Demons and Dames

By Demons and Dames the Podcast

Demons and Dames is a tongue-in-cheek feminist history podcast. Ashley Mauritzen and Sarah Worley-Hill dive deep into the stories of notorious women who shaped history - by design or simply by being i... more

· History

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FAQs about Demons and Dames:

How many episodes does Demons and Dames have?

The podcast currently has 23 episodes available.

Demons and Dames episodes:

October 19, 2023 Woman, Captain, Rebel with Margaret Willson
Sarah and Ash are joined by anthropologist and author Margaret Willson, who shares the story of Thurídur Einarsdóttir. Living in Iceland in the 1800s, Captain Thurídur was a famous female sea captain who stood out for her skill at sea and her fearless outspokeness on land. Margaret Willson brings Thurídur to life after decands of research - and even explains how this notorious women ended up solving crimes.
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59min
August 24, 2022Guest Episode on Rigoberta Menchú
"Let there be freedom for the Indians, wherever they may be in the American Continent or elsewhere in the world, because while they are alive, a glow of hope will be alive as well as a true concept of life." - Rigoberta Menchú
Join Sarah and Dr Linda Westman from the Urban Institute at Sheffield University to discuss the life and accomplishments (thus far) of Rigoberta Menchú. Rigoberta is a renowned Kʼicheʼ Indigenous feminist and human rights activist, politician, and Nobel Peace Prize winner who has spent her life fighting for the lives and rights of indigenous Guatemalans.

Dr Linda Westman is a Postdoctoral Research Associate whose work engages with the governance of sustainability and climate change, urban sustainability transformations, and justice. Dr Westman is excited to join Demons and Dames to discus how Rigoberta's work has provided an alternative perspective on the familiar concept of sustainability.
Documentaries:
Dawn Gifford Engle. Rigoberta Menchu: Daughter of the Maya (2016). Documentary.

Pamela Yates, Newton Thomas Sigel. When the Mountains Tremble (1983). Documentary.

Pamela Yates. Granito: How to Nail a Dictator (2011), Documentary.
Testimonial Biography:
Menchú, R., & In Burgos-Debray, E. (1984). I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian woman in Guatemala
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1h 29min
August 17, 2022 Madeleine Smith: Murder She Wrote
“Emile, for god’s sake do not send my letters to papa. It will be an open to rupture. I will leave the house. I will die...”
So wrote Madeleine Smith to her erstwhile and soon-to-be-deceased lover Emile L’Angelier in 1857. But just what drove this delicately-raised upper middle-class belle (a lover of dances, romantic intrigue and sentimental poetry) to an act of murder? Why did Victorian society have no choice but to let her get away with it?
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Flanders, J. (2011). The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime. Thomas Dunne Books.
House, J. (1961). Square Mile of Murder. W. & R. Chambers.
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1h 15min
August 17, 2022 Maria Бочкарёва & the Battalion of Death
"Day and night my imagination carried me to the fields of battle, and my ears rang with the groans of my wounded brethren. The spirit of sacrifice took possession of me. My country called me. An irresistible force from within pulled me."

So said Maria Bochkareva in her 1917 memoirs, recounting the passionate impulse that compelled her to join the Russian Army at the outbreak of war in 1914. In just six short years she would become Commander of the inaugural Women's Battalion of Death, prove a short-lived democratic government's staunchest ally, and be the proud recipient of a rather garish golden pistol. Maria Bochkareva propelled women onto the frontline of combat with a passionate ass-kicking bravado rarely seen before - or since.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Botchkareva, Mariya Leontievna, and Isac Don Levine. Yashka: My life as Peasant, Exile and Soldier (1919). Print.
Fell, Alison S., and Ingrid. Sharp. The Women's Movement in Wartime: International Perspectivess, 1914-1919 (2007). Print.
Stoff, Laurie. They Fought for the Motherland: Russia's Women Soldiers in World War I and the Revolution (2006). Print.
Stockdale, Melissa K. “‘My Death for the Motherland Is Happiness’: Women, Patriotism, and Soldiering in Russia's Great War, 1914-1917.” The American Historical Review, vol. 109, no. 1, 2004, pp. 78–116.
The Russian Film Battalion directed by Dmitriy Meshiev and released to cinemas in February 2015
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1h 12min
August 17, 2022 Mary Toft: Mother of Rabbits
“From Guildford comes a strange, but well attested piece of News. That a poor Woman who lives at Godalmin, near that Town, who has an Husband and two Children now living with her was about a Month past, deliver’d by John Howard an eminent surgeon and man-midwife living at Guildford of a creature resembling a rabbit.” - 'British Gazeteer', 10th October 1726

Meet Mary Toft, who convinced the Enlightenment medical establishment that she had given birth to rabbits. By doing so, she played to established beliefs in the power of the maternal imagination and monstrous birth - and performed a radical act of protest.

WARNING: This episode contains graphic descriptions that may be distressing to those who emotionally project onto rabbits as a species. As well as those invested in the correct pronunciation of 'Goldaming'.
BILBLIOGRAPHY:
Bondesen, J. (1997). A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities. I.B. Tauris.
Lynch, J.T. (2008). Deception & Detection in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Ashgate Publishing Ltd.
Todd, D. (1995). Imagining Monsters: Miscreations of the Self in Eighteenth-Century England. University of Chicago Press.
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1h 7min
August 17, 2022 Introducing Demons & Dames
Ashley Mauritzen and Sarah Worley-Hill introduce their Podcast and explain what all the fuss is about. Are you excited? We can hardly contain ourselves.

Originally aired November 2019
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16min
December 31, 2020 Guest Episode on Rigoberta Menchú
"Let there be freedom for the Indians, wherever they may be in the American Continent or elsewhere in the world, because while they are alive, a glow of hope will be alive as well as a true concept of life." - Rigoberta Menchú
Full notes and bibliography at www.demonsanddames.com
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1h 29min
August 26, 2020 Guest Episode on Barbara Jordan
“What the people want is very simple - they want an America as good as its promise.”
― Barbara Jordan
Join Sarah and our guest, Dr Tom Packer as they explore the exception life of Barbara Jordan - American lawyer, educator and politician who was a leader at the heart of the Civil Rights Movement. Barbara Jordan is an inspirational politician and orator who could, in her own word, harness "the voice of god" to command attention and sway the nation.
Dr Tom Packer is a Fellow at the Institute for the Study of the Americas, University College London. He has also taught previously at Durham University, Warwick, Oxford and LSE. Dr Packer's areas of expertise includes US political history particularly that of the US political right, the US South and the electoral history of the United States and the Western World. His research focuses on American conservatism in the second half of the 20th century. He is currently working on a book exploring the career of Senator Jesse Helms, the leading ultra-conservative Senator, and the political culture of North Carolina. Sarah can't wait to read it.
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1h 13min
May 19, 2020 The Night Witches: the Soviet Women who helped win the war
“I sometimes stare into the blackness and close my eyes. I can still imagine myself as a young girl, up there in my little bomber. And I ask myself, ‘Nadia, how did you do it?’ ” So reminisced Nadezhda Popova, one of the legendary "Nitght Witches" and pilot for the Soviet's 588th Night Bomber Aviation Regiment. The 588th was the only all-female bomber unit to be active throughout WWII and the Night Witches flew 30,000 missions over four years of warfare and dropped 23,000 tons of bombs. They destroyed 17 river crossings, 12 fuel depots, and 176 armored cars. Join Sarah and Ash as they explore the formation and success of this legendary air force unit that so terrorised the Germans that they took on the mantel of the supernatural.
Full notes and bibliography available at www.demonsanddames.com
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1h 13min
April 28, 2020 Demons & Dames meet Storm the Palace
Join us for this exciting bonus episode in which Sarah interviews Sophie Dodds and Willa Bews from the band Storm the Palace.
Sophie and Willa talk about two of their favorite musicians - Dory Previn and Carol Kaye - as well as their own music and what inspires them as song writers.
The episode ends with Sarah's favorite Storm the Palace song, 'Fractal Pterodactyl' for your listening pleasure.
You may be familiar with Storm the Palace's song, 'Lovely White Sofa' which is Demons and Dame's theme music. You can check out more of their music at https://stormthepalace.bandcamp.com/ (https://stormthepalace.bandcamp.com/)
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58min

FAQs about Demons and Dames:

How many episodes does Demons and Dames have?

The podcast currently has 23 episodes available.