How To Love Lit Podcast

James Joyce || Dubliners || Episode 2 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

James Joyce || Dubliners || Episode 1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Homer || The Odyssey || Episode 5 || Homer And Penelope Reunited! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Homer || The Odyssey || Episode 4 || The Importance Of ”Oikos” And Why Odysseus Pursues It! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Homer || The Odyssey || Episode 3 || Odysseus And The Cyclops Don’t See Eye To Eye! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Homer || The Odyssey || Episode 2 || Telemachus Begins The Journey To Manhood And Finding Odysseus! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Homer - The Odyssey || Episode 1 || Greek Gods, Greek Heroes And One of The Oldest Epic Poems Of All Time! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Declaration of Independence || 250th Anniversary Edition! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

James Madison || The United States Constitution || The American Document Series! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Patrick Henry ||"Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death!" || The American Documents Series Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Phillis Wheatley ||Poet of the Revolutionary Era || ”His Excellency General Washington” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

William Butler Yeats || The Second Coming || Apocalyptic Poetry At Its Best!   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

William Butler Yeats || Easter,1916 || The Poetry That Inspired Things Fall Apart Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield || Episode 3 || The Garden Party Part 2 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield || Episode 2 || The Garden Party Part 1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield || Episode 1|| Miss Brill Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Julia de Burgos || Meet Puerto Rico's Most Famous Poet! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Crucible || Arthur Miller || Episode 4 || My Name! The Disintegration And Reintegration Of John Proctor! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Crucible || Arthur Miller || Episode 3 || Allegories Galore! || How To Incite Hysteria And Create a Bogeyman! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, I’m Christy Shriver and we’re here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us.  I’m Garry Shriver, and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast.  Today we conclude our four-part series on Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World; the world Huxley creates may be New but certainly it is not brave. Michel Houellebecq in his 1998 novel The Elementary Particles references Brave New World in an unusual way.  Instead of seeing it as a warning of an evil to be avoided, he, or at least his characters find it a world to aspire to.   Let me quote him, “everyone says BNW is supposed to be a totalitarian nightmare, a vicious indictment on our society, but that’s just hypocritical bullshit.  BNW is our idea of heaven: genetic manipulation, sexual liberation, the war against aging, the leisure society.”    It’s a conversation, Huxley thought we should have as a society: what constitutes a real human world?  What is human society? Are we individuals living together; or are cells in a single organism called society with a small collection of men as braintrusts running it all?  In BNW Revisited, he says this, “In spite of the Id and the Unconscious, in spite of endemic neurosis and the prevalence of low IQ's most men and women are probably decent enough and sensible enough to be trusted with the direction of their own destinies. “  The World Controllers in BNW disagree., Mond, in part 4, describes a world where men and women are NOT to be trusted with the direction of their own destinies. And as we reach the end of the book, we listen to Mustafa Mond explain why.  And in a nutshell the answer is instability.  “Independence was not made for man. God isn’t compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness.  “It would upset the whole social order if men started doing things on their own.”  These are the arguments we read at the end of the book, but their meanings are illustrated  throughout starting in chapter one.    After reading the dialogue between John and Mond, so much of what we’ve seen illustrated makes more sense.  Really, this is a book that needs to be read twice because when you read those first chapters, you’re overwhelmed and confused.  In episode 1, we tour with our omniscient narrator that Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Center in the year of stability AF 632.  We learn that vivaparous reproduction (or birth as we know it) has been replaced by the assembly line; babies are manufactured in bottles.  The director explains to us that world is divided into castes, and everyone is conditioned to believe they are equal and equally valuable- albeit, they certainly are not equal in the way we think of equality today. We are introduced to a new set of values and the value that prevails is happiness.  The World State has solved man’s happiness problem, and we are shown how this is achieved.  The way the director describes makes it seem flawless.   Caitrin Nicol in her famous essay “Brave New World at 75” describes it a different way, “there is an unholy alliance of industrial capitalist, fascist, communist, psycho- analytic, and pseudo-scientific ideologies has brought about the end of history. The past is taboo - "History is bunk," as "Our Ford" so eloquently said - and there is no future, because history's ends have been accomplished. There is no pain, deformity, crime, anguish, or social discontent. Even death has no more sting: Children are acclimatized to the death palaces from the age of eighteen months, encouraged to poke around and eat chocolate creams while the dying are ushered into oblivion on soma, watching sports and pornography on television.”  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Crucible ||Arthur Miller || Episode 2 -||The Witch Hunt and Hysteria Begins! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Crucible || Arthur Miller || Episode 1 || Witch Hunts In Two Centuries! || Pulitzer Prizes! || Allegories Everywhere! 2026 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wuthering Heights - Epsiode 5 - Emily Bronte - Redemption, Forgiveness and Overcoming Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wuthering Heights - Episode 3 - Emily Bronte - Tantrums, Crazy Relationships, Rejection, Revenge - Part 2!!! 2023 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wuthering Heights - Episode 2 - Emily Bronte - Tantrums, Crazy Relationships, Rejection, Revenge! 2023 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wuthering Heights - Episode 1 - Emily Bronte - Frame Stories, Awkward Guests And Creepiness! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

William Shakespeare || Hamlet || Episode 6 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

William Shakespeare || Hamlet || Episode 5 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

William Shakespeare || Hamlet || Episode 4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

William Shakespeare || Hamlet || Episode 3 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

William Shakespeare || Hamlet || Episode 2 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

William Shakespeare || Hamlet || Episode 1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ecclesiastes - Episode 2 - Hevel, Sukkot, Justice and Joy! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ecclesiastes - Episode 1 - Wisdom, Vanity And Chasing After The Wind! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Christmas Story - Luke Chapter 2 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Twas The Night Before Christmas - Clement C. Moore Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol - Episode 2 - Ghosts, Innocence, Redemption And The Conclusion! Hi, I’m Christy Shriver and we’re here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us.  I’m Garry Shriver and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast. This is our second episode discussing Charles Dickens and his classic Christmas tale, A Christmas Carol. Last episode we began our discussion talking a little bit about Dickens’ life and the early experiences in Victorian England that shaped his career and his understanding of the world in general- in particular, the year he spent at the age of 12 as an outcast on the streets of London working in a blacking factory. We talked about the governmental report on the conditions of the over 30,000 urban poor children that inspired the tale. Finally, we discussed the blended choice of genres in which he chose to communicate his message of social responsibility and personal redemption- a carol, in prose, as he called it, but also a ghost story- an unusual combination.  We ended where we want to start today, talking about the man who has charmed the world with his miserly ways, Ebenezer Scrooge.     Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Charles Dickens || A Christmas Carol || Episode 1 || The Architect Of The Victorian Christmas! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Washington Irving || The Legend of Sleepy Hollow || Part 3 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Washington Irving || The Legend of Sleepy Hollow || Episode 2 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Washington Irving || The Legend of Sleepy Hollow || Episode 1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Percy Shelley - Ozymandias  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How To Read A Story! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Creed || The Lyrical Poetry of Creed Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shirley Jackson || The Haunting Of Hill House || Episode 3 || The Creepy, Psychotic, Paranormal Conclusion! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shirley Jackson || The Haunting Of Hill House || Episode 2 || Is Hill House Haunted Or Not?! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shirley Jackson || The Haunting Of Hill House || Episode 1 || Meet The Author And The Personal Issues That Created One Of The Best Horror Genre Books Of All Time! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

T.S. Eliot || The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock || Episode 2 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

T.S. Eliot || The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock || Poetry Supplement || Episode 1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.