If the arts have changed with the times, why hasn't literature kept up? According to David Shields, music, theater, and the visual arts have all kept pace with technology and our changing society. But literature sits in the nineteenth century, content to rewrite Dickens and Chekhov, or so Shields contends, bringing in motifs from film, politics, and the world of the internet.

Sex, censorship, paranoia and persecution, aestheticism as a movement and practice, and the first stirrings of what might be called the modern gay identity: the story of Oscar Wilde has it all. Nicholas Frankel discusses the Irish writer's expansive ideas, formidable impact, and dramatic downfall.

Deeply engaged with issues of race, culture and identity, the award-winning writer Charles Johnson is a philosopher by training. His collection of short stories touches upon more than a few questions about life's meaning, social justice, and navigating difference. (Encore presentation.)