Episode 125: The Great American Novel

Danny Anderson hosts a conversation with Michial Farmer and Nathan Gilmour about the concept and examples of the Great American Novel. Starting with a World War and quickly diving into culture wars, the search involves the particularly American genre, the novel, and an ongoing dispute about the character of literary education. Among the novels, novelists, and other realities discussed are Moby-Dick, The Grapes of Wrath, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Philip Roth, Toni Morrison, the New Critics, and differences between market-funded and patronage-funded arts.