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Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. This season, we are only looking at banned and controversial texts. In our seventy-second episode, we invite Friend of the Podcast (and Abby's best friend/medieval historian) Justine back to the show to school us on Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. We focus primarily on the 'Inferno' section and get really caught up on Dante being a civil engineering girlie.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: Motet, 'Ypocrite / Velut stelle / Et gaudebit' (14th century)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. This season, we are only looking at banned and controversial texts. In our seventy-first episode, we look at a controversial text of teenage rebellion and grief-trauma that has attracted a LOT of weird loners over the years: J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (1951). In this episode, Daniel takes a big L over David Copperfield, we have Buckfast at Tiffany's, spend a long time discussing Howard Hughes's design of the perfect bra, and realise that this should have been our Christmas episode.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: Larry Wagner, 'Autopsy on Schubert' (1937).

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. This season, we are only looking at banned and controversial texts. In our seventieth episode, Ray Bradbury's literary-based dystopia, Fahrenheit 451 (1953), we get one step closer to EGOT-ing, see more of Abby's French-Canadian Vermonter roots, process Daniel's early cinema trauma, and discuss some scholastic terms: fridging, Bowlderisation, and Futurismo.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: Tchaikovsky, 'Valse Sentimental' by Clara Rockmore on theramin.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. This season, we are only looking at banned and controversial texts. In our sixty-ninth episode (nice) we recap the first (?) known pornographic work to use the novel as its form: John Cleland's Fanny Hill, Or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1748). We see a weaponised Measuringworth and learn the joys of giant maypoles, turtlebilling, and plenipontentary instruments.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: John Gay, 'Overture' in The Beggar's Opera (1728).

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. This season, we are only looking at banned and controversial texts. In our sixty-eighth episode, we recap Tennessee Williams's most famous work, A Streetcar Named Desire (1947). Abby stresses out after some massive audio equipment failure and Daniel reveals himself to be both the podcast's Brando AND a thriving gay man.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: Daniel Jenkin-Smith, 'Trolley Problem'.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. This season, we are only looking at banned and controversial texts. In our sixty-seventh episode, we examine the second half of James Joyce's 800-page inscruitable Modernist Masterpiece, Ulysses. Here we recap the 'Nausicaa' chapter, which got the book banned in the first place, and speculate on if such an achievement in literature angered the gods.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: 'The Rocky Road to Dublin'.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. This season, we are only looking at banned and controversial texts. In our sixty-seventh episode, we examine the first half of James Joyce's 800-page inscruitable Modernist Masterpiece, Ulysses. We make lots of connections to the Odyssey and wonder if Joyce--the filthy bugger--might have put his penis (or something worse, given his pecadillos) in a popcorn tub at Dublin's first cinema.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: 'The Rocky Road to Dublin'.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal.

This season, we are only looking at banned and controversial texts. In our sixty-sixth episode, we examine Khaled Hosseini's 2003 redemption-and-brotherhood melodrama, The Kite Runner. In this episode, Daniel feels seen, gives a shout out to his friends in the Taliban, and tells us what he'd do if ever gifted a copy of Hitler's biography. Abby, meanwhile, becomes the angriest she's been since the Pamela episode.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Ustad_Gada_Mohammad_-_Rababa

Episode Theme: Ustad Gada Mohammad, 'Rababa'.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal.

This season, we are only looking at banned and controversial texts. In our sixty-fifth episode (which coincides with International Women's Day), we examine Margaret Attwood's dystopia about far-right misogyny, The Handmaid's Tale (1985). Turkey basters and Orwell klaxons at the ready!

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: Gabriel Faure, 'Pie Jesu', Requiem.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal.

This season, we are only looking at banned and controversial texts. In our sixty-fourth episode and Valentine's Day special, we spent some sexy time with Gustave Flaubert's adulteress, Madame Bovary (1856), which was immediately banned for offenses against morality under the conservative rule of Napoleon III. We also play 'Spot the "Big F*ck"', develop the hashtag #NotAllNuns, and watch a character go through a C19th French version of It's Always Sunny's 'The D.E.N.N.I.S. System'.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: Charles Gounod, 'La nuit de Walpurgis' (Act V), Faust (1859), Performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.