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A century ago, America was the literary and intellectual powerhouse of the world. Black writers defined the black experience in the Harlem Renaissance, F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the glamour and hypocrisy of the jazz age in The Great Gatsby and thousands of detective, western and sci fi pulp novels were published, creating the foundations of modern genre fiction. Today we hear from Tom Lutz, founding editor of the LA Review of Books and author of 1925: A Literary Encyclopaedia and explore this extraordinary explosion of thought and literature. *****STOP PRESS*****I only ever talk about history on this podcast but I also have another life, yes, that of aspirant fantasy author and if that's your thing you can get a copy of my debut novel The Blood of Tharta, right here:Help the podcast to continue bringing you history each weekIf you enjoy the Explaining History podcast and its many years of content and would like to help the show continue, please consider supporting it in the following ways:If you want to go ad-free, you can take out a membership hereOrYou can support the podcast via Patreon hereOr you can just say some nice things about it here Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In this episode, we discuss the life and legacy of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Born in 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald published his first novel, This Side of Paradise, when he was 23. He would go on to become a Jazz Age celebrity and his short stories and novels captured the exuberance, excess, and irony [...]
Livros mencionados:The Coin, Yasmin Zaher;The Tempest, William Shakespeare; Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov;Por quem os sinos dobram, Ernest Hemingway;O Grande Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald;As Crónicas de Nárnia: O Leão, a Feiticeira e o Guarda-Roupa, C.S. Lewis;Harry Potter e o Cálice de Fogo, J. K. RowlingSigam-nos no instagram: @leiturasembadanas Edição de som: Tale House
From the Penthouse Lounge at SAP Center, Dan Rusanowsky and Ted Ramey react to the Sharks getting the number two overall pick in the upcoming draft, hear from Sharks GM, Mike Grier, and interview Sharks Director of Player Personnel, Scott Fitzgerald.
From the Penthouse Lounge at SAP Center, Dan Rusanowsky and Ted Ramey react to the Sharks getting the number two overall pick in the upcoming draft, hear from Sharks GM, Mike Grier, and interview Sharks Director of Player Personnel, Scott Fitzgerald.
This week on MusicalTalk, Nick returns to The Rocky Horror Show for the first time in 25 years and shares his reflections on the cult classic's enduring appeal, high camp, and raucous audience participation. Then, it's off to the London Coliseum, where Nick and Hannah experience The Great Gatsby — but in a rare twist, it's Nick who walks in knowing nothing about the show, while Hannah holds all the insight! Join them for a lively discussion of this ambitious new production, the surprises it held, and how it reimagines F. Scott Fitzgerald's iconic world for the stage.
Tom Gatti meets authors Sarah Churchwell and Erica Wagner to discuss why The Great Gatsby is still relevant a century after it was published.Considered by many to be the great American novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald's iconic tale of ambition, class and the American dream continues to resonate today.Sarah Churchwell and Erica Wagner joined Tom Gatti at the Cambridge Literary Festival to offer fresh perspectives on a timeless classic.Watch more from the Cambridge Literary Festival at https://www.cambridgeliteraryfestival.com/clf-player-watch-listen/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The weekend was filled with all sorts of stories, so hold on, because we cover a lot in the first hour of the show! It seems like Governor Tony Evers, just trying to do his job got a threat from The Border Czar, so that's super cool. Then we saw Congressman Scott Fitzgerald pop his head out and look for his shadow, we look forward to next year's appearance. Pope Francis passed away two weeks ago and The Papal Conclave begins on Wednesday, which is the perfect window of time for The Felon President to offend Catholics around the country...don't worry, Archbishops have "harsh words" on the matter. And finally, what would you do with $45-90 million? Well, the president wants to throw a birthday party, for himself with his very own parade!! As always, thank you for listening, texting and calling, we couldn't do this without you! Don't forget to download the free Civic Media app and take us wherever you are in the world! Matenaer On Air is a part of the Civic Media radio network and airs Monday through Friday from 10 am - noon across the state. Subscribe to the podcast to be sure not to miss out on a single episode! You can also rate us on your podcast distribution center of choice, they go a long way! To learn more about the show and all of the programming across the Civic Media network, head over to https://civicmedia.us/shows to see the entire broadcast line up. Follow the show on Facebook, X and YouTube to keep up with Jane and the show! Guest: Mitchell Hoyt
¿Quién fue Giulia Toffana? ¿La primera asesina en serie de la historia, o una mujer que hizo justicia? Ella, boticaria, es llevada ante el Santo Oficio para ser interrogada. Esta Toffana montó una red de crimen organizado femenino que se rebeló contra el Estado de Roma. Vanessa Montfort ha viajado a la Roma del siglo XVII para contarnos una historia cautivante que ha merecido el premio Primavera, que publica Espasa: La Toffana. Se cumplen 100 años de la publicación de una de las obras de resonancia mítica en el mundo de la literatura. Una obra que se vendió muy poco en su época, y que sin embargo, tuvo elogios efusivos, como los de Raymond Chandler: El gran Gatsby, de Scott Fitzgerald. Apenas doscientas páginas que se transformaron en un clásico universal, que se revaloriza año a año. Contamos los secretos más escondidos de esta novela.¿Cuánto leemos en digital? Se lo preguntamos a Arantza Larrauri, directora general de De Marque, principal distribuidora de libros digitales en lengua española.En la sección de Audiolibros, El último encuentro, de Sándor Márai.Y entre las últimas novedades, Audrey Hepburn, convertida en heroína de guerra.
We have a key, finally, to the mystery of Donald Trump and where he came from. He was born almost exactly 100 years ago in the imagination of the novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. What he ...
Send us a textF. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby may be the novel everyone's talking about this month, but let's not forget another “Jazz Age” novel that took this country by storm. Ursula Parrott's Ex-Wife, a tragicomic indictment of early 20th-century romance, brought the author immense fame and wealth at the time of its publication in 1929. Yet by her death in 1957 she was penniless and homeless, a fate she all but predicted in the cautionary commentary of her writing. Our episode on Parrott (with her biographer, Marsha Gordon) originally aired two years ago this week, and we're marking Spring Break with an encore presentation — including some updates on efforts to make sure Parrott isn't confined to obscurity again.Links: Ex-Wife by Ursula ParrottBecoming the Ex-Wife by Marsha GordonThe Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald Sigmund FreudLost Ladies of Lit episode on Marjorie Hillis with Joanna ScuttsThe Divorcee (1930 Film) Norma ShearerSupport the showFor episodes and show notes, visit: LostLadiesofLit.comSubscribe to our substack newsletter. Follow us on instagram @lostladiesoflit. Email us: Contact — Lost Ladies of Lit Podcast
How does a book start out as a complete failure only to suddenly be celebrated as one of the great American novels, decades later? And what was its heartbreaking inspiration? This is the story of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic The Great Gatsby, published 100 years ago this month.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby might be one hundred years old, but it's still incredibly relevant: one list-of-lists site ranks it as the number-one book of all time. In this episode, Jacke talks to author Rachel Feder about this classic tale of reinvention - and the reinventing she did for her book Daisy, which retells the Gatsby story from the perspective of a messy, ambitious, and possibly devious 1990s teen poet. PLUS Francesca Peacock (Pure Wit: The Revolutionary Life of Margaret Cavendish) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read. Additional listening: 583 Margaret Cavendish (with Francesca Peacock) 281 The Great Gatsby Gatsby Turns 100 (with James West) The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Hosted by Jane Pauley. In our cover story, Seth Doane reports on the funeral of Pope Francis, and the pontiff's legacy. Plus: David Martin looks back at the events of the Fall of Saigon, 50 years ago this week; Mo Rocca traces the life of singer-songwriter Bobby Darin, the subject of a Broadway musical; Lee Cowan observes the centennial of the publication of F. Scott Fitzgerald's “The Great Gatsby,” while David Pogue marks the 20th anniversary of YouTube; and Tony Dokoupil sits down with former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
This month, we're trying something new by releasing the individual segments once a week, to spread the mountain of content we recorded out over the whole month. And that continues with this month's main topic, where our resident English teacher, Sean Chapman, assigned us a very important reading: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, the Great American Novel turning the ripe old age of 100 this month! We discuss the novel itself, along with two of its cinematic adaptations – the 1974 film directed by Jack Clayton, and the 2013 film directed by Baz Luhrmann – and try to untangle why such an amazing book as never produced a halfway-decent movie. Enjoy! Read Jonathan Lack's movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.comSubscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.comRead Jonathan's book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vKSubscribe to our YouTube channels! Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcastSupport the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuffOriginal Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman
This week, we learn all about one of Anna's favorite authors/historical nemeses. It's complicated. Let's talk about F. Scott Fitzgerald!
On this episode of the PAW Book Club podcast, we speak with Sash Bischoff from Princeton's Class of 2009 about her debut novel and our latest book club read, “Sweet Fury.” From the very first page, “Sweet Fury” takes the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald, famously of Princeton's Class of 1917, and begins to play. A famous actress and film director, characters named Lila and Kurt, are collaborating on a feminist adaptation of “Tender is The Night.” Then into the mix strides a psychotherapist named Jonah, a character awfully similar to Jay Gatsby. The story unfolds in some surprisingly dark directions, including one disturbing scene set at a Princeton eating club, and prospective readers should note that this podcast will contain spoilers as we probe the ideas and intentions that ran through Sash's head as she wove this story, building up her characters — and destroying some in the end.
Charles gives his daily take on Making Money: F. Scott Fitzgerald once said the rich “are different from you and me.” U.S. consumers aren't always investing like the wealthy do. With his guest Rebecca Walser, Walser Wealth Management President, breaks down investing strategies to retain wealth (ex. investing in gold). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
It's the UConn Popcast, and on the 100th anniversary of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel, we explore what The Great Gatsby means in America today. In this deep-dive we ask: What did Gatsby mean in 1925, and how have those meanings changed in 2025? What mythologies of America does Gatsby circulate, and challenge? How does Gatsby read to a Brit who never read it in high school, and to an American who only encountered it as an adult? Is Nick Carraway right that Gatsby is the only pure soul in the story? Can we rescue utopian imaginings from this dystopic picture of America? Is there a hidden story of race submerged beneath Gatsby's overt story of class? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies
This year marks 100 years since F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby was first published. And it turns out that it took a while for the novel to catch on in the United States, where it is now considered a classic. This hour, we revisit the novel and its cultural impact. GUESTS: Rob Kyff: Teacher and author of Gatsby’s Secrets. He also writes a nationally syndicated column on language Maureen Corrigan: Book critic for NPR's Fresh Air, and a Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Literary Criticism at Georgetown University. She is the author of So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came To Be and Why It Endures Sara Chase: Actress who created the role of Myrtle Wilson in the Broadway production of The Great Gatsby Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
GREAT VIDEO VERSION: https://bit.ly/42hIZb9 Often called, “the greatest American novel” today - why is this book such a scandal? Read on and then watch/listen! Though an initial publishing failure, the book that many of us (Boomers, X-ers, Millennials) were forced to read in high school English class, is having a great centennial birthday. Currently, the new Broadway/London musical adaption is the hottest ticket in theater. Additionally, the movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio made almost $ ½ billion dollars. It also continues to sell over 500,000+ print copies per year, despite being one century old - making it one of the most successful books in all history (excluding the “Holy Bible”). The author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, was the highest paid and best reviewed writer in U.S, history, when “Gatsby” was first published in 1925 – and he was only 31. BUT, this book turned out to be a great disappointment in sales upon its initial release and helped lead to the author's very early death. What went wrong? During WW2 – years after the author's death - it experienced a great resurgence in popularity and has, today, become a multi-billion-dollar franchise with multiple movies, TV adaptions, and theater. But it's author died tragically at only 44 and in poverty, with all his books out of print. My co-host and I - with the help of literary expert, Dylan Cuellar - attempt to unravel one of the most tragic mysteries in U.S. publishing history. Find co-host, Anuradha's Instagram food account @anuradhaduz_food. Guest, Dylan Cuellar, has a very popular podcast of his own https://bit.ly/3IFRwKb, which he creates with his wife, Kassia Oset, our series co-founder. You can now find us on Patreon at patreon.com/ScandalSheet with bonus content for premium subscribers. We'd love to have your generous support for only the price of one Starbuck's coffee per month. Please reach out to us at scandalsheetpod.com@gmail.com, find us on Facebook as 'Scandal Sheet' or on X at @scandal_sheet. We'd love to hear from you!
GREAT VIDEO VERSION: https://bit.ly/42hIZb9 Often called, “the greatest American novel” today - why is this book such a scandal? Read on and then watch/listen! Though an initial publishing failure, the book that many of us (Boomers, X-ers, Millennials) were forced to read in high school English class, is having a great centennial birthday. Currently, the new Broadway/London musical adaption is the hottest ticket in theater. Additionally, the movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio made almost $ ½ billion dollars. It also continues to sell over 500,000+ print copies per year, despite being one century old - making it one of the most successful books in all history (excluding the “Holy Bible”). The author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, was the highest paid and best reviewed writer in U.S, history, when “Gatsby” was first published in 1925 – and he was only 31. BUT, this book turned out to be a great disappointment in sales upon its initial release and helped lead to the author's very early death. What went wrong? During WW2 – years after the author's death - it experienced a great resurgence in popularity and has, today, become a multi-billion-dollar franchise with multiple movies, TV adaptions, and theater. But it's author died tragically at only 44 and in poverty, with all his books out of print. My co-host and I - with the help of literary expert, Dylan Cuellar - attempt to unravel one of the most tragic mysteries in U.S. publishing history. Find co-host, Anuradha's Instagram food account @anuradhaduz_food. Guest, Dylan Cuellar, has a very popular podcast of his own https://bit.ly/3IFRwKb, which he creates with his wife, Kassia Oset, our series co-founder. You can now find us on Patreon at patreon.com/ScandalSheet with bonus content for premium subscribers. We'd love to have your generous support for only the price of one Starbuck's coffee per month. Please reach out to us at scandalsheetpod.com@gmail.com, find us on Facebook as 'Scandal Sheet' or on X at @scandal_sheet. We'd love to hear from you!
In this year of 2025, we celebrate the centennial of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. I have recorded the first three chapters of the heartbreaking novel, and the latest chapter is out today! I have links to all three chapters below should you wish to listen to them in order. Perhaps you, too, admire … Continue reading NEW! Chapter Three of “The Great Gatsby,” Narrated by Rick Reiman! →
If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “Babylon Revisited” by F. Scott Fitzgerald. What can we learn from this story? How can fiction subtly reveal character motives? How can we use a slippery point of […]
Überall lebt man die Lust am Lautmalerischen: ein Streifzug durch klingende Sprache und Musik. – Der Roman «Der grosse Gatsby» von F. Scott Fitzgerald ist 100 Jahre alt und bietet einen erhellenden Blick auf eine imperiale USA. Ausgehend vom Lateinwort des Jahres 2024, das auf eine Mauer in Pompeii geschrieben wurde und offenbar einen Fanfarenklang nachahmt, unternimmt Raphael Zehnder mit Stefan Stirnemann, dem Churer Lateinlehrer und Publizisten, einen Streifzug durch klingende Sprache und Musik: von Goethes «Hochzeitlied» über Donald Duck und Cab Calloways «Minnie The Moocher» bis zu Morgensterns «Grossem Lalula». Sprache ist (auch) Musik, und überall lebt man die Lust am Lautmalerischen. «In unseren Wörtern sind wir alle verbunden und haben alle dieselbe Staatsbürgerschaft», lautet eine von Stirnemanns Erkenntnissen. «Der grosse Gatsby» des US-Amerikaners F. Scott Fitzgerald erschien vor genau 100 Jahren, am 10. April 1925. Der Roman zählt heute zu den weltweit meistgelesenen Werken der Literatur. Das Buch sei von beklemmender Aktualität, sagt Philipp Schweighauser, Professor für Nordamerikanische Literatur an der Universität Basel. Fitzgerald machte in seinem Roman etwa den Rassismus, das imperiale Streben oder das Überlegenheitsdenken der USA zum Thema – und biete damit einen erhellenden Blick auf die USA unter Trump. F. Scott Fitzgerald: Der grosse Gatsby, erhältlich in diversen (Neu-)Übersetzungen und Verlagen.
A century after “The Great Gatsby” was first published, F. Scott Fitzgerald's slender novel about a mysterious, lovelorn millionaire living and dying in a Long Island mansion has become among the most widely read American fictions — and also among the most analyzed and interpreted. As the Book Review's A.O. Scott wrote in a recent essay about the book's centennial: “What we think about Gatsby illuminates what we think about money, race, romance and history. How we imagine him has a lot to do with how we see ourselves.”Scott joins the host Gilbert Cruz on the podcast this week to discuss Fitzgerald's novel and its long afterlife, looking at the ways “Gatsby” has made its way into the fabric of American culture. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
The 1920s and the 2020s share a special kinship. One hundred years ago, the U.S. was grappling with a mix of growth, technological splendor, and generational anxiety—a familiar cocktail (albeit, from an era where cocktails were illegal). The era's young people felt uniquely besieged by global forces. “My whole generation is restless," F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in This Side of Paradise. “A new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken." America was changing. And change always implies a kind of loss. We were moving toward cars and cities and manufacturing. And that meant we were moving away from horses and farmland and agriculture. And so, in 1930, just months into the Great Depression, Herbert Hoover signed a new piece of legislation to restore farmers to their previous glory. It was a great big tariff—the Smoot-Hawley Tariff. Rather than save the economy, it deepened the depression. Today, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff is one of the most infamous failures in the history of American politics. To suggest that it holds lessons for this moment in history is to state the obvious. Our guest is Douglas Irwin, an economist and historian at Dartmouth University and an expert on the economic debates of the Great Depression. We talk about the economic motivations of the Smoot-Hawley tariff, the congressional debates that shaped it, the president who signed it, and the legacy it left. We talk about the economic instinct to preserve the past—an instinct that has never gone away in American history—and the profound irony, that some efforts to return America to its former glory can have the unintended effect of robbing America of a richer future. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Douglas Irwin Producer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
It's the UConn Popcast, and on the 100th anniversary of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel, we explore what The Great Gatsby means in America today. In this deep-dive we ask: What did Gatsby mean in 1925, and how have those meanings changed in 2025? What mythologies of America does Gatsby circulate, and challenge? How does Gatsby read to a Brit who never read it in high school, and to an American who only encountered it as an adult? Is Nick Carraway right that Gatsby is the only pure soul in the story? Can we rescue utopian imaginings from this dystopic picture of America? Is there a hidden story of race submerged beneath Gatsby's overt story of class? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
It's the UConn Popcast, and on the 100th anniversary of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel, we explore what The Great Gatsby means in America today. In this deep-dive we ask: What did Gatsby mean in 1925, and how have those meanings changed in 2025? What mythologies of America does Gatsby circulate, and challenge? How does Gatsby read to a Brit who never read it in high school, and to an American who only encountered it as an adult? Is Nick Carraway right that Gatsby is the only pure soul in the story? Can we rescue utopian imaginings from this dystopic picture of America? Is there a hidden story of race submerged beneath Gatsby's overt story of class? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies
Before we go to Switzerland in 2025, we've got to go back to the last time they won: 1988, in Dublin Ireland. The Eurovangelists dive into a VERY 80s ESC with special guest Danielle Radford of MaxFun's Tights and Fights, and is there ever a bounty of Irish postcards and oversized shoulder pads to enjoy. Jeremy is bored to tears by his countrymen, Dimitry sees one of his all-time faves, Oscar can't get enough of his uncles at the wedding, and Danielle is fascinated by one word: Mangup. Watch ESC 1988 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBLDRJtIWGYThis week's companion playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7cNeQ9wt05sBQ3EpMpts8C The Eurovangelists are Jeremy Bent, Oscar Montoya and Dimitry Pompée.The theme was arranged and recorded by Cody McCorry and Faye Fadem, and the logo was designed by Tom Deja.Production support for this show was provided by the Maximum Fun network.The show is edited by Jeremy Bent with audio mixing help was courtesy of Shane O'Connell.Find Eurovangelists on social media as @eurovangelists on Instagram and @eurovangelists.com on Bluesky, or send us an email at eurovangelists@gmail.com. Head to https://maxfunstore.com/collections/eurovangelists for Eurovangelists merch. Also follow the Eurovangelists account on Spotify and check out our playlists of Eurovision hits, competitors in upcoming national finals, and companion playlists to every single episode, including this one!
It's a small world. The great David Rieff came to my San Francisco studio today for in person interview about his new anti-woke polemic Desire and Fate. And half way through our conversation, he brought up Daniel Bessner's This Is America piece which Bessner discussed on yesterday's show. I'm not sure what that tells us about wokeness, a subject which Rieff and I aren't in agreement. For him, it's the thing-in-itself which make sense of our current cultural malaise. Thus Desire and Fate, his attempt (with a great intro from John Banville) to wake us up from Wokeness. For me, it's a distraction. I've included the full transcript below. Lots of good stuff to chew on. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. 5 KEY TAKEAWAYS * Rieff views "woke" ideology as primarily American and post-Protestant in nature, rather than stemming solely from French philosophy, emphasizing its connections to self-invention and subjective identity.* He argues that woke culture threatens high culture but not capitalism, noting that corporations have readily embraced a "baudlerized" version of identity politics that avoids class discussions.* Rieff sees woke culture as connected to the wellness movement, with both sharing a preoccupation with "psychic safety" and the metaphorical transformation of experience in which "words” become a form of “violence."* He suggests young people's material insecurity contributes to their focus on identity, as those facing bleak economic prospects turn inward when they "can't make their way in the world."* Rieff characterizes woke ideology as "apocalyptic but not pessimistic," contrasting it with his own genuine pessimism which he considers more realistic about human nature and more cheerful in its acceptance of life's limitations. FULL TRANSCRIPTAndrew Keen: Hello everybody, as we digest Trump 2.0, we don't talk that much these days about woke and woke ideology. There was a civil war amongst progressives, I think, on the woke front in 2023 and 2024, but with Donald Trump 2.0 and his various escapades, let's just talk these days about woke. We have a new book, however, on the threat of woke by my guest, David Rieff. It's called Desire and Fate. He wrote it in 2023, came out in late 2024. David's visiting the Bay Area. He's an itinerant man traveling from the East Coast to Latin America and Europe. David, welcome to Keen on America. Do you regret writing this book given what's happened in the last few months in the United States?David Rieff: No, not at all, because I think that the road to moral and intellectual hell is trying to censor yourself according to what you think is useful. There's a famous story of Jean Paul Sartre that he said to the stupefaction of a journalist late in his life that he'd always known about the gulag, and the journalist pretty surprised said, well, why didn't you say anything? And Sartre said so as not to demoralize the French working class. And my own view is, you know, you say what you have to say about this and if I give some aid and comfort to people I don't like, well, so be it. Having said that, I also think a lot of these woke ideas have their, for all of Trump's and Trump's people's fierce opposition to woke, some of the identity politics, particularly around Jewish identity seems to me not that very different from woke. Strangely they seem to have taken, for example, there's a lot of the talk about anti-semitism on college campuses involves student safety which is a great woke trope that you feel unsafe and what people mean by that is not literally they're going to get shot or beaten up, they mean that they feel psychically unsafe. It's part of the kind of metaphorization of experience that unfortunately the United States is now completely in the grips of. But the same thing on the other side, people like Barry Weiss, for example, at the Free Press there, they talk in the same language of psychic safety. So I'm not sure there's, I think there are more similarities than either side is comfortable with.Andrew Keen: You describe Woke, David, as a cultural revolution and you associated in the beginning of the book with something called Lumpen-Rousseauism. As we joked before we went live, I'm not sure if there's anything in Rousseau which isn't Lumpen. But what exactly is this cultural revolution? And can we blame it on bad French philosophy or Swiss French?David Rieff: Well, Swiss-French philosophy, you know exactly. There is a funny anecdote, as I'm sure you know, that Rousseau made a visit to Edinburgh to see Hume and there's something in Hume's diaries where he talks about Rousseau pacing up and down in front of the fire and suddenly exclaiming, but David Hume is not a bad man. And Hume notes in his acerbic way, Rousseau was like walking around without his skin on. And I think some of the woke sensitivity stuff is very much people walking around without their skin on. They can't stand the idea of being offended. I don't see it as much - of course, the influence of that version of cultural relativism that the French like Deleuze and Guattari and other people put forward is part of the story, but I actually see it as much more of a post-Protestant thing. This idea, in that sense, some kind of strange combination of maybe some French philosophy, but also of the wellness movement, of this notion that health, including psychic health, was the ultimate good in a secular society. And then the other part, which again, it seems to be more American than French, which is this idea, and this is particularly true in the trans movement, that you can be anything you want to be. And so that if you feel yourself to be a different gender, well, that's who you are. And what matters is your own subjective sense of these things, and it's up to you. The outside world has no say in it, it's what you feel. And that in a sense, what I mean by post-Protestant is that, I mean, what's the difference between Protestantism and Catholicism? The fundamental difference is, it seems to me, that in Roman Catholic tradition, you need the priest to intercede with God, whereas in Protestant tradition, it is, except for the Anglicans, but for most of Protestantism, it's you and God. And in that sense it seems to me there are more of what I see in woke than this notion that some of the right-wing people like Chris Rufo and others have that this is cultural French cultural Marxism making its insidious way through the institutions.Andrew Keen: It's interesting you talk about the Protestant ethic and you mentioned Hume's remark about Rousseau not having his skin on. Do you think that Protestantism enabled people to grow thick skins?David Rieff: I mean, the Calvinist idea certainly did. In fact, there were all these ideas in Protestant culture, at least that's the classical interpretation of deferred gratification. Capitalism was supposed to be the work ethic, all of that stuff that Weber talks about. But I think it got in the modern version. It became something else. It stopped being about those forms of disciplines and started to be about self-invention. And in a sense, there's something very American about that because after all you know it's the Great Gatsby. It's what's the famous sentence of F. Scott Fitzgerald's: there are no second acts in American lives.Andrew Keen: This is the most incorrect thing anyone's ever said about America. I'm not sure if he meant it to be incorrect, did he? I don't know.David Rieff: I think what's true is that you get the American idea, you get to reinvent yourself. And this notion of the dream, the dream become reality. And many years ago when I was spending a lot of time in LA in the late 80s, early 90s, at LAX, there was a sign from the then mayor, Tom Bradley, about how, you know, if you can dream it, it can be true. And I think there's a lot in identitarian woke idea which is that we can - we're not constricted by history or reality. In fact, it's all the present and the future. And so to me again, woke seems to me much more recognizable as something American and by extension post-Protestant in the sense that you see the places where woke is most powerful are in the other, what the encampment kids would call settler colonies, Australia and Canada. And now in the UK of course, where it seems to me by DI or EDI as they call it over there is in many ways stronger in Britain even than it was in the US before Trump.Andrew Keen: Does it really matter though, David? I mean, that's my question. Does it matter? I mean it might matter if you have the good or the bad fortune to teach at a small, expensive liberal arts college. It might matter with some of your dinner parties in Tribeca or here in San Francisco, but for most people, who cares?David Rieff: It doesn't matter. I think it matters to culture and so what you think culture is worth, because a lot of the point of this book was to say there's nothing about woke that threatens capitalism, that threatens the neo-liberal order. I mean it's turning out that Donald Trump is a great deal bigger threat to the neoliberal order. Woke was to the contrary - woke is about talking about everything but class. And so a kind of baudlerized, de-radicalized version of woke became perfectly fine with corporate America. That's why this wonderful old line hard lefty Adolph Reed Jr. says somewhere that woke is about diversifying the ruling class. But I do think it's a threat to high culture because it's about equity. It's about representation. And so elite culture, which I have no shame in proclaiming my loyalty to, can't survive the woke onslaught. And it hasn't, in my view. If you look at just the kinds of books that are being written, the kinds of plays that are been put on, even the opera, the new operas that are being commissioned, they're all about representing the marginalized. They're about speaking for your group, whatever that group is, and doing away with various forms of cultural hierarchy. And I'm with Schoenberg: if it's for everybody, if it's art, Schoenberg said it's not for everybody, and if it's for everybody it's not art. And I think woke destroys that. Woke can live with schlock. I'm sorry, high culture can live with schlock, it always has, it always will. What it can't live with is kitsch. And by which I mean kitsch in Milan Kundera's definition, which is to have opinions that you feel better about yourself for holding. And that I think is inimical to culture. And I think woke is very destructive of those traditions. I mean, in the most obvious sense, it's destructive of the Western tradition, but you know, the high arts in places like Japan or Bengal, I don't think it's any more sympathetic to those things than it is to Shakespeare or John Donne or whatever. So yeah, I think it's a danger in that sense. Is it a danger to the peace of the world? No, of course not.Andrew Keen: Even in cultural terms, as you explain, it is an orthodoxy. If you want to work with the dominant cultural institutions, the newspapers, the universities, the publishing houses, you have to play by those rules, but the great artists, poets, filmmakers, musicians have never done that, so all it provides, I mean you brought up Kundera, all it provides is something that independent artists, creative people will sneer at, will make fun of, as you have in this new book.David Rieff: Well, I hope they'll make fun of it. But on the other hand, I'm an old guy who has the means to sneer. I don't have to please an editor. Someone will publish my books one way or another, whatever ones I have left to write. But if you're 25 years old, maybe you're going to sneer with your pals in the pub, but you're gonna have to toe the line if you want to be published in whatever the obvious mainstream place is and you're going to be attacked on social media. I think a lot of people who are very, young people who are skeptical of this are just so afraid of being attacked by their peers on various social media that they keep quiet. I don't know that it's true that, I'd sort of push back on that. I think non-conformists will out. I hope it's true. But I wonder, I mean, these traditions, once they die, they're very hard to rebuild. And, without going full T.S. Eliot on you, once you don't think you're part of the past, once the idea is that basically, pretty much anything that came before our modern contemporary sense of morality and fairness and right opinion is to be rejected and that, for example, the moral character of the artist should determine whether or not the art should be paid attention to - I don't know how you come back from that or if you come back from that. I'm not convinced you do. No, other arts will be around. And I mean, if I were writing a critical review of my own book, I'd say, look, this culture, this high culture that you, David Rieff, are writing an elegy for, eulogizing or memorializing was going to die anyway, and we're at the beginning of another Gutenbergian epoch, just as Gutenberg, we're sort of 20 years into Marshall McLuhan's Gutenberg galaxy, and these other art forms will come, and they won't be like anything else. And that may be true.Andrew Keen: True, it may be true. In a sense then, to extend that critique, are you going full T.S. Eliot in this book?David Rieff: Yeah, I think Eliot was right. But it's not just Eliot, there are people who would be for the wokesters more acceptable like Mandelstam, for example, who said you're part of a conversation that's been going on long before you were born, that's going to be going on after you are, and I think that's what art is. I think the idea that we make some completely new thing is a childish fantasy. I think you belong to a tradition. There are periods - look, this is, I don't find much writing in English in prose fiction very interesting. I have to say I read the books that people talk about because I'm trying to understand what's going on but it doesn't interest me very much, but again, there have been periods of great mediocrity. Think of a period in the late 17th century in England when probably the best poet was this completely, rightly, justifiably forgotten figure, Colley Cibber. You had the great restoration period and then it all collapsed, so maybe it'll be that way. And also, as I say, maybe it's just as with the print revolution, that this new culture of social media will produce completely different forms. I mean, everything is mortal, not just us, but cultures and civilizations and all the rest of it. So I can imagine that, but this is the time I live in and the tradition I come from and I'm sorry it's gone, and I think what's replacing it is for the most part worse.Andrew Keen: You're critical in the book of what you, I'm quoting here, you talk about going from the grand inquisitor to the grand therapist. But you're very critical of the broader American therapeutic culture of acute sensitivity, the thin skin nature of, I guess, the Rousseau in this, whatever, it's lumpen Rousseauanism. So how do you interpret that without psychologizing, or are you psychologizing in the book? How are you making sense of our condition? In other words, can one critique criticize therapeutic culture without becoming oneself therapeutic?David Rieff: You mean the sort of Pogo line, we've met the enemy and it is us. Well, I suppose there's some truth to that. I don't know how much. I think that woke is in some important sense a subset of the wellness movement. And the wellness movement after all has tens and tens of millions of people who are in one sense or another influenced by it. And I think health, including psychic health, and we've moved from wellness as corporal health to wellness as being both soma and psyche. So, I mean, if that's psychologizing, I certainly think it's drawing the parallel or seeing woke in some ways as one of the children of the god of wellness. And that to me, I don't know how therapeutic that is. I think it's just that once you feel, I'm interested in what people feel. I'm not necessarily so interested in, I mean, I've got lots of opinions, but what I think I'm better at than having opinions is trying to understand why people think what they think. And I do think that once health becomes the ultimate good in a secular society and once death becomes the absolutely unacceptable other, and once you have the idea that there's no real distinction of any great validity between psychic and physical wellness, well then of course sensitivity to everything becomes almost an inevitable reaction.Andrew Keen: I was reading the book and I've been thinking about a lot of movements in America which are trying to bring people together, dealing with America, this divided America, as if it's a marriage in crisis. So some of the most effective or interesting, I think, thinkers on this, like Arlie Hochschild in Berkeley, use the language of therapy to bring or to try to bring America back together, even groups like the Braver Angels. Can therapy have any value or that therapeutic culture in a place like America where people are so bitterly divided, so hateful towards one another?David Rieff: Well, it's always been a country where, on the one hand, people have been, as you say, incredibly good at hatred and also a country of people who often construe themselves as misfits and heretics from the Puritans forward. And on the other hand, you have that small-town American idea, which sometimes I think is as important to woke and DI as as anything else which is that famous saying of small town America of all those years ago which was if you don't have something nice to say don't say anything at all. And to some extent that is, I think, a very powerful ancestor of these movements. Whether they're making any headway - of course I hope they are, but Hochschild is a very interesting figure, but I don't, it seems to me it's going all the other way, that people are increasingly only talking to each other.Andrew Keen: What this movement seems to want to do is get beyond - I use this word carefully, I'm not sure if they use it but I'm going to use it - ideology and that we're all prisoners of ideology. Is woke ideology or is it a kind of post-ideology?David Rieff: Well, it's a redemptive idea, a restorative idea. It's an idea that in that sense, there's a notion that it's time for the victims, for the first to be last and the last to be first. I mean, on some level, it is as simple as that. On another level, as I say, I do think it has a lot to do with metaphorization of experience, that people say silence is violence and words are violence and at that point what's violence? I mean there is a kind of level to me where people have gotten trapped in the kind of web of their own metaphors and now are living by them or living shackled to them or whatever image you're hoping for. But I don't know what it means to get beyond ideology. What, all men will be brothers, as in the Beethoven-Schiller symphony? I mean, it doesn't seem like that's the way things are going.Andrew Keen: Is the problem then, and I'm thinking out loud here, is the problem politics or not enough politics?David Rieff: Oh, I think the problem is that now we don't know, we've decided that everything is part, the personal is the political, as the feminists said, 50, 60 years ago. So the personal's political, so the political is the personal. So you have to live the exemplary moral life, or at least the life that doesn't offend anybody or that conforms to whatever the dominant views of what good opinions are, right opinions are. I think what we're in right now is much more the realm of kind of a new set of moral codes, much more than ideology in the kind of discrete sense of politics.Andrew Keen: Now let's come back to this idea of being thin-skinned. Why are people so thin-skinned?David Rieff: Because, I mean, there are lots of things to say about that. One thing, of course, that might be worth saying, is that the young generations, people who are between, let's say, 15 and 30, they're in real material trouble. It's gonna be very hard for them to own a house. It's hard for them to be independent and unless the baby boomers like myself will just transfer every penny to them, which doesn't seem very likely frankly, they're going to live considerably worse than generations before. So if you can't make your way in the world then maybe you make your way yourself or you work on yourself in that sort of therapeutic sense. You worry about your own identity because the only place you have in the world in some way is yourself, is that work, that obsession. I do think some of these material questions are important. There's a guy you may know who's not at all woke, a guy who teaches at the University of Washington called Danny Bessner. And I just did a show with him this morning. He's a smart guy and we have a kind of ironic correspondence over email and DM. And I once said to him, why are you so bitter about everything? And he said, you want to know why? Because I have two children and the likelihood is I'll never get a teaching job that won't require a three hour commute in order for me to live anywhere that I can afford to live. And I thought, and he couldn't be further from woke, he's a kind of Jacobin guy, Jacobin Magazine guy, and if he's left at all, it's kind of old left, but I think a lot of people feel that, that they feel their practical future, it looks pretty grim.Andrew Keen: But David, coming back to the idea of art, they're all suited to the world of art. They don't have to buy a big house and live in the suburbs. They can become poets. They can become filmmakers. They can put their stuff up on YouTube. They can record their music online. There are so many possibilities.David Rieff: It's hard to monetize that. Maybe now you're beginning to sound like the people you don't like. Now you're getting to sound like a capitalist.Andrew Keen: So what? Well, I don't care if I sound like a capitalist. You're not going to starve to death.David Rieff: Well, you might not like, I mean, it's fine to be a barista at 24. It's not so fine at 44. And are these people going to ever get out of this thing? I don't know. I wonder. Look, when I was starting as a writer, as long as you were incredibly diligent, and worked really hard, you could cobble together at least a basic living by accepting every assignment and people paid you bits and bobs of money, but put together, you could make a living. Now, the only way to make money, unless you're lucky enough to be on staff of a few remaining media outlets that remain, is you have to become an impresario, you have become an entrepreneur of your own stuff. And again, sure, do lots of people manage that? Yeah, but not as many as could have worked in that other system, and look at the fate of most newspapers, all folding. Look at the universities. We can talk about woke and how woke destroyed, in my view anyway, a lot of the humanities. But there's also a level in which people didn't want to study these things. So we're looking at the last generation in a lot places of a lot of these humanities departments and not just the ones that are associated with, I don't know, white supremacy or the white male past or whatever, but just the humanities full stop. So I know if that sounds like, maybe it sounds like a capitalist, but maybe it also sounds like you know there was a time when the poets - you know very well, poets never made a living, poets taught in universities. That's the way American poets made their money, including pretty famous poets like Eric Wolcott or Joseph Brodsky or writers, Toni Morrison taught at Princeton all those years, Joyce Carol Oates still alive, she still does. Most of these people couldn't make a living of their work and so the university provided that living.Andrew Keen: You mentioned Barry Weiss earlier. She's making a fortune as an anti-woke journalist. And Free Press seems to be thriving. Yascha Mounk's Persuasion is doing pretty well. Andrew Sullivan, another good example, making a fortune off of Substack. It seems as if the people willing to take risks, Barry Weiss leaving the New York Times, Andrew Sullivan leaving everything he's ever joined - that's...David Rieff: Look, are there going to be people who thrive in this new environment? Sure. And Barry Weiss turns out to be this kind of genius entrepreneur. She deserves full credit for that. Although even Barry Weiss, the paradox for me of Barry Weiss is, a lot of her early activism was saying that she felt unsafe with these anti-Israeli teachers at Columbia. So in a sense, she was using some of the same language as the woke use, psychic safety, because she didn't mean Joseph Massad was gonna come out from the blackboard and shoot her in the eye. She meant that she was offended and used the language of safety to describe that. And so in that sense, again, as I was saying to you earlier, I think there are more similarities here. And Trump, I think this is a genuine counterrevolution that Trump is trying to mount. I'm not very interested in the fascism, non-fascism debate. I'm rather skeptical of it.Andrew Keen: As Danny Bessner is. Yeah, I thought Danny's piece about that was brilliant.David Rieff: We just did a show about it today, that piece about why that's all rubbish. I was tempted, I wrote to a friend that guy you may know David Bell teaches French history -Andrew Keen: He's coming on the show next week. Well, you see, it's just a little community of like-minded people.David Rieff: There you go. Well, I wrote to David.Andrew Keen: And you mentioned his father in the book, Daniel.David Rieff: Yeah, well, his father is sort of one of the tutelary idols of the book. I had his father and I read his father and I learned an enormous amount. I think that book about the cultural contradictions of capitalism is one of the great prescient books about our times. But I wrote to David, I said, I actually sent him the Bessner piece which he was quite ambivalent about. But I said well, I'm not really convinced by the fascism of Trump, maybe just because Hitler read books, unlike Donald Trump. But it's a genuine counterrevolution. And what element will change the landscape in terms of DI and woke and identitarianism is not clear. These people are incredibly ambitious. They really mean to change this country, transform it.Andrew Keen: But from the book, David, Trump's attempts to cleanse, if that's the right word, the university, I would have thought you'd have rather admired that, all these-David Rieff: I agree with some of it.Andrew Keen: All these idiots writing the same article for 30 years about something that no one has any interest in.David Rieff: I look, my problem with Trump is that I do support a lot of that. I think some of the stuff that Christopher Rufo, one of the leading ideologues of this administration has uncovered about university programs and all of this crap, I think it's great that they're not paying for it anymore. The trouble is - you asked me before, is it that important? Is culture important compared to destroying the NATO alliance, blowing up the global trade regime? No. I don't think. So yeah, I like a lot of what they're doing about the university, I don't like, and I am very fiercely opposed to this crackdown on speech. That seems to be grotesque and revolting, but are they canceling supporting transgender theater in Galway? Yeah, I think it's great that they're canceling all that stuff. And so I'm not, that's my problem with Trump, is that some of that stuff I'm quite unashamedly happy about, but it's not nearly worth all the damage he's doing to this country and the world.Andrew Keen: Being very generous with your time, David. Finally, in the book you describe woke as, and I thought this was a very sharp way of describing it, describe it as being apocalyptic but not pessimistic. What did you mean by that? And then what is the opposite of woke? Would it be not apocalyptic, but cheerful?David Rieff: Well, I think genuine pessimists are cheerful, I would put myself among those. The model is Samuel Beckett, who just thinks things are so horrible that why not be cheerful about them, and even express one's pessimism in a relatively cheerful way. You remember the famous story that Thomas McCarthy used to tell about walking in the Luxembourg Gardens with Beckett and McCarthy says to him, great day, it's such a beautiful day, Sam. Beckett says, yeah, beautiful day. McCarthy says, makes you glad to be alive. And Beckett said, oh, I wouldn't go that far. And so, the genuine pessimist is quite cheerful. But coming back to woke, it's apocalyptic in the sense that everything is always at stake. But somehow it's also got this reformist idea that cultural revolution will cleanse away the sins of the supremacist patriarchal past and we'll head for the sunny uplands. I think I'm much too much of a pessimist to think that's possible in any regime, let alone this rather primitive cultural revolution called woke.Andrew Keen: But what would the opposite be?David Rieff: The opposite would be probably some sense that the best we're going to do is make our peace with the trash nature of existence, that life is finite in contrast with the wellness people who probably have a tendency towards the apocalyptic because death is an insult to them. So everything is staving off the bad news and that's where you get this idea that you can, like a lot of revolutions, you can change the nature of people. Look, the communist, Che Guevara talked about the new man. Well, I wonder if he thought it was so new when he was in Bolivia. I think these are - people need utopias, this is one of them, MAGA is another utopia by the way, and people don't seem to be able to do without them and that's - I wish it were otherwise but it isn't.Andrew Keen: I'm guessing the woke people would be offended by the idea of death, are they?David Rieff: Well, I think the woke people, in this synchronicity, people and a lot of people, they're insulted - how can this happen to me, wonderful me? And this is those jokes in the old days when the British could still be savage before they had to have, you know, Henry the Fifth be played by a black actor - why me? Well, why not you? That's just so alien to and it's probably alien to the American idea. You're supposed to - it's supposed to work out and the truth is it doesn't work out. But La Rochefoucauld says somewhere no one can stare for too long at death or the sun and maybe I'm asking too much.Andrew Keen: Maybe only Americans can find death unacceptable to use one of your words.David Rieff: Yes, perhaps.Andrew Keen: Well, David Rieff, congratulations on the new book. Fascinating, troubling, controversial as always. Desire and Fate. I know you're writing a book about Oppenheimer, very different kind of subject. We'll get you back on the show to talk Oppenheimer, where I guess there's not going to be a lot of Lumpen-Rousseauism.David Rieff: Very little, very little love and Rousseau in the quantum mechanics world, but thanks for having me.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode of The Learning Curve, co-hosts U-Arkansas Prof. Albert Cheng and Dr. Helen Baxendale interview noted literary biographer, Dr. Jeffrey Meyers. Dr. Meyers discusses The Great Gatsby on its 100th anniversary. He explores F. Scott Fitzgerald's tragic life, his marriage to Zelda, and how their tumultuous relationship shaped his iconic novel. Dr. Meyers delves into the timeless themes of Gatsby's yearning, the elusive […]
When he published The Great Gatsby 100 years ago this week, F. Scott Fitzgerald thought he'd written the Great American Novel. But it was a commercial flop. The year Fitzgerald died, he received a royalty check for a paltry seven copies. It would take an unlikely series of events to posthumously pluck a masterpiece from obscurity. * On the Very Special Episodes podcast, we tell one incredible story each week. Follow Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, and Jason English down a different rabbit hole every Wednesday. Subscribe to VSE wherever you get your podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
When he published The Great Gatsby 100 years ago this week, F. Scott Fitzgerald thought he'd written the Great American Novel. But it was a commercial flop. The year Fitzgerald died, he received a royalty check for a paltry seven copies. It would take an unlikely series of events to posthumously pluck a masterpiece from obscurity. * On the Very Special Episodes podcast, we tell one incredible story each week. Follow Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, and Jason English down a different rabbit hole every Wednesday. Subscribe to VSE wherever you get your podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
April 10 marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of “The Great Gatsby” by St. Paul's own F. Scott Fitzgerald. A non-profit in his hometown is celebrating with a complete live reading of the book, starting on Thursday at 1 p.m. and stretching into the evening. The Friends of the St. Paul Library's senior director of programs and services, Alayne Hopkins, joined MPR News host Nina Moini to talk about it.
The city of St. Paul has a new interim city council member. The appointment of Matt Privratsky comes during a critical time for the capital city. MPR host Nina Moini spoke with him ahead of his first city council meeting Wednesday afternoon.President Donald Trump's latest round of global tariffs have taken effect and experts warn it will significantly raise the price of goods. We talked to Minnesota retailers about what it means for business in the state.An MPR News investigation digs into problems facing low-income renters in greater Minnesota. Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner will shared what you need to know weather-wise for the rest of the week.The Great Gatsby is turning 100! Minnesota's own F. Scott Fitzgerald will be honored in a unique way. Our Minnesota Music Minute was ‘This Movie Sucks' by Durry and our Song of the Day was ‘Something's Got A Hold On Me' by The Cactus Blossoms.
When he published The Great Gatsby 100 years ago this week, F. Scott Fitzgerald thought he'd written the Great American Novel. But it was a commercial flop. The year Fitzgerald died, he received a royalty check for a paltry seven copies. It would take an unlikely series of events to posthumously pluck a masterpiece from obscurity. * Very special thanks to Molly Guptill Manning. Go check out When Books Went to War. Hosted by Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, and Jason EnglishWritten by Joe PompeoProduced by Josh FisherEditing and Sound Design by Jonathan WashingtonMixing and Mastering by Josh FisherAdditional Editing by Mary DooeResearch and Fact-Checking by Joe Pompeo and Austin ThompsonOriginal Music by Elise McCoyShow Logo by Lucy QuintanillaExecutive Producer is Jason English See you next Wednesday!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this episode of The Learning Curve, co-hosts U-Arkansas Prof. Albert Cheng and Dr. Helen Baxendale interview noted literary biographer, Dr. Jeffrey Meyers. Dr. Meyers discusses The Great Gatsby on its 100th anniversary. He explores F. Scott Fitzgerald's tragic life, his marriage to Zelda, and how their tumultuous relationship shaped his iconic novel. Dr. Meyers delves into the timeless themes of Gatsby's yearning, the elusive American Dream, and 1920s decadence while analyzing major characters and symbols like Daisy, the green light, and Gatsby's reinvention of himself. He also reflects on Fitzgerald's later struggles and enduring literary legacy. In closing, Dr. Meyers reads a passage from his biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
John J. Miller is joined by Titus Techera of the American Cinema Foundation to discuss 'Tender Is the Night' by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
We commemorate the 100th Anniversary of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby this week with Patrick O'Sullivan Greene, author of Gatsby: Death of an Irishman. Patrick guides us through F. Scott Fitzgerald's troubled Midwest upbringing, his quest for status, his ambivalence towards his Irish heritage, the sociopolitical climate of early 20th-century America, and the careless Jazz Age excess portrayed in Gatsby.Patrick peels back the intricate layers of Fitzgerald's character, revealing the underlying themes of identity and self-rejection in his work, his shifting views of Irish issues, and how his personal battles influenced his writing and contributed to his tragic life.The episode also touches on Patrick's own Irish heritage and his journey from business and finance to writing.We end the conversation as The Great Gatsby ends, with the novel's closing line, “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”Links:Patrick O'Sullivan GreeneWebsite LinkedInBlueSkyXInstagramGatsby: Death of an IrishmanAmazonTheBookshop.ieEpisode Details: Season 7, Episode 11; Total Episode Count: 114
Exactly 100 years since its release, we're talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterclass in exploring the psyche of a tragic hero. Join me, old sport, as we go back to the roaring 20's for the lavish party lifestyle of prohibition-era New York.--FOLLOW BTMC FOR MORE GREAT CONTENT:Instagram: https://instagram.com/becomingmain X: https://twitter.com/becomingmain
This week, author Sash Bischoff discusses her hit debut novel Sweet Fury, a twisty, thought-provoking novel in conversation with the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Bischoff is interviewed by author Kathleen Rooney. This conversation originally took place February 12, 2025 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum. We hope you enjoy entering the [...]
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about rich people. Does his work also offer a critique of wealth and inequality? According to John Marsh, we can learn a lot about class, power, privilege, and impunity from a novel published 100 years ago. John Marsh, A Rotten Crowd: America, Wealth, and One Hundred Years of The Great Gatsby Monthly Review Press, 2024 The post Wealth, Inequality, and “The Great Gatsby” appeared first on KPFA.
"I want to write something new," American author F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in a letter to his editor, "something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned." Months later, he presented the results: the novel that would eventually be titled The Great Gatsby. Published in 1925 to middling success, the book has since become a candidate for the Great American Novel, selling more than copies in a month than the book sold during Fitzgerald's entire lifetime. In this episode, Jacke talks to Fitzgerald scholar James West about his work editing the Cambridge Centennial Edition of The Great Gatsby, which celebrates 100 years of this enduring tale of illicit desire, grand illusions, and lost dreams, delivered in lyric prose by an author writing at the peak of his powers. Additional listening: 281 The Great Gatsby 167 F. Scott Fitzgerald 539 Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald (with Mike Palindrome) The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Zzzz . . . Conk out while Otis reads this F. Scott Fitzgerald short story – "Tarquin of Cheapside" zzz For an ad-free version of Sleepy, go to patreon.com/sleepyradio and donate $2! Or click the blue Sleepy logo on the banner of this Spotify page. Awesome Sleepy sponsor deals: BetterHelp: Visit BetterHelp.com/SLEEPY today to get 10% off your first month. GreenChef: GreenChef.com/sleepyfree and use code "sleepyfree" to get FREE Salads for two months plus 50% off your first box. ButcherBox: Sign up at butcherbox.com/sleepy and use code "sleepy" OneSkin: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code SLEEPY at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod GhostBed: Go to GhostBed.com/sleepy and use promo code “SLEEPY” at checkout for 50% off! Shopify: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at Shopify.com/otis Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The coaches are joined by Scott Fitzgerald of Purscial to discuss his organizations "caddy" system for coaches. Spring season is also here and we find out if Coach Church misses it yet! Give a listen, tell a friend.
Joe is joined by colleague Lee Sondeno to geek out about F. Scott Fitzgerald, the jazz age, The Great Gatsby, Chesterton and more! Join this fun conversation, and join the reprise in New Orleans this summer! Register for the conference today at https://www.chesterton.org/44th-annual-chesterton-conference/ Music credit: Composition: traditional; Performance: United States Air Force Band of the West, Gateway Brass; Recording: United States Air Force, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons FOLLOW US Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chestertonsociety Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmericanChestertonSociety X: https://twitter.com/chestertonsoc SUPPORT Consider making a donation: https://www.chesterton.org/give/ Visit our Shop at https://www.chesterton.org/shop/
There is no greater classic in Kate's mind than The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. So when our audiences liked our holiday revisit of the Christmas Carol, we knew Gatsby had to be next. Join us as we sit down with two of the country's greatest Gatsby and Fitzgerald scholars. Find out why the book is still so studied, so beloved, and still so relevant to our lives. Find books mentioned on The Book Case: https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/shop/story/book-case-podcast-reading-list-118433302 Books mentioned in this week's episode: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald The Love of the Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
So last week we were talking about a town hall meeting which didn't go so swimmingly for Congressman Scott Fitzgerald. Well, it seems like Congressman Glenn Grothmann has similar problems with the session he held this past weekend. We take a look at both events and hear from you on why people aren't just sitting around, taking it. Then, public school advocate and Outagamie Democratic Chair Emily Tseffos joins the show to talk about an exchange she had with a Wisconsin State Senator (both face to face and in the comments). We also talk about the two school systems YOU are paying for in Wisconsin. As always, thank you for listening, texting and calling, we couldn't do this without you! Don't forget to download the free Civic Media app and take us wherever you are in the world! Matenaer On Air is a part of the Civic Media radio network and airs Monday through Friday from 10 am - noon across the state. Subscribe to the podcast to be sure not to miss out on a single episode! You can also rate us on your podcast distribution center of choice, they go a long way! To learn more about the show and all of the programming across the Civic Media network, head over to https://civicmedia.us/shows to see the entire broadcast line up. Follow the show on Facebook, X and YouTube to keep up with Jane and the show! Guest: Emily Tseffos
The Seelbach Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky was so beautiful and iconic that it inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby." Stepping inside the lobby, takes one back to an earlier time with its lavish decor. The Rathskellar down in the belly of the hotel gives flashes of the Prohibition era and it wouldn't be surprising to spy Al Capone sitting at a corner table. There are several ghost stories connected to this Louisville treasure that we will share with you here. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Seelbach Hotel. Check out the website: http://historygoesbump.com Show notes can be found here: https://historygoesbump.blogspot.com/2025/01/hgb-ep-572-seelbach-hotel.html Become an Executive Producer: http://patreon.com/historygoesbump Music used in this episode: Main Theme: Lurking in the Dark by Muse Music with Groove Studios (Moment in Oddity) "Vanishing" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (This Month in History) "In Your Arms" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Outro Music: Happy Fun Punk by Muse Music with Groove Studios Other music used in this episode: Gilded Music created and produced by History Goes Bump Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/