Architects: Norma Merrick Sklarek

The writhing serpent hair. The fearsome gaze that can turn onlookers to solid stone. Medusa is one of the most instantly recognizable monsters of Greek mythology. But her story and image have evolved over the centuries — sometimes a villain, sometimes a victim, sometimes a divine ...  Show more

Rigoberta Menchú Tum (1959-present) dedicated her life to speaking out for Indigenous Guatemalans, fighting tirelessly against the human rights abuses that occurred during and after the Guatemalan Civil War.For the past six years, we’ve been telling the stories of women you may o ...  Show more

From Roman emperor Septimius Severus to Senegal's Signares to the ten days in Harlem that Fidel Castro used to link up with African leaders at the UN, through to the missed opportunity to enshrine racial equality in post war negotiations following World War I; Olivette Otele, Sim ...  Show more

In this episode, recorded for Women’s history month, we think about the apparent lack of women in architectural history. We explore the stories of women working in architecture in an attempt to rebalance this absence. Our contributors talk about what it means to present more d ...

In this episode, first aired in 2012, we have two stories of brains pushed off-course. We relive a surreal day in the life of a young researcher hijacked by her own brain, and hear from a librarian experiencing a bizarre and mysterious set of symptoms that she called “gravitat ...

Once there was a girl whose powerful voice would inspire people to fight for equality. Her name was Isabella Baumfree, but we know her now as Sojourner Truth. She was a Black woman born into slavery in Dutch-speaking rural New York in 1797. She escaped to freedom after nearly 30 ...  Show more