Essay Thoreau and the business of distraction February 04, 2023 In his early years, the writer and naturalist Henry David Thoreau was a restless young man with a romantic temperament, casting about for a way to make a living without giving up his freedom. Read More
Podcast The Wife of Bath January 20, 2023 Ever since her triumphant debut in Chaucer鈥檚 Canterbury Tales, the Wife of Bath, arguably the first ordinary and recognisably real woman in English literature, has obsessed readers鈥攆rom Shakespeare to James Joyce, Voltaire to Pasolini, Dryden to Zadie Smith. Read More
Podcast An excerpt from The Aesthetic Cold War January 17, 2023 In 鈥淎frica and Her Writers,鈥� a feisty Chinua Achebe begins by proclaiming, 鈥淎rt for art鈥檚 sake is just another piece of deodorized dog shit.鈥� The joke, of course, comes at high modernism鈥檚 expense, and he was neither the first nor the last figure from decolonizing regions of the world to rail against writing for a privileged few. Read More
Podcast The Aesthetic Cold War January 04, 2023 How did superpower competition and the cold war affect writers in the decolonizing world? Peter Kalliney explores the various ways that rival states used cultural diplomacy and the political police to influence writers. Read More
Interview Daisy Hay on Dinner with Joseph Johnson January 01, 2023 Joseph Johnson was an extraordinary man, who brought together an extraordinary range of people.聽But Dinner with Joseph Johnson is not straightforwardly a biography of him鈥攐r even a book about him. Read More
Essay What I mean by landscape orientation October 05, 2022 I entered without words: Poems has been described as 鈥渓andscape oriented鈥� in every sense.聽Originally a photographic term, now applied to a horizontal page, landscape orientation is, for me, a poetics.聽A poetics that begins by questioning the term 鈥渓andscape鈥� itself. Read More
Essay Word watch September 12, 2022 Ever have the feeling that you should know something, but you don鈥檛 yet know what it is? But wait, if it is unknown to you, then how do you know that you should know it? Read More
Essay Rediscovering Melville and Mumford August 22, 2022 The darkest times often feel unprecedented, but as almost any historian will tell you, they鈥檙e not. Read More
Reading List A student鈥檚 guide to a good-enough year August 18, 2022 As schools begin to stabilize from COVID-19 disruptions, the pressures that have long been accumulating on students show no signs of slowing. Employment uncertainties, rising financial burdens, and unrelenting competition have layered on top of decades of cultural messaging to persevere doggedly and push oneself beyond the limits to achieve excellence. Read More
Podcast Listen in: What Makes an Apple? July 05, 2022 In the last years of his life, the writer Amos Oz talked regularly with Shira Hadad, who worked closely with him as the editor of his final novel,聽Judas. These candid, uninhibited dialogues show a side of Oz that few ever saw.聽 Read More
Essay Seamus Heaney, pseudonym 鈥業ncertus鈥� June 13, 2022 When he first began to publish poems, Seamus Heaney鈥檚 chosen pseudonym was 鈥業ncertus鈥�, meaning 鈥榥ot sure of himself鈥�. Characteristically, this was a subtle irony. Read More
Essay Why I hoard words June 09, 2022 I took an Old English module on a whim during my first year at university. I came across it at a foreign language informational session, and having never seen or heard Old English before, I was astonished to learn that my own mother tongue could be considered 鈥榝oreign鈥� to me. Read More
Podcast Listen in: Translating Myself and Others June 01, 2022 Translating Myself and Others聽is a collection of candid and disarmingly personal essays by Pulitzer Prize鈥搘inning author Jhumpa Lahiri, who reflects on her emerging identity as a translator as well as a writer in two languages. Read More
Podcast The Wordhord: Daily Life in Old English May 24, 2022 Old English is the language you think you know until you actually hear or see it. Unlike Shakespearean English or even Chaucer鈥檚 Middle English, Old English鈥攖he language of聽Beowulf鈥攄efies comprehension by untrained modern readers. Read More
Essay Jhumpa Lahiri: Where I find myself May 16, 2022 Having written my novel Dove mi trovo in Italian, I was the first to doubt that it could transform into English. Naturally it could be translated; any text can, with greater or lesser degrees of success. Read More
