What would Paris be without its souvenirs? Snow globes, keychains, and fridge magnets seem to be everywhere. We often think of souvenirs as worthless junk, but they can be powerful material memories. Join us for Susan’s talk about her own Parisian souvenir collection and about what souvenirs tell us about the city, travel, and ourselves. (With photography by Sarah Torretta Klock.)

Susan Harlan’s essays have appeared in venues including The Guardian US, The Paris Review Daily, Guernica, Roads & Kingdoms, Literary Hub, The Common, Racked, The Brooklyn Quarterly, The Bitter Southerner, and Public Books. Her book Luggage (Bloomsbury, 2018) takes readers on a journey with the suitcases that support, accessorize, and accompany our lives. She also writes satire for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Billfold, Avidly, Queen Mob’s Tea House, The Hairpin, The Belladonna, Janice, and The Establishment, and her humor book Decorating a Room of One’s Own: Conversations on Interior Design with Miss Havisham, Jane Eyre, Victor Frankenstein, Elizabeth Bennet, Ishmael, and Other Literary Notables was published by Abrams last October. She teaches English literature at Wake Forest University.

Recorded 26 November 2019