Women's History

Women's History

episodes

Interviews with scholars of women's history about their new books.

Julia Havas, "Woman Up: Invoking Feminism in Quality Television" (Wayne State UP, 2022)

May 8, 2024

Woman Up

Julia Havas
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

While American television has long relied on a strategic foregrounding of feminist politics to promote certain programming's cultural value, Woman Up:…

Hemjyoti Medhi, "Gendered Publics: Chandraprava Saikiani and the Mahila Samiti in Colonial Assam" (Oxford UP, 2024)

May 8, 2024

Gendered Publics

Hemjyoti Medhi

Gendered Publics: Chandraprava Saikiani and the Mahila Samiti in Colonial Assam (Oxford UP, 2024) is a first-of-its-kind comprehensive appraisal of th…

Matilda Bickers, "Working It: Sex Workers on the Work of Sex" (PM Press, 2023)

May 5, 2024

Working It

Matilda Bickers, Janis Luna, and Peech Breshears
Hosted by Gregory Soden

Fiercely intelligent, fantastically transgressive, Working It: Sex Workers on the Work of Sex (PM Press, 2023) is an intimate portrait of the lives of…

Zahra Ayubi, "Gendered Morality: Classical Islamic Ethics of the Self, Family, and Society" (Columbia UP, 2019)

May 4, 2024

Gendered Morality

Zahra Ayubi
Hosted by Shobhana Xavier

How are notions of justice and equality constructed in Islamic virtue ethics (akhlaq)? How are Islamic virtue ethics gendered, despite their venture i…

Céline Bessière and Sibylle Gollac, "The Gender of Capital: How Families Perpetuate Wealth Inequality" (Harvard UP, 2023)

May 3, 2024

The Gender of Capital

Céline Bessière and Sibylle Gollac

In many countries, property law grants equal rights to men and women. Why, then, do women still accumulate less wealth than men? Combining quantitativ…

Sara B. Franklin, "The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America" (Atria, 2024)

May 3, 2024

The Editor

Sara B. Franklin
Hosted by Kendall Dinniene

The woman behind some of the most important authors of the 20th century—including Julia Child, Anne Frank, Edna Lewis, John Updike, and Sylvia Plath—f…

Crystal Wilkinson, "Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks" (Clarkson Potter, 2023)

May 2, 2024

Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts

Crystal Wilkinson
Hosted by Kelly Spivey

Years ago, when O. Henry Prize-winning writer Crystal Wilkinson was baking a jam cake, she felt her late grandmother’s presence. She soon realized tha…

Shu Yang, "Untamed Shrews: Negotiating New Womanhood in Modern China" (Cornell UP, 2023)

May 2, 2024

Untamed Shrews

Shu Yang

If you are familiar with traditional Chinese literature, you have likely come across the figure of the “shrew,” a morally threatening woman who is eit…

Katie Gee Salisbury, "Not Your China Doll: The Wild and Shimmering Life of Anna May Wong" (Dutton, 2024)

May 2, 2024

Not Your China Doll

Katie Gee Salisbury
Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

In 2022, the U.S. Mint released the first batch of its American Women Quarters series, celebrating the achievements of U.S. women throughout its histo…

Nancy M. Martin, "Mirabai: The Making of a Saint" (Oxford UP, 2023)

May 2, 2024

Mirabai

Nancy M. Martin
Hosted by Raj Balkaran

Mirabai, an iconic sixteenth-century Indian poet-saint, is renowned for her unwavering love of God, her disregard for social hierarchies and gendered …

Renée Bergland, "Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science" (Princeton UP, 2024)

May 1, 2024

Natural Magic

Renée Bergland
Hosted by Mark Klobas

Emily Dickinson and Charles Darwin were born at a time when the science of studying the natural world was known as natural philosophy, a pastime for p…

Sarah A. Bendall, "Shaping Femininity: Foundation Garments, the Body and Women in Early Modern England" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

April 28, 2024

Shaping Femininity

Sarah A. Bendall
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In sixteenth and seventeenth-century England, the female silhouette underwent a dramatic change. This very structured form, created using garments cal…

Leigh Gilmore, "The #MeToo Effect: What Happens When We Believe Women" (Columbia UP, 2023)

April 27, 2024

The #MeToo Effect

Leigh Gilmore
Hosted by Jane Scimeca

The #MeToo movement inspired millions to testify to the widespread experience of sexual violence. More broadly, it shifted the deeply ingrained respo…

Stitching Freedom: Embroidery and Incarceration

April 25, 2024

Stitching Freedom: Embroidery and Incarceration

Isabella Rosner

Today’s book is: Stitching Freedom: Embroidery and Incarceration (Common Threads Press, 2024), by Dr. Isabella Rosner, which considers how for centuri…

Julie Peakman, "Libertine London: Sex in the Eighteenth-Century Metropolis" (Reaktion, 2024)

April 22, 2024

Libertine London

Julie Peakman
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Libertine London: Sex in the Eighteenth-Century Metropolis (Reaktion, 2024) by Dr. Julie Peakman investigates the sex lives of women from 1680 to 1830…

Jessica Cox, "Confinement: The Hidden History of Maternal Bodies in Nineteenth-Century Britain" (The History Press, 2023)

April 21, 2024

Confinement

Jessica Cox
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Covering a fascinating period of population growth, high infant mortality and deep social inequality, rapid medical advances and pseudoscientific quac…

Diana Chapman Walsh, "The Claims of Life: A Memoir" (MIT Press, 2023)

April 21, 2024

The Claims of Life

Diana Chapman Walsh
Hosted by Caleb Zakarin

The engaging memoir of a legendary president of Wellesley College known for authentic and open-hearted leadership, who drove innovation with power and…

Tanisha Ford, "Our Secret Society: Mollie Moon and the Glamour, Money, and Power Behind the Civil Rights Movement" (Amistad Press, 2024)

April 19, 2024

Our Secret Society

Tanisha Ford
Hosted by Mickell Carter

An engrossing social history of the unsinkable Mollie Moon, the stylish founder of the National Urban League Guild and fundraiser extraordinaire who r…

Philip Freeman, "Two Lives of Saint Brigid" (Four Courts Press, 2024)

April 17, 2024

Two Lives of Saint Brigid

Philip Freeman
Hosted by Crawford Gribben

St. Brigid is the earliest and best-known of the female saints of Ireland. In the generation after St. Patrick, she established a monastery for men an…

Liz Tregenza, "Wholesale Couture: London and Beyond, 1930-70" (Bloombury, 2023)

April 17, 2024

Wholesale Couture

Liz Tregenza
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Wholesale Couture: London and Beyond, 1930-70 (Bloomsbury, 2023) by Dr. Liz Tregenza seeks to revise the notion that wholesale couturiers were simply …