The Scholar's Armchair

What if the way we read is changing the way we think? In this episode of The Scholar's Armchair, I speak with cognitive neuroscientist and reading researcher Maryanne Wolf, author of Proust and the Squid and Reader, Come Home, about one of the defining questions of our digital age. Maryanne begins with a remarkable personal story. After a lifetime devoted to literature and the science of reading,...

John Keats is often remembered as the poet of beauty and “negative capability.” But what if he was also one of the most profound thinkers about uncertainty? In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with Dr Li Ou about her book Keats and Scepticism. We explore a side of Keats that is often overlooked: a poet deeply engaged with questions of knowledge, perception, imagination, and the limi...

Read the book: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691235301/natural-magic?_gl=1*1dmglc8*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTczMjY1MDM3LjE3ODIyMTg4Njg.*_ga_N1W9JWKLY3*czE3ODIyMTg4NjckbzEkZzAkdDE3ODIyMTg4NjckajYwJGwwJGgxODg0NTE5NzQ3 Emily Dickinson is often imagined as a secluded poet, withdrawn from the world and writing from the privacy of her room in Amherst. But what if she was actually responding to on...

What exactly is a goblin? Today we imagine goblins as fantasy creatures from Tolkien, Dungeons & Dragons, Harry Potter, and video games. But where did they come from, and why have they survived for centuries while so many other monsters have faded away? In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with historian Matt King about his fascinating book A History of Goblins. We trace the goblin’s...

Are our buildings changing because we are changing? In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with Amritt Flora, Course Leader for the MA Interior and Spatial Design at Chelsea College of Arts, about the emergence of a possible metamodern shift in architecture and design. Our conversation begins with a simple observation. Over the last decade, design students seem to be approaching the wo...

Have we lost the inner life? In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with author and cultural critic Lesley Chamberlain about her book Rilke: The Last Inward Man and the enduring relevance of one of Europe’s greatest poets, Rainer Maria Rilke. Chamberlain argues that Rilke stood at the end of a long tradition of inwardness: a tradition that saw the inner life as a source of meaning, cre...

What makes Odysseus the most enduring figure in all of literature? In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I’m joined by Joel P. Christensen to explore one of the most fascinating characters ever created: Odysseus. From Homer’s Odyssey to modern films, novels, and even war narratives, Odysseus has never stopped changing. He is a hero, a liar, a survivor, a strategist, and perhaps one of the fir...

What did the Victorians really think of Jane Austen — and how did they reshape her legacy? In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with Prof Cheryl A. Wilson, author of *Jane Austen and the Victorian Heroine*, about the surprising afterlife of Austen in the nineteenth century. We often think of Austen as timeless — but as Dr Wilson shows, the Victorians didn’t just admire her. They *use...

What did Virginia Woolf really mean by her famous “moments of being”? Were they simply flashes of heightened consciousness… or was Woolf trying to reveal something deeper about reality itself? In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I’m joined by philosopher Thomas Nail to discuss his fascinating new book The Philosophy of Virginia Woolf: Moments of Becoming. Nail argues that Woolf was not just...

What if ethics begins not with understanding… but with listening? In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I’m joined by Professor Kent Lehnhof to explore his book Voice and Ethics in Shakespeare’s Late Plays — a fascinating rethinking of how we relate to one another through literature, philosophy, and everyday life. Drawing on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, Lehnhof argues that Shakespeare’...

We think we know George Orwell. The author of 1984. The prophet of surveillance, propaganda, and political control. But what if that version of Orwell is only part of the story? In this conversation, I’m joined by Nathan Waddell to discuss his book A Bright Cold Day: The Wonder of George Orwell. Rather than focusing on Orwell’s big ideas alone, Waddell invites us to see something often overlooked:...

Did Shakespeare really write alone… or was he borrowing from the greatest playwrights of his time? In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with Darren Freebury-Jones about his fascinating book Shakespeare’s Borrowed Feathers, which rethinks one of the biggest myths in literary history. We explore the world Shakespeare actually lived and worked in: a vibrant, competitive theatre scene fi...

How did Jane Austen go from a little-known novelist to a global phenomenon? In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I’m joined by literary scholar Professor Juliette Wells, author of Reading Austen in America, Everybody’s Jane, and A New Jane Austen: How Americans Gave Us The World’s Greatest Novelist to explore the remarkable story of Austen’s rise to fame. We tend to assume that great writers...

The Salem witch trials weren’t just about witches. They were about children—and what adults needed them to be. What role did children really play in the Salem witch trials? In this conversation, Dr Kristina West reveals how the figure of the child sits at the centre of the panic, challenging our assumptions about innocence, guilt, and history itself. We discuss her book The Salem Witch Child and e...

What comes after postmodernism? In this interview, Dr Usha Wilbers and Dr Dennis Kersten of Radboud University explore metamodernism as a new cultural “structure of feeling” emerging in contemporary literature. Moving from modernism’s search for meaning to postmodernism’s irony and scepticism, we ask what it means to read and write fiction today in a world that no longer fully believes in either....

What are the many mirrors of the Shakespearean stage really showing us? In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with literary scholar Dr. Valentina Finger of LMU Munich about her new book Mirrors in Shakespeare and Early Modern English Drama: Power, Gender and the Magic of the Theatre. Together, we explore how mirrors in plays like Richard II, Macbeth, The Duchess of Malfi, and The Alch...

Read Alessandra's book The Myth of George Eliot: https://www.routledge.com/The-Myth-of-George-Eliot-How-Marian-Evans-Invented-the-Victorian-Novelist/Grego/p/book/9781032551128 🙋 Prof Alessandra Grego's profile and further links to her work: https://www.johncabot.edu/directory/alessandra-grego ============================== Description: Did George Eliot secretly challenge the myths of Victorian so...

Welcome to The Scholar’s Armchair, where each week Dr. John Burton sits down for an informative insightful conversation with a leading literary scholar about the big ideas behind the big books that have shaped our world.

What happens when you take a short text — and read it slowly, live, without a script? In this wide-ranging and intellectually electric conversation, I’m joined by literary critic Dr Neil Cocks of the University of Reading (no less!) to explore the art of close reading, the role of theory, and what it really means to “work through” a text rather than simply affirm it. ==============================...

Sylvia Plath, Chick Lit, and the Politics of the Kitchen | Interview with Dr Caroline J. Smith LINKS: Check out Caroline's book Cosmopolitan Culture and Consumerism in Chick-Lit here: https://www.routledge.com/Cosmopolitan-Culture-and-Consumerism-in-Chick-Lit/Smith/p/book/9780415806268 Check out Caroline's book Season to Taste: Rewriting Kitchen Space in Contemporary Women’s Food Memoirs here: htt...

📖Check out Luis Othoniel Rosa's novel Animal Spiral: https://charcopress.com/bookstore/animal-spiral 💡Check out more from Luis: https://luisothonielrosa.com/ 🎯Check out my video on Frankenstein: https://youtu.be/wtV8vT8g_5Y?si=cEBtg1fGScO-GBPj ============================================= In this wide-ranging interview, Dr John Burton discusses Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, historicity, the Haiti...

In this wide-ranging interview, Brontë scholar Hilary Newman joins The Scholar’s Armchair to explore Wuthering Heights in depth—its unsettling characters, narrative complexity, violence, grief, religion, haunting, and radical departures from the Victorian novel. We discuss Heathcliff and sympathy, Emily Brontë’s narrative strategy, the problem of adaptation, alternative endings, authorship controv...