It’s Lit!

Épisode 1 - When the Book is Better than the Movie

4 juin 2018

It's an age-old debate: The Book vs. The Movie Since the dawn of cinema, film has been sort of the little brother of the more heady, intellectual medium of novels. And many film adaptations of literature leave viewers and critics saying… “The book was better.” But why do adaptations of beloved stories tend not to live up to the source material?

Épisode 2 - The Evolution of YA: Young Adult Fiction, Explained

25 juin 2018

Where did YA come from, and how did it get so big? “Young Adult” fiction is a term whose meaning has varied wildly over the years. It can apply to coming of age tragedies or Serialized adventures of babysitters, or insert really dated twilight joke here. But where did this “young adult” genre come from? And why did it get so big?

Épisode 3 - The Evolution of Science Fiction

16 juillet 2018

Stories, tales, and myths from all around the world posing speculative questions around technologies have existed long before Ray Bradbury and Frank Herbert, from the time-traveling Japanese fairy tale "Urashima Tarō” to some of the speculative elements of 1001 Arabian Nights. But there are a few eras that begin to shape what we’ve come to know as science fiction today.

Épisode 4 - An Ode to the Romance Novel

30 juillet 2018

The romance novel has been the subject of intrigue, derision, and shame in literary discourse long before the modern genre as we know it today existed. Romance novels are relegated to your Aunt Muriel’s bathroom, thrift store book sections, and that one aisle in Barnes and Noble that you pretend to walk through because you got “lost” looking for cookbooks. But it deserves a closer look than that - it is after all the highest grossing of all literary genres, out-selling its next nearest competitor twice over.

Épisode 5 - How Fantasy Reflects our World

13 août 2018

Fantasy is a lens to explore what we as a society find important to our pasts, our presents, and future. Fantasy and science fiction often fall under the umbrella of “speculative fiction” - as a result they are often grouped together, especially in bookstores. But science fiction is a forward-looking genre propelled by the possibilities of technology (and the things that worry us about it), fantasy is … more backward looking.

Épisode 6 - Why Did They Make Me Read This in High School?

4 septembre 2018

Literary critics, writers, philosophers, bloggers--all have tried to tackle where and why and how an author may strike such lightning in a bottle that their works enter the pantheon of “Classical Literature”. Why this book is required reading in high school, why other books are lost to history.

Épisode 7 - Can You Judge a Book by Its Cover?

21 novembre 2018

Despite the adage of not judging a book by its cover, there’s a lot of time, intent, and money spent creating memorable book covers. Get to know the story behind some of literature’s most iconic book covers.

Épisode 8 - Fear of GhostWriting

7 décembre 2018

You might being asking yourself-- Why do ghostwriters even exist? Isn’t that cheating? Isn’t literature supposed to be the result of one person’s agonizing need to create? Aren’t books supposed to be the blood, sweat, and tears of the tortured auteur? Well, the answer is more complicated than you think!

Épisode 9 - Who Can You Trust? Unreliable Narrators

17 décembre 2018

Who is the most powerful character in fiction? Villains may doom the world, heroes may save it, but no one has more control over the plot than the narrator - expositing the who, what, where, when and how directly into the reader’s mind. But how can you tell that the person telling you the story is telling you the whole story?

Épisode 10 - Food & Fiction: Memorable Meals in Literature

11 janvier 2019

Food varies wildly from place to place and from culture to culture; since humans are such sensory creatures, using words to evoke the experience of eating is an excellent way to bring a text to life.

Épisode 11 - Death, Personified

24 janvier 2019

Death as a character reveals how we process one of life’s greatest mysteries, and there’s a lot more breadth to how the grim reaper is depicted than you might think.

Épisode 12 - How Greek Mythology Inspires Us

7 février 2019

Ancient Greek Mythology has worked its way into modern pop culture so deeply that it would be an almost Sisyphean task to compile every way it’s manifested!

Épisode 13 - The Beauty and Anguish of Les Misérables!

18 avril 2019

Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables is one of history’s most famous novels and one of the longest-running musicals in Broadway history. On this special episode of It’s Lit! we explore how Les Miserable became both a national and revolutionary anthem, and so publicly adored that all 1,900 pages never went out of print.

Épisode 1 - The Case for Fan Fiction

27 février 2020

For years writers of fan fiction were shamed, the butt of jokes, and even subject to copyright litigation. However, in the past few years, with the fan fiction writers of today becoming the published mainstream authors of today the past time is a celebrated benchmark of one’s climb to publication.

Épisode 2 - Afrofuturism From Books to Blockbusters

19 mars 2020

With the success of Black Panther, the term Afro-Futurism got pushed into the mainstream. But what is Afro-Futurism and what is its place in Black storytelling? In this episode we give you the starter pack on answering that question.

Épisode 3 - How Fictional Pandemics Reflect the Real Thing

29 avril 2020

Although we are currently living through a pandemic that has disrupted our lives and will shape the course of humanity, pandemics have been around since the dawn of civilization, as have stories about fictional pandemics. So now seems like as good a time as any to explore how fictional pandemics have evolved over time, and what they say about their own time.

Épisode 4 - Why We Still Love Little Women, 150 Years Later

27 mai 2020

Before women were asking “Am I a Carrie or a Samantha?”, they were asking “Am I a Jo or an Amy?” Before there was Edward vs Jacob, there was Laurie vs Professor Bhaer. And over the more than 150 years since Little Women was originally published, there have been (deep breath) dozens of adaptations, feature films, television adaptations, plays, ballets, operas and at least two animes based on it. So despite being written off as proto-chick lit or kiddie lit or as Alcott herself said, "moral pap for the young,” Little Women has worked its way into the consciousness of readers for the last 150 years, and has stayed there. But what is it about the tale of the March sisters that keeps us coming back? Hosted by Lindsay Ellis and Princess Weekes, It’s Lit! is a show about our favorite books, genres and why we love to read. It’s Lit has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor.

Épisode 5 - The Byronic Hero: Isn’t it Byronic?

24 juin 2020

Edward Cullen. Han Solo. Killmoklknger. Lestat. What do all these characters have in common besides being heartthrobs? They share a common ancestor: the Byronic Hero. Brooding, sensual, violent, intelligent, and single-minded, the Byronic hero has been a staple in literature dating back to the 19th century, but the archetype is all over film, TV and even video games. I see you Cloud Strife, all sad and angsty with your giant sword.

Épisode 6 - The Constructed Languages of JRR Tolkien

16 juillet 2020

Tolkien is widely regarded as the most influential author on the fantasy genre… period. But one of the less-discussed aspects of his work is the way Tolkien used constructed language in his writing. Nowadays authors are constantly making up words and languages for the worlds they build, but Tolkien was unique in that he constructed languages first, and then created worlds so his fictional languages would have somewhere to live.

Épisode 7 - War and Peace and Everything Else

7 août 2020

According to Tolstoy himself, War and Peace was "not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less a historical chronicle." And in this day and age of publishing, where word count, “readability”, and topical relevance are the lifeline of getting a novel to print, we look at books like War & Peace as something of a relic.

Épisode 8 - The It’s Lit! Musical Episode

27 août 2020

Some say that theater is dead, and that’s probably because most playhouses the world over are closed at the moment owing to a worldwide pandemic. and yet the musical lives on… on Disney plus -- as the nation has been rapt with a filmed version of the Broadway smash hit, Hamilton. This had us come to the realization that a lot of the bread and butter of musical theater is built off of books! And so, like every television program that starts looking for new ideas, it has finally come to this: The It’s Lit! Musical episode

Épisode 9 - The Fiery History of Banned Books

21 septembre 2020

Since at least 213 BCE, book burnings have been a reaction to the power of the written word. When roasting paper in a giant circle went out of style (at least in the intellectual sphere), the governments would take it upon itself to ban books. However, when we talk about book bannings today, we are usually discussing a specific choice made by individual schools, school districts, and libraries made in response to the moralistic outrage of some group. This, while still hotly-contested and controversial, is still nothing in comparison to the ways books have been removed, censored, and outright destroyed in the past. So on that happy note, let’s … explore how the seemingly innocuous book has survived centuries of the ban hammer.

Épisode 10 - The (Stephen) King of Horror

5 novembre 2020

Few writers have had the sheer staying power, popularity, and prolific output as Stephen King. From insatiably flesh-hungry clowns and sentient cars to telekinetic teenagers and mystical gunslingers, if there’s one author who has taken up valuable real estate in that part of our imaginations, it’s Stephen King. But it’s not just his monsters that have lasting power—it’s also the very human and very psychological elements in his work that linger.

Épisode 11 - Are Graphic Novels... Novels?

25 novembre 2020

In the past few decades, literature has expanded to not only mean the “novel” but “graphic novels” as well. Today we are gonna break down how the graphic novel went from the comic book store to the classroom.

Épisode 12 - Dune, The Most Important Sci Fi Series Ever?

17 décembre 2020

The planet is Arrakis. Also known as Dune. And y’all, it’s a mess. December of this year, we were supposed to see the arrival of director Denis Villeneuve’s interpretation of the 1965 novel Dune, which had been previously (and rather infamously) brought to life by David Lynch in 1984, and again in a three-part miniseries on the SyFy channel in the early 2000s. Now many sci-fi nerds were both excited and nervous about the new adaptation directed by Villeneuve, but owing to the ongoing plague of eternity, the release has been pushed back to next year. So in lieu of that, y’all have to use this video to tide you over. What is Dune? Why must the spice flow? And what is with all the sand?

Épisode 13 - Anne Rice, The Queen of Literary Monsters

6 janvier 2021

Forbes once called her “The Warren Buffett of vampires,” but American author, Anne Rice has established herself as the literary queen of monsters of ALL kinds over her four-and-a-half decade career. Besides her 15 novels of the world-famous Vampire Chronicles series, she’s also written 21 other books featuring all your favorite dark, supernatural, and undead beings: witches, ghosts, mummies, werewolves, aliens, demons, angels, Jesus. But the works of Anne Rice aren't just light, pulpy fun monster books--her vampires changed the landscape of genre fiction as we know it?

Épisode 14 - Literary Icons You NEED to Know From the Harlem Renaissance

26 février 2021

One of the most influential periods in Black American History post-slavery is the Harlem Renaissance, an intellectual, social, and artistic explosion centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City. Novels like Passing by Nella Larsen, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, and the poetry of Langston Hughes were all written during this period and have become important pieces of the American literary canon. Still, when discussing this topic we tend to flatten the dynamic personalities and identities of the Black folk responsible for making this period so iconic in the literary sense. Not only in America, but as part of the entire Black diaspora.

Épisode 15 - How Do You Write a Bestseller?

18 mars 2021

Épisode 16 - Unraveling the Myth of Ernest Hemingway

31 mars 2021 - 5/5

Here’s the problem with tackling Ernest Hemingway—Ernest Hemingway himself. While the iconic author is mostly known for his feats of literary prowess, from The Sun Also Rises to For Whom the Bell Tolls, to countless short stories—perhaps his greatest fiction of all is his own self-mythologizing. As his brand grew in the 1920s and 30s, so too grew his celebrity and, well, his ego. So, with Ernie all the while throwing so much self-mythologizing in the mix that it became nearly impossible to separate the Man from the Myth.

Épisode 17 - What's in a (Pen) Name?

21 avril 2021 - 5/5

Épisode 18 - How Manga Took Over American Bookshelves

12 mai 2021 - 5/5

Épisode 19 - Jane Eyre: Why We Keep Reading It

17 juin 2021 - 5/5

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte was there for the weird girls, the quiet ones who watched and listened, the ones who pined away for someone to accept them in all of their weird, dark glory. But in the nearly 175 years since its publication, the collective definition of what it means to be “a woman on the outside of society” has changed and expanded dramatically—and yet here we are, still dissecting Charlotte Bronte’s words and gravitating towards Jane as a protagonist. For those of you who have never read Jane Eyre or enjoyed one of the 8000 films, television, stage, or radio adaptations not to mention countless literary retelling here we go.

Épisode 20 - Octavia Butler, The Grand Dame of Science Fiction

29 juin 2021 - 5/5

If you are a fan of science fiction a name you should be familiar with is Octavia E. Butler (cough especially if you watched our telly award-winning Afro-Futurism video cough) One of the most prolific and important Black authors in the genre, Butler’s storytelling pushed the boundaries of what Black people were allowed to be in science fiction.

Épisode 21 - The Unappreciated Female Writers Who Invented the Novel

14 juillet 2021 - 5/5

The guy typically credited with inventing what we know as the modern novel was Miguel de Cervantes with his cumbersome 800+ page book, Don Quixote. But what if I told you that the real antecedent for the modern novel was created by… ladies. Before the rise of what would become the modern novel, there was Amatory fiction. Amatory fiction was a genre of fiction that became popular in Britain in the late 17th century and early 18th century. As its name implies, amatory fiction is preoccupied with sexual love and romance. Most of its works were short stories, it was dominated by women, and women were the ones responsible for sharing and promoting their own work.

Épisode 22 - Don’t Know Much About BEOWULF? Nobody Does!

6 août 2021 - 5/5

Épisode 23 - To Kill, To Kill a Mockingbird?

25 août 2021 - 5/5

One of the trademark texts of the American school system is Harper Lee’s 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird. For decades it has been widely read in high schools and middle schools as a key anti-racist text. But how did this novel, with its Southern Gothic and Bildungsroman elements become a book that in 2006 the British said “every adult should read before they die” ahead of the Bible.

Épisode 24 - Why Do People Think Huck Finn Is Racist?

23 septembre 2021 - 5/5

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by American author Mark Twain is both considered one of the great American novels and one of the most frequently banned and contested novels due to its use of the N-word and racial stereotypes. This has launched many debates as to if the work should even be taught in schools.

Épisode 25 - What You Don’t Know About The Father of Sci-Fi

26 octobre 2021 - 5/5

H.G. Wells is a name that is synonymous with the creation of what we now know as science fiction. He effectively invented the subgenre of alien invasion, he coined now-ubiquitous terms “time machine,” “heat ray” and even disputably “the new world order.” But what most people don’t know about Wells is that although today he is predominantly known for his science fiction, his career as an SF author was pretty short. Wells wrote dozens of novels, most of which weren’t science fiction. But despite the relatively few science fiction works he wrote in comparison to his vast oeuvre, Wells was an influential thinker - not just for the genre of science fiction, but for science’s relationship to the culture at large.

Épisode 26 - Why We Keep Retelling the Classics

17 novembre 2021 - 5/5

From James Joyce’s Ulysses to Bridget Jones’s Diary, you’ve probably read a book that was just a modern retelling of a well-established story. Which is to say nothing of other forms of media and their own obsessions with retellings. And despite what your Writing 101 instincts might tell you, this is neither bad nor lazy writing—or even a new concept. Because let’s be honest: sometimes a story is just so dang good, it bears repeating. Sometimes more than once. Sometimes multiple times. I’m looking at you, Jane Austen

Épisode 1 - The Women of Jane Austen

6 janvier 2022 - 5/5

Épisode 2 - Inside the Absurdist Mind of Kurt Vonnegut

27 janvier 2022 - 5/5

Épisode 3 - Why Edgar Allan Poe Isn't Just a Sad Boy

10 mars 2022 - 5/5

We remember Edgar Allan Poe for his tales of horror and the macabre as well as inventing the entire Detective Fiction Genre. But unlike many of the great authors of Western classic literature, he has become an icon unto himself, recognized to this day by name and face almost more than the titles of his stories and poems. But his legacy is more complicated than school books may have lead us to believe. Hosted by Lindsay Ellis and Princess Weekes, It’s Lit! is a show about our favorite books, genres, and why we love to read. It’s Lit is made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor.

Épisode 4 - Why Magical Realism is a Global Phenomenon

31 mars 2022 - 5/5

Blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, magical realism in literature and other media combines fantasy elements with concrete realities to make statements about the world we live in. In this episode, we explore its roots, lay out the tenets of the genre, and discuss how it has flourished in Latin American Literature.

Épisode 5 - Toni Morrison’s Opus About Confronting a Terrible Past

28 avril 2022 - 5/5

Beloved is the magnum opus of the late, great Toni Morrison. It has become a key piece of literature taught in schools and is considered one of the great pieces of American literature. To understand Beloved, we must first look at the woman behind the pages: Nobel Prize Winner Toni Morrison.