Video and Podcast Resources On Jorge Luis Borges' Stories

20 lectures in video and podcast formats on these great works of speculative fiction

One of my favorite speculative fiction authors, since I first encountered his story “The Garden of Forking Paths” back in a college literature class, has been Jorge Luis Borges. I’ve written about him from time to time, and devoted one of my Worlds of Speculative fiction sessions to his works some time back. I also had a more recent discussion about Borges’ works and thought with a colleague of mine, T Virgil Murthy.

This year, I produced a number of lecture videos in my Speculative Fiction Studies series discussing some of his short stories, mostly from his earlier anthologies. More recently, I converted all of those videos into downloadable podcast format, boosting the audio and removing pauses and filler words.

I’m far from finished with producing lectures of Borges’ stories, but since I have covered quite a few of them, in particular those stories that are most often anthologized and discussed, I thought it might be useful to provide links to all 20 of those lectures that I currently have at my disposal, so that those who are interested in his writings, or who haven’t read them yet but find themselves intrigued by his stories, would have them as a resource.

There are multiple translations and collections of Borges’ work out there. The one I first encountered him through is his Labyrinths (which doesn’t include all of the stories, but does include some of his essays). The edition I’ve come to prefer is his Collected Fictions, precisely because it is a much more complete collection.

So here they are, 20 lectures in both video and downloadable podcast formats:

Individual Stories

• The House Of Asterion | watch video | listen to podcast

• The Lottery In Babylon | watch video | listen to podcast

• Funes, His Memory | watch video | listen to podcast

• The Circular Ruins | watch video | listen to podcast

• The Theme Of The Traitor And The Hero | watch video | listen to podcast

• Three Versions Of Judas | watch video | listen to podcast

• The Cult Of The Phoenix | watch video | listen to podcast

• The Secret Miracle | watch video | listen to podcast

The Library Of Babel

• Library, Universe, And Language | watch video | listen to podcast

• Cults And Interpretations Of Books | watch video | listen to podcast

The Garden Of Forking Paths

• The Garden Of Forking Paths - Yu Tsun, Richard Madden, & Stephen Albert | watch video | listen to podcast

• The Garden Of Forking Paths - The Labyrinth Of Tsui Pen | watch video | listen to podcast

Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius

• A Conspiracy For A Fictional World | watch video | listen to podcast

• Idealism And The Civilization Of Tlön | watch video | listen to podcast

• Idealism, Materialism, And Monism | watch video | listen to podcast

• Tlön's Disintegration Of Our World | watch video | listen to podcast

Averröes’ Search

• The Conversation With Abu-Al-Hasan | watch video | listen to podcast

• Averröes’ Failure And Defeat | watch video | listen to podcast

The Zahir

• Teodelina’s Wake And Being Given The Zahir | watch video | listen to podcast

• Illness And Misfortune The Zahir Brings | watch video | listen to podcast

As I get back to producing more lectures on Borges’ stories, I’ll add them here to this resource page. That will likely be sometime mid-year in 2025.