The Project Narrative podcast is built on the idea that storytelling is one of humanity’s greatest inventions, a way in which we both seek to understand the world and to change it. The podcast features scholars of narrative in conversation about short narratives that engage in that work of knowing and intervening. In each episode, a scholar reads a narrative aloud and then discusses it with the host of the podcast, Jim Phelan, the director of Project Narrative. The conversations range across a wide array of topics: the guest’s reasons for selecting it; the sources of its appeal, including the pleasures it offers and the challenges it presents; the claims it makes about understanding some part of the world and about doing something as a result.
Project Narrative
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Podcast Overview
The Project Narrative podcast is built on the idea that storytelling is one of humanity’s greatest inventions, a way in which we both seek to understand the world and to change it. The podcast features scholars of narrative in conversation about short narratives that engage in that work of knowing and intervening. In each episode, a scholar reads a narrative aloud and then discusses it with the host of the podcast, Jim Phelan, the director of Project Narrative. The conversations range across a wide array of topics: the guest’s reasons for selecting it; the sources of its appeal, including the pleasures it offers and the challenges it presents; the claims it makes about understanding some part of the world and about doing something as a result.
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Publishing Since
11/5/2021
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Recent Episodes
July 15, 2026
Episode 57: Jim Phelan & Gerald Prince — Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace” (“La Parure”)
<p>In this episode of the Project Narrative Podcast, Jim Phelan and Gerald Prince discuss Guy de Maupassant’s 1884 story, “La Parure,” or “The Necklace” in English. Prince reads the 1924 translation by Ernest Boyd. Gerald Prince is professor of French and Francophone studies in the Department of Francophone, Italian, and Germanic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Prince is one of the preeminent scholars of his generation in the fields of narratology and of 20th and 21st century French literature. Prince’s books include Métaphysique et technique dans l’oeuvre romanesque de Sartre, A Grammar of Stories, Narratology: The Form and Functioning of Narrative, A Dictionary of Narratology, Narrative as Theme, Guide du Roman de Langue Française (1901-1950), and Guide du Roman de Langue Française (1951-2000). In 2013, Prince received the Wayne C. Booth Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for the Study of Narrative.</p>
June 19, 2026
Episode 56: Jim Phelan & Fritz Breithaupt — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s “The Two Strange Children”
<p>In this episode of the Project Narrative Podcast, Jim Phelan and Fritz Breithaupt discuss a segment from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s novel, Elective Affinities. That segment is entitled “The Two Strange Children,” and it was translated by George Barry in 1885. Elective Affinities was Goethe’s third novel, published in 1809. Fritz Breithaupt is Professor of German in the Department of Francophone, Italian and Germanic studies, and also Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Among his other duties at Penn, Breithaupt directs the Experimental Humanities Laboratory. In the course of his career, Breithaupt has produced a substantial and highly influential body of work in both German and English across the fields of Germanic studies, empathy studies, and narrative studies. Three of his books include: Jenseits der Bilder: Goethes Politik der Wahrnehmung (in English, Beyond Images: Goethe’s Politics of Perception), The Dark Sides of Empathy, and The Narrative Brain. Breithaupt’s most recent book is on the first-time experience and transformative experience, which has been published in German but not yet in English.</p>
May 15, 2026
Episode 55: Jim Phelan & Jonathan Culler — Edith Wharton’s “Roman Fever”
<p>In this episode of the Project Narrative Podcast, Jim Phelan and Jonathan Culler discuss Edith Wharton’s “Roman Fever,” which was first published in Liberty Magazine in 1934, and then included in her 1936 collection, The World Over. Jonathan Culler is the class of 1916 Professor Emeritus at Cornell University. Culler has been one of the most distinguished and productive literary and critical theorists of his generation. Among his 11 single-authored books are: the 1975 volume, Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics, and the Study of Literature, which won the MLA’s James Russell Lowell Prize for the best book by an MLA member in that year; the 1982 volume, On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism After Structuralism, which lucidly explicated the then still emerging movement called deconstruction; and the 1997 book, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction, which has been translated into more than 25 languages. Throughout his career, Culler has conducted extended engagements with narrative, narrative theory, and lyric theory, and in 2015, he published Theory of the Lyric. Among Culler’s many recognitions are his elections to several distinguished scholarly groups, including: the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2001; the American Philosophical Society, 2006; and the British Academy, 2020. The International Society for the Study of Narrative has selected Culler as the winner of the Wayne C. Booth Lifetime Achievement Award for 2026.</p>
57 total episodes available
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Jim Phelan
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- What is Project Narrative?
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This podcast updates bi-weekly.
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This podcast is available on 9 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
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Yes, this podcast regularly features guests.
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