Conversations With History - Annabel Patterson

The Power of Words and the Power over Words

Annabel Patterson
Sterling Professor Emeritus of English, Yale University

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Annabel Patterson, Professor Emeritus of English, Yale University, for a discussion of her career as a literary scholar. The discussion focuses on the challenges of understanding literature in its historical and social context. Her work on censorship, Shakespeare, and her current research on the use of words in the American political dialogue are some of the topics addressed in the
conversation.

http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/conversations/

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• uc
• berkeley
• cal
• history
• literature
• politics
• yt:quality=high

[priertoujours]

I admire her advice for graduate students - to choose a topic you have not covered extensively in the past - as in english literature maintaining one's intrinsic passion is paramount to creating original and hopefully insightful work.

[lizbrandow]

Brilliant! I'm awed by her encyclopaedic knowledge and permanent curiosity - I've just read her book on the Holinshed Chronicles and there she absolutely demonstrates what she says in the Conversation - Keep asking questions! Seriously impressive.

[vergeharget]

I liked this interview-wide ranging, and lively and engaging. I didn't agree with the asserted equivalences between Middle Eastern and American censorship, theocracy and the forced wearing of veils and American state intrusion into polygamous relationships out of concern for the children. Great stuff though on the power of abstract words and their *biographies*.

Itzik Basman