Trinity College professor Barbara M. Benedict delights in curiosity, curiosities and collecting in English literature. We cover everything from Gulliver's Travels to Freud, from curiosity cabinets to the dawn of journalism. Indie Photobook Library founder Larissa Leclair illuminates her version of what Barbara describes.
This is the first in a monthly series of interviews with the contributing authors to the forthcoming anthology Curiosity Studies: A New Ecology of Knowledge. This episode first aired in June 2019; it has been refreshed, October 2023.
Join us next time when American University philosophy professor Asia Ferrin and I grapple with whether we can, in fact, choose to be curious.
Theme music and “Sitting in the Pasture” by Sean Balick; “We Collect Shiny Things” by Love and Weasel from Blue Dot Sessions. Research and other support by the wonderful Caroline Kish.