Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchPeter K. Andersson, "Fool: In Search of Henry VIII's Closest Man" (Princeton UP, 2023)
Episode 70
The first biography of Henry VIII’s court fool William Somer, a legendary entertainer and one of the most intriguing figures of the Tudor age
In some …
2 years, 11 months ago
Aaron Kunin, "Character as Form" (Bloomsbury, 2019)
Episode 244
Today’s guest is Aaron Kunin, Professor of English at Pomona College. We will discuss two books Aaron published in 2019: the first is Character as Fo…
2 years, 11 months ago
Annie Rachel Royson, "Texts, Traditions, and Sacredness: Cultural Translation in Kristapurana" (Routledge, 2023)
Episode 280
Annie Rachel Royson's book Texts, Traditions, and Sacredness: Cultural Translation in Kristapurana (Routledge, 2023) presents a critical reading of K…
2 years, 11 months ago
Bonnie Gordon, "Voice Machines: The Castrato, the Cat Piano, and Other Strange Sounds" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
Episode 197
Italian courts and churches began employing castrato singers in the late sixteenth century. By the eighteenth century, the singers occupied a celebri…
2 years, 11 months ago
Una McIlvenna, "Singing the News of Death: Execution Ballads in Europe 1500-1900" (Oxford UP, 2022)
Episode 198
Across Europe, from the dawn of print until the early twentieth century, the news of crime and criminals' public executions was printed in song form …
2 years, 11 months ago
David Waldstreicher, "The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet's Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence" (FSG, 2023)
Episode 670
Thy Power, O Liberty, make strong the weak,
And (wond’rous instinct) Ethiopians speak.
At the age of 19, Phillis Wheatley published the first book in E…
2 years, 11 months ago
Jeremy Black, "Why the Industrial Revolution Happened in Britain" (Amberley Publishing, 2023)
Episode 1348
Today I talked to Jeremy Black about his new book Why the Industrial Revolution Happened in Britain (Amberley Publishing, 2023).
Britain's key importa…
2 years, 11 months ago
Stephanie Barczewski, "How the Country House Became English (Reaktion, 2023)
Episode 92
How the Country House Became English (Reaktion, 2023) by Dr. Stephanie Barczewski is an exploration of the evolution of the quintessentially English …
2 years, 11 months ago
Adam Jasienski, "Praying to Portraits: Audience, Identity, and the Inquisition in the Early Modern Hispanic World" (Penn State UP, 2023)
Episode 47
Praying to Portraits: Audience, Identity, and Inquisition in the Early Modern Hispanic World (Penn State University Press, 2023), art historian Adam …
2 years, 11 months ago
Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity
Episode 64
In this episode from the Institute’s Vault we hear from Rebecca Goldstein, an American philosopher, novelist, and public intellectual. She holds a Ph…
2 years, 11 months ago