My undergraduate degree was in studio art, with a concentration in printmaking, and my favorite professor was the late great Garret Boone, or “Reverend Boone” as his students knew him (…

I cannot rest from podcasting. Jill Hoffman returns to discuss three poems by Alfred, Lord Tennyson: “Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854), “Lady of Shalott” (1832, 1842), and “Ulysses” (1833).

tracemcjoy is an independent artist creating amazing designs for great products such as t-shirts, stickers, posters, and phone cases.

My high school girlfriend was named Angie, and she had a great singing voice. I mean, I assume she still does; the last I heard she was a high school choral teacher. Anyway, I remember that I used …

Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—I was on a vacation with my family, and—having little or no money in my purse—our recreation consisted of day trips to corners of New England …

An old-skool setup gets a new punchline suitable for today's workplaces. Bring it to the office and see how it affects your next performance review. • Millions of unique designs by independent artists...

There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our podcasts. First-time co-host Tim Read discusses William Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy, Hamlet (c. 1600).

by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.**obviously not by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Note from John: I originally wrote this parody during my ill-spent grad school days while I was reading Melville for a 19th Century Americ…

This essay is about autism, so bear with me through the roundabout introduction. Disclaimer: while I make a lot of general claims about people with ASD, I can really only speak about my own experie…

If one can set aside the many, many ethical issues involving AI art, the question remains for its detractors (like me): what exactly do its proponents see in it? It’s certainly gotten “…

My parents were (and remain) staunchly liberal, but for people who lived their twenties through the eras of beatniks and hippies they were (and remain) pretty square. In the 70s my dad had sideburn…

My parents were (and remain) staunchly liberal, but for people who lived their twenties through the eras of beatniks and hippies they were (and remain) pretty square. In the 70s my dad had sideburn…

Storkin’ it up! First-time co-host Jill Hoffman discusses Meindert De Jong’s Newbury-winning book, The Wheel on the School (1954).

boss these podcasts are getting out of hand the other day i heard dan mccoy and his much older brother discussing archy and mehitabel by which i mean the column by don marquis that started in 1916...

This post is a companion piece to Sophomore Lit episode 187, Plato’s The Apology. Why not listen to that podcast before reading? As we mentioned on our Apology episode, Marina and I recently …

Love of wisdom means never having to say you’re sorry. Professor Marina McCoy joins her husband to discuss Plato’s The Apology (c. 399-90 BCE).

In spite of my resolutions to write and podcast on something that more resembles an actual schedule, I have done neither recently. But my plea to the dozen of you that read this blog is to be forgi…

My last essay was a critique of nostalgia, and so to mix things up this post will be a discussion of something from my youth for which I have a great deal of affection, and that is Parker Brothers …

First-time co-host Daniel Heddendorf joins in to discuss clocks and jellybeans in Harlan Ellison’s short story, “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” (1965).

I suppose I should mention here that this is a comic essay and I am exaggerating for, you know, effect. I grew up in a podunk town in the middle of bupkis, so that no doubt is reflected here. If yo…

My junior and senior years of college I spent my summers working on a grant to develop the Whitewater Gorge in Richmond, Indiana into a public space. This meant that for the first time in my life I…

John McCoy and a guest host read books you might have been assigned in high school, or college, or other stuff you might have read when you were a kid. The theming is loose!

Traveling with a large, active dog means forgoing air travel, and instead committing to road tripping, however long it might take. This year, as with the previous two Christmases, my wife, our dog,…

What, the one as big as me? Marina McCoy makes her holiday return to discuss Mário de Andrade’s sweet-and-salty “A Christmas Turkey” (1956).

Previously: Long, long ago, in the pre-Web age of Usenet (i.e. the early 90s), I began a series of silly newsposts about Rankin-Bass Christmas specials, with the intention of making my way through …

Who watches the Watch House? Not us, the book is better. Ross Cleaver returns to discuss Robert Westall’s The Watch House (1977).

The answer, my friend…is not a lyric in the any of the songs the McCoy Brothers discuss. For this annual drunk Thanksgiving Special, Rob, Dan, and John talk about Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, One...

In the summer of 1981 my family took a cross-country trip from our tiny college town of Eureka, Illinois to spend the summer Claremont, California, where we would live in a loaner house that was pa…

Podcasts could happen to anyone. David Loehr discusses exits and entrances in Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (first performed 1966, published 1967).

Content warning: this post contains nothing but digressions. Typography is a mess. Or at least, its argot is a mess. In an earlier post I discussed the various meanings of the word font. An even mo…

A City Mouse once visited a relative who lived in the country. For lunch the Country Mouse took his elite East Coast cousin to the local Cracker Barrel for Country Fried Steak with a side of Onion …

I got my autism diagnosis at a weird time: about a month and a half before the Global Pandemic. One day I was learning why I isolate myself, the next day the whole world was isolating right along w…

Don’t it allways seem to go, you don’t know what unicorns you got til they’re gone. Kathy Campbell discusses Peter S. Beagle’s 1968 The Last Unicorn.

YouTube video by mcmullen museum

When, as a kid, I learned the word raconteur, I thought that the role wasn’t simply a matter of one being good with stories; I thought it was a career one could have, and even be paid for. I&…

BEEP boop what is… love? Well, we don’t figure this out, but John Siracusa does return to Sophomore Lit to discuss Karel Čapek’s play R.U.R. (1920), the origin of the word “robot.”

Getting a psychiatric diagnosis affects everyone differently. For many, it’s a catharsis, a key to self-discovery and self-acceptance. For others, it can be a troubling albatross, a confirmat…

Glenn Fleishman returns to the show to discuss today’s modern Prometheuses. It’s the long-awaited episode on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818-31).

Brush up on the Large Object Theory of History. Shaenon K. Garrity returns to discuss Jean Merrill’s The Pushcart War (1964).

Brush up on the Large Object Theory of History. Shaenon K. Garrity returns to discuss Jean Merrill’s The Pushcart War (1964).

Header image: S.O. Grimes general store, Westminster, Md., c. 1900. Image via Library of Congress. Another day, another shot fired in the culture wars: this time, the internet is loosing its collec…

For fans of the Sophomore Lit podcast on The Incomparable, it's a Mockingbird wearing Holden Caulfield's hat studiously reading a book. She's got a four-page essay due on Tuesday.

A Facsimile Edition; with commentary by the author The author in 1974. I published the first edition of this commentary in 1997, having just learned how to code HTML from a disreputable Usenet post…

Boston is a great place for cemeteries. If you visit our fair city as a tourist and walk the Freedom Trail, which is the red-brick line that connects downtown Boston’s and Charlestown’s…