Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchPaul R. Laird and Elizabeth A. Wells, "The Cambridge Companion to West Side Story" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
Episode 140
Over sixty years after its opening night, West Side Story is perhaps the most famous and beloved of twentieth-century musicals and stands as a coloss…
1 year, 7 months ago
Adam Kotsko, "Late Star Trek: The Final Frontier in the Franchise Era" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)
Episode 211
Late Star Trek: The Final Frontier in the Franchise Era (University of Minnesota Press, 2025) by Dr. Adam Kotsko explores the beloved science fiction…
1 year, 7 months ago
Clive Bloom, "London Uncanny: A Gothic Guide to the Capital in Weird History and Fiction" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Episode 163
From Kensington to the East End, under candlelight, gas lamp and then neon signs, London is both a bustling physical metropolis and a stirring psychi…
1 year, 7 months ago
Matt Lodder, "Tattoos: The Untold History of a Modern Art" (Yale UP, 2024)
Episode 163
There is a pervasive stereotype of tattoo culture as relating to an underworld of scoundrels, sailors, and ne’er-do-wells, yet it has existed in the …
1 year, 7 months ago
Mia Consalvo et al., "Streaming by the Rest of Us: Microstreaming Videogames on Twitch" (MIT Press, 2025)
Episode 42
The vast majority of people who stream themselves playing videogames online do so with few or no viewers. In Streaming by the Rest of Us: Microstream…
1 year, 7 months ago
Fiona Handyside, "Girls' Hairstories: Sparkle and Resilience in Contemporary Screen Cultures" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)
Episode 147
Why have dynamic and shifting hairstyles, from Katniss Everdeen’s Power Plait to JoJo Siwa’s outsize bows, become such a significant part of how girl…
1 year, 7 months ago
Martha Bayless, "Entertainment, Pleasure, and Meaning in Early England" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
Episode 93
The people of early England (c. 450–1100 CE) enjoyed numerous kinds of entertainment, recreation and pleasure, but the scattered records of such thin…
1 year, 7 months ago
Ariane Sherine, "The Real Sinéad O'Connor" (White Owl, 2024)
Episode 273
Sinéad O'Connor, renowned for her angelic voice and activism, overcame a tumultuous upbringing to become a global protest singer and advocate for soc…
1 year, 7 months ago
Sarah Stang, et al., "Monstrosity in Games and Play" (Amsterdam UP, 2024)
Episode 41
Sarah Stang, editor, joins Jana Byars to talk about Monstrosity in Games and Play (Amsterdam UP, 2024). Monsters fascinate us. From ancient folklore …
1 year, 8 months ago
Richard Heppner, "Woodstock: From World War to Culture Wars" (SUNY Press, 2024)
Episode 288
Few towns in America are as famous as Woodstock, New York—although Woodstock may be most famous for an event that happened many miles away! Long befo…
1 year, 8 months ago