Culture Study Podcast [PREVIEW] SPECIAL BONUS EPISODE: Wuthering Heights Teenage Feeling Edition
Feb 23, 2026
Margaret H. Willison, literary commentator and educator known for close readings of classics, joins to riff on Wuthering Heights and Victorian literature. They spar over adaptation choices, casting and modern takes on teenage feeling. Expect playful debates about melodrama, abjection, film influences, and why certain directorial choices land or don’t.
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Host's Personal Wuthering Heights Origin Story
- Anne Helen Peterson recounts reading Wuthering Heights at age 20 and holding an enduring personal connection to the book.
- She frames her podcast authority through that experience and a master's in English, noting she never took a class on the novel.
Margaret's Academic Wuthering Heights Memory
- Margaret H. Willison shares that she studied Wuthering Heights in a Victorian literature class focused on psychoanalytic readings about 24 years ago.
- She recalls specific classroom connections, like a psychosexual reading and a Dickens anecdote about Bleak House's 'spontaneous combustion' scene.
Adaptation Emphasizes Psychosexual Interpretation
- The participants note the strong presence of psychosexual readings in contemporary adaptations of Wuthering Heights.
- Margaret and Anne link that reading to adaptation choices and broader themes like abjection and melodrama in the film.