The idea of “defamiliarization” says that we sometimes become so used to our world that we grow numb to it. It takes powerful art to remind us of how strange an experience the opera can be, or how cruel it is that our society forces people to live without shelter on the freeway on-ramps. In this episode we interview the novelist and professor Alistair McCartney about his recent seminar on the Russian theorist Viktor Shklovski and his theory of “defamiliarization.” We talk about what exactly this term means, how it plays out in the works of Leo Tolstoy and Toni Morrison, and how this practice can be used both in and outside of literature to create a more empathetic world.
