TheKushnamehis unique, literally. Only one copy of the “Epic of Kush”exists, sitting in the British Library. Hardly anything is known about its author, Iranshah. It features a quite villainous protagonist, the tusked warrior Kush, who carves a swathe of destruction across the region. And it spans nearly half the world, with episodes in Spain, the Maghreb, India, China and even Korea. It was that last reference that encouraged academics in Korea to study theKushnameh,and bring Kaveh Hemmat to do its first-ever English translation, published by the University of California Press this year. Kaveh L. Hemmat is assistant professor, professional faculty in History at Benedictine University, scholar of world history and Islamicate culture, director of the NEH-funded Khataynameh Translation Project, an unusually determined cyclist, and a dabbler in sundry pursuits ranging from sourdough bread baking to drawing. He completed his Ph.D at the University of Chicago in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations in 2014. His research focuses on interaction between the Islamic world and East Asia and the importance of this interaction to Islamic political thought and premodern global political history. In this interview, Kaveh and I discuss this unique document and the cultural and political context behind its writing. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays atThe Asian Review of Books, including its review of theKushnameh. Follow onFacebookor on Twitter at@BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at@nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies
Today I talked toMark Andryczyk, translator ofVolodymyr Rafeyenko’s novelMondegreen: Songs about Death and Love(Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 2022). Amondegreenis something that is heard improperly by someone who then clings to that misinterpretation as fact. Fittingly,Mondegreen: Songs about Death and Loveexplores the ways that memory and language construct our identity, and how we hold on to it no matter what. The novel tells the story of Haba Habinsky, a refugee from Ukraine’s Donbas region, who has escaped to the capital city of Kyiv at the onset of the Ukrainian–Russian war. His physical dislocation—and his subsequent willful adoption of the Ukrainian language—place the protagonist in a state of disorientation during which he is forced to challenge his convictions. Written in beautiful, experimental style, the novel shows how people—and cities—are capable of radical transformation and how this, in turn, affects theirinterpersonal relations and cultural identification. Taking on crucial topics stirred by Russian aggression that began in 2014, the novel stands out for the innovative and probing manner in which it dissects them, while providing a fresh Donbas perspective on Ukrainian identity. Nataliya Shpylova-Saeedis a PhD candidate in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures, Indiana University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies
I can point you to mountains of research about prisons. I can also recommend at least a dozen Netflix documentaries, and highlight a handful of radical activists and scholars. There’s a lot of intellectual work doneabout prison.But what about intellectual work donein prison? As part of this week’s “ideas in strange places” theme, we want to play you this episode from right near when we started Darts and Letters, where we ask what kind of radical thought can come from the extreme oppression prisoners endure. We’ll be back with brand new episodes on September 18th, until then we’re replaying the best of our catalogue with a different theme each week. In Prison Notebooks… First, in the opening essay, hostGordon Katicdiscusses the long history of radical prison writing.From Thoreau to Gramsci, MLK, Oscar Wilde, Eugene Debs, Emma Goldman, and even Wittgenstein. Next (@5:36),Chandra Bozelkoserved 6 years, three months, and 11 days in a women’s prison in Connecticut. While inside, she started an award-winning newspaper column. She tells us what writing did for her while inside, and what everyday prison intellectualism really looks like. Then (@42:30),Justin Pichéedits one of the most amazing academic journals you will ever come across. It’s called theJournal of Prisoners on Prisons. It has been around for over thirty years. In each and every edition, you will see brilliant scholarly work—it just so happens that this work is written by prisoners themselves. —————————-SUPPORT THE SHOW—————————- You can support the show for free by following or subscribing onSpotify,Apple Podcasts, or whichever app you use. This is the best way to help us out and it costs nothing so we’d really appreciate you clicking that button. If you want to do a little more we would love if you chip in. You can find us onpatreon.com/dartsandletters. Patrons get content early, and occasionally there’s bonus material on there too. —————————-CONTACT US————————- To stay up to date, follow us onTwitterandInstagram. If you’d like to write us, email darts@citedmedia.ca or tweetGordondirectly. —————————-CREDITS—————————- This episode of Darts and Letters was produced byJay Cockburn. Research and support fromDavid MoscropandAddye Susnick. Our theme song and music was created byMike Barber, and our graphic design was created byDakota Koop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies
Our first August rebroadcast was John and Pu's 2019 interview with SF superstarCixin Liu(you may want to re-listen to that episodebefore this one!). Here, they reflect on the most significant things that Liu had said, and to ponder the political situation for contemporary Chinese writers who come to the West to discuss their work. They consider whether our world is like a cabinet in a basement, and what kind of optimism or pessimism might be available to science fiction writers. They compare the interview to a recent profile of Liu inThe New Yorker, and ponder the advantages and disadvantages of pressing writers to weigh in on the hot-button topics of the day. Discussed in this episode: Cixin Liu,The Three Body Problem,The Dark Forest, andDeath’s End Jiayang Fan, “Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds” (New Yorkerinterview/profile) Yuri Slezkine,The House of Government: A Saga of the Russian Revolution Isaac Asimov,The End of Eternity George Melies (dir.),A Voyage to the Moon Fritz Lang (dir.),Metropolis Frant Gwo (dir.),The Wandering Earth Ivan Goncharov,Oblomov Transcript availablehere. Elizabeth Ferryis Professor of Anthropology at Brandeis University. Email:ferry@brandeis.edu.John Plotzis Barbara Mandel Professor of the Humanities at Brandeis University and co-founder of theBrandeis Educational Justice Initiative. Email:plotz@brandeis.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies
Roanne Kantor tells us about World Literature, in the ideas and practices of readers, writers, and scholars. Spatial metaphors like libraries, closets, and airport bookshops, help her imagine the “world” in world literature. In the episode Roanne references work by many scholars in the field, including David Damrosch’sWhat is World Literature(Princeton UP, 2003); Debjani Ganguly’sThis Thing Called the World(Duke UP, 2016), and Gloria Fisk’sOrhan Pamuk and the Good of World Literature(Columbia UP, 2018). In the longer version of our conversation, we talked about how little magazines from the 1970s New York literary scene, like Ed Sanders’Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts,circulated in South Asia, inspiring avant-garde magazines like Arvind Krishna Mehrotra’sdamn you/a magazineof the arts. Roanneis an assistant professor of English and Comparative Literature at Stanford University. She has a brand new book,South Asian Writers, Latin American Literature, and the Rise of Global English,(Cambridge UP, 2022). If you want to learn more about the world of world lit, check it out. This week’s image of an airport bookshop at the Incheon International Airport in South Korea, was photographed by Adli Wahid and made publicly available onWikimedia Commonsunder a Creative Commons License. Music used in promotional material: ‘Six More Weeks’ by Evening Fires Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies
It’s stardate 99040.01 and lead producer Jay Cockburn is temporarily taking over command ofDarts and Lettersfor an episode. For this episode, as part of the week’s theme of “ideas in strange places” we boldly go into the strange new worlds of science fiction, revealing how it’s long been a vehicle for radical thought. We dig into post-scarcity, Afrofuturism, and feminist speculative fiction as we set our phasers to fun and go where no podcast has gone before. This episode is a rebroadcast from our catalogue. We’re revisiting some of our favourites until the new season of Darts and Letters launches on September 18th. First (@10:54),Cory Doctorowis a journalist, activist, blogger, and author of many books including the post-scarcity speculative fiction novelWalkaway. He takes us through the idea of a post-scarcity world as he breaks down the idea of abundance and what we might do with it, or not. Then, (@34:52),Nalo Hopkinsonis a science fiction writer, editor, professor, and author ofBrown Girl in the Ring. She talks to us about Afrofuturism as a critical lens and different ways of seeing the future for different communities — and re-imagining the present. Plus, be sure to read her own recommendation:Sister Mine. Finally, (@49:43), Batya Weinbaum is a poet, artist, professor, and the editor ofFemSpec, an academic journal of feminist speculative fiction. She charts the history of feminism in science fiction and how art, including novels, helps drive social, political, and economic change. —————————-CONTACT US————————- To stay up to date, follow us onTwitterandInstagram. If you’d like to write to us, email darts@citedmedia.ca or tweetGordondirectly. —————————-SUPPORT THE SHOW—————————- You can support the show for free by following or subscribing onSpotify,Apple Podcasts, or whichever app you use. This is the best way to help us out and it costs nothing so we’d really appreciate you clicking that button. If you want to do a little more we would love if you chip in. You can find us onpatreon.com/dartsandletters. Patrons get content early, and occasionally there’s bonus material on there too. —————————-CREDITS—————————- Darts and Letters is hosted and edited byGordon Katic; this episode our guest host and lead producer isJay Cockburn.Gordon Katicis our editor. Our managing producer isMarc Apollonio. Our research assistants for this episode wereAddye SusnickandDavid Moscrop. Our theme song was created byMike Barber. Our graphic design was created byDakota Koop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies
Sohini Sarah Pillai talks about epics, long narrative poems about heroic events – whether all such poems can be called epics, and how they continue to generate cultural and political material. The conversation covers epic poems ranging from the Iliad to Jack Mitchell’sThe Odyssey of Star Wars. Sohini Pillaiis Assistant Professor of Religion at Kalamazoo College where she teaches courses on religious traditions in South Asia. She is a comparatist of South Asian religious literature and her area of specialization is the Mahabharata and Ramayana narrative traditions with a particular focus on retellings created in Hindi and Tamil. She is also the co-editor with Nell Shapiro Hawley ofMany Mahabharatas(State University of New York Press, 2021). Image by Saronik Bosu (This image is a work of fan art that adapts characters from the Star Wars franchise owned by Lucasfilm ltd.) Music used in promotional material: ‘Yoliyoli’ by 33nano Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies
Patti Smith arrived in New York City at the end of the Age of Aquarius in search of work and purpose. What she found—what she fostered—was a cultural revolution. Through her poetry, her songs, her unapologetic vocal power, and her very presence as a woman fronting a rock band, she kicked open a door that countless others walked through. No other musician has better embodied the “nothing-to-hide” rawness of punk, nor has any other done more to nurture a place in society for misfits of every stripe. Why Patti Smith Matters(University of Texas Press, 2022)is the first book about the iconic artist written by a woman. The veteran music journalistCaryn Rosecontextualizes Smith’s creative work, her influence, and her wide-ranging and still-evolving impact on rock and roll, visual art, and the written word. Rose goes deep into Smith’s oeuvre, from her first album,Horses, to acclaimed memoirs operating at a surprising remove from her music. The portrait of a ceaseless inventor,Why Patt...
What is unfeeling? According to today’s guest, Xine Yao, unfeeling includes “a broad range of affective modes, including withholding, disregard, growing a thick skin, refusing to care, opacity, numbness, dissociation, inscrutability, frigidity, insensibility, obduracy, flatness, insensitivity, disinterest, coldness, heartlessness, fatigue, desensitization, and emotional unavailability.” In short, Xine argues in a new book from Duke University Press, titledDisaffected: The Cultural Politics of Unfeeling in Nineteenth-Century America, “people who are disaffected break from affectability and present themselves as unaffected” (11). Xine is a Lecturer of English before 1900 at University College London. Xine is a BBC Radio 3/AHRC New Generation Thinker and the co-host of the PhDivas Podcast which focuses on social justice and academia across the STEM/Humanities divide.Disaffectedis an urgent book that examines how sentimentality was (and is) a part of the political architecture of w...
From the creator ofUlyssesGuide.com,The Guide to James Joyce's Ulysses(Johns Hopkins UP, 2022) weaves together plot summaries, interpretive analyses, scholarly perspectives, and historical and biographical context to create an easy-to-read, entertaining, and thorough review of Ulysses. InThe Guide to James Joyce's 'Ulysses,'Patrick Hastings provides comprehensive support to readers of Joyce's magnum opus by illuminating crucial details and reveling in the mischievous genius of this unparalleled novel. Written in a voice that offers encouragement and good humor, this guidebook maintains a closeness to the original text and supports the first-time reader of Ulysses with the information needed to successfully finish and appreciate the novel. Deftly weaving together spirited plot summaries, helpful interpretive analyses, scholarly criticism, and explanations of historical and biographical context, Hastings makes Joyce's famously intimidating novel-one that challenges the conventions and...