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New Books in Literary Studies

New Books in Literary Studies

By: New Books Network
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 Interviews with Scholars of Literature about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studiesNew Books Network Art
Episodes
  • Jade Elizabeth French, "Modernist Poetics of Ageing: The Late Lives and Late Styles of Mina Loy, Djuna Barnes, and H.D." (Oxford UP, 2025)

    Jade Elizabeth French, "Modernist Poetics of Ageing: The Late Lives and Late Styles of Mina Loy, Djuna Barnes, and H.D." (Oxford UP, 2025)
    Jun 29 2025
    What happens when the 'modern woman' ages? Modernist Poetics of Ageing (Oxford University Press, 2025) answers this question by being the first book-length study of three late modernist women's writers. Drawing on their place within wider modernist networks, this monograph is primarily framed around work by Mina Loy, H.D. and Djuna Barnes, who are often thought of as the quintessentially youthful 'modern woman' of the 1920s. Taking a literary, ageing studies and cultural criticism approach, this monograph focuses on lived experience, as well as thematic representations of ageing in their work, to examine how each author grew older in the years 1940-1982. By surveying literary texts, visual art, photography, life writing and archival material, this book explores the intersection of old age as lived and as well as written to argue that modernist late writing embodies the realities of ageing and transforms them through avant-garde aesthetics. As an interdisciplinary study, this work pairs ageing studies and modernist studies to innovatively consider experimental works written about and in later life. The book suggests that a focus on older age complicates the very avant-garde or modernist aesthetics that each author was interested in: what happens when the scene of the 'new' is populated by older people? How does an embodied experience of illness inform an aesthetics of 'late style'? After fulfilling their role as the youthful 'modern woman' of the 1920s, how did each artist continue to create rich, avant-garde works that go well beyond the paradigms of 'late modernism'? Modernist Poetics of Ageing argues that the late lives of some of modernism's most prominent and networked women writers are overlooked - despite being rich, vital, and contemporary in their continuing commitment to modernist experiment. By reframing these older modernist women writers as engaged in continuing, creative experiments, Modernist Poetics of Ageing reveals that the 'new' does not always have to be 'young'. About the author: Jade Elizabeth French works on ageing, care, and intergenerationality in modern and contemporary literature. She is currently a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Loughborough University, developing a project on emotions, ageing, and care homes in post-war British novels since 1948. In 2021-2022, she was a Research Associate as part of the ESRC-funded project Reimagining the Future in Older Age. Jade is also the co-founder of the interdisciplinary arts project Decorating Dissidence, which explores the conceptual, aesthetic, and political qualities of craft from the twentieth century to today. About the host: Julyan Oldham is a Post-Award Member of the University of Oxford, where he recently completed a PhD on virginity in the early twentieth-century British novel. Julyan’s work has been published or is forthcoming in Studies in the Novel and the Journal of Modern Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies
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    1 hr and 4 mins
  • Tochi Onyebuchi, "Harmattan Season: A Novel" (Tor Books, 2025)

    Tochi Onyebuchi, "Harmattan Season: A Novel" (Tor Books, 2025)
    Jun 29 2025
    Tochi Onyebuchi’s novel Harmattan Season: A Novel (Tor Books, 2025) follows Boubacar, a veteran and private eye living in French occupied West Africa, as he begins a reluctant journey to discover what happened to the bleeding woman who stumbled onto his doorway and vanished soon after. That mystery quickly drags Bouba into exactly the kind of violence and political intrigue he had been working so hard to avoid. In this interview, Onyebuchi describes finding Boubacar’s voice and the different noir tropes he was most excited about. We discuss fiction as a way to examine colonialism, magic as a tool for social exploration as well as engaging set pieces, and the joy of fast-paced novels. We also talk depictions of violence, world-wise urchin kids, and experimentation and growth throughout a writing career. Harmattan Season is a compelling and thoughtful adventure and it was so much fun discussing it with the author. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies
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    34 mins
  • Pria Anand "The Elephant's Child" The Common Magazine (Spring, 2025)

    Pria Anand "The Elephant's Child" The Common Magazine (Spring, 2025)
    Jun 27 2025
    Pria Anand speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “The Elephant’s Child,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. The piece is a vivid retelling of a Hindu myth, the origin story of the elephant-headed god Ganesh. Pria talks about the process of writing and revising many versions of this ancient myth, why she felt inspired by it, and how her literary writing intersects with her career as a neurologist. Pria also discusses her debut book, The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains, out this month from Simon & Schuster. The book explores how story and storytelling can illuminate the rich, complex gray areas within the science of the brain, weaving case study, history, fable, and memoir. Pria Anand is a neurologist and the author of The Mind Electric, out from Simon & Schuster in the U.S. and Little, Brown in the U.K. Her stories and essays have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Time Magazine, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. She is a graduate of Yale University and Stanford Medical School, and she trained in neurology, neuro-infectious diseases, and neuroimmunology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Massachusetts General Hospital. She is now an Assistant Professor of Neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine, and she cares for patients at the Boston Medical Center. ­­Read Prias’s story “The Elephant’s Child” in The Common at thecommononline.org/the-elephants-child. Order The Mind Electric in all formats via Simon & Schuster at simonandschuster.com/books/The-Mind-Electric/. Learn more about Pria at www.priaanand.com. The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook. Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her new debut novel All That Life Can Afford is the Reese’s Book Club pick for April 2025. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column, the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies
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    55 mins

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