Wendy S. Walters
Associate professor in the Columbia University Writing Program, poet and writer whose commentary in the episode focuses on imaginative responses to the founding and early American short stories.
Best podcasts with Wendy S. Walters
Ranked by the Snipd community
Mar 20, 2026 • 59min
Imagining Independence; or, Why Does Rip Van Winkle Sleep Through the Revolution?
Brenda Wineapple, literary biographer of Hawthorne; Wendy S. Walters, Columbia writing professor and poet; Michael Gorra, nineteenth-century literature scholar. They explore Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle, William Austin’s Peter Rugg, and Hawthorne’s Major Molineux. Short stories are read as imaginative responses to the Revolution. The panel probes myth, haunting pasts, civic awakening, and rites of belonging.
