Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchPeter C. Kunze, "Staging a Comeback: Broadway, Hollywood, and the Disney Renaissance" (Rutgers UP, 2023)
Episode 199
In the early 1980s, Walt Disney Productions was struggling, largely bolstered by the success of its theme parks. Within fifteen years, however, it ha…
2 years ago
Brad Balukjian, "The Six Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Wrestlemania" (Hachette, 2024)
Episode 277
In 2005, Brad Balukjian left his position as a magazine fact-checker to pursue a dream job: partner with his childhood hero, The Iron Sheik (whose re…
2 years ago
Anne Higonnet, "Liberty Equality Fashion: The Women Who Styled the French Revolution" (Norton, 2024)
Episode 102
Joséphine Bonaparte, future Empress of France; Térézia Tallien, the most beautiful woman in Europe; and Juliette Récamier, muse of intellectuals, had…
2 years ago
Beth Blum on Self-Help, Dale Carnegie to Today (JP)
Episode 136
Beth Blum, Assistant Professor of English at Harvard, is the author of The Self-Help Compulsion (Columbia University Press 2019). In 2020, she spoke …
2 years ago
Maurice Suckling, "Paper Time Machines: Critical Game Design and Historical Board Games" (Routledge, 2024)
Episode 20
James Dunnigan’s memorable phrase serves as the first part of a title for this book, where it seeks to be applicable not just to analog wargames, but…
2 years ago
Virginia Nicholson, "All the Rage: Power, Pain, Pleasure: Stories from the Frontline of Beauty 1860-1960" (Pegasus Books, 2024)
Episode 101
In All the Rage: Power, Pain, Pleasure: Stories from the Frontline of Beauty 1860-1960 (Pegasus Book, 2024) richly detailed account, Virginia Nichols…
2 years ago
Aviva Dove-Viebahn, "There She Goes Again: Gender, Power, and Knowledge in Contemporary Film and Television Franchises" (Rutgers UP, 2023)
Episode 216
There She Goes Again: Gender, Power, and Knowledge in Contemporary Film and Television Franchises (Rutgers UP, 2023) interrogates the representation …
2 years ago
Yolonda Youngs, "Framing Nature: The Creation of an American Icon at the Grand Canyon" (U Nebraska Press, 2024)
Episode 170
Perhaps no American landscape is as iconic as the rainbow rocks of Arizona's Grand Canyon. Yet, as the geographer Yolonda Youngs argues, the Grand Ca…
2 years ago
John Withington, "A History of Fireworks from: Their Origins to the Present Day" (Reaktion, 2024)
Episode 198
A History of Fireworks from: Their Origins to the Present Day (Reaktion, 2024) by John Withington illuminates the glittering history of fireworks, fr…
2 years ago
Scott Henderson, "Comics and Pop Culture: Adaptation from Panel to Frame" (U Texas Press, 2019)
Episode 64
It is hard to discuss the current film industry without acknowledging the impact of comic book adaptations, especially considering the blockbuster su…
2 years ago