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Close Readings

Podcast Close Readings
London Review of Books
Close Readings is a new multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books. Two contributors explore areas of literature through a selection of k...

Available Episodes

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  • Medieval LOLs: Gwerful Mechain’s ‘Ode to the Vagina’
    For the final episode of their series in search of the medieval sense of humour Irina and Mary look at one of the most remarkable women authors of the Middle Ages, Gwerful Mechain, who lived in Powys in the 15th century. Mechain was part of a lively literary coterie in northeast Wales and in her poem Cywydd y Cedor (‘Ode to the Vagina’) she challenged the conventional approach of her fellow male poets to praise every part of a woman’s body apart from her genitalia. Her witty, combative verses, intended for public performance, deployed a brilliant mastery of the complex metrical tradition of medieval Welsh poetry to discuss the most intimate physical experiences.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series including Mary and Irina's twelve-part series Medieval Beginnings, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/medlolapplesignupIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/medlolscsignupGet in touch: [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  • Coming next year on Close Readings
    As our Close Readings series come to an end this year, you’re probably wondering what’s coming in 2025. We’re delighted to announce there’ll be four new series starting in January:‘Conversations in Philosophy’ with Jonathan Rée and James WoodJonathan and James challenge a hundred years of academic convention by reuniting the worlds of philosophy and literature, as they consider how style, narrative, and the expression of ideas play through philosophical writers including Kierkegaard, Mill, Nietzsche, Woolf, Beauvoir and Camus.Reading list here:https://lrb.supportingcast.fm/posts/conversations-in-philosophy‘Fiction and the Fantastic’ with Marina Warner, Anna Della Subin, Adam Thirlwell and Chloe Aridjis.Marina and guests will traverse the great parallel tradition of the literature of astonishment and wonder, dread and hope, from the 1001 Nights to Ursula K. Le Guin.Reading list here:https://lrb.supportingcast.fm/posts/fiction-and-the-fantastic‘Love and Death’ with Seamus Perry and Mark FordMark and Seamus explore the oscillating power of outrage and grief, bitterness and consolation, in poetry in English from the Renaissance to the present day. Their series will consider the elegies of Milton, Hardy, Bishop, Plath and others at their most intimate and expressive.Reading list here:https://lrb.supportingcast.fm/posts/love-and-death‘Novel Approaches’ with Clare Bucknell, Thomas Jones and other guestsClare, Tom and guests discuss a selection of 19th-century (mostly) English novels from Mansfield Park to New Grub Street, looking in particular at the roles played in the books by money and property.Reading list here:https://lrb.supportingcast.fm/posts/novel-approachesAnd the subscription will continue to include access to all our past Close Readings series.If you're not already a subscriber, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsGIFTSIf you enjoy Close Readings, why not give it to another book lover in your life?Find our audio gifts here: https://lrb.supportingcast.fm/gifts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  • Human Conditions: ‘Sister Outsider’ by Audre Lorde
    In the final episode of Human Conditions, Brent and Adam turn to Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider, a collection of prose with exceptional relevance to contemporary grassroots politics. Like Du Bois, Césaire and Baraka, Lorde’s work defies genre: as she argues in this collection, ‘poetry is not a luxury’ but an essential tool for liberation. Throughout her work, Lorde sought to find and articulate new ways of living that encompassed her whole self – as a Black woman, poet, essayist, novelist, mother and lesbian. Brent and Adam discuss Lorde’s radical poetics and politics, and the case for poetry, anger, vulnerability, love and desire as the arsenal of revolution.This podcast was recorded on 21 August 2024.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsBrent Hayes Edwards is a scholar of African American and Francophone literature and of jazz studies at Columbia University.Get in touch: [email protected] reading and listening in the LRB:Reni Eddo-Lodge & Sarah Shin: On Audre Lordehttps://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/at-the-bookshop/reni-eddo-lodge-and-sarah-shin-on-audre-lorde-your-silence-will-not-protect-youJesse McCarthy & Adam Shatz: Blind Spotshttps://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/the-lrb-podcast/blind-spotsSean Jacobs: Chop-Chop Spirithttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n09/sean-jacobs/chop-chop-spiritAnge Mlinko: Waiting for the Poetryhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n14/ange-mlinko/waiting-for-the-poetry Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  • On Satire: 'A Far Cry from Kensington' by Muriel Spark
    In the final episode of their series, Colin and Clare arrive at Muriel Spark, who would never have considered herself a satirist though her writing was as bitingly satirical as any 20th-century novelist's. A Far Cry from Kensington has a deceptively simple plot: Agnes Hawkins, working for a publisher in London in the 1950s, insults Hector Bartlett, a would-be author, by calling him a ‘pisseur de copie’. Bartlett seeks revenge with the help of Hawkins’s fellow lodger, Wanda, with tragic results. Yet the true plot of any Spark novel is difficult to pin down, not least when the word ‘plot’ is deployed so frequently by her characters to imply conspiracy and misinformation. Colin and Clare discuss Spark’s kaleidoscopic view of reality and the ways in which both Catholicism and Calvinism play through her work.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/4dbjbjGIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsRead more in the LRB:Jenny Turner:https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v14/n15/jenny-turner/she-who-can-do-no-wrongFrank Kermode:https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v31/n17/frank-kermode/mistress-of-disappearancesSusan Eilenberg:https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v27/n24/susan-eilenberg/complacent-bountyJames Wood:https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v22/n17/james-wood/can-this-be-what-happened-to-lord-lucan-after-the-night-of-7-november-1974 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  • Political Poems: ‘Station Island’ by Seamus Heaney
    As an undergraduate, Seamus Heaney visited Station Island several times, an ancient pilgrimage site traditionally associated with St Patrick and purgatory. Decades later, Heaney worked through competing calls for political engagement and his long-lapsed Catholicism in ‘Station Island’, a poem he described as an ‘exorcism’.A dreamlike reworking of Dante’s Purgatorio, ‘Station Island’ describes Heaney’s encounters with the ghosts of childhood acquaintances, literary heroes and victims of the Troubles. Seamus and Mark explore Heaney’s unusually autobiographical poem, which wrestles with the inescapability of politics.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/4dbjbjG In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings Further reading in the LRB:Paul Muldoon: Sweaney Peregrainehttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v06/n20/paul-muldoon/sweaney-peregraineSeamus Perry: We Did and We Didn’thttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n09/seamus-perry/we-did-and-we-didn-tJohn Kerrigan: Hand and Foothttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v21/n11/john-kerrigan/hand-and-foot Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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About Close Readings

Close Readings is a new multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books. Two contributors explore areas of literature through a selection of key works, providing an introductory grounding like no other. Listen to some episodes for free here, and extracts from our ongoing subscriber-only series.How To SubscribeIn Apple Podcasts, click 'subscribe' at the top of this podcast feed to unlock the full episodes.Or for other podcast apps, sign up here: https://lrb.me/closereadingsRunning in 2024:On Satire with Clare Bucknell and Colin BurrowHuman Conditions with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAmong the Ancients II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPolitical Poems with Seamus Perry and Mark FordMedieval LOLs with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyFour new series starting in January 2025:CONVERSATIONS IN PHILOSOPHY with Jonathan Rée and James WoodFICTION AND THE FANTASTIC with Marina Warner, Anna Della Subin and other guestsLOVE AND DEATH with Seamus Perry and Mark FordNOVEL APPROACHES with Clare Bucknell, Thomas Jones and other guestsGet in touch: [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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