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British Studies
Critical Theory October 1, 2023

A Taste of Honey

Melanie Williams

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
What makes a film a classic? In A Taste of Honey (Bloomsbury, 2023), published as part of the BFI Film Classics series, Melanie Williams, a Professor of Film and Television Studies …

British Studies

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Interviews with scholars of the United Kingdom about their new books.

Literary Studies September 30, 2023

Possible Knowledge

The Literary Forms of Early Modern Science

Debapriya Sarkar

Hosted by John Yargo
Debapriya Sarkar’s new book, titled Possible Knowledge: The Literary Forms of Early Modern Science (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) is a study of how poets and philosophers took up the “the possible” as …
Australian and New Zealand Studies September 28, 2023

Blood and Dirt

Prison Labour and the Making of New Zealand

Jared Davidson

Hosted by Ed Amon
Listen:
Picture, for a minute, every artwork of colonial New Zealand you can think of. Now add a chain gang. Hard-labour men guarded by other men with guns. Men moving heavy …
British Studies September 27, 2023

The Year that Shaped the Victorian Age

Lives, Loves and Letters of 1845

Michael Wheeler

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
Listen:
What was special about 1845 and why does it deserve particular scrutiny? In The Year that Shaped the Victorian Age: Lives, Loves and Letters of 1845 (Cambridge UP, 2022), one …
General History September 25, 2023

Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning

Nigel Biggar

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
Listen:
In the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet empire in 1989, many believed that we had arrived at the 'End of History' - that the global dominance of liberal …
Library Science September 24, 2023

Archives of War

Technology, Emotion and History

Debra Ramsay

Hosted by Jen Hoyer
Archives of War: Technology, Emotion and History (Routledge, 2023) offers a comparative analysis of British Army Unit War Diaries in the two World Wars, to reveal the role played by previously unnoticed …
British Studies September 21, 2023

The Happiness of the British Working Class

Jamie Bronstein

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
Listen:
For working-class life writers in nineteenth century Britain, happiness was a multifaceted emotion: a concept that could describe experiences of hedonic pleasure, foster and deepen social relationships, drive individuals to …
Literary Studies September 19, 2023

Engaging Violence

Civility and the Reach of Literature

David Simpson

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
Recent thinking has resuscitated civility as an important paradigm for engaging with a violence that must be deemed endemic to our lives. But, while it is widely acknowledged that civility …
General History September 18, 2023

Age of Emergency

Living with Violence at the End of the British Empire

Erik Linstrum

Hosted by Ran Zwigenberg
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When uprisings against colonial rule broke out across the world after 1945, Britain responded with overwhelming and brutal force. Although this period has conventionally been dubbed "postwar," it was punctuated …
Political Science September 18, 2023

We're Here Because You Were There

Immigration and the End of Empire

Ian Sanjay Patel

Hosted by Lamis Abdelaaty
Listen:
What are the origins of the hostile environment against immigrants in the UK? In We’re Here Because You Were There: Immigration and the End of Empire (Verso, 2021), Patel retells …
Literary Studies September 18, 2023

The Romantic Rhetoric of Accumulation

Lenora Hanson

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
Listen:
Lenora Hanson's The Romantic Rhetoric of Accumulation (Stanford UP, 2022) provides an account of the long arc of dispossession from the British Romantic period to today. Lenora Hanson glimpses histories …
Caribbean Studies September 17, 2023

Negotiating Relief and Freedom

Responses to Disaster in the British Caribbean, 1812-1907

Oscar Webber

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
Negotiating Relief and Freedom: Responses to Disaster in the British Caribbean, 1812-1907 (Manchester University Press, 2023) by Dr. Oscar Webber is an investigation of short- and long-term responses to disaster …
General History September 16, 2023

An Introduction to the Irish Civil War

John O'Donovan

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
During the Irish Civil War, events of late 1922 and early 1923 together with waves of 'dishonourable' killings created poisoned relations between Republicans and 'Free Staters' which would last for …
British Studies September 16, 2023

The East India Company and the Politics of Knowledge

Joshua Ehrlich

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
The East India Company is remembered as the world's most powerful, not to say notorious, corporation. But for many of its advocates from the 1770s to the 1850s it was …
Critical Theory September 15, 2023

Imperial Island

An Alternative History of the British Empire

Charlotte Lydia Riley

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
Listen:
Can Britain escape from being a nation trapped in its past? In Imperial Island: A History of Empire in Modern Britain (Penguin, 2023), Charlotte Lydia Riley, an Associate Professor of History in …
Literary Studies September 14, 2023

Plutarch's Prism

Rebecca Kingston

Hosted by Benjamin Phillips
Throughout the early modern period, political theorists in France and England drew on the works of Plutarch to offer advice to kings and princes. Elizabeth I herself translated Plutarch in …
Art September 13, 2023

The Art of Being Dangerous

Exploring Women and Danger through Creative Expression

Jo Shaw and Ben Fletcher-Watson

Hosted by Marshall Poe
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The idea that women are dangerous - individually or collectively - runs throughout history and across cultures. Behind this label lies a significant set of questions about the dynamics, conflicts …
Gender Studies September 12, 2023

Drag

A British History

Jacob Bloomfield

Hosted by Isabel Machado
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Drag: A British History (University of California Press, 2023) is a groundbreaking study of the sustained popularity and changing forms of male drag performance in modern Britain. With this book, Jacob …
Middle Eastern Studies September 12, 2023

Inventing the Middle East

Britain and the Persian Gulf in the Age of Global Imperialism

Guillemette Crouzet

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
Listen:
The “Middle East” has long been an indispensable and ubiquitous term in discussing world affairs, yet its history remains curiously underexplored. Few question the origin of the term or the …
Madison's Notes September 12, 2023

Religion and Politics in the Lord of the Rings

A Discussion with Rachel Fulton Brown

Rachel Fulton Brown

Hosted by Annika Nordquist
Listen:
J.R.R. Tolkien's masterwork The Lord of the Rings delighted so many of us as children, yet it and its vast body of accompanying work, such as the Silmarillion, contain a …