This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library.

The University of Chicago’s Humanities Department is poised to become one of the largest and most visible casualties of President Trump’s recent defunding of the NEA, with its language departments particularly imperiled. The departments for comparative literature, Germanic studies, Slavic languages and literatures, and South American languages and civilizations are currently slated for “reorganization,” with questions arising as to whether there’s “no longer [a] need to teach” certain languages, and if “partnerships with corporations or other organizations” could support language instruction at UChicago.

Given the massive impact to humanities education, particularly in the field of literature, already being seen since Trump’s Q2 NEA defunding announcement, The Meow Library would like to propose a solution: convert all existing world literature to the standard “meow” format, in which every word is replaced with one easily-digested phoneme: “meow.” Literature departments will require no human instructors, only a single cat, who can also provide pest-control services and moral support by way of trills, cuddles, and purrs. We estimate that within one calendar year, all University literature departments will not only be solvent, but in fact highly profitable, if the “meow” strategy is applied.

In this episode, our Editor-in-Chief explains his plan to save literacy in great detail.

This podcast—and worldwide literacy—are sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel.

“Consciousness stands in the way of a good life. …the feline mind is one and undivided. Pain is suffered and forgotten, and the joy of life returns.”

– John Gray, Feline Philosophy

Rebecca Van Laer’s Cat (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025) packs nine lives of feline wisdom into a slim but satisfying volume. One of these lives is serene, domesticated: a diaristic jaunt through the anxieties, hopes, and occluded memories awakened by the many cats in Van Laer’s own life. Another is feral, possessed of incurable zoomies: a kaleidoscopic survey of all things furred and mewling, traversing online memescapes, the annals of psychology, and a shelf or two of postmodern thinkers to comprise a rich but eminently accessible compendium of cat-adjacent insights. In these, seven or more lives may be lived, if all too briefly – but such is the way of all cats, our brilliant but transient familiars.

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library

There is no better introduction to today’s discussion of the text than Van Laer’s own words, from Chapter 2 of Cat:

These meows are not part of some universal cat code; they are a private language between cat and person, a result of the cat testing out a range of cries, mews, and chirps calibrated over time to get the best response. Cats make an effort, certainly, to hone their skills, but this is on their own terms, outside of formal strictures, and the resulting language is pure signifier.

And now we delve into the realm of pure signifier, our host’s bewitching domain.

Rebecca Van Laer's Cat is available for preorder from Bloomsbury Academic.

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library.

Luke Bateman, former rugby player and Bachelor star turned BookTok darling, recently scored a two-book deal with Simon & Schuster imprint Atria Books—despite having no prior publishing experience. This deal has set BookTok ablaze with controversy, with critics calling out the publishing industry’s bias toward privilege and celebrity.

Yet Bateman insists he’s been working on stories for years and hopes to use his platform to uplift others. Still, some BookTok users see his sudden leap to a Big Five publishing house as a slap in the face to hardworking, overlooked writers, especially those from marginalized communities.

In a literary landscape where some book series consist solely of the word "Meow", Bateman’s romantasy novels seem poised not just to sell, but to claw their way into the mainstream spotlight. In fact, Bateman could release a book of his own consisting only of the word "meow," and it'd be a bestseller. To prove this, The Meow Library has transcribed his top five TikToks as a series of meows and presented them here, where they're certain to become a viral hit.

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel.