{"id":41495,"date":"2021-03-08T08:00:09","date_gmt":"2021-03-08T14:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/?p=41495"},"modified":"2026-01-16T20:17:32","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T02:17:32","slug":"episode-1-novels-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/episode-1-novels-ideas\/","title":{"rendered":"Episode 1: Novels &#038; Ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the 19th century, Mary Shelley\u2019s <em>Frankenstein<\/em> provoked readers to consider the dangerous potential of technological invention and the limits of human subjectivity. Early in the 21st century, South African author J. M. Coetzee\u2019s <em>Elizabeth Costello<\/em> presented controversial claims about human brutality in a form that can be spare, challenging, and, at times, debatably fictional.<\/p>\n<p class=\"nonindented\">In the first episode of Season 2 of <em>Public Books 101<\/em>, novelist Teju Cole and scholar Tara K. Menon join our host, Nicholas Dames, to consider how novels inspire readers to wrestle with difficult ideas. How do novels help us think more ethically about the world we inhabit? How do activities such as listening to jazz, watching films, and binging dramas like <em>Fleabag<\/em> compare to reading novels? And what does Teju Cole mean when he says that he \u201creads Coetzee like a cat\u201d?<\/p>\n<p class=\"nonindented\"><iframe style=\"width: 100%; max-width: 660px; overflow: hidden; background: transparent;\" src=\"https:\/\/embed.podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/novels-and-ideas-with-teju-cole-tara-menon\/id1523686748?i=1000512273286\" height=\"175\" frameborder=\"0\" sandbox=\"allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"nonindented\"><em>Subscribe to <\/em>Public Books 101 <em>on <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/public-books-101\/id1523686748\">Apple<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/52pDLXxtxQOEJTaFPBSi3n?si=sxF5lvz8RUebjh2XzWZMcA\">Spotify<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stitcher.com\/podcast\/shoe-leather\/public-books-101\">Stitcher<\/a>, or <a href=\"https:\/\/pca.st\/podcast\/fffa8970-a8e4-0138-e68d-0acc26574db2\">Pocket Casts<\/a> <\/em><em>to listen and to be notified when new episodes are released. Our RSS feed is available\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/public-books-101.castos.com\/feed\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"nonindented\"><em>View a transcript of the episode <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/S2E1-ColeMenon_FINAL.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<h4 class=\"nonindented\">Our guests<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Teju<\/strong> <strong>Cole<\/strong> is a novelist, photographer, critic, curator, and author of five books, including <a href=\"https:\/\/shop.harvard.com\/book\/9780812980097\"><em>Open City<\/em><\/a> (2011), which won the PEN\/Hemingway Award, among other prizes, and <a href=\"https:\/\/shop.harvard.com\/book\/9780812985856\"><em>Every Day Is for the Thief<\/em><\/a> (2007), first published by Cassava Republic Press in Nigeria and since translated into seven languages. He was the photography critic of the <em>New York Times Magazine<\/em> from 2015 until 2019 and is currently the Gore Vidal Professor of the Practice of Creative Writing at Harvard University.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tara K. Menon<\/strong> is an assistant professor in the department of English at Harvard University. Her research and teaching interests include the 19th-century novel, narrative theory, Victorian literature, and Romanticism. She is currently working on her book manuscript, \u201cSpoken Words: Direct Speech in Nineteenth-Century British Novels,\u201d which combines large-scale data analysis and formal close readings to reveal how direct speech shapes our understanding of, and affective responses to, literary characters. She is an editor of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/section\/literary-fiction\/\">Literary Fiction<\/a> section at\u00a0<em>Public Books<\/em> and has written <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/author\/tara-k-menon\/\">essays<\/a> for <em>Public Books<\/em> on film and TV.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Nicholas Dames<\/strong>, this season\u2019s host, is an editor in chief of\u00a0<em>Public Books<\/em> and the\u00a0Theodore Kahan Professor of Humanities in the department of English and comparative literature at Columbia University. His most recent book is <a href=\"https:\/\/shop.harvard.com\/book\/9780199208968\"><em>The Physiology of the Novel: Reading, Neural Science, and the Form of Victorian Fiction<\/em><\/a> (2007). He has written on contemporary fiction, novel reading, and the humanities for\u00a0<em>The Atlantic<\/em>,\u00a0<em>n+1<\/em>,\u00a0<em>The Nation<\/em>,\u00a0<em>New Left Review<\/em>, the<em>\u00a0New Yorker<\/em>, and the<em> New York Times Book Review<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4 class=\"nonindented\">Mentioned in this episode<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Books<\/strong>: Miguel de Cervantes\u2019s\u00a0<em>Don Quixote<\/em>;\u00a0J. M. Coetzee\u2019s <em>The Lives of Animals<\/em> and <em>Disgrace<\/em>; Thomas Mann\u2019s <em>The Magic Mountain<\/em>; William Godwin\u2019s <em>Caleb Williams<\/em>; Mary Wollstonecraft\u2019s <em>Mary: A Fiction<\/em>; Mary Shelley\u2019s <em>Frankenstein<\/em>; George Eliot\u2019s <em>Middlemarch;<\/em>\u00a0Leo Tolstoy\u2019s <em>Anna Karenina<\/em> and <em>War and Peace<\/em>; James Joyce\u2019s <em>Ulysses<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong>Authors<\/strong>: Fran\u00e7ois Rabelais, Miguel de Cervantes, Agatha Christie, Anthony Trollope, Charles Dickens, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Thomas Hardy, Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, V. S. Naipaul, Allan Bloom, Jonathan Lear, Wendy Doniger, Cora Diamond, Peter Singer<\/li>\n<li><strong>Articles, essays, podcast episodes<\/strong>: Walter Benjamin, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/app.box.com\/s\/tqaip6gdg65bykc2hvn1tjkks41658yl\">The Storyteller: Reflections on the Work of Nikolai Leskov<\/a>,\u201d (1936); T. S. Eliot on Henry James: \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nybooks.com\/articles\/1986\/12\/18\/a-mind-so-fine\/\">He had a mind so fine an idea couldn\u2019t violate it<\/a>\u201d (1918); James Wood\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lrb.co.uk\/the-paper\/v25\/n20\/james-wood\/a-frog-s-life\">review<\/a> of <em>Elizabeth Costello<\/em> (2003); <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/09\/11\/books\/review\/podcast-hoax-fox-news-donald-trump-brian-stelter-nextflix-reed-hastings.html\">Netflix CEO Reed Hastings<\/a>, interviewed by Pamela Paul, on the <em>Book Review<\/em> podcast (2020); Cora Diamond\u2019s academic article \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.laurentillinghast.com\/DiamondEatingMeat.pdf\">Eating Meat and Eating People<\/a>\u201d (1978)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Film and TV series<\/strong>: Takashi Miike\u2019s film <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1728196\/\">Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai<\/a><\/em> (2011); Phoebe Waller-Bridge\u2019s series <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt5687612\/\">Fleabag<\/a><\/em> (2016\u201319); the CBS series <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1442462\/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\">The Good Wife<\/a><\/em> (2009\u201316)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4 class=\"nonindented\">Further reading<\/h4>\n<p class=\"nonindented\">Teju recommends:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Dan Hicks, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/shop.harvard.com\/book\/9780745341767\">The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence, and Cultural Restitution<\/a><\/em> (Pluto, 2020)\n<ul>\n<li>Read Ana Lucia Araujo\u2019s review essay on <em>The Brutish Museums<\/em>, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/museums-as-monuments-to-white-supremacy\/\">Museums as Monuments to White Supremacy<\/a>,\u201d in <em>Public Books<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Pankaj Mishra, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/shop.harvard.com\/book\/9780374293314\">Bland Fanatics: Liberals, Race, and Empire<\/a><\/em> (Macmillan, 2020)<\/li>\n<li>Pankaj Mishra\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lrb.co.uk\/contributors\/pankaj-mishra\">essays<\/a> for the <em>London Review of Books<\/em>, especially \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lrb.co.uk\/the-paper\/v42\/n14\/pankaj-mishra\/flailing-states\">Flailing States<\/a>\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Layli Long Soldier, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/shop.harvard.com\/book\/9781555977672\">Whereas<\/a><\/em> (Graywolf, 2017)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"nonindented\">Tara recommends:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>J. M. Coetzee, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/shop.harvard.com\/book\/9780691173900\">The Lives of Animals<\/a><\/em> (Princeton University Press, 2016)<\/li>\n<li>Nicholas Dames, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/nplusonemag.com\/issue-14\/reviews\/the-theory-generation\/\">The Theory Generation<\/a>,\u201d <em>n+1<\/em> (2012)<\/li>\n<li>William Godwin, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/shop.harvard.com\/book\/9780199232062\">Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams<\/a><\/em> (1794; Oxford University Press, 2009)<\/li>\n<li>D. H. Lawrence<em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/shop.harvard.com\/search\/site\/Lady%20Chatterly%27s%20Lover\">Lady Chatterly&#8217;s Lover<\/a><\/em> (1928)<\/li>\n<li>Thomas Mann, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/shop.harvard.com\/book\/9780679772873\">The Magic Mountain<\/a> <\/em>(1924)<\/li>\n<li>John Stuart Mill, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/shop.harvard.com\/book\/9780486421308\">On Liberty<\/a><\/em> (1859)<\/li>\n<li>John Milton,<em> <a href=\"https:\/\/shop.harvard.com\/book\/9780140439069\">Areopagitica and Other Writings<\/a><\/em> (1644)<\/li>\n<li>Robert Musil, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/shop.harvard.com\/book\/9780679767879\">The Man without Qualities<\/a><\/em> (1930\u201343)<\/li>\n<li>Vladimir Nabokov, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/shop.harvard.com\/book\/9780679723165\">Lolita<\/a><\/em> (1955)<\/li>\n<li>Sianne Ngai, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/06\/25\/the-gimmick-of-the-novel-of-ideas\/\">The Gimmick of the Novel of Ideas<\/a>,\u201d <em>Paris Review<\/em> (2020)<\/li>\n<li>Alice Walker, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/shop.harvard.com\/book\/9780143135692\">The Color Purple<\/a><\/em> (1982)<\/li>\n<li>Mary Wollstonecraft, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/shop.harvard.com\/book\/9780393311693\">Maria; or, The Wrongs of Woman<\/a><\/em> (1798)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"nonindented\"><em>This episode was produced by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/author\/annie-galvin\/\">Annie Galvin<\/a> and is\u00a0<span class=\"il\">licensed<\/span>\u00a0under a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1615048763226000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFMQdN4dqK_KF19UTzPdrjKeA-Jmw\">Creative Commons-Attribution\u00a0<span class=\"il\">License<\/span><\/a> (CC-BY 4.0).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How do novels provoke readers to wrestle with complex, even dangerous ideas? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":41496,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1982],"tags":[17,150,1712,1894,1991],"pbpartner":[],"section":[],"pbseries":[],"class_list":["post-41495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-season-two","tag-fiction","tag-novel","tag-podcast","tag-public-books-101","tag-the-novel-now"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Episode 1: Novels &amp; Ideas - Public Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How do novels provoke readers to wrestle with complex, even dangerous ideas?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/episode-1-novels-ideas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Episode 1: Novels &amp; Ideas - Public Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How do novels provoke readers to wrestle with complex, even dangerous ideas?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/episode-1-novels-ideas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Public Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Public-Books\/201143656634392\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-03-08T14:00:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-01-17T02:17:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/01_EC_3.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kelley McKinney\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.publicbooks.org\\\/episode-1-novels-ideas\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.publicbooks.org\\\/episode-1-novels-ideas\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Kelley McKinney\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.publicbooks.org\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/b34e4cdd6208183e5faf859ee4196f2c\"},\"headline\":\"Episode 1: Novels &#038; 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