with Adam Smyth. Lists, archival secrets, and redemptive urges.

First broadcast 11 February 2021

Adam Smyth is Professor of English Literature and the History of the Book at Balliol College, Oxford University. He published a fascinating article listing projects that he describes as “abandoned or failed” – making him the perfect guest! You can read his work at adamsmyth.substack.com. We talk (among other things) about why the list might be the ultimate form for unfinished work, about not finding what you’re looking for in archives, and about why we’re so desperate to claim that projects aren’t ever really abandoned. Adam works mainly on early modern writing and its material forms. He is also the co-editor, with Gill Partington and Simon Morris, of a journal about material texts, called Inscription, which you can find here: https://inscriptionjournal.com/how-to-buy/.