Barely Gettin Fiction

Emma and Chloe have now spent a bit of time talking about British politics, and they’ve already spent some time delving into the rise of the right--or possibly even neo-fascism--in the US. In popular analysis, it’s basically impossible to avoid references to fiction in discussions about politics on both sides of the Atlantic. How many times have you heard the word “Orwellian” when you read about the state of politics today? But who exactly was Orwell and what did he actually write about? Chloe and Emma discuss how and why Orwell is everywhere and whether it’s useful to use his work to draw parallels to today. Are we living in 1984, or is it Gilead? Does fiction have anything to tell us about the state of the world?
Show notes
The tweets
30 June, Ann Coulter tweets an article about the Virgin Atlantic “Pride Flight” with her thoughts: “I get annoyed when the pilot talks. This is Room 101 in Orwell's "1984."https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status/1145462857057705984
@ericrnolan1: Re: the footage of Trump meeting Kim Jong Un:"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which." -- George Orwell, "Animal Farm"https://twitter.com/ericrnolan1/status/1145445914221404160
Bernie’s campaign manager, tweeting about ICE raids: “family op. How Orwellian.”https://twitter.com/fshakir/status/1142131845309620229
Daily Beast: “2020 Candidate Marianne Williamson: Vaccine Mandates Are ‘Orwellian’”https://www.thedailybeast.com/2020-candidate-marianne-williamson-vaccine-mandates-are-orwellian
Books and articles
George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, Project Gutenberg.http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0201111.txt
Karl Cohen, “The Cartoon that Came in From the Cold”, The Guardian, 7 March 2003.https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2003/mar/07/artsfeatures.georgeorwell
“1984 (the BOOK not the year)”, Benjamen Walker’s Theory of Everything, August 2019.https://theoryofeverythingpodcast.com/2019/08/1984-the-book-not-the-year/
Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for the Future at the New Frontier of Power, Allen & Unwin, 2018.
Zoe Williams, “Handmaid’s Tale comes to life in Alabama”, The Guardian, 2 July 2019.https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/02/handmaids-tale-alabama-women-marshae-jones-manslaughter-unborn-child
Dara Mathis, “The Handmaid’s Tale’s Worsening Race Problem”, The Week, 18 June 2018.https://theweek.com/articles/773904/handmaids-tales-worsening-race-problem
Angela Jade Bastién, “In Its First Season, The Handmaid’s Tale’s Greatest Failing Is How It Handles Race”, Vulture, 18 June 2018.https://www.vulture.com/2017/06/the-handmaids-tale-greatest-failing-is-how-it-handles-race.html
Michelle Debczak, “Study: Kids Who Read Harry Potter Grow Up to Be Better People”, Mindfloss, 30 December 2017.https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/521382/study-kids-who-read-harry-potter-grow-be-better-people
Alyssa Rosenberg, “Grappling with ‘Harry Potter’ on the series’ 20th anniversary”, The Washington Post, 28 June 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2017/06/27/grappling-with-harry-potter-on-the-series-20th-anniversary/