Explore every episode of the podcast The Scholar's Armchair

Death is one of the few experiences every human being shares, yet in the modern world it has become something we rarely talk about. How did that happen? And what have we lost by pushing death to the margins of everyday life?

In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with social historian and bereavement counsellor Molly Conisbee about her remarkable book No Ordinary Deaths: A People’s History of Mortality. Rather than focusing on the deaths of kings and queens, Molly uncovers the experiences of ordinary people, revealing how communities across Britain have faced death, cared for the dying, mourned their loved ones, and searched for meaning in loss over the centuries.

Together we discuss the dramatic decline in child mortality, medieval and Victorian attitudes towards death, the changing role of hospitals and medicine, the disappearance of communal mourning rituals, and whether modern society has lost the “art of dying well.” Along the way we ask what history can teach us about grief, community, and ultimately what it means to live a good life.

Whether you’re interested in social history, cultural history, medicine, philosophy, or simply one of the most universal aspects of human experience, this is a thoughtful and deeply humane conversation.

Links:

Molly Conisbee’s book: No Ordinary Deaths: A People’s History of Mortality https://profilebooks.com/work/no-ordinary-deaths/

Molly’s profile page: https://www.bath.ac.uk/person/509812

If you enjoy conversations like this, please like, subscribe, and let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Who was the real Lord Byron?

Was he really the brooding, scandalous Romantic we’ve inherited through legend? Or was there a very different Byron hiding in plain sight—in the extraordinary letters he wrote to friends, lovers, family and fellow writers?

In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with Professor Andrew Stauffer about his acclaimed new book, Byron: A Life in Ten Letters. Rather than telling Byron’s story through a conventional biography, Stauffer lets Byron speak for himself, revealing a man who was witty, self-aware, vulnerable, contradictory and startlingly modern.

Along the way we discuss the birth of celebrity culture, the origins of the Byronic hero, Byron’s influence on Mary Shelley, the Brontës and the Gothic tradition, his friendships with Percy Shelley and Thomas Moore, his role in the Greek War of Independence, and why his life and work continue to shape literature more than two centuries after his death.

Whether you’re a lifelong admirer of Romantic poetry or simply curious about one of history’s most fascinating literary figures, I hope you enjoy the conversation.

Andrew Stauffer’s book:

Byron: A Life in Ten Letters (Cambridge University Press)⁠ https://share.google/XCk4I1M8cAQuRkHOE

If you enjoyed this interview, please consider subscribing to The Scholar’s Armchair, where I speak to leading scholars and authors about literature, history, philosophy and the ideas that continue to shape our world.

What did Virginia Woolf really mean by her famous “moments of being”? Were they simply flashes of heightened consciousness… or was Woolf trying to reveal something deeper about reality itself?

In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I’m joined by philosopher Thomas Nail to discuss his fascinating new book The Philosophy of Virginia Woolf: Moments of Becoming. Nail argues that Woolf was not just a novelist of inner life, but a philosopher in her own right — one who saw reality not as made of fixed things, but of movement, flow, and interrelated processes.

Together we explore:

* Woolf’s “moments of being”

* Why Nail calls them “moments of becoming”

* Time, perception, and the unstable self

* Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and The Waves

* Woolf’s relevance to modern philosophy and new materialism

* Whether literature can actually change how we perceive reality

If you enjoy Virginia Woolf, modernism, philosophy, literary theory, or process thought, this conversation offers a fresh and deeply thought-provoking way into her work.

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Links:

Thomas’s book: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/philosophy-of-virginia-woolf-9781350526051/

Thomas’s university profile: https://liberalarts.du.edu/about/people/thomas-andrew-nail

#VirginiaWoolf #Modernism #Philosophy #Literature #LiteraryTheory #ThomasNail #MrsDalloway #TheWaves #ToTheLighthouse #TheScholarsArmchair

What if ethics begins not with understanding… but with listening?

In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I’m joined by Professor Kent Lehnhof to explore his book Voice and Ethics in Shakespeare’s Late Plays — a fascinating rethinking of how we relate to one another through literature, philosophy, and everyday life.

Drawing on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, Lehnhof argues that Shakespeare’s plays are not just about misunderstanding or miscommunication, but about something more fundamental: our failure to truly hear one another. Moving beyond the traditional focus on sight and interpretation, this conversation explores the ethical power of the human voice — not just what is said, but the act of speaking and listening itself.

Through plays like King Lear, Pericles, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest, we examine how voices can dominate, deceive, disrupt, and ultimately restore human connection. From the collapse of language in tragedy to the redemptive power of listening in Shakespeare’s late romances, this interview uncovers a quietly radical idea:

👉 Ethics begins in the ear, not the eye.

This episode will change the way you think about Shakespeare — and perhaps the way you listen to others.

Topics discussed include:

Why listening is central to ethical life

William Shakespeare and the power of voice in drama

Levinas, responsibility, and the encounter with the Other

The breakdown of language in King Lear

The redemptive voice in Pericles

Paulina and the ethics of difficult speech in The Winter’s Tale

Voice, power, and colonialism in The Tempest

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Links:

Kent's book Voice and Ethics in Shakespeare's Late Plays: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/voice-and-ethics-in-shakespeares-late-plays/FEC6657771A30ED5A765AD89AE37C4A2

Kent's profile page: https://www.chapman.edu/our-faculty/kent-lehnhof.aspx

🎧 Available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts

We think we know George Orwell. The author of 1984. The prophet of surveillance, propaganda, and political control.

But what if that version of Orwell is only part of the story?

In this conversation, I’m joined by Nathan Waddell to discuss his book A Bright Cold Day: The Wonder of George Orwell. Rather than focusing on Orwell’s big ideas alone, Waddell invites us to see something often overlooked: Orwell as a writer of the everyday, of habits, routines, small observations, and the quiet textures of ordinary life.

Together we explore a different way of reading Orwell, one that shifts attention away from grand political abstractions and toward the lived experience that underpins them. From the role of attention and memory, to the emotional life behind Nineteen Eighty-Four, this discussion asks a simple but important question:

Have we been reading Orwell wrong?

This is a conversation about literature, but also about how we live, about how meaning is found not only in the large forces that shape history, but in the small details that shape our days.

🔍 Topics discussed

-Why Orwell is more than a political writer

-The importance of the everyday in literature

-Rethinking Nineteen Eighty-Four

-Attention, memory, and lived experience

-The relationship between the ordinary and the political

-Which of Orwell’s other forgotten novels we should read

📚 Links

A Bright Cold Day: The Wonder of George Orwell by Nathan Waddell https://oneworld-publications.com/work/a-bright-cold-day/

Nathan’s profile page (and links to his other works): https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/staff/profiles/english/waddell-nathan

🎙️ About the channel

The Scholar’s Armchair brings academic ideas into conversation with a wider audience. Each episode explores literature, criticism, and thought in a way that is accessible, reflective, and grounded in close reading.

Did Shakespeare really write alone… or was he borrowing from the greatest playwrights of his time?

In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with Darren Freebury-Jones about his fascinating book Shakespeare’s Borrowed Feathers, which rethinks one of the biggest myths in literary history.

We explore the world Shakespeare actually lived and worked in: a vibrant, competitive theatre scene filled with extraordinary writers like Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, Ben Jonson, and Thomas Middleton. Far from being a solitary genius, Shakespeare emerges as a playwright shaped by collaboration, rivalry, and creative borrowing.

Together, we discuss:

* The meaning behind the famous “upstart crow” insult

* Whether Shakespeare collaborated on early plays like Henry VI and Titus Andronicus

* How writers like Marlowe and Kyd influenced Shakespeare’s dramatic style

* The role of modern attribution studies and stylometry in uncovering authorship

* The legendary “wit combats” between Shakespeare and Jonson

* What truly made Shakespeare Shakespeare

This conversation offers a fresh and accessible way into one of the most exciting areas of literary scholarship today: the idea that Shakespeare’s genius lies not just in originality, but in his extraordinary ability to absorb and transform the work of others.

If you love Shakespeare, theatre history, or the hidden stories behind great literature, this episode will change the way you think about the world’s most famous writer.

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Darren’s Books:

📖Shakespeare’s Borrowed Feathers: https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526177346/

📖Reading Robert Greene: Recovering Shakespeare’s Rival: https://www.routledge.com/Reading-Robert-Greene-Recovering-Shakespeares-Rival/Freebury-Jones/p/book/9781032154091

📖Shakespeare’s Tutor: The Influence of Thomas Kyd: https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526164742/

👨‍🏫Darren’s website: https://darrenfj.wordpress.com/

⸻

How did Jane Austen go from a little-known novelist to a global phenomenon?

In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I’m joined by literary scholar Professor Juliette Wells, author of Reading Austen in America, Everybody’s Jane, and A New Jane Austen: How Americans Gave Us The World’s Greatest Novelist to explore the remarkable story of Austen’s rise to fame.

We tend to assume that great writers become famous simply because of their genius. But Wells reveals a much more surprising story — one shaped by readers, collectors, critics, and fans across two centuries. From the first American edition of Emma in 1816 to the explosion of Austen adaptations, fandom, and literary tourism, this conversation uncovers how Austen’s reputation was built over time.

We also explore the role of early American readers, the influence of figures like William Dean Howells, and the unexpected ways ordinary readers helped turn Austen into one of the most beloved authors in the world.

If you’ve ever wondered why Austen’s novels continue to resonate today — and what her story reveals about how literary reputations are formed — this conversation offers a fascinating answer.

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Professor Wells’ Books:

📖A New Jane Austen: How Americans Gave Us the World’s Greatest Novelist: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/new-jane-austen-9781350365537/

📖Reading Austen In America: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/reading-austen-in-america-9781350012066/

📖Everybody’s Jane: Austen in the Popular Imagination: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/everybodys-jane-9781441111166/

📖Juliette’s overview of the Morgan Library exhibition at JASNA’s open access website: https://jasna.org/publications-2/persuasions-online/volume-46-no-1/wells/

🧑‍🏫Juliette's profile page at Goucher College: https://www.goucher.edu/faculty/juliette-wells

🔍Explore the Morgan Library exhibition including letters written by Austen: https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/lively-mind-jane-austen-250

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The Salem witch trials weren’t just about witches. They were about children—and what adults needed them to be.

What role did children really play in the Salem witch trials? In this conversation, Dr Kristina West reveals how the figure of the child sits at the centre of the panic, challenging our assumptions about innocence, guilt, and history itself.

We discuss her book The Salem Witch Child and explore her current project on perceptions of witches and magic in American culture.

📖 Read Krissie’s book: https://www.waterstones.com/book/reading-the-salem-witch-child/kristina-west/9783030493066

🧑🏼‍🏫 Krissie’s profile at Royal Holloway: https://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/en/persons/krissie-west/

What comes after postmodernism? In this interview, Dr Usha Wilbers and Dr Dennis Kersten of Radboud University explore metamodernism as a new cultural “structure of feeling” emerging in contemporary literature.

Moving from modernism’s search for meaning to postmodernism’s irony and scepticism, we ask what it means to read and write fiction today in a world that no longer fully believes in either. Drawing on their research into reader responses to novels like NW and How to Be Both, as well as their forthcoming book Glocal Metamodernisms, Wilbers and Kersten reveal how sincerity, irony, and hope coexist in twenty-first-century culture.

Is metamodernism a new era, or simply what it feels like to live after meaning has fractured?

=======================================

References:

📖Read Usha and Dennis' book 'Glocal Metamodernisms' (out May 2026): https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/glocal-metamodernisms-9798216276289/

📖Read their article 'Down the Metamodernist Plain' (2020): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/386531627_Down_in_the_Metamodernist_Plain_Tracing_a_Twenty-First-Century_Structure_of_Feeling_in_the_Reception_of_NW_and_How_to_Be_Both

Their University Profiles

Usha Wilbers: https://www.ru.nl/en/people/wilbers-u

Dennis Kersten: https://www.ru.nl/en/people/kersten-d

Vermeulen and van den Akker's article 'Notes on Metamodernism' (2010): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233894749_Notes_on_Metamodernism

See also: https://www.metamodernism.com/

What are the many mirrors of the Shakespearean stage really showing us?

In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with literary scholar Dr. Valentina Finger of LMU Munich about her new book Mirrors in Shakespeare and Early Modern English Drama: Power, Gender and the Magic of the Theatre. Together, we explore how mirrors in plays like Richard II, Macbeth, The Duchess of Malfi, and The Alchemist do far more than reflect reality—they expose it, distort it, and sometimes shatter it completely.

We discuss how mirrors on the early modern stage were used to explore:

• The fragility of kingship and political power

• The construction of identity and the “two bodies” of the king

• Gender, cosmetics, and female agency in Jacobean drama

• Magic, science, and theatrical illusion in the Renaissance

Drawing on history, philosophy, and close reading, this conversation reveals how Shakespeare and his contemporaries used mirrors to turn theatre itself into a space of reflection, inversion, and revelation.

If you’re interested in Shakespeare, early modern drama, literary theory, gender studies, or the history of theatre, this episode offers a fresh way of seeing familiar plays.

📖Read Valentina’s book for FREE: https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?docid=b-9781350535381

🙋‍♀️ Valentina’s profile at LMU: https://www.anglistik.uni-muenchen.de/personen/wiss_ma/finger/index.htm

Read Alessandra's book The Myth of George Eliot: https://www.routledge.com/The-Myth-of-George-Eliot-How-Marian-Evans-Invented-the-Victorian-Novelist/Grego/p/book/9781032551128

🙋 Prof Alessandra Grego's profile and further links to her work: https://www.johncabot.edu/directory/alessandra-grego

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Description:

Did George Eliot secretly challenge the myths of Victorian society — while writing behind a myth of her own?

In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with literary scholar Professor Alessandra Grego of John Cabot University about her fascinating book The Myth of George Eliot. Together we explore one of the most intriguing questions in literary history: how Marian Evans, writing under the male pseudonym George Eliot, used the realist novel to challenge the “common sense” assumptions of Victorian culture.

Grego argues that George Eliot was not simply a pen name but a carefully constructed authorial persona — a myth that allowed Evans to question the myths of her own society. From the ideals of the Victorian gentleman and the “damsel in distress” to the cultural expectations placed on women’s bodies and ambitions, Eliot’s novels quietly dismantle the stories Victorian society told about itself.

We discuss how Eliot’s great heroines — Dorothea Brooke, Maggie Tulliver, Gwendolen Harleth and others — disrupt these inherited narratives. Grego describes them as “towering women”: characters whose moral and intellectual aspirations exceed the narrow roles society offers them. Through these figures, Eliot exposes how cultural myths shape our understanding of gender, power, and social possibility.

Topics we explore include:

• Why “George Eliot” may be a mythic authorial identity

• How realist fiction can challenge cultural “common sense”

• The Victorian myths of the knight and the damsel

• Eliot’s complex and powerful female characters

• Why some of Eliot’s heroines seem “too big” for the worlds they inhabit

This conversation offers a fresh way of thinking about one of the greatest novelists in English literature — not simply as a moral voice of Victorian realism, but as a writer who reimagined the stories society tells about itself.

Welcome to The Scholar’s Armchair, where each week Dr. John Burton sits down for an informative insightful conversation with a leading literary scholar about the big ideas behind the big books that have shaped our world.

What if the way we read is changing the way we think?

In this episode of The Scholar's Armchair, I speak with cognitive neuroscientist and reading researcher Maryanne Wolf, author of Proust and the Squid and Reader, Come Home, about one of the defining questions of our digital age.

Maryanne begins with a remarkable personal story. After a lifetime devoted to literature and the science of reading, she discovered that she could no longer read one of her favourite novels with the depth and pleasure she once had. That experience led her to ask a profound question: had her reading brain changed?

Our conversation explores how the brain learns to read, why deep reading is one of humanity's greatest cultural achievements, and what may be happening as more of our lives move onto screens. We discuss attention, empathy, critical thinking, education, AI, and why reading is about far more than absorbing information. It is about cultivating the very capacities that allow us to think, imagine, understand others, and make sense of ourselves.

Among the questions we explore:

• Why isn't reading a natural human ability?

• What is "deep reading," and why does it matter?

• How do books shape empathy and critical thought?

• Is digital technology changing our brains?

• What is the "biliterate brain"?

• Can we recover our capacity for sustained attention?

• How should we educate children in an age of screens and AI?

After recording this interview, Maryanne very kindly shared the new preface to the forthcoming edition of Reader, Come Home and generously gave me permission to make it available to viewers. You'll find a link to read it in the description below.

=======================

LINKS:

📕Read the new preface to the forthcoming edition of Reader, Come Home: https://open.substack.com/pub/thescholarsarmchair/p/exclusive-new-preface-to-maryanne

📘Reader, Come Home: https://www.maryannewolf.com/reader-come-home-1

📕Proust and the Squid: https://www.maryannewolf.com/proust-and-the-squid

Nido Learning website: https://www.nidolearning.com/

📘Byung Chul Han’s The Scent of Time: https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-scent-of-time-a-philosophical-essay-on-the-art-of-lingering--9781509516049

📕Niall Williams’ This is Happiness: https://niallwilliams.com/pages/this-is-happiness

If you enjoy thoughtful conversations about literature, philosophy, psychology, history and the ideas that shape our world, please consider subscribing to The Scholar's Armchair.

📸SUBSCRIBE to my new Instagram! http://www.instagram.com/thescholarsarmchair

What happens when you take a short text — and read it slowly, live, without a script?

In this wide-ranging and intellectually electric conversation, I’m joined by literary critic Dr Neil Cocks of the University of Reading (no less!) to explore the art of close reading, the role of theory, and what it really means to “work through” a text rather than simply affirm it.

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Bibliography and links from Neil:

Children’s Literature intro:

Jacqueline Rose. 1984. The Case of Peter Pan, or, The Impossibility of Children’s Fiction. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Karin Lesnik-Oberstein. 1994. Children’s Literature: Criticism and the Fictional Child. Oxford: Clarendon.

Rudd, David. 2020a. The Theory Wars Revisited: Rose and the Reading Critics vs. the Liberal Humanists. The Lion and the Unicorn 44:89–109.

Marah Gubar. 2013. Risky Business: Talking about Children in Children’s Literature Criticism. Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 38: 450–57

As part of the discussion of coming out and Frozen:

The Butler I reference in terms of ‘I am a lesbian’:

· Judith. Butler. 1993. Gender Imitation and Insubordination. In The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Edited by Henry Abelove, Michele Aine Barale and David M. Halperin. London: Routledge, pp. 307–20.

The ‘coming out in Neo-liberal times’:

· Stephanie D. Clare. 2017. ‘Finally, She’s Accepted Herself!’: Coming Out in Neoliberal Times. Social Text 1: 17–38.

There are many examples of the straightforward social media queer advocacy work on Frozen I mention, but see:

· Geek and Sundry Vlogs, Disney’s Frozen and the LGBT Community, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_r0QTzg6Bw

· Queer Kids Stuff, Give Else a Girlfriend, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cTFGkEI4Rc

I take the riff on neuroscience and brain scans from:

· Jan De Vos. 2020. The Digitalisation of (Inter)Subjectivity: A Psy-critique of the Digital Death Drive. London: Routledge.

I keep referring to an idea of fixing or defending identity, even as that identity is called into question. I have in mind here especially Daniel Baker and Paul Ryan’s ‘Mirror Mirror’, a video artwork for the first Roma Pavillion at the 2011 Venice Biennale. Baker and Ryan work to secure a distinct Roma identity and aesthetics, but in such a way that engages with what they term a necessary ‘provisionality’ also. Their work takes the opposite approach to my own (its broadly against linguistic approaches), but seems to me exemplary of ethical and rigorous practice in the area of identity and ethnicity.

· Baker and Ryan. 2011. Mirror Mirror. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iieQf9o-xW0

I found it so inspiring, that a reading of it forms a central chapter in my new book.

· Neil Cocks. 2026. Reading the Racial Encounter in Multi-Media Texts. London: Routledge.

Close reading:

The person I mention in relation to Levinas is Timothy Secret. He has, again, just about the opposite approach to Theory to me, but I find his work incredibly inspiring and clarifying.

· Timothy Secret. 2015. The Politics and Pedagogy of Mourning: On Responsibility in Eulogy. London: Bloomsbury.

==================================

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction

03:57 Ideology Applies to Us Too (Sensitivity to Framing)

10:40 The Critique of the Framing of Childhood

14:00 The Framing of Voice

16:00 The Complexities of Otherness in Texts

18:37 Returning to the Text

20:21 Paul de Man and Resistance to Theory

23:37 Problems with Freud and Lacan

25:17 The Drive to Interpret Can be The Block

27:00 How Encountering Texts is Always Based on Prior Experience

30:50 Our Framing is Always Operational

31:39 Frozen and the Complexities of the Coming Out Narrative

38:38 Problems of Securing Identity by Appeal to Exterior Simplicity

44:48 Peripheral Identities and Texts

54:46 Live Reading of Rilke

Sylvia Plath, Chick Lit, and the Politics of the Kitchen | Interview with Dr Caroline J. Smith

LINKS:

Check out Caroline's book Cosmopolitan Culture and Consumerism in Chick-Lit here: https://www.routledge.com/Cosmopolitan-Culture-and-Consumerism-in-Chick-Lit/Smith/p/book/9780415806268

Check out Caroline's book Season to Taste: Rewriting Kitchen Space in Contemporary Women’s Food Memoirs here: https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/S/Season-to-Taste

Check out my video on Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar here: https://youtu.be/SwYPkRBI7r8?si=BcgMIGcUAmjEPFUz

=====================================

In this in-depth literary interview, I speak with Dr Caroline J. Smith of George Washington University about her groundbreaking work on Sylvia Plath, women’s magazine culture, consumerism, chick lit, and contemporary food memoir.

We begin with Plath’s The Bell Jar and Dr Smith’s influential essay, “The Feeding of Young Women”, exploring how 1950s magazines like Mademoiselle shaped cultural ideals of femininity, domesticity, and consumption — and how those pressures inform Esther Greenwood’s identity crisis.

From there, we move to Dr Smith’s book Cosmopolitan Culture and Consumerism in Chick Lit, examining how modern “chick lit” both embraces and critiques consumer culture. What does it mean when shopping, lifestyle, and food become tools for constructing female identity?

Finally, we discuss her latest book, Season to Taste: Rewriting Kitchen Space in Contemporary Women’s Food Memoirs (2023), where she explores how writers such as Julie Powell and Ruth Reichl reclaim the kitchen — transforming it from a site of confinement into a space of authorship, pleasure, and power.

Topics include:

Sylvia Plath and The Bell Jar

Mademoiselle magazine and 1950s femininity

Consumer culture and women’s identity

Cosmopolitan magazine and chick lit

Food, gender, and feminist literary criticism

Contemporary women’s food memoir

The politics of kitchen space

If you’re interested in feminist literary criticism, women’s writing, food studies, or modern literature, this conversation offers rich insight into how cultural scripts around femininity continue to shape — and be reshaped by — women writers.

Subscribe for more interviews on classic and contemporary literature.

Music for The Scholar’s Armchair by realhidefmusic@gmail.com

#SylviaPlath #TheBellJar #FeministCriticism #ChickLit #FoodStudies #LiteraryInterview #WomenWriters #Cosmopolitan #FoodMemoir

📖Check out Luis Othoniel Rosa's novel Animal Spiral: https://charcopress.com/bookstore/animal-spiral

💡Check out more from Luis: https://luisothonielrosa.com/

🎯Check out my video on Frankenstein: https://youtu.be/wtV8vT8g_5Y?si=cEBtg1fGScO-GBPj

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In this wide-ranging interview, Dr John Burton discusses Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, historicity, the Haitian revolutions, and ways of reading and interpreting with eminent Latin American scholar Professor Luis Othoniel Rosa. We discuss reading as a revolutionary act, Luis' own theories and ideas about Frankenstein and its correspondence with the Haitian revolutions, and how the novel helped develop a Gothic tone in Latin American literature. "So often you find in the literatures of other people the key to understanding your own", so says Dr Rosa -- poet, novelist, and academic.

Music for The Scholar’s Armchair by realhidefmusic@gmaill.com

In this wide-ranging interview, Brontë scholar Hilary Newman joins The Scholar’s Armchair to explore Wuthering Heights in depth—its unsettling characters, narrative complexity, violence, grief, religion, haunting, and radical departures from the Victorian novel. We discuss Heathcliff and sympathy, Emily Brontë’s narrative strategy, the problem of adaptation, alternative endings, authorship controversies, and modern critical approaches including grief theory. Along the way, we compare Wuthering Heights with Jane Eyre, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Dickens, and Virginia Woolf’s criticism of the Brontës.

If you’ve read Wuthering Heights, this interview will give you some crucial new insights into the novel. If you’ve yet to read it, this interview will give you some key tips for getting the most out of it.

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Link to Hilary's book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Virginia-Woolf-Lives-Afterlives-Bront%C3%ABs/dp/1666940224

Link to Hilary's paper 'Death and its Aftermath in Wuthering Heights': https://www.academia.edu/107752600/Death_and_its_Aftermath_in_Wuthering_Heights

Link to the Brontë Society: https://www.bronte.org.uk/about-us/the-bronte-society

John Keats is often remembered as the poet of beauty and “negative capability.” But what if he was also one of the most profound thinkers about uncertainty?

In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with Dr Li Ou about her book Keats and Scepticism. We explore a side of Keats that is often overlooked: a poet deeply engaged with questions of knowledge, perception, imagination, and the limits of certainty.

What did Keats mean by “negative capability”? Why did he resist the “irritable reaching after fact and reason”? And what can his embrace of uncertainty teach us in an age of social media, ideological certainty, and instant opinions?

Our conversation explores the philosophical influences behind Keats’s poetry, offers fresh readings of the great odes, and considers why scepticism can be not a weakness but a form of intellectual humility and ethical openness.

Whether you’re a lover of Romantic poetry, philosophy, or simply interested in how literature can help us navigate modern life, I hope you’ll enjoy the discussion.

In this conversation:

• Why Keats should be understood as a philosopher as well as a poet

• The true meaning of negative capability

• Scepticism, imagination, and the search for truth

• Fresh perspectives on the great odes

• Why uncertainty can deepen empathy and understanding

• What Keats can still teach us today

If you enjoy thoughtful conversations about literature, philosophy, history, and culture, please consider subscribing to The Scholar’s Armchair.

LINKS:

Professor Li’s books:

📕 Keats and Negative Capability: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/keats-and-negative-capability-9781441147240/?__cf_chl_f_tk=wG3AKRuLU2qPN4RZ5CMlEz5_lUcdx3bS2K1NaldTdmc-1782812508-1.0.1.1-6FHb_HJEkJq0hYC0u7RNgnrdfe.h7GUrY9DBA7T7Lhk

📘Keats and Scepticism: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003285403/keats-scepticism-li-ou

Searchable etext of Keats’ letters: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35698/35698-h/35698-h.htm

Read the book: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691235301/natural-magic?_gl=1*1dmglc8*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTczMjY1MDM3LjE3ODIyMTg4Njg.*_ga_N1W9JWKLY3*czE3ODIyMTg4NjckbzEkZzAkdDE3ODIyMTg4NjckajYwJGwwJGgxODg0NTE5NzQ3

Emily Dickinson is often imagined as a secluded poet, withdrawn from the world and writing from the privacy of her room in Amherst. But what if she was actually responding to one of the greatest intellectual revolutions in human history?

In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with Prof Renée Bergland about her book Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science. We explore how Dickinson’s poetry emerged at a moment when traditional ideas about nature, faith, and humanity were being challenged by new scientific discoveries, particularly the evolutionary theories associated with Charles Darwin.

Was Dickinson simply a poet of inwardness, or was she grappling with the same questions that confronted the modern world? How did evolutionary thinking change the way people understood nature, death, and meaning? And how did Dickinson’s distinctive poetic style become a way of exploring uncertainty rather than escaping it?

Our conversation examines Dickinson’s scientific education, her fascination with the natural world, her engagement with questions of belief and doubt, and Bergland’s compelling argument that Dickinson developed a form of “natural magic”: a way of preserving wonder in a universe no longer guaranteed by divine certainty.

Whether you’re interested in poetry, literature, philosophy, science, religion, or the history of ideas, this discussion offers a fascinating new perspective on one of America’s greatest poets.

What exactly is a goblin?

Today we imagine goblins as fantasy creatures from Tolkien, Dungeons & Dragons, Harry Potter, and video games. But where did they come from, and why have they survived for centuries while so many other monsters have faded away?

In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with historian Matt King about his fascinating book A History of Goblins. We trace the goblin’s journey from medieval Europe, where goblins were often feared as demonic beings, through Victorian literature and folklore, to their reinvention in modern fantasy, gaming, and even internet culture.

Along the way we discuss fairyland, demons, Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market, Tolkien’s influence on fantasy, Dungeons & Dragons, Goblincore, and what our enduring fascination with goblins reveals about human fears, desires, and imagination.

Far from being a minor fantasy creature, the goblin turns out to be a surprisingly revealing guide to the history of religion, folklore, literature, and popular culture.

Topics discussed:

* The medieval origins of goblins

* Goblins, demons, and fairy folklore

* Why goblins are so difficult to define

* Victorian goblins and Goblin Market

* Tolkien, orcs, and modern fantasy

* Dungeons & Dragons and gaming culture

* Goblin Mode and Goblincore

* What monsters reveal about society

Links:

Matt’s book A History of Goblins: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-032-01063-6

Matt’s profile at University of South Florida: https://www.usf.edu/arts-sciences/departments/history/people/matt-king.aspx

#Goblins #Folklore #Fantasy #Tolkien #DnD #History #Mythology #Literature #MattKing #TheScholarsArmchair #GoblinMarket #FantasyHistory #MedievalHistory #FairyTales #CulturalHistory

Are our buildings changing because we are changing?

In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with Amritt Flora, Course Leader for the MA Interior and Spatial Design at Chelsea College of Arts, about the emergence of a possible metamodern shift in architecture and design.

Our conversation begins with a simple observation. Over the last decade, design students seem to be approaching the world differently. Questions of identity, feeling, sincerity, uncertainty, and meaning have become increasingly important. Could these changes be part of a broader cultural movement that scholars have called metamodernism?

Together we explore:

What metamodernism means in practice

The journey from modernism to postmodernism and beyond

Why architecture is always designing for a future that does not yet exist

The move from certainty and fixed rules toward complexity and contradiction

Why contemporary designers are increasingly concerned with emotion, experience, and interior life

Whether architecture can foster connection, meaning, and belonging

How today's students are reshaping the way we think about design

What the built environment reveals about wider cultural change

Along the way we discuss oscillation between sincerity and irony, the fragmentation of styles in contemporary culture, the changing role of architects, and whether we are witnessing a renewed search for meaning after the postmodern age.

If you've enjoyed our previous conversations on metamodernism, philosophy, literature, and culture, this episode extends the discussion into the spaces we inhabit every day.

Can a building be sincere? Can a room express hope? And what does the architecture of the twenty-first century tell us about who we are becoming?

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Links:

The MA course in interior and spatial design: https://www.arts.ac.uk/subjects/architecture-spatial-and-interior-design/postgraduate/ma-interior-and-spatial-design-camberwell

Work showcase: https://ualshowcase.arts.ac.uk/c/camberwell-college-of-arts-ma-interior-and-spatial-design?query=%21nullquery&collection=ual-showcase&num_ranks=12&sort=dmetasortKey&meta_hideFromCollege_sand=0&meta_college_sand=Camberwell+College+of+Arts&f.Courses%7Ccourse=MA+Interior+and+Spatial+Design&start_rank=25#about

YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ_HubX0o9Y&t=9s

Course Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/maisdccw

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#Metamodernism #Architecture #Design #SpatialDesign #InteriorDesign #Philosophy #Culture #TheScholarsArmchair #AmrittFlora #Postmodernism #Modernism #Meaning #ArchitectureTheory #ContemporaryCulture #UniversityoftheArtsLondon

Have we lost the inner life?

In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with author and cultural critic Lesley Chamberlain about her book Rilke: The Last Inward Man and the enduring relevance of one of Europe’s greatest poets, Rainer Maria Rilke.

Chamberlain argues that Rilke stood at the end of a long tradition of inwardness: a tradition that saw the inner life as a source of meaning, creativity, and spiritual depth. At a time when religion was losing its authority and modernity was transforming society, Rilke sought to discover whether poetry and art could preserve a sense of transcendence in an increasingly fragmented world.

In our conversation, we discuss Rilke’s childhood, his relationship with Lou Andreas-Salomé, his transformative journeys to Russia, the influence of Auguste Rodin, the Duino Elegies, the Sonnets to Orpheus, and whether art can replace religion as a source of meaning.

Most importantly, we explore a question that feels increasingly urgent today:

What happens when a culture loses faith in the value of the inner life?

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Topics discussed:

* Rilke and the meaning of inwardness

* Attention, solitude, and modern distraction

* Poetry, spirituality, and transcendence

* Lou Andreas-Salomé and Russia’s influence on Rilke

* Rodin and the discipline of attention

* The Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus

* Art after the decline of religion

* Why Rilke still matters today

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Links:

Lesley’s book Rilke: The Last Inward Man: https://pushkinpress.com/book/rilke-the-last-inward-man/

Lesley’s Novel The Mozhaisk Road: Russian Heart of Darkness: https://www.austinmacauley.com/book/the-mozhaisk-road

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If you enjoyed this conversation, please like, subscribe, and share the video. It helps more people discover thoughtful discussions about literature, philosophy, history, and culture.

#Rilke #Poetry #Philosophy #Literature #TheScholarsArmchair #LesleyChamberlain #Reading #Culture #Attention #InnerLife #Books #LiteraryCriticism #Modernity #Spirituality #ArtAndMeaning

What makes Odysseus the most enduring figure in all of literature?

In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I’m joined by Joel P. Christensen to explore one of the most fascinating characters ever created: Odysseus.

From Homer’s Odyssey to modern films, novels, and even war narratives, Odysseus has never stopped changing. He is a hero, a liar, a survivor, a strategist, and perhaps one of the first true antiheroes in Western literature. But why has this figure endured when so many others have faded?

We explore how Odysseus has been reimagined across history, from ancient Greece to Dante Alighieri, and into modern culture, where he increasingly appears as a traumatised veteran struggling to return home. Along the way, we ask whether the Odyssey is not just a story about adventure, but one of the earliest explorations of identity, storytelling, and survival.

If Achilles represents glory, Odysseus represents something closer to us: adaptability, contradiction, and the cost of making it back alive.

Why do we keep returning to Odysseus? And what does that say about us?

Topics include:

The meaning of “the man of many ways”

Odysseus as hero vs antihero

How different cultures reinvent him

Trauma, nostalgia, and the idea of home

Why the Odyssey feels more modern than the Iliad

Subscribe for more conversations with leading scholars bringing great literature to life.

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Links:

Joel's book Why Odysseus?: https://link.springer.com/book/9783032209863

Joel's profile page: https://www.gc.cuny.edu/people/joel-p-christensen

What did the Victorians really think of Jane Austen — and how did they reshape her legacy?

In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with Prof Cheryl A. Wilson, author of *Jane Austen and the Victorian Heroine*, about the surprising afterlife of Austen in the nineteenth century.

We often think of Austen as timeless — but as Dr Wilson shows, the Victorians didn’t just admire her. They *used* her. Through the figure of the heroine, Austen became a tool for thinking about reading, gender, class, and even national identity.

We explore how Victorian writers:

* turned Austen into a guide for “good reading” and moral taste

* rewrote and adapted her heroines for a changing world

* struggled with complex characters like Emma

* used Austen in debates about femininity and the New Woman

* transformed her into a cultural icon: “England’s Jane”

We also discuss Dr Wilson’s fascinating work on *Persuasion*, where she argues that Austen structures the novel like a dance — even without a ballroom scene — revealing new insights into desire, movement, and social mobility.

This conversation reveals a different Austen: not fixed, but constantly reinterpreted — and still shaping how we read today.

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Links:

Cheryl's book Jane Austen and the Victorian Heroine: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-62965-0

Cheryl's article on dance and Persuasion: https://jasna.org/persuasions/printed/number25/wilson.pdf

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**Subscribe for more conversations with leading literary scholars exploring the big ideas behind classic literature.**

#JaneAusten #VictorianLiterature #LiteraryCriticism #Persuasion #ClassicLiterature #Books #TheScholarsArmchair