With a Side of Knowledge is a podcast produced by the Office of the Provost at the University of Notre Dame. It brings listeners informal interviews with fascinating scholars and professionals from both Notre Dame and elsewhere that take place over brunch.
The show’s season two premiere, “On Writing and Saying Something True,” was released Thursday, Oct. 18, and features Marilynne Robinson, professor emerita at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
The author of four novels and several books of nonfiction, including a collection of essays published earlier this year titled What Are We Doing Here?, Robinson won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her novel Gilead. President Barack Obama recognized “her grace and intelligence in writing” with a 2012 National Humanities Medal.
Robinson visited the Notre Dame campus earlier this fall as a keynote speaker for the 2018-19 Notre Dame Forum on the theme of “The Catholic Artistic Heritage: Bringing Forth Treasures New and Old.” For the podcast, she read from Gilead and then talked with host Ted Fox about that book, broader ideas of faith and meaning, the writing process, and, in her words, “the obligation to try to say something true.”
You can visit provost.nd.edu/podcast to learn more about the podcast, which is available through iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher or by searching “With a Side of Knowledge” in your favorite podcast app.
You can also listen to the episode with Robinson using the player below.
Originally published by at provost.nd.edu on October 18, 2018.