• On the Trauma and Creativity Behind Kurt Vonnegut’s Classic Slaughterhouse Five

    From the History of Literature Podcast with Jacke Wilson

    For tens of thousands of years, human beings have been using fictional devices to shape their worlds and communicate with one another. Four thousand years ago they began writing down these stories, and a great flourishing of human achievement began. We know it today as literature, a term broad enough to encompass everything from ancient epic poetry to contemporary novels. How did literature develop? What forms has it taken? And what can we learn from engaging with these works today? Hosted by Jacke Wilson, an amateur scholar with a lifelong passion for literature, The History of Literature takes a fresh look at some of the most compelling examples of creative genius the world has ever known.

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    Jacke talks to journalist Tom Roston about his new biography of Kurt Vonnegut, The Writer’s Crusade: Kurt Vonnegut and the Many Lives of Slaughterhouse Five. PLUS Jacke reads excerpts from one of Vonnegut’s most famous speeches, the address he gave to Agnes Scott College in 1999. Enjoy!

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    History of Literature
    History of Literature
    Hosted by Jacke Wilson, an amateur scholar with a lifelong passion for literature, The History of Literature takes a fresh look at some of the most compelling examples of creative genius the world has ever known.





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