Feb 2023
Jane Lasonder, "Red Alert: The Inside Story of Prostitution and Human Trafficking" (Scholten Uitgeverij BV, 2016)
We love the tradition of the Amsterdam red light district, where many women stand in the windows in their underwear. Busloads of tourists and school children come by every day to look at them. In the Netherlands, where it has been taken out of the dark and made legal, we can even ... Show More
1h 2m
Oct 2022
Kirsty Loehr, "A Short History of Queer Women" (Oneworld Publications, 2022)
Kirsty Loehr talks about her new book, A Short History of Queer Women (Oneworld Publications, 2022). Queer women have always existed – let’s put them back in the history books No, they weren't ‘just friends’! We’ve read Jane Eyre, but what about the five hundred love letters Char ... Show More
33m 4s
Yesterday
Karen Weingarten, "Pregnancy Test" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
In the 1970s, the invention of the home pregnancy test changed what it means to be pregnant. For the first time, women could use a technology in the privacy of their own homes that gave them a yes or no answer. That answer had the power to change the course of their reproductive ... Show More
40m 2s
May 2023
Brian Valente-Quinn, "Senegalese Stagecraft: Decolonizing Theater-Making in Francophone Africa" (Northwestern UP, 2021)
Brian Valente-Quinn is an Associate Professor of Francophone African studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. His book, Senegalese Stagecraft: Decolonizing Theater-Making in Francophone Africa, was published at Northwestern University Press in 2021. Senegalese Stagecraft ex ... Show More
1h 15m
Jun 2023
Brett Brehm, "Kaleidophonic Modernity: Transatlantic Sound, Technology, and Literature" (Fordham UP, 2023)
What stories remain hidden behind one of the most significant inventions of the nineteenth century? Kaleidophonic Modernity: Transatlantic Sound, Technology, and Literature (Fordham University Press, 2023) reexamines the development of mechanical sound recording technology by cha ... Show More
1h 5m
Mar 2023
Ben Davies et al., "Reading Novels During the Covid-19 Pandemic" (Oxford UP, 2022)
Drawing on an ethnographic study of novel readers in Denmark and the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic, Reading Novels During the Covid-19 Pandemic (Oxford UP, 2022) provides a snapshot of a phenomenal moment in modern history. The ethnographic approach shows what no historical acc ... Show More
57m 31s
Sep 2021
Amelia Jones, "In Between Subjects: A Critical Genealogy of Queer Performance" (Routledge, 2020)
In Between Subjects: A Critical Genealogy of Queer Performance (Routledge, 2021) is a study of the connected ideas of "queer" and "gender performance" or "performativity" over the past several decades, providing an ambitious history and crucial examination of these concepts while ... Show More
48m 54s
Jun 2021
Caroline Seymour-Jorn, "Creating Spaces of Hope: Young Artists and the New Imagination in Egypt" (AU in Cairo Press, 2021)
It is now just over a decade since protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square started Egypt's chapter in the events of the Arab Spring. Much has been made in western criticism of art and culture's role in the revolution, but the everyday cultural production of studio artists, graffiti art ... Show More
59m 29s
May 2022
Rory Kinnear on the film Men, Lord Parkinson on the new UK City of Culture, The Duchess of Cornwall, Mo Abudu on Blood Sisters
Actor Rory Kinnear plays ten characters- all the male roles but one- in the new psychological horror film from Alex Garland, Men. He joins Samira Ahmed to discuss how he approached playing multiple roles in this exploration of fear and loathing in the English countryside.The UK’s ... Show More
42m 13s
Mar 2024
Umme Al-wazedi and Afrin Zeenat, "Veil Obsessed: Representations in Literature, Art, and Media" (Syracuse UP, 2024)
In their edited volume Veil Obsessed: Representations in Literature, Art, and Media (Syracuse University Press, 2024), Umme Al-wazedi and Afrin Zeenat complicate discussions of the veil and highlight the prevalent anxieties surrounding it. The edited volume is unique in its focus ... Show More
50m 15s
Dec 2023
Daniel Shank Cruz, "Ethics for Apocalyptic Times: Theapoetics, Autotheory, and Mennonite Literature" (Penn State UP, 2023)
Ethics for Apocalyptic Times: Theapoetics, Autotheory, and Mennonite Literature (Penn State UP, 2023) is about the role literature can play in helping readers cope with our present-day crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and the shift toward fascism in global ... Show More
43m 55s
Boy Actors in Early Modern England: Skill and Stagecraft in the Theatre (Cambridge University Press, 2022) by Dr. Harry McCarthy provides a new approach to the study of early modern boy actors, offering a historical re-appraisal of these performers' physical skills in order to reassess their wide-reaching contribution to early modern theatrical culture. Rang ... Show More