#149: Merve Emre, author, academic and literary critic

<p>Rachel and Simon speak to author, academic and literary critic <a href="https://www.merveemre.com/" target="_blank">Merve Emre</a>. After a stint as a management consultant, she completed a PhD and taught English literature at McGill University in Canada, before taking up a role as an associate professor at Oxford. (This year she is a distinguished writer-in-residence at Wesleyan in the US.) Alongside her academic work, Merve has written books including "<a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo26267945.html" target="_blank">Paraliterary</a>: The Making of Bad Readers in Postwar America", "<a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-ferrante-letters/9780231194570" target="_blank">The Ferrante Letters</a>" and "<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/546958/the-personality-brokers-by-merve-emre/" target="_blank">The Personality Brokers</a>" (published in Britain as "<a href="https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/whats-your-type-the-story-of-the-myers-briggs-and-how-personality-testing-took-over-the-world-merve-emre" target="_blank">What's Your Type?</a>"), about the Myers-Briggs personality test. She is also a contributing writer at the <em>New Yorker </em>and her <a href="https://www.merveemre.com/essays-1" target="_blank">essays</a> have been published in the <em>New York Review of Books, </em>the <em>New York Times Magazine, </em>the <em>Atlantic </em>and the<em> London Review of Books. </em>We spoke to Merve about the differences between academia in America and Britain, her books and her criticism.</p> <p>You can find us online at <a href="http://alwaystakenotes.com/" target="_blank">alwaystakenotes.com</a>, on Twitter @takenotesalways and on Instagram @alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is <a href="http://patreon.com/alwaystakenotes" target="_blank">patreon.com/alwaystakenotes</a>. Always Take Notes is presented by Simon Akam and Rachel Lloyd, and produced by Artemis Irvine. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.</p>