Episode 23: Jim Phelan & Susan Lanser — Sayed Kashua’s “Herzl Disappears at Midnight”

In this episode of the Project Narrative Podcast, Jim Phelan and Susan Lanser discuss Sayed Kashua’s 2005 short story, “Herzl Disappears at Midnight.” Susan Lanser is Professor Emerita in three departments at Brandeis University: English; Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies; and Comparative Literature. Lanser has done groundbreaking and influential work in multiple fields: narrative theory and the novel (with particular interest in women writers), 18th century European studies, and gender and sexuality studies. In narrative theory, Susan Lanser and Robyn Warhol launched what is now one of the most important post-classical approaches to feminist narratology. Lanser’s influential books include The Narrative Act, Fictions of Authority, and The Sexuality of History, and she co-edited with Robyn Warhol Narrative Theory Unbound: Queer and Feminist Interventions. Lanser is currently working on several projects, including one on narratives of Jerusalem (in collaboration with Shlomith Rimmon Kenan, Professor Emerita at the Hebrew University in Israel).