New Books in Literary Studies

New Books Network
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This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

  1. 6d ago

    Krzysztof Rowiński, "Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption: Twentieth Century Literature and Film" (Routledge, 2026)

    Today’s guest, Krzysztof Rowiński, is the author of Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption: Twentieth Century Literature and Film (Routledge, 2026). This book focuses on the concept of non- redemptive failure, a type of failure that is not part of a larger narrative of success or narrative redemption, with attention to how the concept functions between literature, critical theory, and other fields. Examining literature and film from mid- twentieth- century Poland, Italy, and the United States, it traces productive effects of failure which cannot survive into the future, yet have an important, transformative impact in the moment in which they occur. The book engages with the work of John Williams, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Bruno Jasieński, proposing a theory of failure at the intersection of literary study, performance theory, and political thought. In discussing these examples, the book examines the place of failure in the broader context of modern and contemporary US American, Italian, and Polish literary and cultural traditions. Because of its interdisciplinary potential, this study might appeal to readers in art history, philosophy, political theory, and other fields within the humanities and social sciences. Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption offers a framework that could not only spotlight the contribution of literary studies to the topic, in the form of narrative analysis but also become part of the theoretical apparatus for further research in these fields. Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

    46 min

  2. Jul 6

    Katherine Krauss, "Exemplarity and Allusion in Macrobius' Saturnalia" (Oxford UP, 2026)

    Exemplarity and Allusion in Macrobius' Saturnalia (Oxford UP, 2026) offers a new framework for interpreting interactions with classical source material in Macrobius’ Saturnalia. It argues that the Saturnalia, an educational dialogue from the fifth century ce, does not view its Greco-Roman models as hegemonic sources of authority but engages with these texts in dynamic and critical ways. In particular, Macrobius responds to both the literary and ethical agendas of his predecessors, a strategy which is termed ethical allusion. The book explores this intertwining of moral, social, and aesthetic commentary in the Saturnalia’s allusions to authors such as Aulus Gellius, Cicero, Plato, Plutarch, and Virgil. It also examines Macrobius’ ethical allusions alongside the aesthetic practices and moral thought of the late fourth and the fifth centuries, and sheds light on the Saturnalia’s role in pioneering a late antique intellectual culture at once less hierarchical and less engaged with civic life. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Katherine Krauss is Assistant Teaching Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies at Penn State. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

    1h 8m

  3. Jul 4

    Rachel Silveri, "The Art of Living in Avant-Garde Paris: Ethics and Self-Making in Dada, Simultanism, and Surrealism" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

    With The Art of Living in Avant-Garde Paris: Ethics and Self-Making in Dada, Simultanism, and Surrealism (University of Chicago Press, 2026), Rachel Silveri takes a fresh look at the desire to unify art and life, an ambition long regarded as foundational to the European historical avant-gardes. She reveals how many early twentieth-century artists saw their own everyday lives—their bodies, identities, and relationships—as a type of creative material and a central component to their avant-garde practice. These artists abandoned traditional forms of artmaking and venues of art viewing, instead aspiring to integrate art with everyday life, creating an “art of living.”  Considering Tristan Tzara’s performances of Dadaist identity, Sonia Delaunay’s simultaneous fashions and self-branding, and the collective endeavor to open and operate the Surrealist Research Bureau, Silveri offers a new narrative about how the artists of interwar Paris developed experiential life practices that resisted dominant forms of “lifestyle” and normative discourses surrounding gender, ethnicity, and office work. This book argues that ethical questions of “How should I live?” and “How should I relate to others?” were as important to the avant-garde as politics, and that aspirations to change the world played out in daily practices of self-making. Hannah Freed-Thall is Professor of French Literature, Thought and Culture at NYU. She is the author, most recently, of Modernism at the Beach: Queer Ecologies and the Coastal Commons. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

    59 min

  4. Jun 30

    In Praise: A Conversation with Texas Poet Laureate & Founder of Torch Literary Arts, Amanda Johnston

    In 2006 poet Amanda Johnston went in search of community and, when she didn’t find what she was looking for, Amanda built her own. Today, Torch Literary Arts is a resource and a destination for Black women writers and readers across the diaspora. Fueled by wisdom and writings from poets, novelists, and screenwriters, the organization’s exceptional programming and award-winning magazine amplify Black women’s voices, and has featured work from poets like Patricia Smith, Yona Harvey, and Toi Derricotte, screenwriters and playwrights like Jonterri Gadson, Charla Lauriston, and Lisa B. Thompson, and novelists like Tayari Jones, Crystal Wilkinson, and Sapphire. And at a time when Amanda is preparing for Torch’s 20th Anniversary celebration, “A Gathering of Flames,” she is also celebrating the publication of a new book in her capacity as the 61st Texas Poet Laureate, Praisesong for the People: Poems from the Heart and Soul of Texas (Host Publications, 2025), showcasing original praise poems commissioned from poets across the state, and seeking to uplift diverse and intersecting populations across age, gender, and BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, differently-abled, and immigrant communities. You can find Amanda at her website, on Instagram, and on Threads. And check out Torch Literary Arts, Torch Magazine, and follow the organization on Instagram, Facebook, and Threads. Want to hear more from Amanda about the journey to Torch’s 20th Anniversary? Check out our continued conversation on Substack. Subscribe, like, follow, and rate Additions to the Archive with Sullivan Summer on Instagram, Substack, and wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

  5. Jun 30

    Kevin Reilly, "Gregory Ghosts: Haunting Irishness" (Peter Lang, 2026)

    Kevin P. Reilly is President Emeritus and Regent Professor with the University of Wisconsin System, having served as President from 2004-13. Kevin grew up in Manhattan and the Bronx, and went on to earn his B.A. at the University of Notre Dame, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, all in English. He has published on higher education policy and accreditation, autobiography and biography, and in Irish Studies. In this interview he discusses his most recent book, Gregory Ghosts: Haunting Irishness (Peter Lang, 2026), a creative non-fiction intervention into Irish literary studies. This book is a kind of Irish ghost story. In it the ghosts of Lady Augusta Gregory (1852-1932) and eight of her family members and colleagues look back over their lives—and sometimes forward beyond them—to try to make sense of them, their times, and one another. Theirs were all turbulent lives played out on the western edge of Europe at a time of great change.Lady Gregory helped shape that change at a pivotal moment in Ireland’s development into a modern nation state. The author’s fresh approach questions and complicates the image of her as a prim Victorian workhorse. Setting her in the midst of the personal chatter of her departed family, lovers, friends, and collaborators brings home how the historical Irish moment found her just when it needed her. Gregory Ghosts: Haunting Irishness is published with Peter Lang, as part of their Re-imagining Ireland series Aidan Beatty is a lecturer in the history department at Carnegie Mellon University and the President of the American Conference for Irish Studies Transcript here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

    43 min

  6. Jun 28

    “O Albany”: Novelist William Kennedy on His Great Cycle of the City

    Monday, June 22—William Kennedy is to Albany what Joyce is to Dublin and Faulkner to Mississippi, a fictional alchemist who transforms his native place into novels at once deeply evocative of their setting and movingly universal in their human resonances. In The Albany Trilogy, just out from Library of America, three of Kennedy’s masterpieces—including his beloved novel Ironweed—take readers from the gutter to the statehouse in narratives of brokenness, resilience, and unexpected grace set against the backdrop of one of America’s most storied underdog cities. Join Kennedy himself, one of only a handful of living authors in the LOA series, and his longtime friend Paul Grondahl, editor of the LOA edition, for a special, intimate, and wide-ranging conversation about craft, Albany as a protagonist, and what’s next for this titan of American letters, at work on his next book at ninety-eight years old. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

  7. Jun 26

    John K. Roth, "Saving the American Dream: Meditations for Dark Times" (Wipf and Stock, 2026)

    The American Dream at its best is an ethical ideal and a moral compass. If respected and sustained, it can guide the United States through Trump 2.0. Anchored in the US Constitution, Saving the American Dream: Meditations for Dark Times (Wipf and Stock, 2026) features meditations for dark times. Meditations are intentional acts of focused attention.Its fundamental premise is that individuals moved to communal action by warned awareness and committed resistance are indispensable to meet challenges that grow by the day. Guidance from reliable American writers—philosophers, historians, novelists, poets, essayists, religious thinkers—maps the way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

    1h 6m

  8. Jun 24

    What Running Your Own Imprint for 15 Years Teaches You about Books, Readers, and Risk with Sarah Crichton

    Great books don't happen by accident. Sarah Crichton, one of publishing's most respected voices and the founder of Sarah Crichton Books at FSG, joins host Sarah Russo for an unfiltered conversation about what it takes to acquire, edit, and launch books that last. They cover everything: crashing books in secret, fighting for the right jacket design, discovering A Long Way Gone by child soldier, Ismeal Beah, the differences between being a publisher and an editor, what to understand about hiring a developmental editor, and more. Whether you're an author, aspiring editor, or publishing professional, this episode is a masterclass. For more information on Sarah Crichton’s work, visit her website: Sarah’s website or connect with her on LinkedIn Books mentioned in this episode: “Cyberwar” by Kathleen Hall Jamieson “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” by Ishmael Beah “What Is the What” by Dave Eggers “A Mighty Heart” by Mariane Pearl, co-written with Sarah Crichton “Portrait of a Marriage: A Memoir” by Judy Crichton and Jennifer Crichton “Fierce Attachments” by Vivian Gornick “The Odd Woman and the City” by Vivian Gornick “M Train” by Patti Smith Key Moments 00:44 — How Magazine Editors Think About Readers Sarah Crichton explains how her magazine background gave her a superpower most book editors lack: never forgetting the reader exists. 02:27 — What It Really Means to "Crash" a Book Sarah C. breaks down the secret, adrenaline-fueled process of rushing a book to publication in weeks instead of years. 05:09 — The Editor vs. Publisher Divide (And Why It's Disappearing) Hear about the traditional difference between an editor and a publisher — and why the line between them is blurring 07:22 — How She Turned a Rejected Manuscript into a National Phenomenon Sarah C. tells the story of discovering “A Long Way Gone” by Ishmael Beah — a book passed over by every publisher — and how a deliberate cover strategy and the first-ever Starbucks book pick turned it into a classroom staple. 14:58 — What Sarah Looks for in a Manuscript (and Why a Great Title Matters More Than You Think) Sarah reveals what makes her sit up when reading a submission, and the brutal reality of how critics decide what to review. 17:08 — Developmental Editors, Self-Publishing, and "Hitting the Lottery" Sarah gets candid about the economics of book doctoring, shares the story of self-publishing her late mother's memoir, and explains the role of a developmental editor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

    25 min
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This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

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