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Medieval LOLs: Boccaccio’s ‘Decameron’, Part Two
Season 9 Episode 10
Mary and Irina resume their discussion of Boccaccio’s Decameron, focusing on three stories of female agency, deception and desire. Alibech, an aspiri…
1 year, 7 months ago
Human Conditions: ‘Discourse on Colonialism’ by Aimé Césaire
Season 8 Episode 10
Brent Hayes Edwards talks to Adam about Aimé Césaire's 1950 essay Discourse on Colonialism, a groundbreaking work of 20th-century anti-colonial thoug…
1 year, 7 months ago
On Satire: 'The Importance of Being Earnest' by Oscar Wilde
Season 7 Episode 10
By the end of 1895 Oscar Wilde’s life was in ruins as he sat in Reading Gaol facing public disgrace, bankruptcy and, two years later, exile. Just ten…
1 year, 7 months ago
Political Poems: 'Autumn Journal' by Louis MacNeice
Season 11 Episode 9
In his long 1938 poem, Louis MacNeice took many of the ideals shared by other young writers of his time – a desire for relevance, responsiveness and,…
1 year, 7 months ago
Among the Ancients II: Tacitus
Season 10 Episode 9
The Annals, Tacitus’ study of the emperors from Tiberius to Nero, covers some of the most vivid and ruthless episodes in Roman history. A masterclass…
1 year, 8 months ago
Medieval LOLs: Boccaccio's 'Decameron', Part One
Season 9 Episode 9
In the preface to the Decameron Boccaccio describes Florentine society laid waste by bubonic plague in the mid-14th century. But before he gets to th…
1 year, 8 months ago
Human Conditions: ‘The Souls of Black Folk’ by W.E.B. Du Bois
Season 8 Episode 9
Brent Hayes Edwards and Adam discuss the ‘ur-text of Black political philosophy’, W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk. Spanning autobiography, h…
1 year, 8 months ago
On Satire: Byron's 'Don Juan'
Season 7 Episode 9
Few poets have had the courage (or inclination) to rhyme ‘Plato’ with ‘potato’, ‘intellectual’ with ‘hen-peck’d you all’ or ‘Acropolis’ with ‘Constan…
1 year, 8 months ago
Political Poems: 'Goblin Market' by Christina Rossetti, feat. Shirley Henderson and Felicity Jones
Season 11 Episode 8
‘Goblin Market’ was the title poem of Christina Rossetti’s first collection, published in 1862, and while she disclaimed any allegorical purpose in i…
1 year, 8 months ago
Among the Ancients II: Lucan
Season 10 Episode 8
In his prodigious, prolific and very short career, Lucan was at turns championed, disavowed and finally forced into suicide at 25 by the emperor Nero…
1 year, 9 months ago