, and was still a practicing physician. Yet as he honed his craft and continued to draw inspiration from the vivid characters in his own life, he found himself—to his surprise and occasional embarrassment—admired by a growing legion of fans, including Tolstoy himself.
He had not yet succumbed to the ravages of tuberculosis. He was a lively, frank, and funny correspondent and a dedicated mentor. And as Bob Blaisdell discovers, his vivid articles, stories, and plays from this period—when read in conjunction with his correspondence—become a psychological and emotional diary.
From the literary scholar and acclaimed author of Creating Anna Karenina comes the new book this year Chekhov Becomes Chekhov: The Emergence of a Literary Genius , Bob Blaisdell astutely examines the psychological portraits of Chekhov’s distinct, carefully observed characters and how…
playlist_add
Dec 15, 2022
Rebirth of the English Comic Strip
“Once upon a time: the comic strip was a poor, un- baptized, and unrecognized stepsister of caricature, which was the poor sister of the graphic arts, which were the poor sisters of the fine arts. If there was a fairy godmother at the birth of the sleeping beauty, the prince of public acclaim was slow in coming to wake her.” Such is the witty humor that sets in motion David Kunzle’s new monograph Rebirth of the English Comic Strip: A Kaleidoscope 1847-1870. Today I have the honor again to speak with Dr. Kunzle, professor eméritus of art history at UCLA about his new book.
Recommended Reading:
David Kunzle, Rebirth of the English Comic Strip: A Kaleidoscope (2021)
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Support the show
playlist_add
Nov 30, 2022
Anna Karenina (1878)
Anna Karenina is one of the most nuanced characters in world literature and we return to her, and the novel she propels, again and again. Joining us today is critic and professor Bob Blaisdell who unravels the novel’s author Leo Tolstoy’s family, literary, and day-to-day life during the period that he conceived, drafted, abandoned, and revised Anna Karenina in his recent book titled Creating Anna Karenina.
Recommended Reading:
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, trans. Kent and Berberova (2000)
Bob Blaisdell, Creating Anna Karenina (2021)
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Support the show
playlist_add
Nov 15, 2022
Translating System of Comics
Translation studies is an academic interdiscipline dealing with the systematic study of the theory, description and application of translation, interpreting, and localization. After I talked with Tierry Groensteen, whose work on comic theory was translated and introduced to the Anglophone world by Bart Beaty and Nick Nguyen, today I speak with these two translators who will share with us their experience and insights of translating theory.
Recommended Reading:
Ann Miller and Bart Beaty, The French Comics Theory Reader (2014)
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Support the show
playlist_add
Oct 30, 2022
System of Comics
Listen to Thierry Groensteen, one of the leading French-speaking comics researchers and theorists join and speak on the Global Novel podcast. Tierry's works have profound influence beyond the field of comics. According to the English translators of System of Comics, Thierry Groensteen “is not only the most prolific scholar on the subject of comics, he is indisputably one of the best. ” The System of Comics is his chef d’oeuvre, his masterpiece, reaching even broader audience in the anglophone world and inspiring new investigations into the field of comics.
Recommended Reading:
Tierry Groensteen, System of Comics (1999)
— Comics and Narration (2013)
— La bande dessinée et le temp (2020)
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost…
playlist_add
Oct 15, 2022
Mulan: Different Versions of a Classic Chinese Legend
Mulan is a legendary folk heroine from the Northern and Southern dynasties era of Chinese history, roughly from 4th to 6th century CE. The story of Mulan was originally told in Ballad of Mulan as a Yuefu (樂府) genre, in which Chinese poems were composed in a folk song style. Over the centuries, the story of Mulan has been reiterated, being performed on the stage, adapted for the screen, and rewritten as dramas for television and even animated films.
Joining us today is Dr. Shiamin Kwa, associate professor of East Asian languages and cultures and comparative literature at Bryn Mawr College. Among her expertise ranging from graphic narratives to Chinese literature, she is best known for her book with Wilt Idema titled Mulan: Five Versions of a Classic Chinese Legend.
Recommended Reading:
Shiamin Kwa, Mulan: Five Versions of a Classic Chinese Legend
Primary Text: The Ballad of Mulan by anonymous
(The English translation is included in Shiamin Kwa's Mulan: Five Versions of a Classic…
playlist_add
Sep 30, 2022
About Tricksters
In mythology and the study of folklore and religion, a trickster* *is a character in a story who exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherwise disobey normal rules and defy conventional behavior. Today I speak with Dr. Shepherd Siegel, author of the recently published book titled Tricking Power into Performing Acts of Love, as Siegel’s work weaves together delightful stories of mischief from famous tricksters and rereads a buried historical current of people who use creativity and play to challenge authority and envision new possibilities—through music, comedy, writing, visual arts and politics.
Recommended reading:
Shepherd Siegel, Tricking Power into Performing Acts of Love
Learn more about Dr. Siegel's works at http://shepherdsiegel.com
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: Thi…
playlist_add
Sep 15, 2022
Tao Yuanming's Utopianism
Peach Blossom Spring (桃花源记) is a short prose fable written by China's best known poet during the six dynasties period, Tao Yuanming (陶渊明). Joining us today is Dr. Wendy Swartz, professor of Chinese literature at Rutgers to share her knowledge with us on the subject. Prof. Swartz is the author of Reading Tao Yuanming: Shifting Paradigms of Historical Reception, and another book Reading Philosophy, Writing Poetry: Intertextual Modes of Making Meaning in Early Medieval China.
Recommended Reading:
Earl Trotter, Tao Yuanming: Selected Poetry & Prose (primary text)
Wendy Swartz, Reading Tao Yuanming: Shifting Paradigms of Historical Reception (secondary text)
For aficionados of classic Chinese: 《陶渊明集》
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a…
playlist_add
Aug 30, 2022
Marlowe: Doctor Faustus (1592)
A mysterious spy who wrote about the most captivatingly infamous intellectual of the time, Christopher Marlowe is among the most accomplished and enigmatic of the Elizabethan playwrights. Joining us today is Dr. Robert Sawyer, professor in the department of literature and language at East Tennessee State University. Professor Sawyer’s is the author of Shakespeare Between the World Wars, and Marlowe and Shakespeare: The Critical Rivalry.
Recommended Reading:
Doctor Faustus
Additional Readings:
A play is best learned when watched, you can find out the Review on Shakespeare's Globe's Doctor Faustus or go to a theater with a friend.
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.
Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Support the show
playlist_add
Aug 15, 2022
Milton: Paradise Lost (1667)
Paradise Lost is an epic poem by the 17th-century English poet John Milton, published in 1667. In its most creative fashion, it supplemented the biblical story of the origin and the Fall of Man, and imaginatively explains how and why Adam and Eve are tempted by the fallen angel Satan and thereby their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. It is considered to be Milton's masterpiece, solidifying his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of all time. Joining us today is Dr. David Loewenstein, Edwin Earle Sparks Professor of English and the Humanities at Penn State University.
Recommended Reading:
Paradise Lost
The Global Novel is ranked top 20 best literature podcast world wide by Feedspot
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost…
playlist_add
Jul 30, 2022
Dante Translated
The word “Inferno” is the Italian for Hell, an imaginary creation by the 14th-century poet Dante. The Inferno is the first part of the Divine Comedy, followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. One of the most therapeutic books of the world, it is about a hero’s journey through Hell, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine concentric circles of torment located within the Earth; it is “the realm ... of those who have rejected spiritual values by yielding to bestial appetites or violence, or by perverting their human intellect to fraud or malice against their fellowmen".Since its publication, over 129 translators have shared their creative attempts in translating the work, and more frequently these attempts were translations into English.
With us today is Prof. Marco Sonzogni from Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand who will talk about how different versions of translation highlight the thematic tension of Inferno.
Recommended Readin…
playlist_add
Jul 15, 2022
The Allegory of The Cave: Plato's Republic
The *Allegory of the Cave*, or *Plato's Cave*, is an allegory presented by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work Republic to compare "the effect of education(παιδεία) and the lack of it on our nature". It is written as a dialogue between Plato's brother Glaucon and his mentor Socrates, narrated by the latter.
Along with my interpretation of the cave, what you will hear is the original text read by Dr. Jim Nielson, former faculty member in arts and humanities at University of British Columbia.
Recommended reading:
Plato, Republic Book VI-X
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Support the show
playlist_add
Jun 30, 2022
Chinese Strange Writings of "The Six Dynasties" (222-589AD)
Are ghost stories real? And why do people write and read ghost stories in early medieval China? Prof. Robert Ford Campany, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair of Humanities, from department of East Asian Studies at Vanderbilt University will shed light on a distinctive Chinese narrative genre called "zhiguai"(志怪) or Chinese strange writings. Prof. Campany is among the first group of scholars to systematically trace, study and theorize this Chinese narrative genre.
Recommended readings:
Robert Ford Campany, A Garden of Marvels: Tales of Wonder from Early Medieval China, University of Hawaii Press, 2015. (primary text)
—Signs from the Unseen Realm: Buddhist Miracle Tales from Early Medieval China, University of Hawaii Press, 2012.
—To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth: A Translation and Study of Ge Hong's Traditions of Divine Transcendents, University of California Press, 2002.
—Strange Writing: Anomaly Accounts in Early Medieval China, State University of New York Press, 1996.
J…
playlist_add
Jun 15, 2022
Rodolphe Töpffer, Visionary Graphomaniac and Father of Comics
In this episode of The Global Novel podcast, Dr. David Kunzle (UCLA) will uncover the unknown history of how a once frowned-upon visual story-telling genre, called "picture-stories," legendarily made its way into the hands of one of the greatest literary figures of world literature Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and since then, won the hearts of the entire world. By tracing comic strips’ unique lineage in Rodolphe Töpffer, father of comic strips, Dr. Kunzle will shed light on Töpffer’s visual story-telling rhetoric as well as its endless potential as a medium.
Recommended Readings:
David Kunzle, ed & trans. Rodolphe Töpffer The Complete Comic Strip
David Kunzle, Father of the Comic Strip: Rodolphe Töpffer.
David Kunzle, Rebirth of the English Comic Strip, A Kleidoscope, 1847-1870.
Rodolphe Töpffer, "Essay on Physiognomy" (1845) in Enter: The Comics. ed & trans. by E. Wiese.
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for p…
playlist_add
May 30, 2022
The Tale of Genji and Its Translation
The Tale of Genji (or Genji Monogatari) is a classic work of Japanese literature written in the early 11th century by the noblewoman and lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu. The work recounts the fictional life of Hikaru Genji, or "Radiant Prince", who is the son of an ancient Japanese emperor (known to readers as Emperor Kiritsubo) and a low-ranking concubine called Kiritsubo Consort. Due to the intense political conflicts at the court and out of protection for his son, the emperor removes Genji from the line of succession, demoting him to a commoner by giving him the surname Minamoto, so that he pursue a career as an imperial officer. The tale concentrates on Genji's romantic life and describes the customs of the aristocratic society of the time. With us today is Prof. Edward Kamens, Sumitomo Professor of Japanese Studies, East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale University. Prof. Kamens will share his expertise on the history of the work’s translations as well as how other modes…
playlist_add
May 15, 2022
World Literature: Theories, Methods and Debates
What is world literature? How do we define its scope and nature? This episode will share a critical lens on the current theories, methods and debates on world literature, which move in and between countries and cultures. By investigating canonical works of leading theorists, we will get a sense of how institution shapes its discourse around the field. In doing so, we will develop aesthetic, ethical and pedagogical reflections towards a more constructive sense of “world literature."
Reading list (paid links):
*Introduction chapters* of the following books:
The Princeton Sourcebook in Comparative Literature: From the European Enlightenment to the Global Present. 2009.
David Damrosch, What is World Literature? 2003.
Emily Apter, Against World Literature 2013.
Pascale Casanova, The World Republic of Letters. 2004.
Christopher Predergast, Debating World Literature, 2004.
Editors at N+1, "World-lite: What is Global Literature" (free link)
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the mos…
playlist_add
Apr 15, 2022
Records of The Grand Historian (90BCE)
Many may still remember the 2002 martial art film directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Jet Li. The name is Hero and it is based on the historical event of Jing Ke’s assassination attempt on the first emperor of China, King of Qin in 227 BC.
The original story is explicitly detailed in the Records of The Grand Historian, also known by its Chinese name Shiji(史記). A monumental history of ancient China and the world, it was completed around 94 BC by the Western Han Dynasty official Sima Qian after having been started by his father, Sima Tan, Grand Astrologer to the imperial court.
In this episode, we will explore the historical as well as literary values of the Records of the Grand Historian, which is a foundational text in Eastern civilization.
Readings:
Burton Waston, trans. Records of The Grand Historian
for aficionados in classical Chinese: Shiji(史記)
Nicola Di Cosmo, Ancient China and its Enemies: The Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian History
This podcast is sponsored b…
playlist_add
Mar 30, 2022
I Love The Beauty That Isn’t Mine: Ovid’s Metamorphoses
Narcissus was a hunter from Thespiae in Boeotia who was known for his beauty. According to Tzetzes, he rejected all romantic advances, eventually falling in love with his own reflection in a pool of water, staring at it for the remainder of his life. After he died, in his place sprouted a flower bearing his name.
This episode explores how aspects of psychoanalysis, in particular, gender, sexuality, visual pleasure, as well as self and other, are represented.
Recommended Reading:
Ovid, Metamorphoses
This episode is able to be delivered to you in high quality because of the donation made by Donna Philips, Professor of Pro Tem at Citrus College, California.
This episode is dedicated to Dr. Vincent Farenga, Professor of Classics at University of Southern California. Part of the contents in this episode derive from his comparative literature 101 class called “Masterminds and Masterpieces,” taught in 2019 fall semester when I was his teaching assistant. Prof. Farenga’s class, a sur…
playlist_add
Mar 15, 2022
The Realm of Freedom: Zhuangzi's Metaphysical Taoism
In the episode we will explore one of the earliest narratives that attempts at capturing the essence of wisdom, freedom and happiness. It was 375 BC when Plato was writing the Republic, the same time when Zhuangzi wrote his eponymous work in the warring states of China. This episode will explore how Zhuangzi’s philosophical narratives convey their ethical and political meanings and how intellectuals played their roles in the pre-modern society of the East.
Recommended readings :
The Complete Works of Zhuangzi
Chapter 10 “The Third Phase of Taoism: Chuang Tzu” in Fung Yu-lan's Chinese Philosophy
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Support the show
playlist_add
Feb 28, 2022
The Beginning of Story-telling of the Western Tradition: Homer's Narrative Structure
What's the difference between oral and written form of story-telling? How do Homer's poetic narratives set the canon for Western literature? We will walk through The Illiad and The Odyssey together to find the answers.
Suggested Readings:
The Illiad
The Odyssey
Troy* *[movie]
The Odyssey[movie]
Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method
This podcast is sponsored by Riverside, the most efficient platform for video recording and editing for podcasters.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Support the show
playlist_add