Reading McCarthy
READING MCCARTHY is a podcast devoted to the consideration and discussion of the works of one of our greatest American writers, Cormac McCarthy. Each episode will call upon different well-known Cormackian readers and scholars to help us explore different works and various essential aspects of McCarthy’s writing. (Note these episodes try to offer accessible literary criticism and may contain spoilers from different McCarthy works.)
Reading McCarthy
Episode 52: McCarthy and Hemingway
Episode 52 is a round table considering the impact of Ernest Hemingway’s writing on the works of Cormac McCarthy. Joining us for this discussion are Dr. Olivia Carr Edenfield, Professor of English at Georgia Southern University. She is a founding member of the Society for the Study of the American Short Story and Director of the American Literature Association. She has recently published a defense of the mother in The Road in the CMJ.
Dr. Brent Cline is an associate professor of English at Hillsdale College. He has published articles and chapters involving disability on Walker Percy, James Agee, and Daniel Keyes. His review of The Passenger/Stella Maris was published with The University Bookman. His article on The Mexican Revolution and All the Pretty Horses was just published in the CMJ.
Dr. Bryan Giemza is an Associate Professor of Humanities and Literature in the Honors College at Texas Tech University. He is author or editor of numerous books on American literary and cultural history, ten book chapters, and more than thirty published articles and reviews. His books include Irish Catholic Writers and the Invention of the American South, and more recently Science and Literature in Cormac McCarthy’s Expanding Worlds (2023), and the forthcoming Across the Canyons: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Divisive Communications in West Texas and Beyond, Texas Tech UP.
Dr. Allen Josephs joined us for a discussion of All the Pretty Horses. A past president of the Ernest Hemingway Foundation and Society and the South Atlantic Modern Language Association in 2008, where he was awarded the continuing honorary membership. He is the author of some 15 books, including On Hemingway and Spain: Essays and Reviews 1979 – 2013; White Wall of Spain: The Mysteries of Andalusian Culture; and For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ernest Hemingway’s Undiscovered Country. He is the author of four critical editions of the poetry of Federico García Lorca and a book of translations of Lorca’s poetry and prose, Only Mystery: Federico García Lorca’s Poetry in Word and Image. . His book On Cormac McCarthy: Essays on Mexico, Crime, Hemingway and God, was published in 2016. Dr. Josephs is professor emeritus from the University of West Florida where has taught for more than five decades and now resides in Spain.
As always, readers are warned: there be spoilers here.
Thanks to Thomas Frye, who composed, performed, and produced the music for READING MCCARTHY. The views of the host and his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions or the Cormac McCarthy Society, although in our hearts we hope they’ll someday see the light. If you enjoy this podcast you may also enjoy the GREAT AMERICAN PODCAST, hosted by myself and Kirk Curnutt.
To contact me, please reach out to readingmccarthy(@)gmail.com. Despite the evening redness in the west Reading McCarthy is nominally still on Twitter/X. The website is at readingmccarthy.buzzsprout.com.
Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor...
