The second episode derived from the ⁠Modes of Reading Today Symposium⁠, hosted by the ⁠Townsend Center For The Humanities⁠ assesses what it means that "close reading is having a moment" through papers titled "What is Close Reading?" [8:00], "Finding The Right Place For Close Reading" [30:00], "The Affected Fallacy" [56:00], "On Generalizing" [77:30], and "Close Reading as Field-Making" [100:00]

Cast (in order of appearance): Yael Segalovitz, Matt Seybold, Jonathan Kramnick, Toril Moi, Joshua Gang, Dora Zhang, Farah Bakaari

Dates Recorded: February 19-20, 2026

Music: Danny Weiss Quartet, Moby