Episodes
A nice, quick-and-dirty bonus episode on "The Voter," Achebe's early stab at A Man of the People! For the rest of our conversation, see the bonus episode from a few weeks ago on The Many Saints of Newark...
Published 11/12/21
Published 11/12/21
Gerry and Aaron talk about what may be their favorite Achebe novel yet, A Man of the People, originally published in 1966. Also they try to figure out whether or not America had a coup.
Published 11/05/21
We are all but faulty microphones in the podcast of an angry God! Thanks to Aaron for his absolutely heroic efforts to recover the audio from this nearly lost episode and thanks to all of you for your grace and forgiveness on the sound quality. In this one we close out the so-called African Trilogy with Arrow of God -- lots of religion talk for all you religion-heads, and a lot more to talk about besides... Next week: A Man of the People!
Published 10/22/21
We've had some audio problems with the Arrow of God episode, which Aaron is working hard on and which should be out soon very soon. In the meantime, please enjoy this emergency b-b-b-b-b-b-bonus episode of our brand-new season that is absolutely *not* a one-off joke, all about The Many Saints of Newark...
Published 10/03/21
Another week on the short stories from the 50s and 60s! This week it's "Chike's School Days," "The Sacrificial Egg," and "Akueke." If you like stories in which nothing really happens, then this is the podcast for you! Sincere apologies for the slightly tinny sound in spots -- somebody stepped on an egg, and there was a problem with Gerry's mic that only showed up on the recording...
Published 08/23/21
On this week's not-exactly-a-mini-episode, Gerry and Aaron talk about two of Achebe's early short stories, "Dead Man's Path" and "Marriage Is A Private Affair," while also looking forward and backward to Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease and forward to Arrow of God. Along the way they somehow find time to talk about Kurt Vonnegut, Octavia Butler, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Wole Soyinka, Amos Tutuola, Cyprian Ekwensi, Flora Nwapa, Raymond Williams, Tolkien, Chekhov, Nabokov, and the Bible,...
Published 08/16/21
Sixty years later, Gerry and Aaron are joined by Keguro Macharia to talk about No Longer at Ease! Should it be illegal to teach Things Fall Apart without also teaching its sequel? Find out within...
Published 08/09/21
Gerry and Aaron are back for more Things Fall Apart, talking about parts two and three of the novel. We also talk The Sopranos, Watchmen, Breaking Bad, bad fans, The Things Fall Apart film, just a little Vonnegut, and Achebe's 1973 essay "Named for Victoria, Queen of England"...
Published 07/01/21
Gerry and Aaron dive into Things Fall Apart, chapters 1-13!
Published 06/17/21
The first episode of season two! Gerry and Aaron discuss the gameplan for Grad School Achebe, the history and reception of African literature inside and outside academia, Achebe's place in the canon, his uncanny recurrent deaths on social media, the finer points of pronunciation, and more. Next week: the podcast falls apart.
Published 06/01/21
In which Gerry and Aaron reflect on what they have done, admit their wrongdoing, and commit to never doing it again.
Published 03/08/21
The last bonusisode of season one is one last quick spin through immortality, 1954's "The Big Trip Up Yonder" / "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow"... Stay tuned for the very long, very fun season one finale, coming soon!
Published 02/19/21
This is the one the podcast has always been building towards: Gerry, Aaron, and special guest Brian Thill take on Galápagos. Does it hold up? Is it secretly the best Vonnegut novel? Can Kurt wriggle out of being canceled one last time? Only our big brains know for sure...
Published 02/09/21
Gerry and Aaron return for a discussion of "EPICAC" (1950)! Join us for a meandering tour of automation, machine learning, feminism, suicide, the war machine, masculinity, STEM, and so much more...
Published 01/15/21
What's that? There, in the back, behind the Christmas tree? Why, it's a very special, two-hour episode of Grad School Vonnegut, guest-starring Matt Hauske & Hilary Strang from the the Marooned! on Mars podcast! We talk Player Piano, automation, capitalism, revolution, utopia, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ministry for the Future, failsons, Jeff Bezos, Joe Biden, the Ghost Dance, and so much more...
Published 12/29/20
This week Gerry and Aaron's guest is Cameron Kunzelman of the "Just King Things" and "Game Studies Study Buddies" podcasts! We talk Vonnegut's 1951 short story "All the King's Horses," adaptation, chess, Go, games, game theory, the Cold War, the 90s, Stephen King, The Queen's Gambit, esports, Pikmin 3, and finally taking down the Vonnegut Library! #FreetheGame #FreetheVonnegutBoardGame
Published 12/21/20
Gerry and Aaron's whirlwind tour of the late Vonnegut reaches a resounding anti-climax in 1999's God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian, based on Vonnegut's recurring WNYC segment Reports on the Afterlife! Our next novel is the very first one, Player Piano (1952)...
Published 12/12/20
Grad School Vonnegut returns for its final run of episodes with Hocus Pocus (1990)! This week our guest is the brilliant Evan Kindley, senior humanities editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books!
Published 12/05/20
Gerry and Aaron emerge from the foggy timequake of election season to discuss 1997's Timequake! They called this shot from episode zero -- does it live up to the hype? Is Timequake majority garbage by weight? Not even our beloved randomizer could survive its encounter with this book; we hope you have better luck...
Published 11/21/20
In a very special two-hour mega-episode extravaganza, Gerry and Aaron talk with ML Kejera (@KejeraL) about the new comic adaptation of Slaughterhouse-Five by Ryan North and Albert Monteys! We sneak in some nice Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Art Spiegelman, and Chris Ware talk too, and even talk a bit about the film. All this AND viewer mail!
Published 10/31/20
After a brief hiatus, Gerry and Aaron are back with a careful study of Mother Night with Matthew Cheney, Assistant Professor and Director of Interdisciplinary Studies at Plymouth State University and author of Modernist Crisis and the Pedagogy of Form and Blood: Stories! We are what we pretend to podcast, so we must be careful what we pretend to podcast...
Published 10/16/20
Gerry and Aaron tackle Vonnegut's 1971 play, Happy Birthday, Wanda June in their most dramatic episode ever! Come for the Theatre of the Absurd, stay for snippets from Aaron's dissertation on American fantasies of Africa...
Published 09/18/20
This week, on Grad School Vonnegut: After Dark, Aaron and Gerry talk Deadeye Dick with Bee Gabriel! Check out Bee's Twitter! Check out their Patreon! Sorry about the audio in just a few places; we were working with a truly messed-up record on one of the tracks and did our best...
Published 09/08/20
Gerry and Aaron discuss 1979's Jailbird! Labor, prison, massacres, communism, Reagan, Watergate, finance, Einstein, Jimmy Carter, Judas Iscariot, and Kilgore Trout, too...
Published 09/01/20