Podcasts about Folger Shakespeare Library

When you visit a new city, one of your first stops might be a museum. It turns out that public art galleries are largely an 18th-century invention. In London in 1789, publisher John Boydell helped shape that new cultural experience with an ambitious project in Pall Mall: a gallery devoted entirely to scenes from Shakespeare. Boydell commissioned leading British artists to paint pivotal moments from the plays, then sold engraved reproductions for museum-goers to take home with them. The gallery quickly became a sensation and was visited by everyone who was anyone, from Jane Austen to the Prince of Wales. It also played a powerful role in transforming William Shakespeare from a popular playwright into a national icon. The venture ultimately failed due to the economic turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars, and the many life-size paintings were cut into smaller canvases and all sold at auction. Yet its influence endured, shaping exhibition culture, influencing a British school of art, and inspiring the visual mythology of The Joining us to explore the rise and fall of the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery are Rosie Dias, Professor of Art History at the University of Warwick, and Michael Dobson, Director of the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published February 23, 2026. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had technical help from Mike Rucinski of Boutique Recording in Great Malvern, and Voice Trax West in Studio City, California. Our web producer is Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services were provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.

In the wide realm of Shakespeare worship, the house in Stratford-upon-Avon where William Shakespeare was born in 1564 – known colloquially as the 'Birthplace' – remains the chief shrine. It's not as romantic as Anne Hathaway's thatched cottage, it's not where he wrote any of his plays, and there's nothing inside the house that once belonged to Shakespeare himself. So why, for centuries, have people kept turning up on the doorstep? In Shakespeare's House: A Window onto his Life and Legacy (Bloomsbury, 2023) Dr. Richard Schoch answers that question by examining the history of the Birthplace and by exploring how its changing fortunes over four centuries perfectly mirror the changing attitudes toward Shakespeare himself. Based on original research in the archives of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon and the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, and featuring two black and white illustrated plate sections which draw on the wide array of material available at the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Victoria and Albert Museum, this book traces the history of Shakespeare's birthplace over four centuries. Beginning in the 1560s, when Shakespeare was born there, it ends in the 1890s, when the house was rescued from private purchase and turned into the Shakespeare monument that it remains today. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose forthcoming book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In the wide realm of Shakespeare worship, the house in Stratford-upon-Avon where William Shakespeare was born in 1564 – known colloquially as the 'Birthplace' – remains the chief shrine. It's not as romantic as Anne Hathaway's thatched cottage, it's not where he wrote any of his plays, and there's nothing inside the house that once belonged to Shakespeare himself. So why, for centuries, have people kept turning up on the doorstep? In Shakespeare's House: A Window onto his Life and Legacy (Bloomsbury, 2023) Dr. Richard Schoch answers that question by examining the history of the Birthplace and by exploring how its changing fortunes over four centuries perfectly mirror the changing attitudes toward Shakespeare himself. Based on original research in the archives of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon and the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, and featuring two black and white illustrated plate sections which draw on the wide array of material available at the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Victoria and Albert Museum, this book traces the history of Shakespeare's birthplace over four centuries. Beginning in the 1560s, when Shakespeare was born there, it ends in the 1890s, when the house was rescued from private purchase and turned into the Shakespeare monument that it remains today. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose forthcoming book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

In the wide realm of Shakespeare worship, the house in Stratford-upon-Avon where William Shakespeare was born in 1564 – known colloquially as the 'Birthplace' – remains the chief shrine. It's not as romantic as Anne Hathaway's thatched cottage, it's not where he wrote any of his plays, and there's nothing inside the house that once belonged to Shakespeare himself. So why, for centuries, have people kept turning up on the doorstep? In Shakespeare's House: A Window onto his Life and Legacy (Bloomsbury, 2023) Dr. Richard Schoch answers that question by examining the history of the Birthplace and by exploring how its changing fortunes over four centuries perfectly mirror the changing attitudes toward Shakespeare himself. Based on original research in the archives of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon and the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, and featuring two black and white illustrated plate sections which draw on the wide array of material available at the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Victoria and Albert Museum, this book traces the history of Shakespeare's birthplace over four centuries. Beginning in the 1560s, when Shakespeare was born there, it ends in the 1890s, when the house was rescued from private purchase and turned into the Shakespeare monument that it remains today. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose forthcoming book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Cassius argues that "Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings." In this week's episode, we are exploring early modern ideas of fate and the stars and the practices and beliefs of astrology in Shakespeare's time.  We'll discuss the difference between the early modern concepts of natural and judicial astrology, the popularity and influence of astrology and astrologers in Early Modern England, and how it found its way into plays like Shakespeare's. Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp. Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander.   For updates: Join our email list Follow us on Instagram at @shakespeareanyonepod Visit our website at shakespeareanyone.com Support the podcast: Become a patron at patreon.com/shakespeareanyone  Buy us a coffee Bookshop.org: Since 2020, Bookshop.org has raised more than $38 million for independent bookstores. Shop our Shakespeare Anyone? storefront to find books featured on the podcast, books by our guests, and other Shakespeare-related books and gifts. Every purchase on the site financially supports independent bookstores. Libro.fm: Libro.fm makes it possible to purchase audiobooks through your local bookshop of choice. Use our link for 2 free audiobooks when you sign up for a new Libro.fm membership using our link. Find additional links mentioned in the episode in our Linktree. Works referenced: Bragg, Melvin, host. "Renaissance Astrology." In Our Time: Science, BBC Radio, 14 Jun 2007. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007nmym Cash, Cassidy, host, and Barbara Traister, guest. "Episode #13: Interview with Barbara Traister exploring astrology, doctors, herbs, and witches in Shakespeare's England." That Shakespeare Life, episode 13, Cassidy Cash, 16 July 2018. https://cassidycash.libsyn.com/episode-13-interview-with-barbara-traister-exploring-astrology-doctors-herbs-and-witches-in-shakespeares-england Kassell, Lauren, host. "Simon Forman: astrology, Medicine and Quackery in Elizabethan England." University of Oxford Podcasts, University of Oxford, 26 Oct 2011. https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/simon-forman-astrology-medicine-and-quackery-elizabethan-england Lipscomb, Suzannah, host, and Benjamin Woolley, guest. "Elizabeth I's Conjuror: John Dee." Not Just the Tudors, episode 364, History Hit, 9 Oct 2024. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/elizabeth-is-conjuror-john-dee/id1564113869?i=1000670531385 Oxford English Dicitionary. "Astrology, N. Meanings, Etymology and More | Oxford English Dictionary." Oxford English Dictionary, 2026, www.oed.com/dictionary/astrology_n. Oxford English Dicitionary. "Astronomy, N. Meanings, Etymology and More | Oxford English Dictionary." Oxford English Dictionary, 2026, www.oed.com/dictionary/astronomy_n. Schifini, Julia and Amanda McLoughlin, hosts, and Kelly Downes, guest. "Episode 361: Astrology and Shakespeare (with Kelly Downes)." Spirits Podcast, episode 361, Multitude Productions, 8 Nov 2023. https://spiritspodcast.com/episodes/shakespeare-and-astrology  Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night, or What You Will , edited by Keir Elam, ARDEN SHAKESPEARE, LONDON, UK, 2008, pp. 180n1.3.132-5. Third. Walker, Katherine. "Almanacs as Underdogs: Folger Shakespeare Library." Folger Shakespeare Library Almanacs as Underdogs Comments, Folger Shakespeare Library, 19 Mar. 2019, www.folger.edu/blogs/collation/almanacs-as-underdogs/.  Smith, William Bruce, "Shakespeare and astrology" (1989). Chapter 2. Master's Theses. Paper 1083

Whitney White is a theatrical powerhouse. A director, writer, actor, and musician, White's work has been seen on Broadway, Off Broadway, and at major institutions including The Public Theater, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and, most recently, the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her projects include Jaja's African Hair Braiding, The Last Five Years, Macbeth in Stride, and By The Queen, which was featured in the Folger's 2025 Reading Room Festival. In this episode, White discusses All Is But Fantasy, her four-play musical cycle created for the RSC, where it's now receiving its world premiere. The high-energy, gig-theater show investigates Shakespeare's women and ambition, focusing on Lady Macbeth, Emilia, Juliet, and Richard III. Each piece combines performance with original music, using sound and rhythm as a way into the text and as a tool for rethinking these characters whose inner lives are often cut short or overlooked. White reflects on why Shakespeare's women so often meet tragic ends, how those stories continue to feel familiar, and what it means to keep staging them now. She considers the ways that music, performance, and adaptation can help us better understand Shakespeare today. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published February 10, 2026. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica, with Garland Scott serving as executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Technical support was provided by Melvin Rickarby in Stratford, England, and Voice Trax West in Studio City, California. Web production was handled by Paola García Acuña. Transcripts are edited by Leonor Fernandez. Final mixing services were provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc. Whitney White is an Obie and Lily Award-winning and Tony Award-nominated director, actor, and musician, celebrated for her bold, innovative storytelling across both Broadway and off-Broadway. She recently received the Drama League's 2025 Founders Award for Excellence in Directing and an Obie Award for Sustained Achievement in Directing. All Is But Fantasy, White's four-part musical exploration of Shakespeare's women and ambition, commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, marks her RSC debut as a writer, director, and actor. The two-part high-energy gig theater show is receiving its world premiere at The Other Place in Stratford-upon-Avon in January and February 2026. White's other directing credits on Broadway include The Last Five Years and Jaja's African Hair Braiding, off-Broadway credits include Liberation, Walden, Jordan's, Soft, On Sugarland, What to Send Up When It Goes Down, Our Dear Drug Lord, and For All the Women Who Thought They Were Mad. She recently opened Saturday Church, a new musical featuring songs by Sia and Honey Dijon at New York Theatre Workshop. She also created Macbeth In Stride at Brooklyn Academy of Music, writing the book, music and lyrics. Additional directing work includes The Secret Life of Bees, By The Queen, The Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington, A Human Being of a Sort, An Iliad, The Amen Corner, Othello, Canyon, and Jump. On screen, White has appeared in Ocean's Eight, Single Drunk Female, Louie, and The Playboy Club, and she contributed as a writer to Boots Riley's acclaimed series I'm A Virgo for Prime Video.

"Fumifugium" was a treatise on air pollution written in 1661. In addition to warning about the dangers of coal smoke, John Evelyn wrote this work to improve the reputation of King Charles II. Research: Chambers, Douglas D. C. "Evelyn, John (1620–1706), diarist and writer." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. January 03, 2008. Oxford University Press. Date of access 13 Jan. 2026, https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-8996 "Evelyn, John (1620-1706)." Encyclopedia of World Biography, Gale, 1998. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A148426050/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=ab356add. Accessed 13 Jan. 2026. Borunda, Alejandra. “The EPA is changing how it considers the costs and benefits of air pollution rules.” NPR. 1/13/2026. https://www.npr.org/2026/01/13/nx-s1-5675307/epa-air-regulations-health-benefits DeWispelare, Daniel. “’Heavy Fumes of Charcoal Creep into the Brain.’” The 18th-century Common. 5/14/2018. https://www.18thcenturycommon.org/evelyn/ Hovde, Sarah. “A solution for pollution?” Folger Shakespeare Library. 4/21/2017. https://www.folger.edu/blogs/shakespeare-and-beyond/air-pollution-london-fumifugium/ London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “Pamphlet Collection: Fumifugium, by John Evelyn.” Library, Archive & Open Research Services Blog. 7/11/2022. https://blogs.lshtm.ac.uk/library/2022/11/07/pamphlet-collection-fumifugium-by-john-evelyn/ Jenner, Mark. (1995) The politics of London air : John Evelyn's 'Fumifugium' and the Restoration. The Historical Journal. pp. 535-551. ISSN: 1469-5103. https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/1550/1/jennerm1.pdf Heidorn, K.C. “A Chronology of Important Events in the History of Air Pollution Meteorology to 1970.” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, December 1978, Vol. 59, No. 12 (December 1978). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26219252 Foster, John Bellamy. “Introduction to John Evelyn’s ‘Fumifugium.’” Organization & Environment, June 1999, Vol. 12, No. 2 (June 1999). https://www.jstor.org/stable/26161864 Brimblecombe, Peter. “Interest in Air Pollution among Early Fellows of the Royal Society.” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Mar., 1978, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Mar., 1978). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/531723 Cavert, William M. “The Environmental Policy of Charles I: Coal Smoke and the English Monarchy, 1624–40.” Journal of British Studies, APRIL 2014, Vol. 53, No. 2 (APRIL 2014). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24701865 Darley, Gillian. “John Evelyn: Britain's First Environmentalist.” Gresham College. 11/12/2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOik751LhHk Surrey Heritage. “John Evelyn (1620 – 1706).” https://www.exploringsurreyspast.org.uk/themes/people/writers/john_evelyn/ Evelyn, John. “Fumifugium.” 1661. https://archive.org/details/fumifugium00eveluoft/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Explore the history of libraries in this kid-friendly history-sode. Learn how ancient civilizations preserved knowledge through clay tablets, scrolls, and handwritten books, and why libraries have always mattered. Perfect for kids who love books, learning, and history stories.Many libraries and archives offer Adopt-a-Book or Adopt-a-Manuscript programs. Below are a few wonderful programs you can explore:

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. As we start off another one of Shakespeare's plays, we will first take a look at the themes, motifs,  and production history of Julius Caesar in this Stuff to Chew On episode. This will provide a basis for future conversations as we dive deeper in later episodes.  Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp. Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander. For updates: Join our email list Follow us on Instagram at @shakespeareanyonepod Visit our website at shakespeareanyone.com Support the podcast: Become a patron at patreon.com/shakespeareanyone -- get 50% off of your first month with code HBD5 until February 1, 2026 Buy us a coffee Bookshop.org: Since 2020, Bookshop.org has raised more than $38 million for independent bookstores. Shop our Shakespeare Anyone? storefront to find books featured on the podcast, books by our guests, and other Shakespeare-related books and gifts. Every purchase on the site financially supports independent bookstores. Libro.fm: Libro.fm makes it possible to purchase audiobooks through your local bookshop of choice. Use our link for 2 free audiobooks when you sign up for a new Libro.fm membership using our link. Find additional links mentioned in the episode in our Linktree. Works referenced: Mowat, Barbara, and Paul Werstine. "About Shakespeare's Julius Caesar." Folger Shakespeare Library, 2025, www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/julius-caesar/about-shakespeares-julius-caesar/. Shakespeare, William. Julius Caesar. Edited by Andrew James Hartley, Arden Shakespeare, 2024. SparkNotes Editors. "Julius Caesar" SparkNotes.com, SparkNotes LLC, 2005, https://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/juliuscaesar/

While Shakespeare was reshaping English drama, a parallel theatrical revolution was unfolding in Spain. During the Spanish Golden Age, playwright Lope de Vega pioneered the comedia nueva, a bold new dramatic form that broke classical rules in favor of fast-paced plots, emotional intensity, and popular appeal. In this episode, scholar and translator Barbara Fuchs shares how the theatrical innovations of Lope de Vega, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Tirso de Molina, Ana Caro Mallén de Soto, and others, including a three-act structure, blended genres, and complex female roles, helped redefine early modern theater and influenced the kinds of stories told on the English stage. Fuchs traces the rich cultural exchange between Spain and England and the work that she is doing now with Diversifying the Classics to bring plays in Spanish from both sides of the Atlantic to new audiences. Fuchs also discusses her adaptation for young audiences of de Vega's Fuente Ovejuna, a powerful story of collective resistance, whichwill be featured at the Folger's Reading Room Festival on Saturday, January 24. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published January 12, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. We had technical help from Hamish Brown in Stirling, Scotland, and Voice Trax West in Studio City, California. Final mixing services provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc. Barbara Fuchs, trained as a comparatist (English, Spanish, French, Italian), Professor Fuchs works on European cultural production from the late fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries, with a special emphasis on literature and empire, and on theater and performance in transnational contexts. As part of her commitment to the public humanities and collaborative work, she directs the UCLA “Diversifying the Classics” initiative and edits the series “The Comedia in Translation and Performance” for Juan de la Cuesta. She is also director of LA Escena, Los Angeles' biennial festival of Hispanic classical theater, founded in 2018. Currently, Professor Fuchs serves as one of the articles editors for Renaissance Quarterly. Professor Fuchs' recent books include Knowing Fictions: Picaresque Reading in the Early Modern Hispanic World (Penn 2021); The Courage to Right a Woman's Wrongs (Juan de la Cuesta 2021), a collaborative translation of Ana Caro's Valor, agravio y mujer; and The Quest for Certainty in Early Modern Europe (Toronto 2020), co-edited with Mercedes García-Arenal. She is also one of the editors for the Norton Anthology of World Literature (2012, 2018). Her Theater of Lockdown: Digital and Distanced Performance in a time of Pandemic, one of the first studies of how theater was transformed by COVID-19, was published by Methuen in September 2021. She is currently working on a translation and critical edition of Ginés Pérez de Hita's Las guerras civiles de Granada with Payton Phillips Quintanilla. In 2021, Professor Fuchs served as President of the Modern Language Association. She was recently awarded the inaugural “Premio Ñ” from the Instituto Cervantes, for the promotion of Spanish language and culture.

Why does Samuel Pepys's diary still matter 200 years after it was first published? In her new book, The Strange History of Samuel Pepys's Diary, historian Kate Loveman examines how Pepys's extraordinary consistency as a diarist has made his writing one of the richest records of everyday life in Restoration England. Writing almost daily for nearly a decade, Pepys's diary documents everything from politics and scientific discoveries to theater and fashion. Even in times of crisis, Pepys reveals life's ordinary concerns, from worrying about the source of hair for wigs during the Great Plague to safeguarding a wheel of expensive Parmesan cheese during the Great Fire of London. He also offers a rare glimpse into contemporary theatergoing, recording audience reactions and his own opinions, including Shakespeare. He famously dismissed A Midsummer Night's Dream. In this episode, Loveman explores how Pepys's diary has been edited, published, censored, and rediscovered over centuries, entertaining readers from the Victorian era to the COVID-19 pandemic in the 21st century. Pepys's daily observations show how careful, habitual record-keeping can transform ordinary life into an invaluable historical resource. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published December 30, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. We had technical help from Hamish Brown in Stirling, Scotland, and Voice Trax West in Studio City, California. Final mixing services provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc. Kate Loveman is Professor of Early Modern Literature and Culture at the University of Leicester and an internationally recognized expert on Pepys and Restoration literature. She is the author of Reading Fictions, 1660–1740: Deception in English Literary and Political Culture; Samuel Pepys and his Books: Reading, Newsgathering, and Sociability, 1660–1703; and The Strange History of Samuel Pepys's Diary; and the editor of The Diary of Samuel Pepys for Everyman.

What did people really eat in Shakespeare's England? In her new book, Much Ado About Cooking, food historian Sam Bilton uncovers the vibrant and surprising world of early modern cuisine—where sugar was locked away like treasure, fresh salads were everyday fare, and a “banquet” meant a “post-feast after party” dessert course. Bilton brings to life the flavors behind Shakespeare's food references: mince pies, herb-packed green sauces, saffron-brightened tarts, and even whimsical dishes crafted to look like something else entirely. These foods reveal a world shaped by global trade, humoral medicine, and a delight in spectacle. In this episode, Bilton discusses how cooking, dining, and food imagery can open a new window onto Shakespeare's plays and the people who lived, ate, and celebrated in his time. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published December 16, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. We had technical help from Hamish Brown in Stirling, Scotland, and Voice Trax West in Studio City, California. Final mixing services provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc. Sam Bilton is a food historian, author and presenter of the award-winning “Comfortably Hungry” and “A is for Apple” podcasts. She has written books on the history of gingerbread, saffron and chocolate, and writes articles on food history for a variety of print and online publications. Sam has also hosted several Shakespeare-themed supper clubs over the years. You can find out more details about Sam on her website: sambilton.com.

Hosted by David and Nycci Nellis. On today's show: · Monica Evans, beverage director, the Coquito Bar, a tropical holiday cocktail oasis inside La Cosecha in the Union Market District; · Joy Johnson, director of visitor experience at the fabulous Folger Shakespeare Library, with inside news about all the cool stuff happening there across the holidays during the 2nd Annual Folger Frost Fair and lots more; · Sarah the Elf. North Pole native. ‘Nuff said. And, oh yeah, there's a big holiday light show and festival up in Baltimore. She tells us all about it; · Equal billing for some among us who don't celebrate Christmas, but who also have a cool holiday this time of year! Josh Saltzman is co-owner at the Juneberry Garage. We had Juneberry's Chris Powers in last week. Josh is also co-owner at Ivy and Coney, where they're about to celebrate their 9th Annual Hannukah pop-up bar, called Chai-vy and Cohen-y. Josh is here without his mishpocha but … with all the deets;l · Elena Johnson is the D.C. and Maryland market lead for The Macallan. She's in with news about The Macallan's newest venture here, The Snug. It's D.C.'s new whisky lounge, open now -- and only to be found at the Ritz-Carlton, Washington D.C.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hosted by David and Nycci Nellis. On today's show: · Monica Evans, beverage director, the Coquito Bar, a tropical holiday cocktail oasis inside La Cosecha in the Union Market District; · Joy Johnson, director of visitor experience at the fabulous Folger Shakespeare Library, with inside news about all the cool stuff happening there across the holidays during the 2nd Annual Folger Frost Fair and lots more; · Sarah the Elf. North Pole native. ‘Nuff said. And, oh yeah, there's a big holiday light show and festival up in Baltimore. She tells us all about it; · Equal billing for some among us who don't celebrate Christmas, but who also have a cool holiday this time of year! Josh Saltzman is co-owner at the Juneberry Garage. We had Juneberry's Chris Powers in last week. Josh is also co-owner at Ivy and Coney, where they're about to celebrate their 9th Annual Hannukah pop-up bar, called Chai-vy and Cohen-y. Josh is here without his mishpocha but … with all the deets;l · Elena Johnson is the D.C. and Maryland market lead for The Macallan. She's in with news about The Macallan's newest venture here, The Snug. It's D.C.'s new whisky lounge, open now -- and only to be found at the Ritz-Carlton, Washington D.C.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hamnet, the acclaimed novel by Maggie O'Farrell, is now a major film. The story imagines the life and death of Shakespeare's son, Hamnet, whose loss would later echo through one of his most famous tragedies, Hamlet. O'Farrell joins director and co-writer Chloé Zhao to reveal how they adapted the novel for the big screen. With Jessie Buckley as Agnes and Paul Mescal as William, the film reframes the Shakespeare family story as one of deep love, rupturing grief, and artistic creation. O'Farrell and Zhao discuss developing the screenplay together, interpreting Shakespeare as a husband and father, building the film's immersive natural world, and shaping an unforgettable Globe Theatre sequence that anchors the emotional arc of the story. O'Farrell and Zhao talk about adaptation, artistry, and how a 400-year-old loss continues to inspire new ways of imagining Shakespeare's life and legacy. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published December 2, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. We had technical help from Hamish Brown in Stirling, Scotland, and Voice Trax West in Studio City, California. Final mixing services provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.

Folger Shakespeare Library director Farah Karim-Cooper's new book All the World's Your Stage explores for readers of all ages the life and times of William Shakespeare through eight of his most popular plays. Dr. Karim-Cooper discusses how this was one of her hardest books to write and reveals the surprising title of her favorite Shakespeare play; the relationship between profanity and a love of language; Shakespearean mythbusting; the confessions of a Texan sailor's daughter; the value of Shakespeare – as well as museums, arts, and humanities – beyond their “relevance;” ; how Shakespeare wrote what may be the first Black power speech; and the importance of studying Shakespeare on the stage as well as on the page. (Length 27:37) (Photo of Farah Karim-Cooper above by Henri T.) The post Farah Karim-Cooper appeared first on Reduced Shakespeare Company.

Before Shakespeare became a literary icon, he was a working writer trying to earn a living in an emerging and often precarious new industry. In The Dream Factory: London's First Playhouse and the Making of William Shakespeare, Daniel Swift explores the dream of making money from creating art, a dream shared by James Burbage, who built The Theatre, the first purpose-built commercial playhouse in London, and a young Shakespeare. Nobody had ever really done that before, with playwrights at the time notoriously poor. Swift shows that Shakespeare's creativity unfolded in a rapidly changing London where commercial theater was just beginning to take shape. The Theatre offered Shakespeare the stability, a close team of actors and cowriters, and the professional home that he needed to develop his craft. Swift reveals a playwright who was learning on the job and becoming the Shakespeare we know today. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published November 18, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. We had technical help from Hamish Brown in Stirling, Scotland, and Voice Trax West in Studio City, California. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc. Daniel Swift is an associate professor of English at Northeastern University, London. He is the author of books on Ezra Pound, William Shakespeare, and the poetry of the Second World War, and editor of John Berryman's The Heart Is Strange: New Selected Poems. His essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, New Statesman, and Harper's.

Author David Grann joins David M. Rubenstein to discuss his books including "Killers of the Flower Moon" and "The Wager" and visits the vault of the Folger Shakespeare Library. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author David Grann joins David M. Rubenstein to discuss his books, including "Killers of the Flower Moon" and "The Wager," and visits the vault of the Folger Shakespeare Library. This is an episode of C-SPAN's new series America's Book Club. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's guest is Jenny Mann, who has a new book titled The Trials of Orpheus: Poetry, Science, and the Early Modern Sublime (Princeton University Press, 2021). Jenny is Professor in both New York University's English Department and the Gallatin School, and her work has been supported by the Mellon Foundation and the Folger Shakespeare Library. She is the author of the previous monograph, Outlaw Rhetoric: Figuring Vernacular Eloquence in Shakespeare's England (Cornell University Press, 2012) and is the co-editor with Debapriya Sarkar of a special issue of Philological Quarterly on “Imagining Scientific Forms.” Additionally, Jenny works in collaboration with the Public Shakespeare Initiative at the Public Theater in New York. John Yargo is Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Boston College. He holds a PhD in English literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, specializing in the environmental humanities and early modern culture. His peer-reviewed articles have been published or are forthcoming in the Journal for Early Modern Culture Studies, Early Theatre, Studies in Philology, and Shakespeare Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Today's guest is Jenny Mann, who has a new book titled The Trials of Orpheus: Poetry, Science, and the Early Modern Sublime (Princeton University Press, 2021). Jenny is Professor in both New York University's English Department and the Gallatin School, and her work has been supported by the Mellon Foundation and the Folger Shakespeare Library. She is the author of the previous monograph, Outlaw Rhetoric: Figuring Vernacular Eloquence in Shakespeare's England (Cornell University Press, 2012) and is the co-editor with Debapriya Sarkar of a special issue of Philological Quarterly on “Imagining Scientific Forms.” Additionally, Jenny works in collaboration with the Public Shakespeare Initiative at the Public Theater in New York. John Yargo is Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Boston College. He holds a PhD in English literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, specializing in the environmental humanities and early modern culture. His peer-reviewed articles have been published or are forthcoming in the Journal for Early Modern Culture Studies, Early Theatre, Studies in Philology, and Shakespeare Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's guest is Jenny Mann, who has a new book titled The Trials of Orpheus: Poetry, Science, and the Early Modern Sublime (Princeton University Press, 2021). Jenny is Professor in both New York University's English Department and the Gallatin School, and her work has been supported by the Mellon Foundation and the Folger Shakespeare Library. She is the author of the previous monograph, Outlaw Rhetoric: Figuring Vernacular Eloquence in Shakespeare's England (Cornell University Press, 2012) and is the co-editor with Debapriya Sarkar of a special issue of Philological Quarterly on “Imagining Scientific Forms.” Additionally, Jenny works in collaboration with the Public Shakespeare Initiative at the Public Theater in New York. John Yargo is Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Boston College. He holds a PhD in English literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, specializing in the environmental humanities and early modern culture. His peer-reviewed articles have been published or are forthcoming in the Journal for Early Modern Culture Studies, Early Theatre, Studies in Philology, and Shakespeare Studies.

Today's guest is Jenny Mann, who has a new book titled The Trials of Orpheus: Poetry, Science, and the Early Modern Sublime (Princeton University Press, 2021). Jenny is Professor in both New York University's English Department and the Gallatin School, and her work has been supported by the Mellon Foundation and the Folger Shakespeare Library. She is the author of the previous monograph, Outlaw Rhetoric: Figuring Vernacular Eloquence in Shakespeare's England (Cornell University Press, 2012) and is the co-editor with Debapriya Sarkar of a special issue of Philological Quarterly on “Imagining Scientific Forms.” Additionally, Jenny works in collaboration with the Public Shakespeare Initiative at the Public Theater in New York. John Yargo is Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Boston College. He holds a PhD in English literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, specializing in the environmental humanities and early modern culture. His peer-reviewed articles have been published or are forthcoming in the Journal for Early Modern Culture Studies, Early Theatre, Studies in Philology, and Shakespeare Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies

Today's guest is Jenny Mann, who has a new book titled The Trials of Orpheus: Poetry, Science, and the Early Modern Sublime (Princeton University Press, 2021). Jenny is Professor in both New York University's English Department and the Gallatin School, and her work has been supported by the Mellon Foundation and the Folger Shakespeare Library. She is the author of the previous monograph, Outlaw Rhetoric: Figuring Vernacular Eloquence in Shakespeare's England (Cornell University Press, 2012) and is the co-editor with Debapriya Sarkar of a special issue of Philological Quarterly on “Imagining Scientific Forms.” Additionally, Jenny works in collaboration with the Public Shakespeare Initiative at the Public Theater in New York. John Yargo is Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Boston College. He holds a PhD in English literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, specializing in the environmental humanities and early modern culture. His peer-reviewed articles have been published or are forthcoming in the Journal for Early Modern Culture Studies, Early Theatre, Studies in Philology, and Shakespeare Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's guest is Jenny Mann, who has a new book titled The Trials of Orpheus: Poetry, Science, and the Early Modern Sublime (Princeton University Press, 2021). Jenny is Professor in both New York University's English Department and the Gallatin School, and her work has been supported by the Mellon Foundation and the Folger Shakespeare Library. She is the author of the previous monograph, Outlaw Rhetoric: Figuring Vernacular Eloquence in Shakespeare's England (Cornell University Press, 2012) and is the co-editor with Debapriya Sarkar of a special issue of Philological Quarterly on “Imagining Scientific Forms.” Additionally, Jenny works in collaboration with the Public Shakespeare Initiative at the Public Theater in New York. John Yargo is Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Boston College. He holds a PhD in English literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, specializing in the environmental humanities and early modern culture. His peer-reviewed articles have been published or are forthcoming in the Journal for Early Modern Culture Studies, Early Theatre, Studies in Philology, and Shakespeare Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

Imprisoned for nearly 20 years by her cousin Queen Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots, fought her battles through words, sending and receiving coded letters hidden in books, garments, and even beer barrels. Historian Jade Scott, of the University of Glasgow, Scotland, has uncovered the human and political depths behind Mary's captivity through 57 recently decrypted letters, coded missives that reveal her as a strategist, an adept diplomat, and a woman navigating the perilous politics of Elizabethan England. In her new book, Captive Queen: The Decrypted History of Mary, Queen of Scots, Scott draws on these newly decoded letters to illuminate Mary's time in captivity, her alliances and betrayals, and the intricate game of espionage that ultimately led to her execution. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published November 4, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc. Jade Scott, PhD, is a historian specializing in Mary, Queen of Scots and is an expert on her letters. She is a lecturer in historical linguistics at the University of Glasgow and an associate fellow of the Royal Historical Society, researching early modern Scottish women and their correspondence. Fascinated by Mary since she was a child, Jade was contacted by the DECRYPT Project to consult on the translations of Mary's newly-decoded letters, which led to the writing of Captive Queen. Jade lives in Glasgow.

Long before Shakespeare became a household name, there was Richard Burbage. As the first actor to play Hamlet, Macbeth, Richard III, and King Lear, Burbage helped define what it meant to be a Shakespearean actor. A commanding performer, he became one of early modern England's first celebrities—celebrated for his emotional power and versatility, as well as his entrepreneurial savvy as an early theater owner. In her new book "Richard Burbage and the Shakespearean Stage: A ‘Delightful Proteus,'" scholar Siobhan Keenan explores the actor's remarkable career and his pivotal partnership with Shakespeare. Together, they transformed the English stage. Siobhan Keenan is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature at De Montfort University, UK, and the author of several books on early modern theatre history and performance culture, including Richard Burbage and the Shakespearean Stage: A ‘Delightful Proteus' (2025), The Progresses, Processions and Royal Entries of King Charles I, 1625-1642 (2020), Acting Companies and their Plays in Shakespeare's London (The Arden Shakespeare, 2014), and Travelling Players in Shakespeare's England (2002). From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published October 21, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.

This week Blake Smith and Karen Stollznow are joined by clinical psychologist Dr. Brian A. Sharpless, author of Monsters on the Couch, to discuss cannibalism—what it is, why humans have done it, and how the taboo shows up in archaeology, medicine, psychology, and horror cinema. They cover definitions (endocannibalism vs. survival cannibalism), prion diseases such as Kuru, criminal and paraphilic cases, and pop-culture touchpoints from Ravenous to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, plus legend-tripping at Lovelock Cave and the “giants” folklore around the Mound Builder myth.Don't forget to grab Karen's latest: Bitch: The Journey of a Word

Shakespeare's plays are filled with unforgettable women—but too often, their voices are cut short. Ophelia never gets to defend herself. Gertrude never explains her choices. Lady Anne surrenders to Richard III in silence. In her new book, She Speaks: What Shakespeare's Women Might Have Said, acclaimed actor Dame Harriet Walter imagines what those characters might tell us if given the chance. Through original poems, Walter reimagines moments of silence, expands on fleeting lines, and provides depth to women who were left without a final word. Walter invites us to see Shakespeare's plays in a new light—reconsidering how we understand his female characters, and how their voices might transform the stories we thought we knew. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published October 7, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc. Dame Harriet Walter, DBE, is one of Britain's most esteemed Shakespearean actors, whose roles include Ophelia, Viola, Lady Macbeth, Cleopatra, Brutus, King Henry IV, and Prospero, among others.. She has received a Laurence Olivier Award, as well as numerous nominations, including a Tony Award nomination, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Walter is also well-known for her appearances in Sense and Sensibility, Atonement, Downton Abbey, The Crown, Succession, Killing Eve, and Ted Lasso, among many other notable projects. In 2011, she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to drama.

Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare were both born in 1564, rising from working-class origins finding success in the new world of the theater. But before Shakespeare transformed English drama, Marlowe had already done so—with Tamburlaine the Great and the introduction of blank verse to the stage. As Stephen Greenblatt argues in his new biography, Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare's Greatest Rival, virtually everything in the Elizabethan theater can be seen as “pre- and post-Tamburlaine.” Shakespeare learned from Marlowe, borrowed from him, and even tried to outdo him. Beyond his theatrical innovation, Marlowe was a poet, provocateur, and likely spy whose turbulent life was cut tragically short. In this episode, Greenblatt explores Marlowe's audacious works, his entanglements with power and secrecy, and his lasting influence on Shakespeare and the stage. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published September 23, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc. Stephen Greenblatt is Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. He has written extensively on English Renaissance literature and acts as general editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature and The Norton Shakespeare. He is the author of fourteen books, including The Swerve, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, and Will in the World, a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

You may know Al Letson as a journalist—he's the host of the popular investigative podcast Reveal. Before that, he created and hosted the public radio show State of the Re:Union. But Letson is also an actor, writer, playwright, and poet. His play Julius X: A Re-envisioning of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare kicks off Folger Theatre's 2025-26 season. Julius X isn't an adaptation of Julius Caesar — it's a new play that borrows from Shakespeare's language, characters, and plot to tell a different story. In Letson's play, Julius X is a fictionalized version of Malcolm X. The play mixes lines from Shakespeare with Letson's original poetry and songs. It expands the roles of Shakespeare's female characters, as well as that of Cinna the poet. Letson discusses the origin story of Julius X - a hint: it involves an audition, his lifelong love for Malcolm X, and the lessons he learned as an artist from Bill Moyers' series, The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published September 9, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc. Al Letson is the Peabody Award-winning host of Reveal. Born in New Jersey, he moved to Jacksonville, Florida, at age 11 and, as a teenager, began rapping and producing hip-hop records. By the early 1990s, he had fallen in love with the theater, becoming a local actor and playwright, and soon discovered slam poetry. In 2000, Letson placed third in the National Poetry Slam and performed on Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam, which led him to write and perform one-man shows. In Letson's travels around the country, he realized that the America he was seeing on the news was far different from the one he was experiencing up close. In 2007, he competed in the Public Radio Talent Quest, where he pitched a show called State of the Re:Union that reflected the conversations he was having throughout the US. The show ran for five seasons and won a Peabody Award in 2014. In 2015, Letson helped create and launch Reveal, the nation's first weekly investigative radio show, which has won two duPont Awards and three Peabody Awards and been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize twice. He has also hosted the podcast Errthang; written and developed several TV shows with major networks, including AMC+'s Moonhaven and Apple TV+'s Monarch; and DC Comics recently released his series Mister Terrific: Year One.

Shakespeare's Julius Caesar feels urgently contemporary in Rosa Joshi's new production at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival—one of America's largest and longest-running theater festivals, now in its 90th season. Staged in partnership with Seattle's upstart crow collective, the production explores the threat of autocracy, drawing on global histories of dictatorship. Performed entirely by women and nonbinary actors, Joshi's Julius Caesar offers new perspectives on a historically male-dominated political landscape. The result is a fresh reading of Shakespeare's classic tale of power, loyalty, and betrayal. In this episode, Joshi reflects on the production, the politics of performance, and why Shakespeare's plays continue to illuminate moments of crisis. >> Discover more about Julius Caesar at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published August 25, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc. Rosa Joshi (she/her) is a director, producer and educator. She currently serves as Associate Artistic Director of Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Rosa's directing work spans from Shakespeare to modern classics and contemporary plays. Throughout her career she has created work independently through self-producing, and in 2006 she co-founded upstart crow collective a company that produces classical plays with diverse casts of women and non-binary people. With upstart crow, she has directed King John, Bring Down the House, Richard III, Titus Andronicus, and Coriolanus. She is committed to creating ambitious productions of classical work featuring women, non-binary, and BIPOC artists. As Interim Artistic Director of Northwest Asian American Theatre, Rosa produced a range of Asian American performances, including: A-Fest, an international performance festival; Traces, a world premiere multi-disciplinary, multi-media, international collaborative work. She was also a Resident Director and Artistic Director of the Second Company at New City Theater, where she directed and produced various classical and contemporary plays. Rosa has been a faculty member at Seattle University and has also taught at The Old Globe University of San Diego Shiley Graduate Theatre Program, Hong Kong University, Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts, and Cornish College for the Arts. Rosa holds an MFA in Directing from the Yale School of Drama and a BA in Theatre and Psychology from Bucknell University.

250 years after her birth, Jane Austen is more popular than ever, with the publication of new editions of her novels and numerous new film adaptations in production. But what does it mean to read and edit Jane Austen today through the lens of colonialism, cartography, and race? Scholar Patricia A. Matthew, who recently edited new editions of three Austen novels, joins us to explore the ongoing fascination with Jane and share new research about the Regency era. How wealth from Caribbean sugar plantations and slavery shaped the world depicted in Austen's novels—and how today's readers can confront the economic and imperial histories embedded in Regency-era fiction. During her fellowship at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Patricia Matthew examined archival materials, including legal texts, maps, travel logs, and legal documents, to gain a better understanding of colonial sugar plantations in the Caribbean. She looked at how empire and enslavement wealth from the new world, slavery, and race informed (or didn't) the literature and visual culture of the 18th– and 19th–century Britainies. This research now shapes Matthew Patricia's new annotated editions of Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, and Mansfield Park, and opens up broader conversations about adaptation, nostalgia, and canon formation. From overlooked maps folded into rare archival books to questions of literary escapism and cultural memory, Patricia offers a rich and expansive perspective on Jane Austen, her era, and her legacy in 2025. >> Pre-order Patricia Matthew's new editions of Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey from Penguin Classics, and Mansfield Park from Norton Library. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published August 11, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc. Patricia A. Matthew is Associate Professor of English at Montclair State University, where she teaches courses on the History of the Novel and Romantic abolitionist culture. She writes about Regency-era literature and culture for scholars and the public in journals and publications including Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Women's Writing, Lapham's Quarterly, The Times Literary Supplement, and Slate. She co-edits the Oxford University Press book series Race in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture. She is also director of the Race and Regency Lab and editor of Penguin Random House's 250th anniversary editions of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey. Winner of fellowships from the National Humanities Center and the British Association for Romanticism Studies, she is currently writing a book about abolition, material culture, and gender for Princeton University Press. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

What if, instead of just watching Hamlet, you could step inside the prince's mind? A revelatory new audio production reimagines Shakespeare's iconic tragedy as a first-person experience told through Hamlet's POV. We only hear the scenes in which he appears—every soliloquy becomes an inner monologue, every whisper a voice in our ears. With stunning binaural sound design by Tony Award–winner Mikhail Fiksel and an intimate, close-mic performance by Daniel Kyri (“Chicago Fire”) as the Prince of Denmark, Hamlet is transformed into a deeply personal journey through grief, paranoia, memory, and resolve. The six-episode podcast of Hamlet is produced by Make-Believe Association, an audio storytelling group based in Chicago. The production, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June, includes performances by John Douglas Thompson as Claudius (and the Ghost), Sharon Washington as Gertrude, and Jacob Ming-Trent as Polonius. In this episode, director Jeremy McCarter shares how technology unlocked new layers of intimacy and urgency in Shakespeare's play—and why, more than 400 years later, Hamlet's questions still resonate. >>>Listen to Hamlet at hamlet.fm or wherever you listen to podcasts. Headphones heighten the experience! From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published July 29, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc. Jeremy McCarter founded Make-Believe Association in 2017 after five years on the artistic staff of the Public Theater in New York. For the company, he adapted The Lost Books of the Odyssey; co-wrote City on Fire: Chicago Race Riot 1919 (with Natalie Moore); co-created and co-wrote the acclaimed epic Lake Song (Tribeca Festival Audio Premiere, winner of three Signal Awards), and adapted and directed the audacious new take on Hamlet. His books include Young Radicals; Hamilton: The Revolution (with Lin-Manuel Miranda); and Viewfinder: A Memoir of Seeing and Being Seen (with Jon M. Chu). He has written about culture and politics for New York Magazine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications. He is the literary executor of the novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder.

Ellen Curtis Demorest and Ebeneezer Butterick are the two names most often invoked as the start of multi-sized patterns printed for home sewists. Once they proved it was a viable business, a lot of other offerings appeared. Research: Alcega, Joan de. “Libro de geometria, practica y traça.” Madrid.1580. Accessed online:https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_07333/ Aldarondo, Abner. “A Master Tailor’s Manual.” Folger Shakespeare Library. Jan. 10, 2023. https://www.folger.edu/blogs/collation/a-master-tailors-manual/ Bertrand, J.E. “Descriptions des arts et métiers faites ou approuvées.” l'Imprimerie de la Société Typographique. 1780. Accessed online: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=SAWFeeXzMgYC&rdid=book-SAWFeeXzMgYC&rdot=1 Boullay, Benoit. “Le Tailleur Sincère, Contenant Ce Qu'il Faut Observer Pour Bien Tracer, Couper.” (Reproduction.) Hachette Livre Bnf. 2012. Buckley, Cheryl. “On the Margins: Theorizing the History and Significance of Making and Designing Clothes at Home.” Journal of Design History, vol. 11, no. 2, 1998, pp. 157–71. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1316192 Crane, Ellen Bicknell. “Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal memoirs of Worcester County, Massachusetts.” Lewis Publishing Company. 1907. Accessed online: https://books.google.com/books?id=nfhSZxL8bTEC&source=gbs_navlinks_s Crossland, Samantha R. “Made in Minneapolis, sewn all over the world.” Hennepin History. 2021, Vol. 80, No. 2. https://hennepinhistory.org/from-the-magazine-made-in-minneapolis/ Demorest, Ellen. “The Question of Labor. Women’s Work and Wages.” New York Times. Nov. 18, 1863. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1863/11/18/78710875.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 “The Educational Legacy of Simplicity Pattern Company.” Simplicity Patterns. September 2024. https://simplicity.com/blog/the-educational-legacy-of-simplicity-pattern-company Emery, Joy Spanabel. “A History of the Paper Pattern Industry: The Home Dressmaking Fashion Revolution.” Bloomsbury Visual Arts. 2020. Freyle, Diego de. “Geometria Y Traça Para El Oficio De Los Sastres.” Sevilla, Spain. 1588. Accessed online: https://archive.org/details/1588-geometria-y-traca-para-el-oficio-de-los-sastres/page/n1/mode/2up Johnson, Susan. “’Madame’ Demorest—The Woman at the Top of a 19-Century Fashion Empire.” Museum of the City of New York. April 15, 2020. https://www.mcny.org/story/madame-demorest-woman-top-19-century-fashion-empire The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Ebenezer Butterick". Encyclopedia Britannica, 25 May. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ebenezer-Butterick Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Ellen Louise Curtis Demorest." Encyclopedia Britannica, 11 Nov. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/money/Ellen-Louise-Curtis-Demorest “Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly and Mme. Demorest’s Mirror of Fashions.” April 1865. https://ia802801.us.archive.org/8/items/demorestsillustr00newy/demorestsillustr00newy_bw.pdf “Design Group Americas Voluntarily Files for Chapter 11 Protection, Initiates Sale Process Aimed at Maximizing Value Through Going Concern Transactions.” BusinessWire. July 3, 2025. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250703734892/en/Design-Group-Americas-Voluntarily-Files-for-Chapter-11-Protection-Initiates-Sale-Process-Aimed-at-Maximizing-Value-Through-Going-Concern-Transactions “Joseph M. Shapiro of Simplicity, 79.” New York Times. July 31, 1968. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/07/31/76959179.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 “Millinery.” New York Times. Nov. 7, 1853. https://www.newspapers.com/image/20309463/?match=1&terms=%22Mme.%20Demorest%22 “The 40’s from The War Effort to The New Look - Championing Fashion that Matters.” Simplicity Patterns. September 2024. https://simplicity.com/blog/vogue-patterns-an-evolution-of-american-style Queen, James and William Lapsley. “The Tailor’s Instructor.” Philadelphia. 1809. Accessed online: https://dn790007.ca.archive.org/0/items/taylorsinstructo00quee/taylorsinstructo00quee.pdf Reyes-Martinez, Marcos A. “The Vara: A Standard of Length With a Not-So-Standard History.” National Institute of Standards and Technology. Oct. 11, 2019. https://www.nist.gov/blogs/taking-measure/vara-standard-length-not-so-standard-history Walsh, Margaret. “The Democratization of Fashion: The Emergence of the Women’s Dress Pattern Industry.” The Journal of American History, vol. 66, no. 2, 1979, pp. 299–313. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1900878 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Commercially available sewing patterns have been a cornerstone of home stitching for a century. But well before they existed, there were people trying to share sewing patterns. Research: Alcega, Joan de. “Libro de geometria, practica y traça.” Madrid.1580. Accessed online:https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_07333/ Aldarondo, Abner. “A Master Tailor’s Manual.” Folger Shakespeare Library. Jan. 10, 2023. https://www.folger.edu/blogs/collation/a-master-tailors-manual/ Bertrand, J.E. “Descriptions des arts et métiers faites ou approuvées.” l'Imprimerie de la Société Typographique. 1780. Accessed online: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=SAWFeeXzMgYC&rdid=book-SAWFeeXzMgYC&rdot=1 Boullay, Benoit. “Le Tailleur Sincère, Contenant Ce Qu'il Faut Observer Pour Bien Tracer, Couper.” (Reproduction.) Hachette Livre Bnf. 2012. Buckley, Cheryl. “On the Margins: Theorizing the History and Significance of Making and Designing Clothes at Home.” Journal of Design History, vol. 11, no. 2, 1998, pp. 157–71. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1316192 Crane, Ellen Bicknell. “Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal memoirs of Worcester County, Massachusetts.” Lewis Publishing Company. 1907. Accessed online: https://books.google.com/books?id=nfhSZxL8bTEC&source=gbs_navlinks_s Crossland, Samantha R. “Made in Minneapolis, sewn all over the world.” Hennepin History. 2021, Vol. 80, No. 2. https://hennepinhistory.org/from-the-magazine-made-in-minneapolis/ Demorest, Ellen. “The Question of Labor. Women’s Work and Wages.” New York Times. Nov. 18, 1863. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1863/11/18/78710875.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 “The Educational Legacy of Simplicity Pattern Company.” Simplicity Patterns. September 2024. https://simplicity.com/blog/the-educational-legacy-of-simplicity-pattern-company Emery, Joy Spanabel. “A History of the Paper Pattern Industry: The Home Dressmaking Fashion Revolution.” Bloomsbury Visual Arts. 2020. Freyle, Diego de. “Geometria Y Traça Para El Oficio De Los Sastres.” Sevilla, Spain. 1588. Accessed online: https://archive.org/details/1588-geometria-y-traca-para-el-oficio-de-los-sastres/page/n1/mode/2up Johnson, Susan. “’Madame’ Demorest—The Woman at the Top of a 19-Century Fashion Empire.” Museum of the City of New York. April 15, 2020. https://www.mcny.org/story/madame-demorest-woman-top-19-century-fashion-empire The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Ebenezer Butterick". Encyclopedia Britannica, 25 May. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ebenezer-Butterick Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Ellen Louise Curtis Demorest." Encyclopedia Britannica, 11 Nov. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/money/Ellen-Louise-Curtis-Demorest “Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly and Mme. Demorest’s Mirror of Fashions.” April 1865. https://ia802801.us.archive.org/8/items/demorestsillustr00newy/demorestsillustr00newy_bw.pdf “Design Group Americas Voluntarily Files for Chapter 11 Protection, Initiates Sale Process Aimed at Maximizing Value Through Going Concern Transactions.” BusinessWire. July 3, 2025. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250703734892/en/Design-Group-Americas-Voluntarily-Files-for-Chapter-11-Protection-Initiates-Sale-Process-Aimed-at-Maximizing-Value-Through-Going-Concern-Transactions “Joseph M. Shapiro of Simplicity, 79.” New York Times. July 31, 1968. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/07/31/76959179.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 “Millinery.” New York Times. Nov. 7, 1853. https://www.newspapers.com/image/20309463/?match=1&terms=%22Mme.%20Demorest%22 “The 40’s from The War Effort to The New Look - Championing Fashion that Matters.” Simplicity Patterns. September 2024. https://simplicity.com/blog/vogue-patterns-an-evolution-of-american-style Queen, James and William Lapsley. “The Tailor’s Instructor.” Philadelphia. 1809. Accessed online: https://dn790007.ca.archive.org/0/items/taylorsinstructo00quee/taylorsinstructo00quee.pdf Reyes-Martinez, Marcos A. “The Vara: A Standard of Length With a Not-So-Standard History.” National Institute of Standards and Technology. Oct. 11, 2019. https://www.nist.gov/blogs/taking-measure/vara-standard-length-not-so-standard-history Walsh, Margaret. “The Democratization of Fashion: The Emergence of the Women’s Dress Pattern Industry.” The Journal of American History, vol. 66, no. 2, 1979, pp. 299–313. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1900878 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Can reading King Lear help us rethink economic policy? Can Measure for Measure shape how we talk about justice, or Hamlet help us face grief? That's the idea behind an ambitious project at Montreal's McGill University called Reimagining Shakespeare, Remaking Modern World Systems. Led by Laurette Dubé, professor emerita of management, and Paul Yachnin, professor of Shakespeare studies, the initiative brings together experts in economics, health policy, AI,  and robotics, with theater and literary artists and humanities scholars, to explore how Shakespeare's plays can help us think more humanely—and creatively—about the systems we inhabit. In this episode, Dubé and Yachnin discuss how Shakespeare's theater created a space where money, power, and empathy intersected—and why those same plays may hold insights for addressing today's most complex challenges, reminding us of how the humanities can help us build a better future. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published July 15, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.

When live performance shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, actors Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen weren't sure when—or if—they'd ever be onstage again. So, they turned to an unexpected venue: Grand Theft Auto Online, a sprawling, open-world video game best known for fast cars, chaotic and often criminal missions, and player-driven mayhem. Amid the game's unpredictable violence, they decided to stage Hamlet—it would be the first ever complete performance of a Shakespeare play within a video game. Filmmaker Pinny Grylls joined them and turned the experiment into a documentary: Grand Theft Hamlet. Shot entirely within the game, the film won the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 2024 SXSW Film Festival. “A startling example of using any tools at your disposal to make memorable art,” said the Rotten Tomatoes website. “Grand Theft Hamlet's experimental approach does justice by the Bard.” In this episode, Crane and Grylls talk about performance, friendship, and grief during lockdown, as well as how one of Shakespeare's most famous plays unexpectedly resonated with a virtual cast of strangers and a world in isolation. The result is both funny and poignant, and as surprising as live theater itself. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published July 1, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.

Called “the finest actor of his generation,” Sir Simon Russell Beale has played just about everyone in Shakespeare's canon—Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth, Falstaff, Malvolio, Iago—and most recently, Titus Andronicus, for the Royal Shakespeare Company. In this episode, Beale reflects on the Shakespearean roles that have shaped his career and how his approach to them has evolved over time. He shares what drew him to Titus, and how he found surprising tenderness in Shakespeare's brutal tragedy. The actor revisits past performances, exploring grief in Hamlet, aging and dementia in King Lear, and how time has deepened his connection to the plays and the characters. Beale's memoir, A Piece of Work: Playing Shakespeare & Other Stories, is a moving and often humorous reflection on acting, Shakespeare, and the power of performance to reveal something essential about being human. Sir Simon Russell Beale studied at Cambridge before joining the RSC. Described by the Daily Telegraph as “the finest actor of his generation,” he has been lauded for both his stage and TV work, winning many awards including the Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor, the Evening Standard Best Actor Award, and the BAFTA Best Actor Award. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published June 17, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.

An immersive theater experience exploring love in the nation's capital comes to the Folger Shakespeare Theater, and is the subject of this week's "Get Out There."

Correspondent Mo Rocca sits down with Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd at the Folger Shakespeare Library, in Washington, D.C., to talk about her fascination with the work of William Shakespeare, a fascination that began as a teenager with her crush on Hamlet. She also compares today's political figures to Shakespeare's characters and their use/abuse of power and the failures of leadership. "No one," she says, "knows more about power than Shakespeare." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In Shakespeare's time, the actresses were boys—and for the most celebrated of them, fame came early but could end abruptly with a voice change. In this episode, author Nicole Galland joins us to talk about the world of boy players, young apprentices who performed women's roles onstage in England before 1660. Galland's novel, Boy, follows one of these real-life members of Shakespeare's company, Alexander “Sander Cooke,” and his fictional best friend, Joan, a fiercely curious young woman who disguises herself as a boy to pursue knowledge. Drawing inspiration from Shakespeare's cross-dressing heroines, Galland explores the freedoms and risks of reinventing gender roles in Elizabethan England. Figures like Francis Bacon appear in the novel as part of the broader web of power and political intrigue that shapes Joan and Sander's world. Through these connections, Galland brings Shakespeare's theatrical world to life and the people navigating its stage. Nicole Galland is the author of the historical novels I, Iago; Godiva; Crossed; Revenge of the Rose; and The Fool's Tale; as well as the contemporary romantic comedies On the Same Page and Stepdog, and the New York Times bestselling near-future thriller The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. (with Neal Stephenson). From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published June 3, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.

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 modern England—a kind of 17th-century Billboard Hot 100. Drawing from thousands of surviving printed ballads, researchers Angela McShane and Christopher Marsh have ranked the most popular songs of the period. These broadsides—cheaply printed sheets sold for a penny—offer surprising insight into the period's interests, humor, and even news headlines. McShane and Marsh discuss what these ballads tell us about moral norms, sensationalism, and everyday life. Some are instructive, some are bawdy, and some are unexpectedly feminist. This episode brings to life the soundscape of Shakespeare's world with clips from newly recorded versions of the most popular ballads and a look at how the team developed their ranking system. >> Explore the project and hear the songs yourself at www.100ballads.org Christopher Marsh is Professor of Cultural History at Queen's University, Belfast. He has published extensively on various aspects of society and culture in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. His most relevant book in relation to the 100 Ballads project is Music and society in early modern England (Cambridge, 2010). This is an overview of music-making in the 16th and 17th centuries, and it includes chapters on musicians, dancing, bell-ringing, psalm-singing and, of course, ballads. Angela McShane is an Honorary Reader in History at the University of Warwick. She is a social and cultural historian, researching the political world of the broadside ballad and the political and material histories of intoxicants and the everyday. She has published widely on political balladry, including numerous book chapters, and journal articles in Past and Present, Renaissance Studies, Journal of British Studies, Journal of Early Modern History, Popular Music Journal and Media History. She is also the author of a reference work, Political Broadside Ballads in Seventeenth Century England: A Critical Bibliography (2011). A monograph on the broadside ballad trade and its politics in seventeenth-century Britain is forthcoming with Boydell and Brewer. She is also a Co-Investigator for a related website and book project: “Our Subversive Voice: The history and politics of protest music 1600-2020.” From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published May 6, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.

David St. John joins Kevin Young to read “Picking Grapes in an Abandoned Vineyard,” by Larry Levis, and his own poem “The Shore.” St. John is the author of many poetry collections and the recipient of honors including the Rome Fellowship and an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the O. B. Hardison Prize from the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the George Drury Smith Award from Beyond Baroque. He's also the editor of “Swirl & Vortex,” a volume of collected poems by the late Larry Levis, forthcoming in 2026. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

April is the month we celebrate Shakespeare's birthday, commemorate Shakespeare's death day, and debate whether they both really happened on April 23rd. Maybe, maybe not. But we're celebrating anyway--the fun and funnies about Shakespeare! Carol Ann Lloydwww.carolannlloyd.com@shakeuphistorypatreon.com/carolannlloydThe Tudors by NumbersCourting the Virgin QueenHistory shows us what's possible.

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 sometimes, an outright performance. The story of Simnel, a boy plucked from obscurity and passed off as the York heir, reveals how precarious the Tudor dynasty really was—and how easily the lines between truth and fiction could blur. Author Jo Harkin joins us to explore the strange life of Simnel, the so-called Yorkist “pretender” who nearly toppled Henry VII. In her new novel The Pretender, Harkin imagines Simnel's life beyond the history books, from his childhood on a farm to his years at court. Along the way, she unpacks what it meant to be groomed for kingship, what royal power struggles looked like from a child's point of view, and how historical fiction can fill in the gaps of the past. Though Shakespeare never wrote a play about Henry VII, his portrayal of Richard III helped shape how we remember the Wars of the Roses—and how we understand power, myth, and legacy. Harkin reflects on those cultural inheritances, showing how writing about this era means grappling with historical facts and the fictions we've come to accept. Simnel's story reminds us that what endures isn't always what's real, but what people are ready to believe. Jo Harkin's debut speculative fiction novel, Tell Me An Ending, was a New York Times Book of the Year. Her first historical novel, The Pretender, was published in April 2025 in the U.K. and the U.S. She lives in Berkshire, England. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published April 22, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.

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 scientific discourse, travel writing, and the visual culture of the time. Shakespeare's plays reflect these cultural currents. In The Tempest, the character of Caliban—described as savage, deformed, and barely human—embodies the fears and fantasies that haunted early modern encounters with the so-called “New World.” Davies unpacks how Caliban's portrayal draws on the same ways of thinking that labeled certain people monstrous and how Shakespeare's work offers a lens into the period's views on race, colonialism, and imagination. As we confront new technologies like artificial intelligence, Davies helps us consider what today's “monstrous others” might be and how early modern ways of thinking linger in our discussions of what it means to be human. Dr. Surekha Davies is a British author, speaker, and historian of science, art, and ideas. Her first book, Renaissance Ethnography and the Invention of the Human, won the Morris D. Forkosch Prize for the best first book in intellectual history from the Journal of the History of Ideas and the Roland H. Bainton Prize in History and Theology. She has published essays and book reviews about the histories of biology, anthropology, and monsters in the Times Literary Supplement, Nature, Science, and Aeon. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published April 8, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.

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 Baker's Daughter, author and Shakespeare scholar Grace Tiffany brings Judith to life—filling in the gaps with adventure, resilience, and rebellion. A sequel to My Father Had a Daughter, this novel follows Judith into later adulthood. No longer the headstrong girl who once fled to London in disguise to challenge her father, she is now a skilled healer and midwife. However, when she is accused of witchcraft, she must escape Stratford and navigate a world where Puritans have closed playhouses, civil war splits England, and even her father's legacy is at risk. Tiffany explores how she merged fact and fiction to reimagine Judith's life. From the real-life scandal that shook her marriage to the theatrical and political disturbances of her time, the author examines what it means to write historical fiction—and how Shakespeare's life and legacy continue to inspire new stories. Grace Tiffany is a professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama at Western Michigan University. She has also taught Shakespeare at Fordham University, the University of New Orleans, and the University of Notre Dame, where she obtained her doctorate. She is also the author of My Father Had a Daughter and The Turquoise Ring. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published March 25, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.

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 sea levels. Following three sisters grappling with their father's death, Private Rites weaves together themes of inheritance, power, and familial wounds—echoing Shakespeare's tragic monarch while carving out a distinctly modern, queer perspective. Armfield, author of Our Wives Under the Sea, discusses her fascination with disaster narratives, the inescapable dynamics of sibling relationships, and how Shakespeare's work inspires her storytelling. From the storm in King Lear to the watery depths of her fiction, she reflects on how queerness, horror, and the climate crisis intersect in literature. Julia Armfield is a fiction writer living in London with her wife and cat. Her work has been published in Granta, The White Review, and Best British Short Stories in 2019 and 2021. In 2019, she was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. She was longlisted for the Deborah Rogers Award in 2018 and won the White Review Short Story Prize in 2018 and a Pushcart Prize in 2020. She is the author of salt slow, a collection of short stories, which was longlisted for the Polari Prize in 2020 and the Edge Hill Prize in 2020. Her debut novel, Our Wives Under The Sea, was shortlisted for the Foyles Fiction Book of the Year Award in 2022 and won the Polari Prize in 2023. Her second novel, Private Rites, was longlisted for the inaugural Climate Fiction Prize in 2024. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published March 11, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.

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 world already aware of race, identity, and difference. In this episode, Patricia Akhimie, editor of The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Race, discusses the growing field of study and what we can learn from it. She is joined by two of the scholars contributing essays to the guide, Dennis Britton and Kirsten Mendoza, who are exploring the ways race, gender, and power intersect in Shakespeare's long narrative poems. Britton examines Venus and Adonis, investigating how Shakespeare's portrayal of beauty, fairness, and desire upends traditional thinking about sexuality and race. Mendoza focuses on human rights in The Rape of Lucrece, revealing how Shakespeare's use of color symbolism exposes early modern ideas about race, gender, and bodily autonomy. Both scholars illuminate how Shakespeare's works have encoded ideas about race, which continue to resonate today. The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Race is an essential resource for scholars, teachers, students, and readers interested in this important area of Shakespeare research. Patricia Akhimie is Director of the Folger Institute at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Director of the RaceB4Race Mentorship Network, and Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University-Newark. She is editor of the Arden Othello (4th series), author of Shakespeare and the Cultivation of Difference: Race and Conduct in the Early Modern World and, with Bernadette Andrea, co-editor of Travel and Travail: Early Modern Women, English Drama, and the Wider World. Dennis Austin Britton is an Associate Professor of English at the University of British Columbia. His research interests include early modern English literature, Protestant theology, premodern critical race studies, and the history of emotion. He is the author of Becoming Christian: Race, Reformation, and Early Modern English Romance (2014), coeditor with Melissa Walter of Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies (2018), and co-editor with Kimberly Anne Coles of ‘Spenser and Race', a special issue of Spenser Studies (2021). He is currently working on a new edition of Othello for Cambridge University Press and a monograph, ‘Shakespeare and Pity: A Literary History of Race and Feeling.' Kirsten N. Mendoza is an Associate Professor of English and Human Rights at the University of Dayton. Her first book project, ‘A Politics of Touch: The Racialization of Consent in Early Modern English Literature', examines the conceptual ties that link shifting sixteenth- and seventeenth-century discourses on self-possession and sexual consent with England's colonial endeavors, involvement in the slave trade, and global mercantile pursuits. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Renaissance Drama, Shakespeare Bulletin, The Norton Critical Edition of Doctor Faustus, Race and Affect in Early Modern English Literature, and Teaching Social Justice Through Shakespeare: Why Renaissance Literature Matters Now. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published February 10, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.