Wouldst Thou Like to Live Podcastishly?

I like to think of myself as having many talents, but self promotion is not one of them. It makes me feel cringey inside, asking people to come look at some thing I’ve done. That’s why I push (for example) these blog posts out into the world with a minimum of fanfare: ideally, they’ll speak for themselves, and if there’s any value in them people will encounter and discern that on their own.

So I’m stepping outside my comfort zone a good bit in writing this post promoting my other main endeavor at the moment (aside from the endeavor of having a job, looking for a job, doing my own research, and rearing four wild childrens). But I think it’s worth the effort (and the internal shame) of doing it, because I really believe in what my comrades and I are doing with the Readers Karamazov podcast. As we prepare to launch Season 2 (coming next week!), I wanted to offer a few reasons that I find compelling for listening in and also, if you like what you hear, spreading the word.

1. We offer thoughtful conversation detached from the controversy du jour.

If you’ve been following my posts here on my thinking process, you’ll know that I’m allergic to the quick take, the in the moment response that passes for thinking so often these days. The Readers Karamazov resolutely refuses to be “useful” in any immediate sense of that word. We have measured, thoughtful conversations about BIG TOPICS like love, art, and justice, but do so through the lens of lasting literature, such that we’re never prisoners of the moment. We could, I think, grow our audience much more quickly if we pandered to that sense of immediacy and strove for IMPORTANCE IN THE DISCOURSE. But we’re content to tend our little garden, secure in the knowledge that what we’re doing has a lasting significance.

2. We’ll Introduce You to Great Books You’ve Never Read, and Help You Rethink Those You Have

Here’s our list of books for Season 2. How many have you read? I’ve read 5 — Middlemarch, our guiding book for the season, then the three I’ve chosen (The Clouds, Madame Bovary, and the Borges stories), plus Candide. That’s a lot of books I haven’t read! One of the main benefits to me of the podcast is the opportunity to pick up standards I’ve never gotten around to (The Awakening), contemporary classics (Sebald), and even on occasion a book I’ve never heard of (Soul Mountain). The great thing about having three hosts whose tastes differ is that we force each other to read books we otherwise wouldn’t. Last season Karl had Friedrich and I read Trouble on Triton — not a book either of us would pick up voluntarily, but one we had a stellar (so to speak) conversation about nonetheless. And before fate intervened to spare him, Friedrich and I had almost trapped Karl into reading The Warden, a book very much outside his wheelhouse. That’s the sort of fruitful cross-pollination we love.

Whether you read along with us or not (we hope you will!) each episode will help you become familiar not merely with the plot of the chosen book, but what makes it tick: its themes, characters, and quirks. Because we take our time and dig deep, you’ll walk away with the sense that you know the book better, whether you’re reading it for the first time alongside us, haven’t read it but might pick it up, or have reread a favorite.

3. We’re Filling a Particular Niche (and Doing It Well)

As shocking as this may sound, there is not an abundance of podcasts at the moment that focus on literature from a philosophical perspective (there is actually another out there that I’d recommend, Sacred & Profane Love). What makes us extra unique, I’d argue, is that we approach books as literary critics, attentive to form and texture. We don’t just suck out the big ideas from books, we look at the way that form and content work together (or against each other!). But we’re also, all three of us, well versed in philosophy and “big ideas” — this is a podcast hosted by “The Bastard Sons of Hegel,” after all. Books AND ideas; who knew they paired so well (we did. we did).

4. We Don’t Take Ourselves Too Seriously

Though we love literature and ideas, and do our best to dive below the surface to offer thoughtful discussions, we don’t approach literature with any pomposity or self-seriousness. The original impetus behind the podcast was the desire that the three of us — close friends from graduate school — had to just spend time with each other talking about things we care about. We have a solid chemistry (I hope) developed through years of genuine friendship. We also like jokes, and finding the absurdities of any given situation. The result is, on the whole and for the most part, a podcast that will help you learn knew things without boring you. Plus, we have the absolute best intro/outro music in the game, and I’ve been progressively upping the ante in choosing cold opens and outro clips.

5. We Actually Give a Crap about Podcast Production

I spent a long time resisting the podcast world, then dove in a few years back and have since listened to MANY podcasts. Here’s the thing: many podcasts done by amateurs like us — and even some professional podcasts! — sound like garbage. People aren’t using mics, or have really bad ones, there’s tons of conversational filler (umms, likes, etc), and whatever editing exists has been done in the most slapdash manner possible. There’s a podcast (I’ll leave it nameless) whose content I enjoy but that I can barely listen to because the audio quality and editing is so bad.

We’re a small operation here, and far from professional. I’ll go ahead and own up so you can blame me for any problems: I handle all the production, editing, and related duties. And it’s been a learning process (shout out to my friend and former student Jack, whose tech savvy has been a real help in gradually troubleshooting that end of things). But time and sweat have never been the issue; I spend a long time slicing and dicing each episode to make sure only the gold remains, the chaff blown away. And you can tell, I think, the difference between the first episodes on The Brothers Karamazov and the later episodes in Season 1. I’m still improving, still honing my craft, but I put real effort into it, and promise never to unleash an episode on your ears that sounds like barf.

Anyway, I hope you’ll consider joining us this season as we make our way through Middlemarch and the constellation of books we’ve clustered around it. I think it will be a fascinating, productive season, even better than the first.