In Our Time BBC Podcasts

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Poe (1809-1849), the American author who is famous for his Gothic tales of horror, madness and the dark interiors of the mind, such as The Fall of the House of Usher and The Tell-Tale Heart. As well as tapping at our deepest fears in poems such as The Raven, Poe pioneered detective fiction with his character C. Auguste Dupin in The Murders in the Rue Morgue. After his early death, a rival rushed out a biography to try to destroy Poe's reputation but he has only become more famous over the years as a cultural icon as well as an author.

With

Bridget Bennett
Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of Leeds

Erin Forbes
Senior Lecturer in 19th-century African American and US Literature at the University of Bristol

And

Tom Wright
Reader in Rhetoric at the University of Sussex

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Peter Ackroyd, Poe: A Life Cut Short (Vintage, 2009)

Amy Branam Armiento and Travis Montgomery (eds.), Poe and Women: Recognition and Revision (Lehigh University Press, 2023)

Joan Dayan, Fables of Mind: An Inquiry into Poe's Fiction (Oxford University Press, 1987)

Erin Forbes, ‘Edgar Allan Poe in the Great Dismal Swamp’ (Modern Philology, 2016)

Kevin J. Hayes (ed.), Edgar Allan Poe in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2012)

J. Gerald Kennedy and Scott Peeples (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Edgar Allan Poe (Oxford University Press, 2018)

Jill Lepore, 'The Humbug: Poe and the Economy of Horror' (The New Yorker, April 20, 2009)

Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark (Vintage, 1993)

Scott Peeples and Michelle Van Parys, The Man of the Crowd: Edgar Allan Poe and the City (Princeton University Press, 2020)

Edgar Allan Poe, The Portable Edgar Allan Poe (Penguin, 2006)

Shawn Rosenhelm and Stephen Rachman (eds.), The American Face of Edgar Allan Poe (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Marguerite, Queen of Navarre (1492 – 1549), author of the Heptaméron, a major literary landmark in the French Renaissance. Published after her death, The Heptaméron features 72 short stories, many of which explore relations between the sexes. However, Marguerite’s life was more eventful than that of many writers. Born into the French nobility, she found herself the sister of the French king when her brother Francis I came to the throne in 1515. At a time of growing religious change, Marguerite was a leading exponent of reform in the Catholic Church and translated an early work of Martin Luther into French. As the Reformation progressed, she was not afraid to take risks to protect other reformers.

With

Sara Barker
Associate Professor of Early Modern History and Director of the Centre for the Comparative History of Print at the University of Leeds

Emily Butterworth
Professor of Early Modern French at King’s College London

And

Emma Herdman
Lecturer in French at the University of St Andrews

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Giovanni Boccaccio (trans. Wayne A. Rebhorn), The Decameron (Norton, 2013)

Emily Butterworth, Marguerite de Navarre: A Critical Companion (Boydell &Brewer, 2022)

Patricia Cholakian and Rouben Cholakian, Marguerite de Navarre: Mother of the Renaissance (Columbia University Press, 2006)

Gary Ferguson, Mirroring Belief: Marguerite de Navarre’s Devotional Poetry (Edinburgh University Press, 1992)

Gary Ferguson and Mary B. McKinley (eds.), A Companion to Marguerite de Navarre (Brill, 2013)

Mark Greengrass, The French Reformation (John Wiley & Sons, 1987)

R.J. Knecht, The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France (Fontana Press, 2008)

R.J. Knecht, Renaissance Warrior and Patron: The Reign of Francis I (Cambridge University Press, 2008)

John D. Lyons and Mary B. McKinley (eds.), Critical Tales: New Studies of the ‘Heptaméron’ and Early Modern Culture (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993)

Marguerite de Navarre (trans. Paul Chilton), The Heptameron (Penguin, 2004)

Marguerite de Navarre (trans. Rouben Cholakian and Mary Skemp), Selected Writings: A Bilingual Edition (University of Chicago Press, 2008)

Marguerite de Navarre (trans. Hilda Dale), The Coach and The Triumph of the Lamb (Elm Press, 1999)

Marguerite de Navarre (trans. Hilda Dale), The Prisons (Whiteknights, 1989)

Marguerite de Navarre (ed. Gisèle Mathieu-Castellani), L’Heptaméron (Libraririe générale française, 1999)

Jonathan A. Reid, King’s Sister – Queen of Dissent: Marguerite of Navarre (1492-1549) and her Evangelical Network (Brill, 2009)

Paula Sommers, ‘The Mirror and its Reflections: Marguerite de Navarre’s Biblical Feminism’ (Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, 5, 1986)

Kathleen Wellman, Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France (Yale University Press, 2013)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most influential work of Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929). In 1899, during America’s Gilded Age, Veblen wrote The Theory of the Leisure Class as a reminder that all that glisters is not gold. He picked on traits of the waning landed class of Americans and showed how the new moneyed class was adopting these in ways that led to greater waste throughout society. He called these conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption and he developed a critique of a system that favoured profits for owners without regard to social good. The Theory of the Leisure Class was a best seller and funded Veblen for the rest of his life, and his ideas influenced the New Deal of the 1930s. Since then, an item that becomes more desirable as it becomes more expensive is known as a Veblen good.

With

Matthew Watson
Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick

Bill Waller
Professor of Economics at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, New York

And

Mary Wrenn
Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of the West of England

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Charles Camic, Veblen: The Making of an Economist who Unmade Economics (Harvard University Press, 2021)

John P. Diggins, Thorstein Veblen: Theorist of the Leisure Class (Princeton University Press, 1999)

John P. Diggins, The Bard of Savagery: Thorstein Veblen and Modern Social Theory (Seabury Press, 1978)

John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (Penguin, 1999)

Robert Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers (Penguin, 2000), particularly the chapter ‘The Savage Society of Thorstein Veblen’

Ken McCormick, Veblen in Plain English: A Complete Introduction to Thorstein Veblen’s Economics (Cambria Press, 2006)

Sidney Plotkin and Rick Tilman, The Political Ideas of Thorstein Veblen (Yale University Press, 2012)

Juliet B. Schor, The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need (William Morrow & Company, 1999)

Juliet B. Schor, Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture (Simon & Schuster Ltd, 2005)

Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (first published 1899; Oxford University Press, 2009)

Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of Business Enterprise (first published 1904; Legare Street Press, 2022)

Thorstein Veblen, The Higher Learning in America (first published 2018; Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015)

Thorstein Veblen, Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise in Recent Times: The Case of America (first published 1923; Routledge, 2017)

Thorstein Veblen, Conspicuous Consumption (Penguin, 2005)

Thorstein Veblen, The Complete Works (Musaicum Books, 2017)

Charles J. Whalen (ed.), Institutional Economics: Perspective and Methods in Pursuit of a Better World (Routledge, 2021)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aristotle's ideas on what happiness means and how to live a good life. Aristotle (384-322BC) explored these almost two and a half thousand years ago in what became known as his Nicomachean Ethics. His audience then were the elite in Athens as, he argued, if they knew how to live their lives well then they could better rule the lives of others. While circumstances and values have changed across the centuries, Aristotle's approach to answering those questions has fascinated philosophers ever since and continues to do so.
With
Angie Hobbs
Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield
Roger Crisp
Director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Professor of Moral Philosophy and Tutor in Philosophy at St Anne’s College, University of Oxford
And
Sophia Connell
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
J.L. Ackrill, Aristotle the Philosopher (Oxford University Press, 1981)
Aristotle (ed. and trans. Roger Crisp), Nicomachean Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
Aristotle (trans. Terence Irwin), Nicomachean Ethics (Hackett Publishing Co., 2019)

Aristotle (trans. H. Rackham), Nicomachean Ethics: Loeb Classical Library (William Heinemann Ltd, 1962)
Jonathan Barnes, Aristotle: Past Masters series (Oxford University Press, 1982)
Gerard J. Hughes, Routledge Guidebook to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (Routledge, 2013)
Richard Kraut (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Wiley-Blackwell, 2005)
Michael Pakaluk, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2005)
A. Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle's Ethics (University of California Press, 1981)
Nancy Sherman, The Fabric of Character: Aristotle's Theory of Virtue (Clarendon Press, 1989)
J.O. Urmson, Aristotle’s Ethics (John Wiley & Sons, 1988)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Emile Zola's greatest literary success, his thirteenth novel in a series exploring the extended Rougon-Macquart family. The relative here is Etienne Lantier, already known to Zola’s readers as one of the blighted branch of the family tree and his story is set in Northern France. It opens with Etienne trudging towards a coalmine at night seeking work, and soon he is caught up in a bleak world in which starving families struggle and then strike, as they try to hold on to the last scraps of their humanity and the hope of change.
With
Susan Harrow
Ashley Watkins Chair of French at the University of Bristol
Kate Griffiths
Professor in French and Translation at Cardiff University
And
Edmund Birch
Lecturer in French Literature and Director of Studies at Churchill College & Selwyn College, University of Cambridge
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
David Baguley, Naturalist Fiction: The Entropic Vision (Cambridge University Press, 1990)
William Burgwinkle, Nicholas Hammond and Emma Wilson (eds.), The Cambridge History of French Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2011), particularly ‘Naturalism’ by Nicholas White
Kate Griffiths, Emile Zola and the Artistry of Adaptation (Legenda, 2009)
Kate Griffiths and Andrew Watts, Adapting Nineteenth-Century France: Literature in Film, Theatre, Television, Radio, and Print (University of Wales Press, 2013)
Anna Gural-Migdal and Robert Singer (eds.), Zola and Film: Essays in the Art of Adaptation (McFarland & Co., 2005)
Susan Harrow, Zola, The Body Modern: Pressures and Prospects of Representation (Legenda, 2010)
F. W. J. Hemmings, The Life and Times of Emile Zola (first published 1977; Bloomsbury, 2013)
William Dean Howells, Emile Zola (The Floating Press, 2018)
Lida Maxwell, Public Trials: Burke, Zola, Arendt, and the Politics of Lost Causes (Oxford University Press, 2014)
Brian Nelson, Emile Zola: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2020)
Brian Nelson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Emile Zola (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
Sandy Petrey, Realism and Revolution: Balzac, Stendhal, Zola, and the Performances of History (Cornell University Press, 1988)
Arthur Rose, ‘Coal politics: receiving Emile Zola's Germinal’ (Modern & contemporary France, 2021, Vol.29, 2)
Philip D. Walker, Emile Zola (Routledge, 1969)
Emile Zola (trans. Peter Collier), Germinal (Oxford University Press, 1993)
Emile Zola (trans. Roger Pearson), Germinal (Penguin Classics, 2004)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the anchoress and mystic who, in the late fourteenth century, wrote about her visions of Christ suffering, in a work since known as Revelations of Divine Love. She is probably the first named woman writer in English, even if questions about her name and life remain open. Her account is an exploration of the meaning of her visions and is vivid and bold, both in its imagery and theology. From her confined cell in a Norwich parish church, in a land beset with plague, she dealt with the nature of sin and with the feminine side of God, and shared the message she received that God is love and, famously, that all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.
With
Katherine Lewis
Professor of Medieval History at the University of Huddersfield
Philip Sheldrake
Professor of Christian Spirituality at the Oblate School of Theology, Texas and Senior Research Associate of the Von Hugel Institute, University of Cambridge
And
Laura Kalas
Senior Lecturer in Medieval English Literature at Swansea University
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
John H. Arnold and Katherine Lewis (eds.), A Companion to the Book of Margery Kempe (D.S. Brewer, 2004)
Ritamary Bradley, Julian’s Way: A Practical Commentary on Julian of Norwich (Harper Collins, 1992)
E. Colledge and J. Walsh (eds.), Julian of Norwich: Showings (Classics of Western Spirituality series, Paulist Press, 1978)
Liz Herbert McAvoy (ed.), A Companion to Julian of Norwich (D.S. Brewer, 2008)
Liz Herbert McAvoy, Authority and the Female Body in the Writings of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe (D.S. Brewer, 2004)
Grace Jantzen, Julian of Norwich: Mystic and Theologian (new edition, Paulist Press, 2010)
Julian of Norwich (trans. Barry Windeatt), Revelations of Divine Love (Oxford World's Classics, 2015)
Julian of Norwich (ed. Nicholas Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins), The Writings of Julian of Norwich: A Vision Showed to a Devout Woman and a Revelation of Love, (Brepols, 2006)
Laura Kalas, Margery Kempe’s Spiritual Medicine: Suffering, Transformation and the Life-Course (D.S. Brewer, 2020)
Laura Kalas and Laura Varnam (eds.), Encountering the Book of Margery Kempe (Manchester University Press, 2021)
Laura Kalas and Roberta Magnani (eds.), Women in Christianity in the Medieval Age: 1000-1500 (Routledge, forthcoming 2024)
Ken Leech and Benedicta Ward (ed.), Julian the Solitary (SLG, 1998)
Denise Nowakowski Baker and Sarah Salih (ed.), Julian of Norwich’s Legacy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)
Joan M. Nuth, Wisdom’s Daughter: The Theology of Julian of Norwich (Crossroad Publishing, 1999)
Philip Sheldrake, Julian of Norwich: “In God’s Sight”: Her Theology in Context (Wiley-Blackwell, 2019)
E. Spearing (ed.), Julian of Norwich: Revelations of Divine Love (Penguin Books, 1998)
Denys Turner, Julian of Norwich, Theologian (Yale University Press, 2011)

Wolfgang Riehle, The Secret Within: Hermits, Recluses and Spiritual Outsiders in Medieval England (Cornell University Press, 2014)
Caroline Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (University of California Press, 1982)
Ann Warren, Anchorites and their Patrons in Medieval England (University of California Press, 1985)
Hugh White (trans.), Ancrene Wisse: Guide for Anchoresses (Penguin Classics, 1993)