The Precarious World of Thomas Nashe

The ’Penniless?’ Project
  • 5.0 (5)
  • HISTORY
The Precarious World of Thomas Nashe

Britain today is an increasingly precarious place. Many of us aren’t used to precarity - a condition of uncertainty and exposure as emotional as it is economic. But to the average Elizabethan it was the norm. These podcasts use the works of Thomas Nashe and his contemporaries to explore what precarity meant then, and what it means now. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Coucil.

Episodes

  1. 08/02/2023

    Episode 6: Ghosts

    This final episode explores Nashe's interest in ghosts: beings stuck between this world and the next. What is it about living in precarious times which lends itself to this gothic mode of writing? In answering this question, we will hear about Nashe’s work ‘The Terrors of the Night’ and the Elizabethan enthusiasm for predicting the future. Featured guests: Liz Oakley-Brown and Rachel White. Transcript: https://tinyurl.com/mwjr4uj7

    26 min

  2. 08/02/2023

    Episode 5: Plague

    Nashe’s literary career was affected by a pandemic and a lockdown. In 1592 an outbreak of bubonic plague closed London’s theatres, the primary venue for commercial literature, and writers had to work out how to respond. Plague became an unfolding news story, and shaped Nashe’s improvisatory style. With guests Kirsty Rolfe and Andrew Hadfield. Transcript: https://tinyurl.com/mwjr4uj7

    27 min

  3. 07/02/2023

    Episode 4: Experimental Forms

    This episode explores how Nashe’s style was shaped by the socio-economic, religious, and cultural circumstances of late Elizabethan England. It looks at how Nashe's works are driven by paradoxes: by an elitist contempt for the populist strategies he uses to make a living, and the sense of himself as both insider and outsider. With guests Joe Black and Sam Fallon. Transcripts: https://tinyurl.com/mwjr4uj7

    25 min

  4. 07/02/2023

    Episode 3: Places and Spaces

    This episode looks at the locations where Nashe hung out. We uncover the link between the print shops and the playhouses of early modern London, and compare the precarious rental market of Elizabethan London with today’s. We zoom out to think about the demographic and political changes happening to London and its relationship with the kingdom beyond. With guests Callan Davies and Vanessa Harding. Transcript https://tinyurl.com/mwjr4uj7

    29 min

  5. 06/02/2023

    Episode 2: Hustlers

    Where could a freelance writer like Nashe actually find work in the Elizabethan period? In this episode we explore some of his options: being a writer in residence in the home of a wealthy patron, working for London’s popular stage, or selling his work directly to a publisher. With guests Emma Smith and Andrew McRae. Transcript: https://tinyurl.com/mwjr4uj7

    25 min

  6. 06/02/2023

    Episode 1: The Underside of a Humanist Education

    This episode looks at sixteenth-century education: how it prepared its pupils for the world of work, how it failed those pupils, and how many of them would go on to mock their education and subvert its values.  Discover what Nashe and his generation learned at school and at university, about the kind of careers they were promised, and what actually happened when they graduated from university in the 1580s and 90s. Featured guests Colin Burrow, Jennifer Richards, Oscar Haines.

    29 min

  7. 30/01/2023

    Trailer: The Precarious World of Thomas Nashe

    Join us as we explore the gritty underbelly of Elizabethan England: a time, not of pageants and prosperity, but precarity, poverty, and paranoia.

    2 min

Trailer

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
5 Ratings

About

Britain today is an increasingly precarious place. Many of us aren’t used to precarity - a condition of uncertainty and exposure as emotional as it is economic. But to the average Elizabethan it was the norm. These podcasts use the works of Thomas Nashe and his contemporaries to explore what precarity meant then, and what it means now. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Coucil.

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