Why subscribe?

Subscribe to get notifications for free posts, including guides to our great works. Living Literature’s “deeper dives” will be paid posts, as little as $5 per month. Never miss an update—every new post is sent directly to your email inbox. For a spam-free, ad-free reading experience, plus audio and community features, get the Substack app.

Stay up-to-date:

Link to Our Socials and More at Linktr.ee/livinglitpod

Living Literature’s Content Sections

Living Literature

In the Living Literature section, I will post about the “Living Literature” methodology for reading and teaching literature in a way that brings the past into the present. This will include my “manifesto” on why our teaching of literature has stagnated, plus my various guides to teaching Literature in the same way Living Constitutionalists interpret the Constitution.

Living Literature’s Guiding Light: Supreme Court Justice and Musical Theater Nerd Ketanji Brown Jackson, Seen on the Right in Her Broadway One-Night Only Appearance in “& Juliet.”

Great Books Sections

These sections are dedicated to specific books, including my chapter-by-chapter guides, additional commentary articles, my personal pictures and videos, and podcast feed.

Living Literature Season 1: A Christmas Carol

The Author’s Photo of Ebenezer Scrooge’s Melancholy Tavern, the George and Vulture in the Heart of the City of London.

Living Literature Season 2: A Tale of Two Cities

The Author With His Last Study Abroad Class, a Deep-Dive Course to London and Paris on A Tale of Two Cities. We had lunch in the pub where Sydney Carton confesses to Charles Darnay that he’s a pathetic drunk, and we performed the scene where it took place.

Art In Its Place

In the “Art In Its Place” section, I’ll post occasional deep dives into places that you might know from a pop song or short story, and then flesh out the story in full. Usually, these are places I’ve come across in my travels and tried to see not only in its place, but through time. My first literary trip takes us to London’s “Electric Avenue”: You know the song, but did you know that it’s originally about the Brixton Riots of the early 1980s?

“Portrait of Husband by Wife, While He Reads About the Old Thing He’s Standing in Front Of” (2014). Here, the St Pancras Old Church Graveyard, Where Young Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Went on Supervised Dates With Percy Bysshe Shelley Four Years Before They Eloped and She Wrote Frankenstein.

Unsentimental Humanities

In the “Unsentimental Humanities” section, I’ll post on the teaching of humanities and history. “Unsentimental Humanities” is an homage to Professor Kevin Dettmar’s 2014 article “Dead Poets Society Is a Terrible Defense of the Humanities,” which helped me understand how “Dead Poets Society” irreparably harmed my profession by sentimentalizing the humanities into profound unseriousness. Mr. Keating never actually read Robert Frost and owes J. Evans Pritchard, PhD an apology. Up first is my analysis of the recent article in The Atlantic, “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books.”

They Were Right To Fire Him.

To learn more about the tech platform that powers this publication, visit Substack.com.