Podcasts about essayism

Brian Dillon in conversation with Chris Power: Critic and essayist Brian Dillon, author of Essayism, In the Dark Room, Suppose a Sentence and Affinities, speaks to Chris Power, author of A Lonely Man, about his writing to date, including the influence and use of the image in his work, his attachment to the fragment and the ‘mere', and the challenge of writing attentively about a specific thing, whether a sentence or an object. Recorded at Young Space in February 2023. Edited by Frankie Wells. Music composed by Kwes Darko.

With AFFINITIES: On Art & Fascination (NYRB), Brian Dillon completes a "loose trilogy" of books revolving around his connections to art, writing & the world, this time through a series of amazing essays about photography, dance, video, and other art forms, as well as the drift-nature of affinity itself. We get into the tendrils of influence (and how he has to shake himself loose of the reticence of Barthes & Sebald), the act of close looking. the way metaphors & images enable to him to explore art, and why he embraces mood over argument in his essays. We also talk about the ways his recent books (Affinities, Suppose a Sentence, & Essayism) have served as a reboot of his writing, the challenges in wedding the critical/analytic & the memoiristic, his decision to rewrite by hand the previously published pieces for this book to see if new connections revealed themselves, and how he never knows what to ask an artist in the studio. Plus, we discuss how much personal info is too much in an essay, the parallels between his aunt's descent into paranoia with his own pursuit of close looking/reading, the writers he discovered late, what comes next, why he doesn't shy away from calling Affinities an essay collection, and more! Follow Brian on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our Substack

CONVERSATIONS is an annual event where we invite contributors to the magazine to discuss their work. The theme for Conversations 2021 is Beginnings. Due to the Covid pandemic, this year's event takes the form of a special edition Dublin Review podcast in which Aingeala Flannery is joined by four recent contributors to the magazine. Brian Dillon is a writer, critic and essayist from Dublin. He has published seven books, including Essayism, Suppose A Sentence, and In The Dark Room, which won the Irish Book Award for non-fiction in 2005. Brian lives in London and has been contributing non-fiction to The Dublin Review since 2003. Tim MacGabhann is from County Kilkenny, but has been living in Mexico since 2013. He is a journalist, short story writer, poet and novelist. His debut novel Call Him Mine was published in 2019. The follow up How to be Nowhere came out in 2020. Tim has been contributing to The Dublin Review since 2019. Chetna Maroo is a short story writer and novelist, whose fiction debut Western Lane will be published in Spring 2023. She began contributing to The Dublin Review in 2020, when her short story ‘Shoreline' appeared in Number 79 of the magazine. Ayşegül Savaş is a novelist, short story writer and essayist who grew up in London, Copenhagen and Istanbul. Her debut novel, Walking on the Ceiling, was published in 2019. Her second novel, White on White will be published in early 2022. She has been contributing to The Dublin Review since 2019.

"Just try to make it sound like you wrote it that way on purpose." Wes Anderson: once the critical darling of the early twenty-first century, now slightly uncool to admit you still like. In the context of post-Trump America, the liberal penchant for gestural politics has led to Anderson's popular fall from grace; he is often accused of representing 'style over substance'. Does this accusation hold up? Does it matter if it does; might there be a place for the politics of the purely stylish? And how might these questions be answered differently with a look to the affective resonances of different films across Anderson's career? From the paen to the mid-twentieth century novel represented by The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) to the unashamed essayism of The French Dispatch (2021), we take a trip to the playground of the twentieth century. Follow us on Twitter here Follow us on Facebook here

In this event from June 2017, Brian Dillon talks to Max Porter about his latest book, Essayism (Fitzcarraldo Editions). Dillon has been fascinated by the essay form throughout his reading and writing life, and Essayism is at once a paean to this venerable and still vibrant genre, and a dazzling contemporary example of it. Porter is the author of the prize-winning Grief is the Thing with Feathers (Faber). See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

El festival de documentales “Cinéma du Réel” es la excusa perfecta para intentar articular una charla sobre diferentes formas de analizar la realidad. A partir de algunas de las películas vistas, Javier y Axel integran a la discusión el libro “Essayism” de Brian Dillon, para defender al ensayo, no tanto como género literario sino como práctica, y así interrogar las posibilidades de la “no ficción”. ¿De qué manera específica una forma literaria aborda el análisis de la realidad? ¿En qué medida el documental y el ensayo pueden ser el campo de experimentación ideal para pensar la realidad más allá de las fronteras del arte y de la ciencia? ¿El documental de autor tiene que sucumbir al narcisismo posmoderno? ¿Gana alguien con la entrega de premios en festivales? Cansados de mirar pantallas y leer libros sin saber qué hacer de eso, los cosmopoditas evalúan la posibilidad de escaparle a la realidad abusando de sustancias psicotrópicas y de música electrónica. Al final, recapacitan y deciden reunirse para preparar el próximo episodio e intentarlo de nuevo, fallar de nuevo, pero fallar mejor. Suscribite y apoyanos en Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, TuneIn, Stitcher o en tu aplicación favorita. Escribinos a cosmopodis@gmail.com. También estamos en Twitter y en Instagram en @cosmopodis.

For our second event of 2018 exploring the burgeoning yet slippery form of the essay, we were joined by Brian Dillon whose book Essayism - his essays on essays - is already considered a classic of the form.

What are the uses of cultural criticism? How does it improve art and artists, and how much does it impede them? How does criticism intersect with political ideology? What's changed in the age of the internet? In our pilot episode, Juliet Jacques discusses the uses, possibilities and limits of arts criticism with Fatema Ahmed, who has held editorial positions at Apollo, Granta and Icon, and contributed to numerous publications, and Daniela Cascella, author of En Abîme (2012) and F.M.R.L. (2015), both published by Zero, and Singed (2017, Equus Press). Works referenced: NAM JUNE PAIK, Suite (212) (1975) - https://www.eai.org/titles/suite-212 NAM JUNK PAIK, 'Media Planning for the Post-Industrial Society' (1974) - http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/source-text/33/ FENNESZ, 'Aus' (from Hotel Paral.lel, 1997) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4WNWhE45gc BRIAN DILLON, Essayism (2017) - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jun/23/essayism-brian-dillon-review-essays-michel-de-montaigne-georges-perec-joan-didion KATE ZAMBRENO, Heroines (2013) - https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/heroines CHRIS KRAUS, collected works and films - https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/10/arts/design/chris-kraus-films.html OLIVIA LAING, The Lonely City (2016) - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/28/the-lonely-city-olivia-laing-edward-hopper-andy-warhol PIER PAOLO PASOLINI, The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964) and La Ricotta (short film in Ro.G.Pa.G, 1962) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_od3BxJ2W0 ELENA FERRANTE, La frantumaglia (Fragments) T. S. ELIOT, The Uses of Poetry and the Uses of Criticism - http://tseliot.com/prose/the-use-of-poetry-and-the-use-of-criticism ANATOLI LUNACHARSKY, 'Theses on the Problems of Marxist Criticism' (1928) - https://www.marxists.org/archive/lunachar/1928/criticism.htm HELENE CIXOUS, 'The Laugh of the Medusa' (1975) - https://artandobjecthood.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/cixous_the_laugh_of_the_medusa.pdf Ready Steady Book - http://www.readysteadybook.com This Space - http://this-space.blogspot.co.uk ANN QUIN - https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2007/may/08/whocaresaboutannquin ELIZABETH HARDWICK - Seduction and Betrayal (1973) - http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1973/05/31/seduction-and-betrayal-i/ ELFRIEDE JELINEK - Nobel Prize acceptance speech (2004) - https://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=721 INGEBORG BACHMANN - 'Literature as Utopia' - http://shirtysleeves.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/a-translation-of-literatur-als-utopie.html GEORGE ELIOT - 'Silly Novels by Silly Lady Novelists' (1856) - https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/silly-novels-by-lady-novelists-essay-by-george-eliot BHANU KAPIL - Ban en Banlieue (2015) - http://www.nightboat.org/title/ban-en-banlieue

The literary essay is a slippery and expansive form, and has encompassed everything from an attempt to define the word ‘camp’ to a dispatch from a cruise ship. This month we interview writer Brian Dillon about his forthcoming book, Essayism – a collection of essays about essays and an ode to the form in all its machinations. We also discuss some of our favourite essay writers including Michel de Montaigne, Joan Didion and David Foster Wallace, plus all the usual recommendations.