Episode 224 with Peter Coviello, Enthusiastic and Deeply Knowledgeable Critic and Celebrator of Moving Art, and Author of the Essay Collection, Is There God After Prince

Notes and Links to Peter Coviello’s Work

 

   For Episode 224, Pete welcomes Peter Coviello, and the two discuss, among other topics, his early relationship with music and bands that led him on a circuitous route to reading and writing, favorite individual and shared writers, the ways in which fandom and passion for books and music and the like grows and cements friendships, and salient topics from the book like The Sopranos as comfort watching and bringing Peter closer to his Covid-isolated family, the tonic and “jolt” that is passionate and talented artist, Prince as of this world and totally otherworldly somehow, and the visceral pleasures that come with love of the arts and love for the people who make and enjoy these arts.

 

   Peter Coviello is a scholar of American literature and queer theory, whose work addresses the entangled histories of sex, devotion, and intimate life in imperial modernity.

   A writer of criticism, scholarship, and literary nonfiction, he is the author of six books, including Make Yourselves Gods: Mormonism and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism (Chicago), a finalist for the 2020 John Whitmer Historical Association Best Book Prize; Long Players (Penguin), a memoir selected as one of ARTFORUM’s Ten Best Books of 2018; and Tomorrow’s Parties: Sex and the Untimely in Nineteenth-Century America (NYU), a 2013 finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in LGBT Studies. 

   His book, Vineland Reread (Columbia), was listed among the New York Times’s “New and Noteworthy” titles for January of 2021. He taught for sixteen years at Bowdoin College, where he was Chair of the departments of Gay and Lesbian Studies, Africana Studies, and English, and since 2014 has been at UIC, where he is Professor and Head of English. His newest book Is There God After Prince?: Dispatches from an Age of Last Things (Chicago), was selected for The Millions’ “Most Anticipated” list for 2023.

   He advises work on 19th- and 20th-century American literatures and queer studies, as well as literary theory, religion and secularism, the history of sexuality, gender studies, poetry and poetics, modernism, and creative nonfiction.

 

Buy Is There God After Prince: Dispatches from an Age of Last Things

 

Peter's Website with University of Chicago

 

New City Lit Review of Is There God After Prince

At about 3:00, Cavatelli! Italian last names! Goodfellas references!

At about 5:00, Peter Coviello talks about his early relationship with the written word, and particularly how “worlds of music and imagination” got him into Rolling Stone and William Faulkner and other wonderful and catchy writing  

At about 9:10, Peter highlights the “jolt” and “discovery” of young people/students and coins (?) the term “quotidian miraculousness” that comes with teaching literature 

At about 10:50, Pete references the liner notes of Rage Against the Machine albums, as he and Peter discuss talking about great books and other artistic appraisals 

At about 12:20, Peter responds to Pete’s question about which writers have influenced him over the years, including more recent writers like Jessica Hopper and Helen Macdonald

At about 15:20, Peter talks about tangential connections to David Foster Wallace

At about 16:20, Peter talks about who he is reading in 2024, including Anna Burns and Sam Lipsyte

At about 19:00, Peter talks about seeds for his essay collections

At about 21:10, Pete and Peter nerd out about a favorite writer of Peter’s and a favorite professor of Pete’s

At about 24:15, Peter discusses love and sorrow and the ways in which critique is intertwined with love, especially when discussing art of all types

At about 25:55, The two discuss contrasts in love of art, and little victories in reading and fandom

At about 28:10, Pete highlights “not nothing” and “and yet” as so crucial and telling in the book

At about 29:20, Pete shouts out the book’s Introduction and he and Peter fanboy again over the Wussy song mentioned in the Intro, “Teenage Wasteland”

At about 31:10, The two talk about fandom and sharing great art, including Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged performance

At about 33:20, Peter sees grief in some well-known art and talks 

At about 34:30, Peter explains what he sees as so beneficial and magic about discussions and “fights” about art

At about 39:00, The two discuss the collection’s title essay and the freedom and camaraderie and joy that came with Prince dance parties from 1999 Maine

At about 41:00, Peter speaks to the “otherworldliness” of Prince and gives background on his greatness and iconic status and how he was also of “carnality”

At about 42:30-Prince and Chappelle Show reference!

At about 43:30, The two discuss lively writing that comes off as funny and/or electrifying, like that of Paul Beatty

At about 46:00, The discussion revolves around the book’s second essay and Pavement , especially their song “Unfair”

At about 47:30, Peter connects the above song with a telling and profound and prophetic quote from Paul Beatty’s Slumberland

At about 48:50, Peter and Pete discuss algorithms and a chapter on a fun discussion/argument over Gladys Knight's "Midnight Train to Georgia"

At about 50:00, Pete highlights Peter’s complimentary writing about current songwriters and the two discuss Steely Dan as treated in the book, and the ways in which strong feelings on either side is mostly a healthy thing

At about 52:50, Peter gives background on how much of the book deals with his relationship with his stepdaughters and the “adjacency” of love and sorrow and how much art

At about 54:45, The two reflect on a meaningful essay about Derek Jeter’s “moment in time”

At about 56:15, The two discuss the three “John’s” of an important chapter and the “terrible double discovery of adolescence”  

At about 58:00-Third Eye Blind and Justin Bieber and Chance the Rapper and other music is discussed for aesthetic qualities and connections to Peter’s relationships with his daughters

At about 1:00:05, My So-Called Life is referenced in connection with father-daughter conversations

At about 1:01:50, Chicago is highlighted and Anthony Wa Gwendolyn Brooks

At about 1:02:40, Peter reflects on how The Sopranos’ and its treatment in the book kept him close to his family in Covid lockdown

At about 1:05:10, Peter gives book information and ordering information

 

 

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    Please tune in for Episode 225 with Andrés N. Ordorica, author of the poetry collection At Least This I Know; his writing has been shortlisted for the Morley Prize for Unpublished Writers of Colour and the Saltire Society’s Poetry Book of The Year. How We Named the Stars, his first novel, was published on January 30.

   The episode will air on February 27.