About this podcast
Welcome to Season Four of The Critic and Her Publics: The Art of the Interview.
This season, host Merve Emre talks with professional interviewers of all kinds about how they get the answer they're looking for, what makes a good question, how do you listen for what's unsaid, and how hard do you have to push someone before they say something new?
Hosted by Merve Emre • Edited by Michele Moses • Music by Dani Lencioni • Art by Leanne Shapton
This season of The Critic and Her Publics is a co-production between the New York Review of Books and Lit Hub.
Episodes
The newest 20 of 39 episodes
- Anna Silman · 43 min · Season 4 Episode 8We try to end each season of The Critic and Her Publics with a little twist on our theme, something different and often risky or uncomfortable. A few years ago, our final guest…
- Isaac Chotiner · 40 min · Season 4 Episode 7"I don't understand why people talk to Isaac Chotiner when his reputation precedes him. He's the best interview-assassin at work today, maybe the best ever. I suspect that each…
- Agnes Callard · 46 min · Season 4 Episode 6"The philosopher Agnes Callard is one of the most genuinely curious thinkers I have ever met. Whether she’s writing about unrequited love, parenting, politics in the classroom…
- Rachel Syme · 48 min · Season 4 Episode 5"Rachel Syme has interviewed all the grand dames of New York and Los Angeles: she's had Cosmos with Carol Burnett, she's accompanied Sarah Jessica Parker to the ballet, she's…
- Orna Guralnik · 45 min · Season 4 Episode 4"Couples therapy. The words alone are enough to send many people running for the hills, but Orna Guralnik—star of Showtime's documentary series Couples Therapy—has people running…
- Sarah Stillman · 45 min · Season 4 Episode 3"Sarah Stillman is a staff writer at The New Yorker and one of the most decorated investigative reporters of her generation. She's won several National Magazine Awards, the…
- Sheila Heti · 37 min · Season 4 Episode 2"In the fall of 2022, I saw the novelist Shelia Heti give a presentation on her conversations with early AI chatbots. Their names were Eliza, Alice, and George, and they had…
- Chana Joffe-Walt · 40 min · Season 4 Episode 1The new season of The Critic and Her Publics—The Art of the Interview—begins!"Chana Joffe-Walt is a Peabody Award-winning journalist and a producer at This American Life. Her…
- Money · 46 minIn this final episode of Hawthornden's Como Conversazione series for 2025, we’ll confront a subject that the literary world likes to keep subtextual: money. The translators and…
- Judgement · 57 minHow do we decide which translations are better than others? In this episode of Hawthornden's Como Conversazione, Jacques Testard of Fitzcarraldo Editions and Adam Levy of Transit…
- Practical Translation: 1,001 Nights · 39 minIn this episode of Hawthornden's Como Conversazione, another session of practical translation: the reading and comparing of many renditions of one passage, to see how translators…
- English · 39 minIn this episode of Hawthornden's Como Conversazione, we discuss the problem of English. What happens when you bring a nation’s literature into its colonizer’s language? Is it…
- Shame · 49 minIn this episode of Hawthornden’s Como Conversazione, the translators discuss the fraught emotional condition of their work: the sense that not only is their work shameful and…
- First Sentences · 33 minIn this second episode of Hawthornden’s Como Conversazione, we explore beginnings. Anyone who has been around kids knows that a good Lego build starts with a good base. In a…
- Practical Translation: Proust · 36 minIn the first episode of Hawthornden’s Como Conversazione, we start with an exercise in practical translation: a discussion of seven different English interpretations of one…
- Leo Carey: "What's Not There" · 43 minLeo Carey is a senior editor at The New Yorker. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
- Yahdon Israel: "Faustian Bargains" · 42 minYahdon Israel is a senior editor at Simon Schuster and founder of Literaryswag, a cultural movement that intersects literature and fashion to make books accessible. He brings an…
- Ben Calhoun: "Close Listening" · 37 minBen Calhoun is the executive producer of "The Daily" (The New York Times). Previously, he was an editor and producer for This American Life and Serial , and VP of programming at…
- Sasha Weiss: "Mischief in the Pages" · 40 minSasha Weiss is a writer and the deputy culture editor at The New York Times Magazine. Previously she was the literary editor at The New Yorker and an editor at The New York…
- Radhika Jones: "Past the Illusion" · 42 minRadhika Jones is the fifth editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair. She previously held senior editorial roles at The New York Times, Time, and The Paris Review. She also was the managing…
