Yale University Press had the pleasure of interviewing Leo Braudy, author of the forthcoming Haunted: On Ghosts, Witches, Vampires, Zombies, and Other Monsters of the Natural and Supernatural Worlds. Braudy, a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, is also the author of The Frenzy
Anthony Kronman— For more than a dozen years, I’ve been teaching in Directed Studies—a traditional, Great Books program for freshmen in Yale College. Programs of this kind are increasingly rare on America’s campuses. But I believe deeply in the spirit of liberal learning that they represent and in 2008 published
Paul A. Rahe— It has always been hard for outsiders to get their minds around classical Lacedaemon, or Sparta as it is more commonly called today. Even in antiquity—as a glance at Xenophon’s Regime of the Lacedaemonians, at Plato’s Republic and Laws, and at Aristotle’s Politics will make clear—the Spartans
To mark the release of the latest addition to the Little Histories series A Little History of Religion, we are sharing a short interview with the author – the wonderful Richard Holloway – and an extract from Chapter Two: The Doors. WATCH A SHORT FILM WITH RICHARD HOLLOWAY Richard Holloway—
From our London office: In recent months, the rise of far-right parties in different European countries and events such as the UK’s vote for Brexit have prompted heated debates about immigration and cultural integration across Europe and the world. Tarek Osman, author of Islamism: What it Means for the Middle East and the
In Why Translation Matters, acclaimed translator Edith Grossman argues for the cultural importance of translation and for a more encompassing and nuanced appreciation of the translator’s role. For Grossman, translation has a transcendent importance. The following is comprised of excerpts from Why Translation Matters. Translation is crucial to our sense of ourselves as
Interview with Terry Eagleton by David Ebony
David Ebony— So much in the news these days refers to culture, culture clashes or culture wars, cultural identity, and cultural purity. The meaning of “culture” seems to be expansive and flexible, applied to just about any and every human gesture, expression, or endeavor. Terry Eagleton, the brilliant and often
Steven B. Smith— No period of modern history has come under more intense scrutiny than has the Enlightenment. What is—or was—the Enlightenment? We have not ceased asking this question and the answer or answers are far from settled. The question was most famously stated by Immanuel Kant at the start
Alex Zucker— Translating Tomáš Zmeškal’s Love Letter in Cuneiform was a joy, to be honest, because of his sense of humor and the play and playfulness within the text itself. One example of this that also demonstrates how literary translation is not simply a reproduction in English of the original
Peter Singer— In 2013 an article in the Washington Post featured Jason Trigg, an MIT computer science graduate working in finance and giving half of his salary to the Against Malaria Foundation. Trigg was described as part of “an emerging class of young professionals in America and Britain” for whom