Deborah Harkness: A Discovery of Witches

Deborah Harkness: A Discovery of Witches

In 1994, Deborah Harkness was doing research at Oxford University’s Bodleian Library when she stumbled across the Book of Soyga, a long-lost manuscript treatise on magic that once belonged to Elizabethan scientist and occult philosopher John Dee. About fourteen years later, she had an idea for a story: a historian—who turns out to be a witch—discovers a lost and much-coveted manuscript that thrusts her into a world of vampires, demons, and magic. Harkness’s idea became A Discovery of Witches, the first book of her All Souls Trilogy. The novel is now a television series starring Teresa Palmer and Matthew Goode. The show comes to AMC and BBC America on April 7. We asked Harkness to join us on Shakespeare Unlimited to talk about how her research influenced her fiction writing and to tell us about how witches, demons, and the supernatural were perceived in Shakespeare’s England. Dr. Deborah Harkness is a teaching professor of history at the University of Southern California. She is the author of John Dee’s Conversations with Angels and The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution, as well as the All Souls Trilogy, originally published by Viking Press for Penguin Books. Harkness is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published March 19, 2019. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Excellent Witchcraft” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. We had technical help from Shawn Corey Campbell and Bianca Ramirez at KPCC Public Radio in Pasadena, California.

Episoder(297)

Shakespeare and War

Shakespeare and War

In his one-man show "Cry Havoc!" actor Stephan Wolfert, a US Army veteran, draws together lines in Shakespeare’s plays spoken by soldiers and former soldiers—including Macbeth, Othello, and Richard II...

6 Sep 201735min

Bernstein, Shakespeare, and West Side Story

Bernstein, Shakespeare, and West Side Story

Next year, 2018, is the 100th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s birth. To honor him, we’re taking a look at the creation of "West Side Story," Bernstein’s most significant contribution to the world o...

22 Aug 201731min

Shakespeare's Kitchen

Shakespeare's Kitchen

How and what did the Elizabethans eat? The kitchens of Shakespeare’s time looked very different from our kitchens today, and that’s not all that has changed when it comes to habits of diet, food prepa...

8 Aug 201732min

Akala and Hip-Hop Shakespeare

Akala and Hip-Hop Shakespeare

“Is it Shakespeare, or is it hip-hop?” British poet, rapper, and educator Kingslee James Daley, who goes by the stage name Akala, likes to recite a passage and then challenge his audience with this qu...

25 Jul 201733min

Creating TNT's ‘Will:’ Craig Pearce and Shekhar Kapur

Creating TNT's ‘Will:’ Craig Pearce and Shekhar Kapur

'Will,' the new series on TNT, tells stories derived from what we often call Shakespeare’s “lost years”—the time before he made a name for himself as a writer. The series takes advantage of that gapin...

11 Jul 201736min

Phyllida Lloyd and All-Female Shakespeare

Phyllida Lloyd and All-Female Shakespeare

In 2012, the Donmar Warehouse presented an all-female production of "Julius Caesar," directed by Tony Award nominated director Phyllida Lloyd and starring Harriet Walter. The production was set in a w...

27 Jun 201733min

RSC's Digital Tempest

RSC's Digital Tempest

Twenty-first-century wizardry meets the seventeenth-century kind in a Royal Shakespeare Company production of "The Tempest" with digital effects created by The Imaginarium, a performance-capture compa...

13 Jun 201731min

Tracy Chevalier: New Boy

Tracy Chevalier: New Boy

Tracy Chevalier, author of "Girl With a Pearl Earring," takes on the tragedy of "Othello" in her latest novel, part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series. But in a twist, she moves the action to a public ...

31 Mai 201728min

Populært innen Premium

papaya
giver-og-gjengen-vg
aftenpodden
tusvik-tnne
harm-og-hegseth
storefri-med-mikkel-og-herman
krimpodden-vg
avhort
tore-og-haralds-podkast
podme-krim
big-5-med-nils-og-harald-2
topp-3-med-wold-og-fladseth
ida-med-hjertet-i-handen
aftenpodden-usa
konspirasjonspodden
hovla
ma-pa-behandling-med-morten-ramm
popradet
katastrofe-2
fastlegen