Podcasts about piers plowman

Shannon Gayk joins Jana Byars to discuss her new book. Apocalyptic Ecologies: From Creation to Doom in Medieval English Literature (University of Chicago Press, 2024) is a meditative reflection on what medieval disaster writing can teach us about how to respond to the climate emergency. When a series of ecological disasters swept medieval England, writers turned to religious storytelling for precedents. Their depictions of biblical floods, fires, storms, droughts, and plagues reveal an unsettled relationship to the natural world, at once unchanging and bafflingly unpredictable. In Apocalyptic Ecologies, Shannon Gayk traces representations of environmental calamities through medieval plays, sermons, and poetry such as Cleanness and Piers Plowman. In premodern disaster writing, she recovers a vision of environmental flourishing that could inspire new forms of ecological care today: a truly apocalyptic sensibility capable of seeing in every ending, every emergency a new beginning waiting to emerge. 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

Shannon Gayk joins Jana Byars to discuss her new book. Apocalyptic Ecologies: From Creation to Doom in Medieval English Literature (University of Chicago Press, 2024) is a meditative reflection on what medieval disaster writing can teach us about how to respond to the climate emergency. When a series of ecological disasters swept medieval England, writers turned to religious storytelling for precedents. Their depictions of biblical floods, fires, storms, droughts, and plagues reveal an unsettled relationship to the natural world, at once unchanging and bafflingly unpredictable. In Apocalyptic Ecologies, Shannon Gayk traces representations of environmental calamities through medieval plays, sermons, and poetry such as Cleanness and Piers Plowman. In premodern disaster writing, she recovers a vision of environmental flourishing that could inspire new forms of ecological care today: a truly apocalyptic sensibility capable of seeing in every ending, every emergency a new beginning waiting to emerge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Shannon Gayk joins Jana Byars to discuss her new book. Apocalyptic Ecologies: From Creation to Doom in Medieval English Literature (University of Chicago Press, 2024) is a meditative reflection on what medieval disaster writing can teach us about how to respond to the climate emergency. When a series of ecological disasters swept medieval England, writers turned to religious storytelling for precedents. Their depictions of biblical floods, fires, storms, droughts, and plagues reveal an unsettled relationship to the natural world, at once unchanging and bafflingly unpredictable. In Apocalyptic Ecologies, Shannon Gayk traces representations of environmental calamities through medieval plays, sermons, and poetry such as Cleanness and Piers Plowman. In premodern disaster writing, she recovers a vision of environmental flourishing that could inspire new forms of ecological care today: a truly apocalyptic sensibility capable of seeing in every ending, every emergency a new beginning waiting to emerge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Shannon Gayk joins Jana Byars to discuss her new book. Apocalyptic Ecologies: From Creation to Doom in Medieval English Literature (University of Chicago Press, 2024) is a meditative reflection on what medieval disaster writing can teach us about how to respond to the climate emergency. When a series of ecological disasters swept medieval England, writers turned to religious storytelling for precedents. Their depictions of biblical floods, fires, storms, droughts, and plagues reveal an unsettled relationship to the natural world, at once unchanging and bafflingly unpredictable. In Apocalyptic Ecologies, Shannon Gayk traces representations of environmental calamities through medieval plays, sermons, and poetry such as Cleanness and Piers Plowman. In premodern disaster writing, she recovers a vision of environmental flourishing that could inspire new forms of ecological care today: a truly apocalyptic sensibility capable of seeing in every ending, every emergency a new beginning waiting to emerge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Summary Mark Edlitz (X, LinkedIn) joins Andrew (X; LinkedIn) to discuss how James Bond lived on in literature after the death of Ian Fleming. Mark is an author and pop culture expert.  What You'll Learn Intelligence The original Fleming novels Intellectual property and author's rights to iconic characters The evolution of Bond as a literary character  The relationship between the Bond books and the Bond movies Reflections Can icons ever truly die? Just how malleable are our favorite characters? And much, much more … Resources  SURFACE SKIM *Spotlight Resource* James Bond After Fleming: The Continuation Novels, Mark Edlitz (2023) *SpyCasts* The James Bond Collector with Mike VanBlaricum (2024) 70th Anniversary of James Bond, Special with Alexis Albion on 007, Part 1 of 2 (2023) 70th Anniversary of James Bond, Special with Alexis Albion on 007, Part 2 of 2 (2023) My Life Looking at Spies and the Media with Paul Lashmar (2022) *Beginner Resources* James Bond Books: The Continuation Novels, D. Leigh, The James Bond Dossier (2024) [Short biographies of each continuation author] Ian Fleming – Life Story, Short Biographies, YouTube (2023) [8 min. video] Can I do a sequel to someone else's book or movie? Miller IP Law (n.d.) [Short article] DEEPER DIVE Books Bond, James Bond: Exploring the Shaken and Stirred History of Ian Fleming's 007, B. Gilmore & M. Kalinowski (Mango, 2022) The Many Lives of James Bond: How the Creators of 007 Have Decoded the Superspy, M. Edlitz (Lyons Press, 2019) James Bond: The Evolution of the World's Most Famous Spy, A. Geiger (CompanionHouse Books, 2016)  Primary Sources  An Interview with Raymond Benson (2023) License Renewed: Interview with John Gardner (1994) Gardner Assumes Ian Fleming's Pen To Keep James Bond Alive (1988) An Interview with Kingsley Amis (1975)  Allen Dulles and Ian Fleming (1964)  Books of the Times (1963)  *Wildcard Resource* James Bond is a fantastically well-known character, but he is not technically in the public domain. Characters that do exist in the public domain include Count Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, Sherlock Holmes, and Robin Hood.  Studying the origins of these characters is fascinating. Take Robin Hood, for example – The first written mention of the heroic outlaw comes from the poem “The Vision of Piers Plowman” by William Langland, written in 1380. That's 593 years before Disney's classic adaptation of the story!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marilynne Robinson is one of the great living novelists. She has won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Humanities Medal, and Barack Obama took time out of his presidency to interview her at length. Her fiction is suffused with a sense of holiness: Mundane images like laundry drying on a line seem to be illuminated by a divine force. Whether she's telling the story of a pastor confronting his mortality in “Gilead” or two sisters coming of age in small-town Idaho in “Housekeeping,” her novels wrestle with theological questions of what it means to be human, to see the world more deeply, to seek meaning in life.In recent years, Robinson has tightened the links between her literary pursuits and her Christianity, writing essays about Calvinism and other theological traditions. Her forthcoming work of nonfiction is “Reading Genesis,” a close reading of the first book of the Old Testament (or the Torah, as I grew up knowing it). It's a countercultural reading in many respects — one that understands the God in Genesis as merciful rather than vengeful and humans as flawed but capable of astounding acts of grace. No matter one's faith, Robinson unearths wisdom in this core text that applies to many questions we wrestle with today.We discuss the virtues evoked in Genesis — beauty, forgiveness and hospitality — and how to cultivate what Robinson calls “a mind that's schooled toward good attention.” And we end on her reading of the story of Israel, which I found to be challenging, moving and evocative at a time when that nation has been front and center in the news.Book Recommendations:Foxe's Book of Martyrs by John FoxeThe Vision of Piers Plowman by William LanglandTheologia GermanicaThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show's production team also includes Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero and Alex Engebretson.

Michael Johnston's The Middle English Book: Scribes and Readers, 1350-1500 (Oxford UP, 2023) addresses a series of questions about the copying and circulation of literature in late medieval England: How do we make sense of the variety of manuscripts surviving from this period? Who copied and disseminated these diverse manuscripts? Who read the literary texts that they transmit? And what was the relationship between those copying literature and those reading it? To answer these questions, this book examines 202 literary manuscripts from the period 1350 to 1500. First, this study suggests that most surviving manuscripts fall into four categories, depending on the proximity and relationship of that manuscript's scribes and readers. But beyond proposing these new categories, this book also looks at the history of writing practices, and demonstrates the ubiquity of bureaucracies within late medieval England.  As a result, The Middle English Book argues that literary production was a decentered affair, one that took place within these numerous, modest, yet complex, bureaucracies. But this book also argues that, because literary production arose in such scattered bureaucracies, manuscripts were local products, produced within the cultural and economic milieu of their users. Manuscripts thus form a fundamentally different sort of cultural artefact than the printed books with which we are familiar--a form of centralized, urbanized, and commercialized textual production that was just over the historical horizon in late medieval England. Michael Johnston earned a BA in English and Religious Studies from John Carroll University in 2000, a M.Litt. in Mediaeval English from the University of St Andrews in 2002, and a PhD from Ohio State University in 2007. He is Associate Professor of English at Purdue University and he researches and teaches about literature and culture in late medieval England, with a specialization in the history of the book and Piers Plowman. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. 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

Michael Johnston's The Middle English Book: Scribes and Readers, 1350-1500 (Oxford UP, 2023) addresses a series of questions about the copying and circulation of literature in late medieval England: How do we make sense of the variety of manuscripts surviving from this period? Who copied and disseminated these diverse manuscripts? Who read the literary texts that they transmit? And what was the relationship between those copying literature and those reading it? To answer these questions, this book examines 202 literary manuscripts from the period 1350 to 1500. First, this study suggests that most surviving manuscripts fall into four categories, depending on the proximity and relationship of that manuscript's scribes and readers. But beyond proposing these new categories, this book also looks at the history of writing practices, and demonstrates the ubiquity of bureaucracies within late medieval England.  As a result, The Middle English Book argues that literary production was a decentered affair, one that took place within these numerous, modest, yet complex, bureaucracies. But this book also argues that, because literary production arose in such scattered bureaucracies, manuscripts were local products, produced within the cultural and economic milieu of their users. Manuscripts thus form a fundamentally different sort of cultural artefact than the printed books with which we are familiar--a form of centralized, urbanized, and commercialized textual production that was just over the historical horizon in late medieval England. Michael Johnston earned a BA in English and Religious Studies from John Carroll University in 2000, a M.Litt. in Mediaeval English from the University of St Andrews in 2002, and a PhD from Ohio State University in 2007. He is Associate Professor of English at Purdue University and he researches and teaches about literature and culture in late medieval England, with a specialization in the history of the book and Piers Plowman. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Michael Johnston's The Middle English Book: Scribes and Readers, 1350-1500 (Oxford UP, 2023) addresses a series of questions about the copying and circulation of literature in late medieval England: How do we make sense of the variety of manuscripts surviving from this period? Who copied and disseminated these diverse manuscripts? Who read the literary texts that they transmit? And what was the relationship between those copying literature and those reading it? To answer these questions, this book examines 202 literary manuscripts from the period 1350 to 1500. First, this study suggests that most surviving manuscripts fall into four categories, depending on the proximity and relationship of that manuscript's scribes and readers. But beyond proposing these new categories, this book also looks at the history of writing practices, and demonstrates the ubiquity of bureaucracies within late medieval England.  As a result, The Middle English Book argues that literary production was a decentered affair, one that took place within these numerous, modest, yet complex, bureaucracies. But this book also argues that, because literary production arose in such scattered bureaucracies, manuscripts were local products, produced within the cultural and economic milieu of their users. Manuscripts thus form a fundamentally different sort of cultural artefact than the printed books with which we are familiar--a form of centralized, urbanized, and commercialized textual production that was just over the historical horizon in late medieval England. Michael Johnston earned a BA in English and Religious Studies from John Carroll University in 2000, a M.Litt. in Mediaeval English from the University of St Andrews in 2002, and a PhD from Ohio State University in 2007. He is Associate Professor of English at Purdue University and he researches and teaches about literature and culture in late medieval England, with a specialization in the history of the book and Piers Plowman. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Michael Johnston's The Middle English Book: Scribes and Readers, 1350-1500 (Oxford UP, 2023) addresses a series of questions about the copying and circulation of literature in late medieval England: How do we make sense of the variety of manuscripts surviving from this period? Who copied and disseminated these diverse manuscripts? Who read the literary texts that they transmit? And what was the relationship between those copying literature and those reading it? To answer these questions, this book examines 202 literary manuscripts from the period 1350 to 1500. First, this study suggests that most surviving manuscripts fall into four categories, depending on the proximity and relationship of that manuscript's scribes and readers. But beyond proposing these new categories, this book also looks at the history of writing practices, and demonstrates the ubiquity of bureaucracies within late medieval England.  As a result, The Middle English Book argues that literary production was a decentered affair, one that took place within these numerous, modest, yet complex, bureaucracies. But this book also argues that, because literary production arose in such scattered bureaucracies, manuscripts were local products, produced within the cultural and economic milieu of their users. Manuscripts thus form a fundamentally different sort of cultural artefact than the printed books with which we are familiar--a form of centralized, urbanized, and commercialized textual production that was just over the historical horizon in late medieval England. Michael Johnston earned a BA in English and Religious Studies from John Carroll University in 2000, a M.Litt. in Mediaeval English from the University of St Andrews in 2002, and a PhD from Ohio State University in 2007. He is Associate Professor of English at Purdue University and he researches and teaches about literature and culture in late medieval England, with a specialization in the history of the book and Piers Plowman. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael Johnston's The Middle English Book: Scribes and Readers, 1350-1500 (Oxford UP, 2023) addresses a series of questions about the copying and circulation of literature in late medieval England: How do we make sense of the variety of manuscripts surviving from this period? Who copied and disseminated these diverse manuscripts? Who read the literary texts that they transmit? And what was the relationship between those copying literature and those reading it? To answer these questions, this book examines 202 literary manuscripts from the period 1350 to 1500. First, this study suggests that most surviving manuscripts fall into four categories, depending on the proximity and relationship of that manuscript's scribes and readers. But beyond proposing these new categories, this book also looks at the history of writing practices, and demonstrates the ubiquity of bureaucracies within late medieval England.  As a result, The Middle English Book argues that literary production was a decentered affair, one that took place within these numerous, modest, yet complex, bureaucracies. But this book also argues that, because literary production arose in such scattered bureaucracies, manuscripts were local products, produced within the cultural and economic milieu of their users. Manuscripts thus form a fundamentally different sort of cultural artefact than the printed books with which we are familiar--a form of centralized, urbanized, and commercialized textual production that was just over the historical horizon in late medieval England. Michael Johnston earned a BA in English and Religious Studies from John Carroll University in 2000, a M.Litt. in Mediaeval English from the University of St Andrews in 2002, and a PhD from Ohio State University in 2007. He is Associate Professor of English at Purdue University and he researches and teaches about literature and culture in late medieval England, with a specialization in the history of the book and Piers Plowman. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies

Michael Johnston's The Middle English Book: Scribes and Readers, 1350-1500 (Oxford UP, 2023) addresses a series of questions about the copying and circulation of literature in late medieval England: How do we make sense of the variety of manuscripts surviving from this period? Who copied and disseminated these diverse manuscripts? Who read the literary texts that they transmit? And what was the relationship between those copying literature and those reading it? To answer these questions, this book examines 202 literary manuscripts from the period 1350 to 1500. First, this study suggests that most surviving manuscripts fall into four categories, depending on the proximity and relationship of that manuscript's scribes and readers. But beyond proposing these new categories, this book also looks at the history of writing practices, and demonstrates the ubiquity of bureaucracies within late medieval England.  As a result, The Middle English Book argues that literary production was a decentered affair, one that took place within these numerous, modest, yet complex, bureaucracies. But this book also argues that, because literary production arose in such scattered bureaucracies, manuscripts were local products, produced within the cultural and economic milieu of their users. Manuscripts thus form a fundamentally different sort of cultural artefact than the printed books with which we are familiar--a form of centralized, urbanized, and commercialized textual production that was just over the historical horizon in late medieval England. Michael Johnston earned a BA in English and Religious Studies from John Carroll University in 2000, a M.Litt. in Mediaeval English from the University of St Andrews in 2002, and a PhD from Ohio State University in 2007. He is Associate Professor of English at Purdue University and he researches and teaches about literature and culture in late medieval England, with a specialization in the history of the book and Piers Plowman. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications

Michael Johnston's The Middle English Book: Scribes and Readers, 1350-1500 (Oxford UP, 2023) addresses a series of questions about the copying and circulation of literature in late medieval England: How do we make sense of the variety of manuscripts surviving from this period? Who copied and disseminated these diverse manuscripts? Who read the literary texts that they transmit? And what was the relationship between those copying literature and those reading it? To answer these questions, this book examines 202 literary manuscripts from the period 1350 to 1500. First, this study suggests that most surviving manuscripts fall into four categories, depending on the proximity and relationship of that manuscript's scribes and readers. But beyond proposing these new categories, this book also looks at the history of writing practices, and demonstrates the ubiquity of bureaucracies within late medieval England.  As a result, The Middle English Book argues that literary production was a decentered affair, one that took place within these numerous, modest, yet complex, bureaucracies. But this book also argues that, because literary production arose in such scattered bureaucracies, manuscripts were local products, produced within the cultural and economic milieu of their users. Manuscripts thus form a fundamentally different sort of cultural artefact than the printed books with which we are familiar--a form of centralized, urbanized, and commercialized textual production that was just over the historical horizon in late medieval England. Michael Johnston earned a BA in English and Religious Studies from John Carroll University in 2000, a M.Litt. in Mediaeval English from the University of St Andrews in 2002, and a PhD from Ohio State University in 2007. He is Associate Professor of English at Purdue University and he researches and teaches about literature and culture in late medieval England, with a specialization in the history of the book and Piers Plowman. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael Johnston's The Middle English Book: Scribes and Readers, 1350-1500 (Oxford UP, 2023) addresses a series of questions about the copying and circulation of literature in late medieval England: How do we make sense of the variety of manuscripts surviving from this period? Who copied and disseminated these diverse manuscripts? Who read the literary texts that they transmit? And what was the relationship between those copying literature and those reading it? To answer these questions, this book examines 202 literary manuscripts from the period 1350 to 1500. First, this study suggests that most surviving manuscripts fall into four categories, depending on the proximity and relationship of that manuscript's scribes and readers. But beyond proposing these new categories, this book also looks at the history of writing practices, and demonstrates the ubiquity of bureaucracies within late medieval England.  As a result, The Middle English Book argues that literary production was a decentered affair, one that took place within these numerous, modest, yet complex, bureaucracies. But this book also argues that, because literary production arose in such scattered bureaucracies, manuscripts were local products, produced within the cultural and economic milieu of their users. Manuscripts thus form a fundamentally different sort of cultural artefact than the printed books with which we are familiar--a form of centralized, urbanized, and commercialized textual production that was just over the historical horizon in late medieval England. Michael Johnston earned a BA in English and Religious Studies from John Carroll University in 2000, a M.Litt. in Mediaeval English from the University of St Andrews in 2002, and a PhD from Ohio State University in 2007. He is Associate Professor of English at Purdue University and he researches and teaches about literature and culture in late medieval England, with a specialization in the history of the book and Piers Plowman. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

Michael Johnston's The Middle English Book: Scribes and Readers, 1350-1500 (Oxford UP, 2023) addresses a series of questions about the copying and circulation of literature in late medieval England: How do we make sense of the variety of manuscripts surviving from this period? Who copied and disseminated these diverse manuscripts? Who read the literary texts that they transmit? And what was the relationship between those copying literature and those reading it? To answer these questions, this book examines 202 literary manuscripts from the period 1350 to 1500. First, this study suggests that most surviving manuscripts fall into four categories, depending on the proximity and relationship of that manuscript's scribes and readers. But beyond proposing these new categories, this book also looks at the history of writing practices, and demonstrates the ubiquity of bureaucracies within late medieval England.  As a result, The Middle English Book argues that literary production was a decentered affair, one that took place within these numerous, modest, yet complex, bureaucracies. But this book also argues that, because literary production arose in such scattered bureaucracies, manuscripts were local products, produced within the cultural and economic milieu of their users. Manuscripts thus form a fundamentally different sort of cultural artefact than the printed books with which we are familiar--a form of centralized, urbanized, and commercialized textual production that was just over the historical horizon in late medieval England. Michael Johnston earned a BA in English and Religious Studies from John Carroll University in 2000, a M.Litt. in Mediaeval English from the University of St Andrews in 2002, and a PhD from Ohio State University in 2007. He is Associate Professor of English at Purdue University and he researches and teaches about literature and culture in late medieval England, with a specialization in the history of the book and Piers Plowman. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter.

Welcome to Season 3, Episode 36. Today's conversation is with the amazing Professor Elise Wang. We're fascinated by conspiracy theories and how people twist themselves into logical knots to believe them. This led us to Dr. Wang's  very informative and engaging TEDx Talk on Why Some Conspiracy Theories Just Won't Die. She is an Assistant Professor at Cal State Fullerton with focus areas that include literatures of late medieval England; Piers Plowman; legal history; punishment theory; premodern race and critical race theory; conspiracy narratives; and early global literatures. Elise's first book, The Making of Felony Procedure in Middle English Literature, explores the theorization of guilt through how the literature of that day wrote about felony law. She's also working on her second book already, Evidence as Style, in which she traces the internal logic of conspiracy theories. In our conversation, we talk about her professional journey, the logic of conspiracy theorists, the impact of the internet on conspiracy theories, her upcoming books, what conspiracy theories the API community should worry about, awkward moments caused by her research, and more. We highly recommend watching her TEDx Talk and her interview about Pizzagate on Jordan Klepper Fingers the Conspiracy. For previous episodes and information, please visit our site at https://asianamericanhistory101.libsyn.com or social media links at http://castpie.com/AAHistory101. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, email us at info@aahistory101.com.

This week - the final episode of Season 1, Storyshaped fans! - Susan and Sinéad are indulging themselves with a Deep Dive into one of the books that profoundly shaped both of them. We're discussing Susan Cooper's 1973 classic The Dark Is Rising, which is a book that Susan describes as being part of her soul. It's an incredible story about a boy named Will Stanton, who steps into his power as an Old One on his eleventh birthday - and it involves such a wealth of mythology, folklore, allusions to medieval texts, and other stuff that pleases our nerdy hearts, that this episode was the MOST fun to record. Please do come with us as we dive deep into this beautiful book, which has Storyshaped us both, and get ready to whisper with us:When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back,Three from the circle, three from the track;Wood, bronze, iron, water, fire, stone; Five will return, and one go alone...Many different editions of Susan Cooper's classic book exist, but this is a recent edition which might be easily accessible: The Dark Is RisingBiographical details about Cooper's life and work are drawn from her website: The Lost Land of Susan Cooper We draw on Heritage Artefacts of County Cork by Denis Power and Mary Sleeman (2022) for some of our insights into the mandala symbolReferenced in the episode is this blog post: https://consolationofreading.wordpress.com/tag/piers-plowman/We also make reference to A Guidebook to Piers Plowman by Anna Baldwin, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007Susan draws on Britannic Myths by Steven O'Brien and Joe Machine (ill.) in our discussion of Herne the Hunter and Wayland SmithThe podcast dramatisation of The Dark is Rising can be found on Spotify here: BBC Sounds Robert MacFarlane The Dark is Rising AdaptationAnd the brilliant Backlisted Podcast episode with Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris is here: Backlisted PodcastThank you all so much for listening to Season 1 of Storyshaped! We're delighted to have reached so many ears, and we hope to reach many more in Season 2 - we'll be back in 2023 with more guest interviews and lots more bookish joy. Until then: all our best wishes for the Festive Season to everyone who celebrates, however you celebrate, and whatever you're doing: make sure to find a nice quiet corner to curl up in with a good book.Our podcast bookshop in Ireland is Halfway Up the Stairs: www.halfwayupthestairs.ieIn the UK, check out our storefront on: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/Storyshaped. Disclaimer: If you buy books linked to our site, we may earn a commission from bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to this year's Advent series on Old Books with Grace. This episode meditates on Christina Rossetti's A Christmas Carol, and William Langland's Piers Plowman. An interesting duo, separated by 500 years--and you'll find out why Grace pairs them in a contemplation on nature imagery and incarnational love.

For us moderns, dreams are personal and interior, bubbling up from the deep chasms of experience, neurochemistry, and cultural symbolism.  But for the medievals, dreams were exterior: penetrative, intrusive -- they came from the outside, from beyond.  They perhaps were messages from God Himself.  On today's episode, we look at two poems about dream visions: the Old English "Dream of the Rood" and (a quick tour of) William Langland's Middle English "The Vision of Piers Plowman."Support the showPlease like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen. Thank you!If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it with a small donation. Click the "Support the Show" button. So grateful!Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra

Robin Hood was the legendary bandit of England who stole from the rich to help the poor. The stories about Robin appealed to common folk because he stood up against—and frequently outwitted—people in power. Furthermore, his life in the forest—hunting, and feasting with his fellow outlaws, coming to the assistance of those in need—seemed like a great and noble adventure. Early Sources. The earliest known mention of Robin Hood is in William Langland's 1377 work called Piers Plowman, in which a character mentions that he knows "rimes of Robin Hood." This and other references from the late 1300s suggest that Robin Hood was well established as a popular legend by that time. A collection of ballads about the outlaw Robin Hood, A Lytell Geste of Robin Hode, was published in England around 1489. From it and other medieval sources. The Robin Hood ballads reflect the discontent of ordinary people with political conditions in medieval England. They were especially upset about new laws that kept them from hunting freely in forests that were now claimed as the property of kings and nobles. Social unrest and rebellion swirled through England at the time the Robin Hood ballads first became popular. This unrest erupted in an event called the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Tales of Robin Hood. One of the medieval ballads about Robin Hood involved Sir Guy of Gisborne. Robin and his comrade Little John had an argument and parted. While Little John was on his own, the Sheriff of Nottingham captured him and tied him to a tree. Robin ran into Sir Guy, who had sworn to slay the outlaw leader. When they each discovered the other's identity, they drew their swords and fought. Robin killed Sir Guy and put on his clothes. Disguised as Sir Guy, Robin persuaded the sheriff to let him kill Little John, who was still tied to the tree. However, instead of slaying Little John, Robin freed him, and the two outlaws drove off the sheriff's men. Another old story, known as Robin Hood and the Monk, also began with a quarrel between Robin and John. Robin went into Nottingham to attend church, but a monk recognized him and raised the alarm. Robin killed 12 people before he was captured. When word of his capture reached Robin's comrades in the forest, they planned a rescue. As the monk passed by on his way to tell the king of Robin's capture, Little John and Much seized and beheaded him. John and Much, in disguise, visited the king in London and then returned to Nottingham bearing documents sealed with the royal seal. The sheriff, not recognizing them, welcomed the two men and treated them to a feast. That night Little John and Much killed Robin's jailer and set Robin free. By the time the sheriff realized what had happened, the three outlaws were safe in Sherwood Forest.

Trans people and non-cis cultures and artifacts are not only a part of, they shape and define the Middle Ages. Legendary saints and military leaders, theology, poetry and science, documented religious and regular people, mainstream fictional characters, allegories, mythological figures, alchemical and celestial bodies are part of nonbinary, gender fluid, trans, asexual, queer, non-cis, non-normative history. Medieval Trans Studies enable us to see that gender was variable and contingent in global medieval cultures. The scholars whose voices you hear in this podcast work not only on trans studies, but also critical race studies, disability, social justice and diversity in education and employment. They discuss the ethics of scholarship and the future of trans studies. Gabrielle Bychowski speaks on Eleanor Rykener, Micah Goodrich on Piers Plowman, Blake Gutt on Old French literature, Anna Kłosowska on Polish court depositions and Clovis Maillet on Byzantine, Latin, French, German and Italian trans saints, trans knights and trans historical figures. In the work of these scholars, specialists will find topics they can teach and research, and non-specialists can learn about the importance of recovering trans experiences, as well as how the medieval archive speaks back to modern understandings of identity. Drawing on literary traditions and documents from Byzantium to Rome, from France to Poland, this podcast is about the beauty and joy of trans.Follow this link for more information about Gabrielle, Micah, Blake, Anna, and Clovis, and to learn more about their conversation: https://tinyurl.com/2p9bn3hu.

In this episode, Caitlin Postal and James Harr talk to Eric Ensley and Matthew Kirschenbaum about the archive, both digital and material. Eric Ensley is a curator of rare books and maps at the University of Iowa. He received his PhD in English from Yale University in 2021 and holds an MLS from the University of North Carolina. Among his current projects is a digital edition of a Piers Plowman manuscript held in the Beinecke library, which he is co-authoring with Ian Cornelius of Loyola-Chicago. Matthew Kirschenbaum is a professor of English and Digital Studies at the University of Maryland. He is the author of Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination and Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing. His next book, Bitstreams: The Future of Digital Literary Heritage, will be published in the fall by the University of Pennsylvania Press. Music credits: Intro / outro: TeknoAXE, "Chiptune Nobility" (CC BY 4.0), interlude: Random Mind, "The Old Tower Inn" (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TMBF4zq4LQ). Transcript and more information at https://podcast.digitalmedievalist.org/episode-6-digital-archive-and-materiality. Recorded 26 March 2021. Edited by James Harr and Aylin Malcolm.

2020-21 ‘Fabrication' Fellows, Adin Lears, assistant professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University, and Anthony Lovenheim Irwin, scholar of Asian religions, engage in a conversation that ranges from creatures and creaturehood in Piers Plowman to craft and construction in Thai Buddhism, finding common ground in questions of spirituality and belief, language and craft, as they consider the ethics and poetics of ‘Fabrication.'

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Langland's poem, written around 1370, about a man called Will who fell asleep on the Malvern Hills and dreamed of Piers the Plowman. This was a time between the Black Death and The Peasants’ Revolt, when Christians wanted to save their souls but doubted how best to do it - and had to live with that uncertainty. Some call this the greatest medieval poem in English, one offering questions not answers, and it can be as unsettling now as it was then. With Laura Ashe Professor of English Literature at Worcester College, University of Oxford Lawrence Warner Professor of Medieval English at King’s College London And Alastair Bennett Lecturer in Medieval Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London Producer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Langland's poem, written around 1370, about a man called Will who fell asleep on the Malvern Hills and dreamed of Piers the Plowman. This was a time between the Black Death and The Peasants’ Revolt, when Christians wanted to save their souls but doubted how best to do it - and had to live with that uncertainty. Some call this the greatest medieval poem in English, one offering questions not answers, and it can be as unsettling now as it was then. With Laura Ashe Professor of English Literature at Worcester College, University of Oxford Lawrence Warner Professor of Medieval English at King’s College London And Alastair Bennett Lecturer in Medieval Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London Producer: Simon Tillotson

Dr. Emily Steiner joins us to discuss the 14th-century allegorical narrative poem, Piers Plowman, in all its complexities. Follow us on Twitter @knightschool_ for more! Manuscript image is a detail from Corpus Christi College MS 201 (Piers Plowman manuscript), c. 1375–1399, Library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, England.

Thom Wall is a professional juggler and variety entertainer who toured with Cirque du Soleil for five years. He’s also the author of the book Juggling: From Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Thom has performed in 12 countries and on four continents, including a run of his solo show on juggling at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Robert Vezina, Artistic Director of Cirque du Soleil described Thom as “a remarkably consistent performer… [h]e has my highest recommendation.” This article has been edited, condensed, and annotated. Stephen Harrison: So what quote are we chatting about today? Thom Wall: It’s from this woman named Bronwyn Sims. She’s a circus performer who is an acrobat, choreographer, and actor. She said, “Don’t show more. Hide less.” Did Bronwyn Sims tell you this quote in person? Yes. She was teaching at Celebration Barn Theater, which is this phenomenal physical theater school in South Paris, Maine. Absolutely middle of nowhere, but it’s beautiful. Why is this quote meaningful to you? When you think of a juggler, you probably think about somebody on a unicycle juggling three torches, wearing a felt hat, and giving these schlocky looks to the audience—you know, pandering. This specific idea of exaggerating your emotions by contorting your face is called mugging—a term that Tony Montanaro, a very famous mime, used to use.   But that’s not an honest thing. If you’re walking down the street and you see somebody smiling to themselves, you think, Oh, that person’s happy. You don’t need them to be jumping up and down, showing all of their teeth. I’ve found that your genuine emotional state is more likely to come through when you’re just trying to be as in the moment as you can, hiding as little as you can, without showing anything more than you absolutely have to. Did you befriend other performers while you were working in the circus? I actually learned this sense of minimalism from this friend of mine, an amazing Ukrainian clown named Misha Usov. We were doing ten shows a week at the time, and we were going out for pre-show animation, which is when clowns and a juggler like me try to get people amped up before the show. And I said, “Misha, you seem really tired. Are you ready to go knock ‘em dead?” I was trying to fire him up. Misha looked at me with this deadpan face (he’s a very deadpan person) and he said, “Thom, I feel 10%, so I give 100% of my 10%.” It’s the same idea as the quote: don’t show more, hide less. As long as you approach the audience with this pure and honest form of who you are and how you are feeling at the moment, you can establish rapport very quickly. Whereas, if you ham it up, that’s going to feel disingenuous to most people. On this subject of hiding and illusions: you make the point in your book that juggling has historically been associated with magic tricks. Is there still a connection between juggling and magic? That depends. The historical association has more to do with linguistics and etymology and the changing scope of the word “to juggle.” The first instance of “to juggle” in English was a 1200s copy of Piers Plowman. The line was “I can neither jape nor juggle.” Which is funny, because it means the first mention of juggling is about not juggling! But in those times, juggling basically meant entertaining, and a juggler was a generic entertainer. It could be an animal trainer, or sleight of hand, or a musician or a comedian. It was a very broad category. Then in 1897, there was an article written about Paul Cinquevalli. He is what we would today consider a juggler. He did toss juggling, a lot of balancing, and strongman feats like catching a cannonball on the edge of a plate. And in that article, that was the first instance of the word “juggling” being used to represent a feat of skill done through practice. It wasn’t until about 1947 that juggling and magic really became distinct. This group of toss jugglers that were part of the American Brotherhood of Magicians got fed up with the sleight of hand and stage illusion, so they branched off and created their own organization. They founded the IJA—the International Jugglers’ Association—a brotherhood of professionals that helped each other and fostered a community. And that’s the community that I grew up in. There are obviously a limited number of spots in Cirque du Soleil. Are you ever competitive with other jugglers? That’s a really tough question to answer. In a production show like Soleil, there are a ton of acrobatic positions, but there’s usually only ever one spot for a juggler. So oftentimes as a professional juggler, it’s somewhat lonely in terms of camaraderie. I mean, Stephen, do you really want to watch two juggling acts in a show? You can be honest! At very least, the producers don’t think the audience wants two juggling acts. So is there competition in terms of trying to get work? Like, sure. But I would say that it’s really no more competitive than any other career path. You respect the people that have been putting in the work and that are going for the same jobs that you are. The circus is a meritocracy because the more work you put into it, the better you get. And actually, when you compare juggling to the rest of the circus, jugglers and variety act performers tend to look out for each other more than other disciplines simply because, historically, jugglers have always been the underdog. I've been very fortunate that the juggling community as a whole has been more supportive than competitive throughout my entire career. You and I actually went to college together at Washington University in St. Louis, though we didn’t know each other that well. WashU has a reputation for academic rigor and I wondered: did your parents or anyone else ever discourage you when you graduated college and decided to juggle for a career? Not really from my parents. The decision came from different places. You and I both graduated in 2009, during the Recession, and I had a degree in Germanic languages in literature, which is not always the best idea, especially in that economy. I applied to basically any job that would hire me, and nobody ever called me back. But throughout my whole time in high school and undergrad, I had been juggling just as a hobby. And it turned out that my most marketable skill coming out of college was that I was a pretty solid juggler! I got a job teaching juggling to teenagers at a YMCA summer camp in Colorado. I lived in an apartment with all of these Burlesque dancers and sideshow performers. I was doing some street performances out on Pearl Street in Boulder. For a while I was eating Chef Boyardee ravioli and living out of my car, but at the same time I was really focused. So, I would say that juggling after college was partly just pragmatic, though I don’t know that anyone else would say that. I think that period helped me realize that this art was something valuable to me. The fact that I was willing to make those sacrifices to pursue it helped me recognize that maybe this is something that I would genuinely enjoy doing as a career for a long time. When I read reviews of your juggling, people often say that you are remarkably consistent. You don’t often make mistakes. I’ve been thinking about that with this interview series, when I make flubs asking questions or in a podcast. What tips do you have to avoid making mistakes in a live performance? Embracing them. Embracing the mistakes. There is this discipline of theater called devised theater where you basically create a bunch of stuff and apply meaning to it later. A lot of Soleil shows are built through devised theater. One thing they talk about in devised theater—and also in improv comedy—is this idea of the offer. Take the mistake as an offer. People think of mistakes as something that’s fully rendered in the world, and there is no way to possibly recover from it. They think, Oh man, I totally screwed up. I’m sorry, everybody. But if you instead think about ways that you can turn those moments into something that’s enjoyable or funny—a willingness to laugh at yourself—then it becomes a way to establish rapport with people. So rather than taking it as a failure and getting mad, you figure out some way to slingshot it around the moon and turn it into something that adds value. I had this contract in southern New Hampshire recently with a company called Opera North. There were six circus artists in this beautiful tent accompanied by something like 70 members of the symphony and opera singers. The audience was—I might get flack for saying this this—but they were very sophisticated, very refined, and definitely on the older side. Like a sea of gray hair. I was juggling seven balls, and I started collecting them for the big catch at the end—one, two, three, four, five, six—and then number seven, it hits my arm, and it bounces out! And I try to catch it with my other hand, and it bounces again. It’s this super dramatic moment where I just can’t catch the stupid ball! Eventually, the loose ball falls of the stage and it’s right there, right at the feet of these patrons. I look at it, and I look out at the audience, and I notice that one of the doors to the tent is open. One of the tent flaps is open. So I just grab the ball and throw it as hard and as far as I can out of the tent! And it gets this really beautiful response from this stuffy opera crowd. They were not expecting somebody that was juggling so marvelously to have this disrespect for this object that he was just caressing. For me to throw it away. A lot of performers, a lot of jugglers, would have picked up that last ball, ball seven, and done their clean collect, and moved onto the next thing. But a performance should never be about showing an audience that you are better at it than them. It should be about sharing your love of a skill with other people. Of course, after the show, when I had to go out and find the ball in the dark outside the tent—I regretted it then. But it was a beautiful choice in the moment. Further reading "Emoji King" Jeremy Burge Shares a Quote What Quote Did Mr. Money Mustache Choose? Notes on Quotes: The Compendium of All Interviews Get the weekly Notes on Quotes in your inbox.

The 14th century poem called Piers Plowman has intrigued and perplexed readers for over six centuries. In the 14th century, it was embraced by peasants who used it as inspiration in their struggle against the upper classes of England. That … Continue reading →

Clare Balding is taking a poem for a walk on today’s Ramblings. Joining her is Jean Atkin, the newly appointed Troubadour of the Malvern Hills. Jean takes Clare, stanza by stanza, to each of the locations featured in one of her poems. Joining them is Peter Sutton who has translated into modern English the famous mediaeval poem ‘Piers Plowman’ which starts with the poet asleep on the Malvern Hills. Also walking is David Armitage who works for the Malvern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty; he discusses the similarities he sees between the Malverns and some African landscapes, and shows Clare a field packed with the most extraordinary amount of ant hills. The Troubadour of the Hills is a project devised by the Ledbury Poetry Festival and the Malvern Hills AONB. If you're reading this on the Radio 4 website, please scroll down for some photos from the walk and some related links which you can follow to find out more.

On this week’s FFR, Ebony and Carolyn chat with writer, bon vivant, and Shatner Chatner-purveyor, Daniel Ortberg. But before that conversation kicked off, Carolyn dumped a giant bucket of disappointing entertainment news in the studio, from the Johnny Depp's continued appearance as Grindelwald in the third Fantastic Beasts film; the "un-uglifying" of Hester in the upcoming Mortal Engines movie, and author Chuck Wendig being let go from Marvel. But then the mood rapidly lightened as we dove into our discussion of Daniel Ortberg's formative years in the suburban Midwest; the appeal of certainty and vocation in The Hunt for Red October; and whether Paris Hilton is a closet ham radio fanatic. **Fun fact: during the entire period that Ebony and Daniel were discussing 17th century Christian allegory, The Pilgrim's Progress, Ebony actually thought they were talking about the 14th century Christian allegory, Piers Plowman. As far as she is aware, there is no Marvel comic book of Piers Plowman extant. Segment Timestamps: 0:00 Anita calls in to the Dear Prudence hotline 1:36 Ebony gracefully accepts the mantle of token cis person of the week 3:14 Pop Culture News 15:18 Daniel Ortberg interview 43:17 What's Your Freq Out? Relevant Links: Personal Shopper, a film by Olivier Assayas Hilda, new Netflix children's series The Haunting of Hill House, the new Netflix adaptation A Dark Song, a 2016 independent Irish horror film

Philosophical themes in Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” and “Troilus and Criseyde,” as well as Langland’s “Piers Plowman.”

The Donmar Theatre's latest show is catchily titled 'The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee takes oral evidence on Whitehall's relationship with Kids Company'. Kirsty Lang finds out from composer Tom Deering and lyricist Hadley Fraser how they turn such proceedings into a thought provoking and entertaining musical.Producer Tom Chivers reckons the Middle English poem 'The Vision of Piers Plowman' is entirely relevant to modern England. He explains why, and how, he's taking 'Fair Field', his theatrical version of it home to the Malvern Hills, where William Langland composed the poem 650 odd years ago. We hear the original language, the modern take on this, and music from the production.With the announcement next week of the winner of this year's Art Fund Museum of the Year, Front Row reports on each of the five finalists. Today the focus is on The National Heritage Centre for Horseracing & Sporting Art in Newmarket, where visitors can learn about the history, science, art and culture of horseracing, and can meet racehorses in the restored stables.Composer, beatboxer, vocal sculptor and sound artist, Jason Singh, has been working with the people of Hull to create music for his sound installation, 'Ebb And Flow'. This 23-speaker, fully immersive work explores people's memories of the city, its links to water, its transformation, regrowth and change. It runs this weekend and Front Row gives you a taste.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Julian May.

It is not a new insight that what is probably the early fifteenth century’s most sustained and thoughtful response to Piers Plowman, the alliterative, allegorical dream vision Mum and the Sothsegger, is also a sophisticated critique of political corruption in contemporary England. What has not yet been addressed among studies of the poem’s political allegory and use of personification, though, is the extent to which its critique hinges upon a specific medieval legal idea whose implications continue to haunt us even up to the present day: that one person may be held responsible for (and even punished for) another’s sin because he or she has consented to it by remaining silent. Crucially, the poem insists (as in my title) that this theory is common knowledge, the property of all. My current book project focuses on the history of this idea, and its deployment in allegorical poetry and rhetorical prose between the late twelfth and mid fifteenth centuries. In my paper at OSU I’ll show what this broader perspective can contribute to our reading of Mum and the Sothsegger.

Kate Wiles talks to Lawrence Warner about the origins of the Middle English narrative poem Piers Plowman. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

By Derek Pearsall, part of Feast and Famine: 2013-2014 CMRS Lecture Series

Frances Chesterton's second book, Piers Plowman's Pilgrimage, found. snoringscholar.com (Sarah Reinhard) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXarndypCYo http://www.chesterton.org/acs/frbrownreader.htm http://Chesterton.org @amchestertonsoc http://www.facebook.com/AmericanChestertonSociety http://www.facebook.com/UncommonSensePodcast