Best Merve Emre Podcasts (2024)

1
Christine Smallwood 41:58

11d ago41:58

41:58

Christine Smallwood is the author of La Captive (Fireflies Press, 2024) and the novel The Life of the Mind (Hogarth, 2021), which Time magazine named one of the top ten fiction books of the year. Her essays, reviews, and profiles have been published in Harper’s, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, Bookforum, and The New York Times Magazin…

1
Carina del Valle Schorske 40:33

25d ago40:33

40:33

Carina del Valle Schorske is a writer, translator, and wannabe backup dancer. Her debut essay collection, The Other Island, is forthcoming from Riverhead Books. It was recently awarded a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant. She writes about Caribbean culture, literary politics, diasporic dramas, and the songs she can’t stop singing to herself. Her es…

1
Crystallizing and Unraveling The Now with Novelist Paul Lynch 44:56

28d ago44:56

44:56

Sometimes I find myself in the throes of writing agony. I don’t like the term writers’ block because it implies a certain impermanence. But what is vernacularly referred to as writers’ block, is part and parcel of the creative act itself. Anyone who’s tried to do something creative for an extended period of time can vouch for this. No one can exact…

1
Maggie Doherty 49:05

1M ago49:05

49:05

Maggie Doherty is the author of The Equivalents: A Story of Art, Female Friendship, and Liberation in the 1960s (2020), which won the Marfield Prize for Arts Writing and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, the New York Times, and the Natio…

1
Doreen St. Félix 46:35

2M ago46:35

46:35

Doreen St. Félix has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2017. Previously, she was a culture writer at MTV News. Her writing has appeared in the Times Magazine, New York, Vogue, The Fader, and Pitchfork. St. Félix was named on the Forbes “30 Under 30” media list in 2016. In 2017, she was a finalist for a National Magazine Award for Columns …

1
Lauren Michele Jackson 43:13

2M ago43:13

43:13

Lauren Michele Jackson is an assistant professor of English at Northwestern University and a contributing writer at The New Yorker. She is the author of the essay collection White Negroes and is currently working on a second book, with Amistad Press. She is part of New America’s 2022 class of National Fellows. Recorded March 5, 2024 at the Shapiro …

1
The Convergence of Food, Memory and Language, with writer Rachel Khong 36:54

3M ago36:54

36:54

I came across a novel that used food as tool for reflection into the life and mind of a few characters. Rachel Khong’s first novel Goodbye Vitamin, is about a woman who moves back home to care for her father, who has started to develop Alzheimer’s. And Khong meditates on this family by refocusing on their daily activities. From cooking to eating, t…

1
Jo Livingstone 38:00

3M ago38:00

38:00

Jo Livingstone is a medieval literature scholar, a critic, and the 2020 National Book Critics Circle recipient of the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing. After receiving a BA in English literature from the University of Oxford and a PhD in medieval literature from New York University, Livingstone went on to write cultural criticism …

1
Moira Donegan 49:01

4M ago49:01

49:01

Moira Donegan is writer in residence for the Clayman Institute, where she participates in the intellectual life of the Institute, hosts its artist salon series, teaches a class in feminist, gender, and sexuality studies, and mentors students, while continuing her own projects and writing. Her criticism, essays, and commentary, which cover the inter…

1
Anahid Nersessian 46:52

4M ago46:52

46:52

Anahid Nersessian is a literary critic and Professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her first book, Utopia, Limited: Romanticism and Adjustment, was published by Harvard University Press in 2015, and her second, The Calamity Form: On Poetry and Social Life, by the University of Chicago Press in 2020. Her latest, Keats's Od…

1
Hannah Goldfield 38:48

5M ago38:48

38:48

Hannah Goldfield is a staff writer at The New Yorker, covering restaurants and food culture. Previously, she was a fact checker at The New Yorker and an editor at T: The New York Times Style Magazine. Her writing has appeared in New York magazine and the Times, among other publications. Recorded November 7, 2023 at the Shapiro Center at Wesleyan Un…

1
Sophie Pinkham 42:10

5M ago42:10

42:10

Sophie Pinkham is a writer, journalist, and critic specializing in Russian and Ukrainian literature, culture, and politics. She is the author of Black Square: Adventures in Post-Soviet Ukraine (2016) and the forthcoming The Spirit in the Trees, for which she has received a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar grant. A frequent contr…

1
Andrea Long Chu 44:46

6M ago44:46

44:46

Andrea Long Chu is a Pulitzer Prize–winning essayist and critic at New York magazine. Her book Females, an extended annotation of a lost play by Valerie Solanas, was published by Verso in 2019 and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Transgender Nonfiction. Her writing has also appeared in n+1, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Artforu…

1
Coming Soon 1:13

6M ago1:13

1:13

Introducing The Critic and Her Publics, a new podcast series from The New York Review of Books and Lit Hub. Hosted by Merve Emre. New episodes every other week beginning Tuesday January 30th.By Merve Emre

1
The Future of the Humanities with Professor and Critic Merve Emre 47:44

7M ago47:44

47:44

In August, West Virginia University announced that it would be dissolving its Department of World Languages, Literature and Linguistics. And a couple months after that, my school Middlebury College, chose to eliminate a faculty position in its creative writing department. As someone studying English Literature, and who cares deeply about the future…

1
Finding Grace in Politics with Former White House Speechwriter Cody Keenan 46:33

9M ago46:33

46:33

I read Barack Obama’s memoir A Promised Land when it first came out in November of 2020. That time was filled with rampant polarization, multiple quaratines, alternative realities, an insurrection, and politics that was so messy it was near impossible to find any hope and see America as this Promised Land that Obama wrote about. Thinking about the …

1
AI, Dystopia, and Creativity in the Future, with Novelist Vauhini Vara 32:20

10M ago32:20

32:20

Last November, I had Alexander Chee on the show. And in preparation for his interview, I read The Best American Essays 2022. I came across an essay titled “Ghosts.” This essay stood out from the rest of the anthology because it seemed to have 9 iterations. When I read further, I was baffled at the idea that a writer had used Artificial Intelligence…

1
Decoding Suburban Vibes, with Writer Jason Diamond 52:24

10M ago52:24

52:24

About 6 months into my first year of college, I found myself soliloquizing to some friends about the beauties of suburban life. It struck me immediately that I was longing for a world that I found profoundly boring for 18 years, and had swore to never replicate. I was going to live my big life in cities. Yet the pleasures of driving around open roa…

1
Redefining Genre and the Music Business with Jazz Pianist Ethan Iverson 44:14

10M ago44:14

44:14

As part of this mini series on the past and future of the music industry, I wanted to speak to another person who’s been a force in the industry for years. I came across an article in The Nation that was called The End of the Music Business. This piece presented the history of a century in recorded music that began with pre-war 78-rpm gramophone re…

1
A Life in Music, with Pianist Jerome Lowenthal 46:18

11M ago46:18

46:18

In 2019, I went to New York City for 24 hours. I told my high school teachers I was sick, postponed two tests, and asked for an extension on a project; all because Jerome Lowenthal had agreed to give me a piano lesson at the Juilliard School. On a cold New York Winter Night, I went to his studio and he heard me play Bach and Beethoven. We went on f…

1
The Future of Literary Criticism, with Book Critic Christian Lorentzen 35:15

11M ago35:15

35:15

If you keep up with academic chatter in English literature, there’s a debate going around about the versatility of English degrees, and of the fairly insular nature of literary criticism that comes out of academia. A piece in the New Yorker earlier this year, titled The End of the English Major, prompted me to do some thinking about the world of li…

1
The Open Veins of Palo Alto with Malcolm Harris 42:11

12M ago42:11

42:11

Imagine writing a history of the world from the perspective of a small California town that spans less than 30 sq. miles. That’s exactly what Malcolm Harris did. His new book Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and The World was published earlier this year by Little Brown and Company. This is a sweeping historical account of the foundin…

1
Deconstructing Production & The Evolution of Hip Hop with Kenny Segal 49:50

1y ago49:50

49:50

I’ve been interested in this genre of “abstract hip hop” for a while now. The classification has existed for many years, usually referring to rappers and artists who make perhaps more esoteric music than mainstream hip-hop artists. Kenny Segal has been a consistent presence over the past decade or so, and received several accolades for his producti…

1
A Journalist's India, with Samanth Subramanian 45:10

1+ y ago45:10

45:10

Indian politics has always been a beast I’ve been afraid of broaching both on the show and in my personal conversations. There are countless nuances that are often difficult for listeners outside the country—including myself—to understand. And the debate is so fluid and rampant that it’s easy for opinions to be misconstrued and cast-aside. A conver…

1
Exploring Unreality with Elisa Gabbert 49:05

1+ y ago49:05

49:05

On today’s episode we have poet Elisa Gabbert. Elisa is the author of six collections of poetry and essays. Her two latest books are the essay collection The Unreality of Memory published by FSG Originals and the poetry collection, Normal Distance, published by Soft Skull Press. The Unreality of Memory is a collection that reckons with disasters la…

1
Metacognition on Creativity with Alexander Chee 36:07

1+ y ago36:07

36:07

Alexander Chee is the author of two novels, Edinburgh, and The Queen of the Night and one collection of essays called How to Write an Autobiographical Novel. He was also the editor for the 2022 edition of The Best American Essays Anthology, which was just published by HarperCollins. Alexander has the uncanny ability to methodically examine his own …

1
The Apathetic and the Creative with AV Dummy 28:46

2y ago28:46

28:46

Once in a while you get musicians that evade all possible descriptors. Such is the case today’s guest AV Dummy. All I can say with certainty is that the London-based band is made up of vocalist BUCHANAN, Producer Christy Carey, Bass player Sat Chatterjee, and Drummer Jerome Johnson. They recently released their debut album titled PORNOVIOLENCE. Thi…

1
The Past and Present of Radical Activism with Zayd Dohrn 31:19

2y ago31:19

31:19

On today’s episode we have playwright, screenwriter, and professor Zayd Ayers Dohrn. He recently wrote and hosted the new podcast Mother Country Radicals for Crooked Media. This podcast is an audio documentary about his parents Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers who were radical activists in an organization called the Weather Underground. Dohrn chronic…

1
Emptiness & Creativity with Novelist Ruth Ozeki 35:06

2y ago35:06

35:06

On today’s episode we have novelist and Zen Buddhist Priest Ruth Ozeki. She is the author of several books, including A Tale for the Time Being which was shortlisted for the 2013 Booker Prize, and her latest novel The Book of Form and Emptiness was published by Penguin Random House in 2021 and won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2022. Ozeki also t…

1
Writing Amidst the Internet with Novelist Emily Temple 29:04

2y ago29:04

29:04

On today’s episode we have novelist Emily Temple. She’s currently the managing editor at LitHub and her debut novel The Lightness was published in 2020 by Harper Collins. The Lightness is the story of three teenaged girls who find themselves at a summer meditation retreat in Colorado called “The Levitation Center.” Determined to unlock the secrets …

1
Truth & Death with Writer Jo Ann Beard 34:14

2y ago34:14

34:14

On today’s episode we have writer Jo Ann Beard. She is the author of the essay collection The Boys of My Youth, the novel In Zanesville, and her latest collection Festival Days was published in 2021 by Little Brown and Company. She has won several awards including the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005. Her essay “The Fourth State of Matter” on the Univ…

1
Abortion Rights & Feminist Narratives with Critic Maggie Doherty 39:04

2y ago39:04

39:04

On today’s episode we have writer, critic, and lecturer at Harvard University, Maggie Doherty. Maggie’s writing has appeared in several places including The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Yale Review, and The Nation. She’s also the author of the book The Equivalents: A Story of Art, Female Friendship, and Liberation in the 1960s, which was pub…

1
Poet & Novelist Jay Parini 24:55

2y ago24:55

24:55

On today’s inaugural episode we have poet, novelist, biographer, screenwriter, and Professor at Middlebury College, Jay Parini. Throughout his illustrious career, Parini has authored several biographies on writers including Robert Frost, John Steinbeck, and Gore Vidal. His novel about Leo Tolstoy, The Last Station, was adapted into an award winning…

1
Meet the GHRI Student Committee 2020 15:30

4y ago15:30

15:30

Meet and learn about the 2020/2021 Student Committee for the Global Health Rehabilitation Initiative at the McGill University School of Physical & Occupational Therapy.By McGill University

1
Interview with Sara Abassbhay, PT on her global health journey in Canada, Singapore and Ghana 36:09

4+ y ago36:09

36:09

Interview with Physiotherapist and McGill Alumna Sara Abassbhay - her journey as a globetrotting clinician, innovator and creative healer across cultural contexts including Singapore and Ghana.By McGill University

1
OSCAIL: Developing methods for organized stroke care in low-resource settings 24:18

5+ y ago24:18

24:18

OSCAIL: a team of multi-disciplinary researchers conducting a study based in South Africa, Rwanda, Uganda, India, Canada, Ireland, and the UK seeking to develop methods of implementing organised stroke care in low-resource settings. Listen to P. Bidulka, M. Kaddumukasa, and L. Hamilton explain.By McGill University

1
Interview with Dr. Shaun Cleaver on Social Policy for People with Disabilities in Zambia 18:48

6y ago18:48

18:48

An interview with Dr. Shaun Cleaver, exploring his Global Health journey and work on social policy for people with disabilities in Zambia.By McGill University

1
An interview with Prof. Merve Emre, author of The Personality Brokers 16:36

6y ago16:36

16:36

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is the most popular personality test in the world. It’s used regularly by Fortune 500 companies and lots of other organizations. Its language of personality types has inspired TV shows and online-dating platforms. Yet, experts in the field of psychometric testing have struggled to validate its results – let alone acc…

1
Interview with Dr. Andrew Hatala on his work with Indigenous healers in Belize 22:18

6y ago22:18

22:18

Dr. Andrew Hatala, GHRI Forum guest, discusses his work and career path as a cultural psychologist; his work with Indigenous healers in Belize, Indigenous people with HIV/AIDS and urban Indigenous youth in Canada.By McGill University

1
Occupational Therapy Students - International Clinical Fieldwork 20:55

6y ago20:55

20:55

Occupational Therapy students Chamila Anthonypillai, Ela Rutkowski, Melissa Lamble, and Julianne Brown discuss their international clinical fieldwork experiences.By McGill University

1
Interview with Ms Ruth Cooper-Dzau (Physiotherapy, Class of 1972) 25:02

6y ago25:02

25:02

Find out about her career path once leaving the School, her involvement in various healthcare boards and associations, McGill memories and life advice for clinicians todayBy McGill University

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