King Lear and Mao’s China, with Nan Z. Da
Nan Z. Da, in her book The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear, finds unsettling parallels between Shakespeare’s play and 20th-century China under Mao Zedong. Da, a literature professor at Johns Hopkins Uni...
19 Maj 202531min
Top Pop Songs of the 1600s
What were the top musical hits of Shakespeare’s England? What lyrics were stuck in people’s heads? What stories did they sing on repeat? The 100 Ballads project is a deep dive into the hits of early ...
6 Maj 202539min
The Yorkist Pretender, with Jo Harkin
Who was Lambert Simnel—the boy who nearly claimed the Tudor throne? In late 15th-century England, identity wasn’t just a matter of birth—it could be a political weapon, a tool for rebellion, and somet...
22 Apr 202535min
Surekha Davies on the Making of Monsters
Historian Surekha Davies joins us to explore how ideas of wonder, race, and the monstrous shaped European thought in the age of empire. These weren’t just abstract concepts—they were embedded in scien...
7 Apr 202533min
Reimagining Judith Shakespeare with Grace Tiffany
Judith Shakespeare’s life is a mystery. While history records her as the younger daughter of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, much of her story remains untold. In her new novel, The Owl Was a Ba...
25 Mars 202535min
Julia Armfield Reimagines King Lear in a Drowning World
How does Shakespeare’s King Lear resonate in a world facing climate catastrophe? Novelist Julia Armfield explores this question in Private Rites, a novel set in a near-future London reshaped by rising...
11 Mars 202529min
Lauren Gunderson on the Women of Hamlet
What if Gertrude had more power than we thought? What if Ophelia’s fate wasn’t sealed from the start? And what does it really mean to mother a prince who might be losing his mind? Playwright Lauren G...
24 Feb 202534min
Shakespeare’s Narrative Poems
How did early modern England understand race and how has that influenced our thinking? Race is often considered a recent construct, but Shakespeare’s works—both his plays and poetry—reveal a diverse ...
6 Feb 202533min
