{"podcast":{"title":"New Books in Literary Studies","slug":"new-books-in-literary-studies-1048453","podcast_index_feed_id":1048453,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/LIT7489921391","website_url":"https://newbooksnetwork.com","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/2ca1ec9c-f032-11e8-b6fd-271dec2bac56/image/9b24a0e039edab7d8d6a4dedc3b8baca.png?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"New Books Network","episode_count":2687,"summary":"This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies","last_synced_at":null,"page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-literary-studies-1048453"},"episode":{"title":"Italo Calvino on the Written and the Unwritten Word","slug":"italo-calvino-on-the-written-and-the-unwritten-word","published_at":"2026-05-10T08:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-literary-studies-1048453/italo-calvino-on-the-written-and-the-unwritten-word","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-literary-studies-1048453","url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK1015291514.mp3?updated=1778225589","audio_url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK1015291514.mp3?updated=1778225589","summary":"In this episode of the Vault, we revisit the Italian writer Italo Calvino’s James Lecture, presented at the New York Institute for the Humanities on March 30, 1983. Italo Calvino was one of the most inventive and widely read Italian authors of the twentieth century. Born in Cuba in 1923 and raised in San Remo, Italy, he began his literary career as a journalist and fiction writer after World War II, publishing his debut novel, The Path to the Nest of Spiders, in 1947. He went on to write some of the most formally original works in postwar literature, including Our Ancestors, Cosmicomics, Invisible Cities, and If on a winter's night a traveler. His work moved fluidly between realism, fantasy, and structural experimentation, earning him a reputation as one of the foremost practitioners of what would come to be called postmodern fiction. He died in 1985, in Siena, Italy. In this lecture, later published as “The Written and the Unwritten Word” in the New York Review of Books, Calvino reflects on writing, reading and what it means to live between the written world and the material world. He is introduced by NYIH fellow Susan Sontag. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies","meta_description":"In this episode of the Vault, we revisit the Italian writer Italo Calvino’s James Lecture, presented at the New York Institute for the Humanities on March…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2808,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-in-literary-studies-1048453/episodes/italo-calvino-on-the-written-and-the-unwritten-word/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-literary-studies-1048453/italo-calvino-on-the-written-and-the-unwritten-word.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}