11: Arthur Gordon Pym
Is any sufficiently advanced genius indistinguishable from incompetence? How many living burials can a story contain before it just gets…weird? And just what is a weird tale, anyway? This episode of The Sometime Seminar discusses Poe’s only long work, the…
10: The Childhood of Jesus
This episode of The Sometime Seminar discusses J.M. Coetzee’s newest fiction, The Childhood of Jesus. Roger also subsequently reviewed the book for the LARB. Supplemental links (mostly subsequent to the recording of this episode, since our discussion preceded the book’s…
9: The Prelude
This week we return to the planet of the long poems, with a discussion of the middle books of William Wordsworth’s Prelude (the 1805 text of course, sheesh). Now with intro music! This episode of The Sometime Seminar discusses Wordsworth’s…
8: Embassytown
You got semiotics in my space opera! You got space opera in my semiotics! lightbulb This episode of The Sometime Seminar discusses China Miéville’s 2011 science-fiction novel Embassytown, a space opera informed by Walter Benjamin and the philosophy of language….
7: A by Louis Zukofsky
Who will do it? Words will do it. Or if by it you mean discuss the first seven books of Louis Zukofsky’s mind-blowing long poem ‘A’ and its place in the story of Modernism, then The Sometime Seminar will do…
6: Elizabeth Costello
Looking for something to listen to while you wait for that darn gatekeeper to grant you entry into the law already? This episode of The Sometime Seminar discusses J.M. Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello, a collection of stories or “lessons” about a…
5: The New Aesthetic and Our Aesthetic Categories
How seriously should we take the aesthetic philosophy of Jack Nicholson’s Joker? Is “the interesting” actually interesting or is it merely…interesting? This episode of The Sometime Seminar discusses contemporary and digital aesthetics, looking at Sianne Ngai’s recent book Our Aesthetic…
4: Django Unchained
Why is Spielberg’s Lincoln like Pasolini’s Salò? Tune in to find out (or not). This episode of The Sometime Seminar discusses the Tarantino slave spaghetti Western film Django Unchained. Related links, reviews and discussions: Jelani Cobb in The New Yorker…
3: Trilogy by H.D.
This episode of The Sometime Seminar is a double-length discussion about the 1944 modernist long poem Trilogy by H.D. (Hilda Doolittle). H.D. on Wikipedia Various critics’ takes on Trilogy Buy Trilogy from Amazon Download this episode
2: MOOCs and online higher education
This episode of The Sometime Seminar discusses recent developments in online higher education and particularly the MOOC phenomenon/fad. MOOC companies: Coursera Udacity EdX (nonprofit) Clay Shirky on Napster and the Academy (Metafilter thread); Inside Higher Ed article on collapse of…
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