CFC: Pop vs. Public History — Why Do We Love Nonfiction?

From Monica: I want to talk about Seabiscuit.  Being an archetypal precocious horse girl, at age 9 Laura Hillenbrand’s Seabiscuit (1999) was the first nonfiction book I remember reading. It was the first time I was conscious of the popular weight attributed to the New York Times bestseller list, and for once my childhood interests…

Call For Comments: Serialization Technology

From Katya: It is a truth universally acknowledged that if a game scholar, comics scholar, and Victorianist walk into a bar, they must instantly bond over their shared study of serialization. Except… we never recorded it. It’s rather astounding that we haven’t already; serialization cuts across all of our fields from comics to games and…

Call for Comments: American Girl

From Hannah: As a kid growing up in the nineties, I loved American Girl, especially its historical characters and books. I still remember excitedly reading the adventures of Kit Kittredge and Kirsten Larson and Josefina Montoya … and really any character introduced between the company’s inception and about 2000. So when I discovered that American Girl is re-releasing…

e151. Yet More Bridgerton! and other good things

A few weeks ago when we did our Bridgerton recap show we found ourselves with way more to talk about than we could possibly fit in a single episode. That happens a lot, really. And as we often do, we said back then that we’d have to do another episode and discuss more Bridgerton. Well,…

Call for Comments: Romanced by Bridgerton?

From Hannah: When I was in high school, I first became fascinated with the nineteenth-century novel — Sense and Sensibility, Jane Eyre, David Copperfield.* And listeners of the show (and anyone who has ever met me, probably) know that while I changed how and why I read these novels, I never stopped reading them. Or…

e144. So, It’s Been a Week! (1/3/21 – 1/9/21)

We totally didn’t want to talk politics this week. And we certainly didn’t want to talk about the world being on fire. 2020 had enough of that. All we wanted to do this week was play our fun little box office game. Unfortunately, that went out the window the moment there was an attempted coup…

e141. Ghosts, Spirits, Scrooge and a Merry Marxist Christmas

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is likely the most famous Christmas story ever written. First published 177 years ago, it has been produced as stage plays, adapted into dozens of films and spoofed and parodied countless times on television shows, in comics, and other media. Whether from Disney, The Muppets, Scrooged, the original or somewhere…

e123. Culture, Context, Protest, and Memefication

Have you ever gotten into an argument with someone on the Internet and they tried to prove their point by forwarding some meme that was a quote of a famous person for historical figure that seemed to vaguely relate to their point in the most perfunctory possible way? When this happened, did you think to…

e104. 5 Victorian Parlour Games for Worldwide Pandemics

If you live anywhere on the planet Earth — and if you’re listening to this podcast, we assume you do — then you’re probably aware that we are currently in the midst of a global pandemic… the worst that the world has seen in at least 100 years. For a large portion of the planet,…

e96. Mask Theory

In the 21st century, when we think of masks, we think of superheroes. But the idea of superheroes as a concept is only about a century old. Masks have been around forever. They have a long history in theatre, professional wrestling and costume balls. Beyond that they have a cultural tradition that dates back to…