Smarty Pants

Teenagers with knives, invading insects, vampire children, crazed surgeons, wronged actors out for revenge—the horror genre has a haunted house for everyone, no matter your taste. Despite treating women like disposable straws, or lumping the queer and disabled together as monsters, scary movies have long been celebrated by the people most likely to be before the opening credits are done. For this year’s season of scares, editor Joe Vallese asked 24 queer and trans writers to consider the horror movies that matter to them, from Halloween to Hereditary and all points in between. The resulting collection, It Came from the Closet, demonstrates the complicated relationship between the macabre and the marginalized. Go beyond the episode:It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror, edited by Joe ValleseRead these essays from the collection: Carmen Maria Machado on Jennifer’s Body, Jen Corrigan on Jaws, Zefyr Lisowski on The Ring and Pet SemataryIf your taste runs to spooky books, too, we have several lists for that Our host’s top horror picks, for every taste:Not that scary if you’re trying to dip your toes into the genre: Les Diaboliques, The Devil Rides Out, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, The Cremator, CureMild scares that come with a side of laughter: Sugar Hill, An American Werewolf in London, Throne of Blood, Rare Exports, PrevengeSpooky silents, most memorably watched with a live score: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Häxan, NosferatuBeloved classics: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Alien + Aliens, The Thing, The People Under the Stairs, Candyman, The Wicker ManModern favorites: The Babadook, Get Out, Raw, His House, The Witch, The House of the Devil, The DescentUnderrated gems: Possession, The Appointment, Onibaba, The Lure, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, Mother Joan of the Angels, It FollowsTune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Have suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2018, the writer Ling Ma published Severance, which promptly won several literary prizes but only hit the big time in 2020. The novel follows Candace Chen, who continues to go to her unfulfilling job in the middle of a worldwide pandemic that slowly fills the world with slack-jawed zombies. You can guess why it was popular. This fall, Ma is back with a new collection of stories, Bliss Montage, which imagines a number of other surreal scenarios, such as a drug that makes you invisible, a dream job that just might open a literal door into a dream world, and a manual on Yeti lovemaking. One of Ma’s characters lives in an L.A. mansion with her 100 ex-boyfriends; another visits her husband’s homeland, where people bury themselves alive in an annual festival in hopes of curing their physical or psychic ills. Bliss Montage’s eight stories are, above all, about the fictions we tell ourselves to survive the delusions of modern life.Go beyond the episode:Ling Ma’s Bliss MontageRead “Peking Duck” in The New Yorker and more about Ma’s time at PlayboyIf you missed the pandemic boat: read Severance (if you’re an audiobook fan, Nancy Wu’s droll audiobook narration is perfect) and check out the Post45 discussion circle about the novelJeanine Basinger’s original formulation of the “bliss montage” in films, from her book A Woman’s ViewTune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Harold McGee’s 1984 book On Food and Cooking—revised extensively in 2004—changed modern cuisine, inspiring the molecular gastronomy of Ferran Adrià as well as the weeknight creations of humble home cooks everywhere. McGee’s latest book, Nose Dive, is a companion encyclopedia to On Food and Cooking, and it focuses on the most overlooked of our senses: smell. When we bring a fresh oyster or a glass of wine to our lips, what makes us detect minerality or grassiness? When did the molecules that we smell first appear? What happens to these volatile molecules when we transform our food, whether through cooking, fermentation, or some other process? Listen to McGee explain this universe of smells—which he dubs “the osmocosm”—and you’ll never breathe in the aroma of fresh-baked cookies the same way again.Go beyond the episode:Harold McGee’s Nose Dive: A Field Guide to the World’s SmellsIf your copy of On Food and Cooking is also illegible from use—fear not! Copies abound, but be sure to grab the 2004 revisionMcGee blogs at the Curious CookGet a whiff of 19th-century olfactory history in our interview with historian Melanie KiechleImagine the future of food in our changing climate with novelist Alexandra Kleeman and chef Jen MonroeTune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2019, Joy Harjo was named the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, becoming the first Indigenous American to receive the honor. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, she is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Her unusually varied career has included painting, screenwriting, and playing the alto saxophone, as well as teaching and editing. Harjo is marking the occasion of her semi-centenary as a poet with two books: Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light, which collects 50 poems for 50 years, and Catching the Light, a meditation on “the why of writing poetry.” Her work stands at the crossroads, evoking both the deeply personal and the shared experience of generations, and in it we find Creek spirits and missing women, creation myths and truck stops. Through it all, her voice is unmistakable.Go beyond the episode:Joy Harjo’s Catching the Light and Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: Fifty Poems for Fifty YearsPeruse her back catalog of books and musicListen to our Read Me a Poem podcastTune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There are so many things to fear in this world—water, choking, dark forests—and an equal number of things to obsess over—books, grief, things themselves. In The Book of Phobias and Manias, Kate Summerscale collects 99 such fixations, from the fanciful (hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, a fear of long words) to the debilitatingly real (acrophobia, a fear of heights). No matter if dressed in Greek clothing (koumpounophobia, the fear of buttons) or bluntly named (social phobia), these obsessions account for many of today’s most common anxiety disorders. But Summerscale’s case studies, spanning 14th-century France to the contemporary psychology lab, reveal that our obsessions’ historical origins—and our fervor for categorizing our differences—tell us an awful lot more about modernity than our evolutionary past.Go beyond the episode:Kate Summerscale’s The Book of Phobias & Manias: A History of ObsessionListen to our previous interview with Summerscale about The Haunting of Alma FieldingFear of the future is strikingly dramatized in Dorothy Macardle’s neglected Gothic tale The UnforeseenTune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Somewhere among the dark forests of Eastern Europe, Baba Yaga, the crinkled crone of Slavic folklore, lurks inside a timber hut atop a pair of chicken legs. She hops through the woods, doing good or evil or just her own thing, depending on whom you ask. GennaRose Nethercott’s debut novel, Thistlefoot, reimagines the folklore of Baba Yaga in a contemporary American setting. Estranged siblings Bellatine and Isaac Yaga are brought together, somewhat unwillingly, by a surprising and mysterious inheritance: a sentient house on chicken legs, named Thistlefoot, who once belonged to their twice-great-grandmother, and with whom they embark on a cross-country puppet tour. But a shadowy figure from a century ago is stalking them, bringing the horrors of the Yagas’ ancestral shtetl with him. Nethercott is a writer and folklorist whose first book, The Lumberjack’s Dove, was selected by Louise Glück as a winner of the National Poetry Series. She joins us to talk about the folktales and history that inspired her latest work. Go beyond the episode:GennaRose Nethercott’s ThistlefootCatch her on tour, with a live puppet show, this fallRead the short story “A Diviner’s Abecedarian”“Vassilissa the Beautiful” is one of the tales featuring Ivan Bilibin’s magnificent illustration in this collection of Russian fairy talesHear more Slavic folklore on our episode about the Snow MaidenTune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. The music in this episode is “The Hut on Fowl's Legs,” from Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky, performed by the Oslo Philharmonic with conductor Semyon Bychkov. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Imagine there’s a place where music exists as it was first created, thousands and thousands of years ago, a place where song and dance still glued communities together across generations. That place exists: Epirus, a little pocket of northwestern Greece on the border with Albania. There, in scattered mountain villages, people still practice a musical tradition that predates Homer. This week, we’re revisiting our interview with Christopher King, an obsessive record collector—and Grammy-winning producer and musicologist—who goes on an odyssey to uncover Europe’s oldest surviving folk music, and spins us some rare 78s.Go beyond the episode:Episode page, with R. Crumb’s original illustrationsChristopher King’s Lament from EpirusBuy LPs, CDs, or MP3s of Chris’s Epirotic collections, from Five Days Married and Other Laments to Why the Mountains Are BlackRead Christopher King’s Paris Review essay, “Talk About Beauties,” about the lost recordings of Alexis ZoumbasListen to A Lament for Epirus (1926–1928) by Alexis Zoumbas on SpotifyTune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Other music in this episode graciously provided by Christopher King. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Despite the rampant success of books like Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, intellectual circles tend to look down on anything that sells itself as self-help. And yet, in a certain light, the most original form of self-help might actually be philosophy—an older and more respected genre, even, than the novel. So this week, we’re going back to the past and asking that old chestnut: what is a meaningful life? The Stoics are awfully popular these days, but the philosopher Catherine Wilson joins us this episode to pitch a different kind of Greek: Epicurus, whose teachings live on most fully in Lucretius’s On the Nature of Things. For a few centuries, Epicurus was wrongly remembered as the patron saint of whoremongers and drunkards, but he really wasn’t: his philosophy is rich with theories of justice, empiricism, pleasure, prudence, and equality (Epicurus, unlike the Stoics, welcomed women and slaves into his school). Epicureanism advocated for a simple life, something that appeals to more and more people today with the return to artisan crafts, self-sufficiency, and, yes, the KonMari method.Go beyond the episode:Catherine Wilson’s How to Be an EpicureanRead A. E. Stallings’s recent translation of Lucretius’s On the Nature of ThingsOr read Karl Marx’s university thesis on Epicurus, “The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature”Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek. Follow us on Twitter @TheAmScho or on Facebook.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Long before the advent of true crime podcasts, 17th-century murder pamphlets sold like hotcakes in England, and dubious criminal “autobiographies” were sold at executions. On the eve of the 19th century, William Godwin published Things as They Are; or the Adventures of Caleb Williams, identified by this week’s guest, Martin Edwards, as the “first thriller about a manhunt”—and a blueprint for how detective novelists would go on to construct the whodunnit. Edwards should know. He’s the eighth president of the Detection Club and the author of dozens of crime novels (and about a thousand articles about other people’s mysteries). Now he has written A Life of Crime, the first major history of the genre in more than 50 years, distilling two centuries of crime fiction from around the world, from the Golden Age of Agatha Christie and company to the realm of contemporary Japan. Go beyond the episode:Martin Edwards’s The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and Their CreatorsRead an excerpt hereWe dare you not to snap up the entire collection of the British Library’s editions of Crime Classics, edited by Edwards, based on the covers aloneThree women stars of early crime fiction: Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835–1915; her 1862 book Lady Audley’s Secret was a “sensation novel” in every sense), Anna Katharine Green (1846–1935; her reputation as the “mother of the detective novel” began with The Leavenworth Case in 1878), and Marie Belloc Lowndes (1868–1947; Alfred Hitchcock famously adopted her 1913 novel The Lodger to the screen)Find a full suite of reading recommendations on our episode pageFurther evidence that our host has a crime show problemTune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Stitcher • Google Play Have suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anglo-American attitudes toward burial have changed significantly over the past half century: today, most people choose to be cremated, and alternatives like natural burials and human composting are on the rise. Margareta Magnusson’s The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, about the importance of getting your affairs in order, was a surprise bestseller, and American mortician Caitlin Doughty is but one of several popular YouTube personalities who speak about death. But largely absent from the conversations at so-called Death Cafes (coffee, crumpets, and the inevitable!) is any discussion of the people who devote their lives to caring for the dead. These death workers are the focus of Hayley Campbell’s new book, All the Living and the Dead. Campbell speaks to people doing jobs we tend not to consider: embalmers and executioners, of course, but also crime scene cleaners, mass fatality investigators, bereavement midwives, and others. What makes these people choose to surround themselves with death tells us a lot about what the rest of us lose when we relegate death to the shadows. Go beyond the episode:Hayley Campbell’s All the Living and the Dead: From Embalmers to Executioners, an Exploration of the People Who Have Made Death Their Life's WorkRead more about the Order of the Good Death, an organization of funeral professionals working to change attitudes about deathYou can join the conversation at your nearest Death CafeWatch Caitlin Doughty’s series on your death rights (and listen to our interview with her about funerary practices around the world)Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.