214 - Joyce Carol Oates: On Philosophy and Literature

Patreon: https://bit.ly/3v8OhY7

Joyce Carol Oates is the Rogers S. Berlind ’52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities at Princeton University with the Program in Creative Writing. She is among the most widely-recognized and respected writers of our time, and has written in a wide variety of media and genres, from poetry and fiction in the former category to horror and Gothic in the latter. Her work has also been adapted into various other media, from plays to film. Joyce is the recipient of two O. Henry Awards and the National Book Award, among many others. This is Joyce’s second appearance on Robinson’s Podcast. In episode 137, she and Robinson discussed craft in fiction and poetry. In this episode, they talk about Joyce’s most recent collection of short stories, Zero-Sum (link in the description), as well as philosophy, Peter Singer, dealing with criticism, translation, and more.

Joyce’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/JoyceCarolOates

Joyce’s Substack: https://joycecaroloates.substack.com

Zero-Sum: https://a.co/d/0cYh3ndo

OUTLINE

00:00 Introduction

03:16 On Peter Singer

12:41 On Buddhism

21:50 On Hemingway

25:50 Dealing with Criticism

38:17 On Translation

47:53 Writing Short Stories

58:38 Imagery and Recreating the World

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, and everyone in-between.