For years, the humanities have been said to exist in a state of crisis. As the enrolments to literary studies keep falling and the budgets keep shrinking, one is forced to ask – how relevant is literature today? What is the role of writing in the age of existential climate anxiety, plagues, and wars? 

Join us as the One Love, Literary podcast returns with host Olga Tsygankova, a Ukrainian PhD student in English, who will talk to one speaker about their (love or hate) journey with literature. This live podcast episode features Kevin Pask, PhD, a literary scholar and professor of English at Concordia, author of two books, whose research centers on Shakespeare and Renaissance literature, but also includes fairy and folk tales, song lyrics, and Texas cultural history. Pask’s current book project Pastorals of Reading in the Age of Criticism investigates the literary culture of academic criticism in dialogue with the “social forms” of reading, namely, the forms that can seem marginal to literature as it is constituted at the university: oral storytelling, “light verse,” and genre fiction. 

Together they will discuss Roland Barthes and the role of pleasure in our reading practices, “professional” versus “common” readers, and, most importantly, how to best waste our time with literature.

How can you participate? Join us in person or online by registering for the Zoom Meeting or watching live on YouTube.

Have questions? Send them to info.4@concordia.ca