British Studies

British Studies

episodes

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

Victoria Sparey, "Shakespeare's Adolescents: Age, Gender and the Body in Shakespearean Performance and Early Modern Culture" (Manchester UP, 2024)

April 30, 2024

Shakespeare's Adolescents

Victoria Sparey
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Shakespeare's Adolescents: Age, Gender and the Body in Shakespearean Performance and Early Modern Culture (Manchester UP, 2024) by Dr. Victoria Sparey…

George R. Boyer, "The Winding Road to the Welfare State: Economic Insecurity and Social Welfare Policy in Britain" (Princeton UP, 2019)

April 29, 2024

The Winding Road to the Welfare State

George R. Boyer
Hosted by Mark Klobas

The creation of the postwar welfare state in Great Britain did not represent the logical progression of governmental policy over a period of generatio…

Adrian Tinniswood, "Noble Ambitions: The Fall and Rise of the Post-War Country House" (Basic Books, 2021)

April 28, 2024

Noble Ambitions

Adrian Tinniswood
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

As the sun set slowly on the British Empire in the years after the Second World War, the nation's stately homes were in crisis. Tottering under the we…

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…

Kristin M. Franseen, "Imagining Musical Pasts: The Queer Literary Musicology of Vernon Lee, Rosa Newmarch, and Edward Prime-Stevenson" (Clemson UP, 2023)

April 27, 2024

Imagining Musical Pasts

Kristin M. Franseen
Hosted by Kristen Turner

Imagining Musical Pasts: the Queer Literary Musicology of Vernon Lee, Rosa Newmarch, and Edward Prime-Stevenson (Clemson University Press, 2023) by Kr…

Nicholas Popper, "The Specter of the Archive: Political Practice and the Information State in Early Modern Britain" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

April 26, 2024

The Specter of the Archive

Nicholas Popper
Hosted by Jen Hoyer

We are used to thinking of ourselves as living in a time when more information is more available than ever before. In The Specter of the Archive: Poli…

Mukund Padmanabhan, "The Great Flap of 1942: How the Raj Panicked over a Japanese Non-invasion (Vintage Books, 2024)

April 25, 2024

The Great Flap of 1942

Mukund Padmanabhan
Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

In April 1942, at least half a million people fled the city of Madras, now known as Chennai. The reason? The British, after weeks of growing unease ab…

Crawford Gribben, "J. N. Darby and the Roots of Dispensationalism" (Oxford UP, 2024)

April 24, 2024

J. N. Darby and the Roots of Dispensationalism

Crawford Gribben
Hosted by Caleb Zakarin

J.N. Darby and the Roots of Dispensationalism (Oxford University Press, 2024) describes the work of one of the most important and under-studied theolo…

Jane Hamlett and Julie-Marie Strange, "Pet Revolution: Animals and the Making of Modern British Life" (Reaktion Books, 2023)

April 23, 2024

Pet Revolution

Jane Hamlett and Julie-Marie Strange

Pet Revolution: Animals and the Making of Modern British Life (Reaktion Books, 2023) tracks the British love affair with pets over the last two centur…

Michael Scott and Michael Collins, "Christian Shakespeare?: A Collection of Essays on Shakespeare in His Christian Context" (Vernon Press, 2022)

April 23, 2024

Christian Shakespeare

Michael Scott and Michael Collins
Hosted by Dessy Vassileva

The enigma of William Shakespeare's religious beliefs has long tantalized scholars and enthusiasts alike. Vernon Press's latest publication, Christian…

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…

John Tolan, "England's Jews: Finance, Violence, and the Crown in the Thirteenth Century" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)

April 22, 2024

England's Jews

John Tolan
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In 1290, Jews were expelled from England and subsequently largely expunged from English historical memory. Yet for two centuries they occupied importa…

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…

Peter Gray, "William Sharman Crawford and Ulster Radicalism" (U College Dublin Press, 2023)

April 21, 2024

William Sharman Crawford and Ulster Radicalism

Peter Gray
Hosted by Crawford Gribben

Exploring both his life and legacy, the first full biography of William Sharman Crawford, the leading agrarian and democratic radical active in Ulster…

Coreen McGuire, "Measuring Difference, Numbering Normal: Setting the Standards for Disability in the Interwar Period" (Manchester UP, 2020)

April 20, 2024

Measuring Difference, Numbering Normal

Coreen McGuire
Hosted by Shu Wan

Measurements, and their manipulation, have been underestimated as crucial historical forces motivating and guiding the way we think about disability. …

D. J. Taylor, "Who Is Big Brother?: A Reader's Guide to George Orwell" (Yale UP, 2024)

April 17, 2024

Who Is Big Brother?

D. J. Taylor
Hosted by Charles Coutinho

An intellectual who hated intellectuals, a socialist who didn't trust the state--our foremost political essayist and author of Animal Farm and Ninetee…

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 …

Kevin Lambert, "Symbols and Things: Material Mathematics in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2021)

April 15, 2024

Symbols and Things

Kevin Lambert
Hosted by Cory Brunson

The stereotype of the solitary mathematician is widespread, but practicing users and producers of mathematics know well that our work depends heavily …

Annaliese Jacobs Claydon, "Arctic Circles and Imperial Knowledge: The Franklin Family, Indigenous Intermediaries, and the Politics of Truth" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

April 15, 2024

Arctic Circles and Imperial Knowledge

Annaliese Jacobs Claydon
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In 1845 an expedition led by Sir John Franklin vanished in the Canadian Arctic. The enduring obsession with the Franklin mystery, and in particular In…

Miriam Piilonen, "Theorizing Music Evolution: Darwin, Spencer, and the Limits of the Human" (Oxford UP, 2024)

April 15, 2024

Theorizing Music Evolution

Miriam Piilonen
Hosted by Nathan Smith

What did historical evolutionists such as Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer have to say about music? What role did music play in their evolutionary t…