Tristan J. Rogers, "Conservatism, Past and P...

Flaxman Low, literature’s first professional, full-time “occult detective”—that is, an intrepid investigator who deploys the scientific method when tackling paranormal phenomena—appeared in a dozen stories first published from 1898–1899. Flaxman Low: Occult Detective (MIT Press, ...  Show more

Electric Wind: An Energy History of Modern Britain by Marianna Dudley (Manchester University Press, 2025) is a cutting-edge history of wind power in Britain. There are turbines on the horizon. The blades whirl with metronomic rhythm. With each rotation, wind is transformed into e ...  Show more

In this episode, we examine the connection between poetry and plague in the early 1590s. An outbreak of the recurring sickness contributed to Shakespeare’s early career as a poet, and that poetry likely included his many sonnets. We also examine how an old acquaintance from Shake ...  Show more

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is one of the most popular English poems of the Middle Ages. In this episode, we explore the language and story of the poem. We also examine how the poem reflects certain changes that were taking place within the English language in the late 1300s. ...  Show more

Sociologists have had surprisingly little to say about poetry as a topic while sometimes also making grandiose claims that sociology is/should be like poetry. These are the prompts which begin Andrew Smith’s Class and the Uses of Poetry: Symbolic Enclosures (2024, Palgrave Macmil ...  Show more

In The Literary Life of Yājñavalkya (SUNY Press, 2024), Steven E. Lindquist investigates the intersections between historical context and literary production in the "life" of Yājñavalkya, the most important ancient Indian literary figure prior to the Buddha. Known for his sharp t ...  Show more