Life and Language

Professor Michaela Mahlberg

Professor Michaela Mahlberg chats with her guests about life and why language matters. Michaela is Alexander-von-Humboldt Professor & Professor in Digital Humanities at FAU, Germany´s most innovative university. She is also a Honorary Professor in Corpus Linguistics at the University of Birmingham, UK. For more see https://michaelamahlberg.com

  1. Gavin Brookes - Public Discourses of Dementia

    Jun 23

    Gavin Brookes - Public Discourses of Dementia

    Gavin Brookes provides insights into the language that people use when they talk about dementia. Language plays an important part in making sense of a health condition. In this episode we cover a wide range of topics - from stigma tohumour. Gavin has some very concrete messages for all of us - whether you have lived experience of dementia, work in social care, or do not know that much about the condition yet. Dr Gavin Brookes is a UKRI Future Leader Fellow in the Department of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University (UK). His research uses corpus linguistic, critical and multimodal approaches to discourse analysis in order to examine how language and image are used to representhealth and illness. He is Associate Editor of the International Journal of Corpus Linguistics and Co-Editor of the BloomsburyCorpus and Discourse book series.

    1h 4m
  2. Lauren Tilton - Distant Viewing

    Jan 23

    Lauren Tilton - Distant Viewing

    In this episode, I chat to Lauren Tilton about digital humanities and the ways we can teach AI to view the world. Distant viewing is a theory and method for how computer vision works. It enables a critical view of the social, political, and cultural values and beliefs that are built into computer visionsystems. You will also learn about digital humanities morewidely. And if you want to get the Distant Viewer Explorer that’s mention in the episode, you find that here Lauren Tilton is the E. Claiborne Robins Professor ofLiberal Arts and Professor of Digital Humanities in the Department of Rhetoric and Communications at the University of Richmond. She is the author (togetherwith Taylor Arnold) of Distant Viewing: Computational Exploration of Digital Images. MIT Press (2023).   Lauren Tilton is the Constituent Organisation Board (COB) President of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO).

    1h 1m
  3. Lee Jackson - Dickensland

    12/19/2025

    Lee Jackson - Dickensland

    Don’t we all love it when we visit places that we know from stories in books and films? In the first episode of Season 5, my guest is the wonderful Lee Jackson. We are talking about his book ‘Dickensland’ and literary tourism. Lee Jackson takes us to places that Dickens’s writing has brought into the public imagination. Some of them are more real than others, but all of them are exciting!

    58 min
  4. Lyndsey Stonebridge - Changing the World

    06/16/2024

    Lyndsey Stonebridge - Changing the World

    Today’s world is in much need of change. But what can we do as individuals and as a society? And how can we bring a humanities perspectives to the change that the world needs? Who better to talk to than Lyndsey Stonebridge, author of the book “We are free to change the world”. Lyndsey refers to her book a "critical creative biography of Hannah Arendt". It is very topical in the way it helps us to think about our troubled political times.

    59 min
  5. Essie Fox - The Fascination

    03/15/2024

    Essie Fox - The Fascination

    Have you given Victorian gothic fiction a try? The Fascination by Essie Fox will certainly be a good one to get you started. It is a novel that takes you to the Victorian country fairgrounds, the glamour of the Drury Lane pantomimes, and a museum in London’s Oxford Street filled with anatomical wonders. It is a story about belonging and finding your family. In this episode, I talk to Essie about her novel, but also about the craft of writing historical fiction, the very practical challenges of navigating the expectations of sales and marketing, and the research that is part of the creative process.   Essie Fox is a member of the Historical Writers Association, and The Historical Novelists Association. Her novels have been selected for the UK National Book Awards, the Channel 4 TV Book Club, and The Times newspaper’s Historical Book Of The Month. Visit Essie’s blog for some fascinating images, too!

    1h 3m
  6. Pete Orford - Dickens the Author

    12/20/2023

    Pete Orford - Dickens the Author

    Charles Dickens has captured the public imagination like no other. What always fascinates me about him and his work is how fiction and reality intersect. In this episode, I talk to Pete Orford to get his take on the relationship between lived experience and literary examples in the world of Charles Dickens. Pete has recently published the book The Life of the Author: Charles Dickens, which gives us plenty of fascinating examples to talk about. Pete Orford is the Course Director of the MA in Charles Dickens Studies run by the University of Buckingham and the Charles Dickens Museum in London. He is the author of The Mystery of Edwin Drood: Charles Dickens’ Unfinished Novel & Our Endless Attempts to End It, and the editor of Pictures from Italy for the Oxford Dickens.

    59 min
  7. Chris Laoutaris – Shakespeare’s First Folio

    12/01/2023

    Chris Laoutaris – Shakespeare’s First Folio

    What makes the First Folio so important and unique? 2023 marks the 400th anniversary of the first published collection of Shakespeare’s plays. In this episode, I talk to Chris Laoutaris, author of Shakespeare’s Book: The Intertwined Lives Behind the First Folio. Chris gives us fascinating insights into the human story of this book that was produced seven years after Shakespeare’s death. The story of the people, places, and contexts that were all part of the creation of this work still have their effect on what Shakespeare means to us today. Chris Laoutaris is associate professor at The Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham. He is a biographer, historian & a poet. Shakespeare's Book has been selected as a BBC History Magazine Book of the Year (selected by Tracy Borman). It was also a Financial Times Best Summer Book.

    59 min
  8. Hannah Gold - Writing Bear

    09/25/2023

    Hannah Gold - Writing Bear

    How do you become a successful children’s author? I invited the brilliant Hannah Gold so I could learn her secret. What I really liked was Hannah’s insights into the value of a holistic career including a range of professions as well as life experience before becoming an award-winning author of fiction for children. In Hannah’s books, friendships between children and animals play an important role. Making these friendships come alive requires descriptions of how people and animals communicate – Hannah shares some the techniques she has developed to show this kind of communication. In this episode, Hannah tells us about her research into polar bears and her passion for the natural world. She also explains how thinking about the climate crisis is a necessary part of writing a modern day story. And guess what song Hannah likes to start events with?  Well, I do like Katy Perry, too!   Hannah Gold’s first book, The Last Bear – won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize in 2022 and the same year also the Blue Peter Book Award. Her second book The Lost Whale was the Winner of the Edward Stanford Children's Book of the Year 2023.

    59 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Professor Michaela Mahlberg chats with her guests about life and why language matters. Michaela is Alexander-von-Humboldt Professor & Professor in Digital Humanities at FAU, Germany´s most innovative university. She is also a Honorary Professor in Corpus Linguistics at the University of Birmingham, UK. For more see https://michaelamahlberg.com

Information

  • Creator
    Professor Michaela Mahlberg
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    28
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Professor Michaela Mahlberg
  • Show Website
    Life and Language

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