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 US publication): an excellent review from Joyce Carol Oates in the NYT and other useful ones from Benjamin Markovits in The Observer, Michael Duffy in The Millions
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 Prelude, especially books 5, 6, and 7, and focusing on the version of 1805.
Preludes: 1805 (pdf); 1850; 1798-99
Wordsworth resources (Voice of the Shuttle)
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.
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 it.
This episode of The Sometime Seminar discusses the first seven books of Louis Zukofsky’s modernist long poem “A”.
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 novelist of the same name and her peripatetic lectures and debates.
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 Categories: Zany, Cute, Interesting and the “New Aesthetic” as discussed by James Bridle and Bruce Sterling.
New Aesthetic: Bruce Sterling essay; Metafilter thread; New Aesthetic Tumblr
Our Aesthetic Categories: Zany, Cute, Interesting by Sianne Ngai
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
Richard Brody, also in The New Yorker
Stephen Marche in Esquire
A back-and-forth on the film from Big Media Vandalism
The Last Psychiatrist on Django Unchained and politics (among other things)
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
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 a Coursera MOOC on how to run a MOOC (Metafilter thread)
In our debut episode, The Sometime Seminar discusses Game of Thrones. Related links and notes:
Laurie Penny on Game of Thrones, “Good King” mythology, and “racist rape-culture Disneyland with dragons” (Metafilter thread and earlier Metafilter thread)
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