Lit Hub Daily: November 18, 2021

• Check out an exclusive clip from the new documentary Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time. | The Hub

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• Gayle Jessup White reflects on tracing her family history back to Monticello, “the epicenter of the American paradox.” | Lit Hub History

• “Civilizations do not last forever. What I am concerned about is how fast change will come, and how dramatic it will be.” Archeologist Chris Begley looks to the history and science of societal collapse. | Lit Hub Climate Change

• How did Dostoevsky become Dostoevsky under the rule of Czar Nicholas, who considered literature hostile to society? | Lit Hub History

• Storied director Ron Howard considers how his life might have panned out had his parents not left Oklahoma for show business. | Lit Hub Film

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• Thou Shalt Not Kill… unless it’s to wage a holy war. How Christian leaders made the case for the Crusades as an act of love. | Lit Hub Religion

• “I drove just to take a drive today. No traffic anywhere. In Los Angeles.” Charles Finch chronicles the early days of the pandemic. | Lit Hub Life in a Pandemic

• Why the literary community should recognize the legacy of Graywolf Press and the work of Fiona McCrae. | Chicago Tribune

• “Ultimately, I needed life to mean something, and I was finding that meaning right at the edge of my understanding of reality.” Elissa Washuta on synchronicities, her new book, and dramatic acts of refusal. | The Rumpus

• Rebecca Flowers contemplates the magic of sharks and her relationship to mortality. | Guernica

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• A look at the ecological prescience of Dune. | JSTOR Daily

• “That is what we focus on: our right to exist.” Three Brazilian authors discuss the necessity of Afrofuturism. | Remezcla

• “What I want to do is be able to criticize the system that I live in.” Larissa Pham talks to Emily Ratajkowski. | The Nation

• “None of us are really alone in how we endure our losses.” Chuck Palahniuk on tackling difficult topics in writing. | Pop Matters

Also on Lit Hub: Finding a new spark of creativity with Liana Finck • Jordan Salama finds folklore in the Laguna de Doña Juana • Read from Mina Seckin’s debut novel, The Four Humors