Spoiler note: We’re giving an alert for persons who haven’t read or watched an adaptation of A Christmas Carol.

In this episode co-hosts Michon and Taquiena talk about Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, based on the 2019 FX reinterpretation of Dickens’ iconic story about Ebeneezer Scrooge, a resentful miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, to take him on a journey towards transformation. The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017), adapted from Les Standiford’s biographical book of the same title, is the story of Charles Dickens, his challenges, inspirations, and disruptions while writing “A Christmas Carol.” The Boston Sisters also share their family Christmas memories, and the spirits Charles Dickens’ iconic story lift during the holiday season and throughout the year.

Emily Bernard (American literature scholar and author) dives into Passing, the Rebecca Hall (Netflix) film based on the 1929 novel by Nella Larsen, and talks about how the characters Clare Kendry’s and Irene Redfield’s struggles for identity and belonging mirror tensions about race, class, and sex that continue today. Passing, starring Ruth Negga (Clare) and Tessa Thompson (Irene), takes place in 1920s New York City where a Black woman finds her world upended when she reconnects by chance with a childhood friend who's passing as white.

Emily Bernard wrote the introduction for the 2018 Penguin Books release of Nella Larsen's Passing. Born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, Emily Bernard is the Julian Lindsay Green and Gold Professor of English at the University of Vermont in Burlington. Her first book, Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her most recent book, Black is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time, and Mine, won the 2020 LA Times Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose.

Passing is available on Netflix (with a subscription)

Emily Bernard's website

More information

------

STAY ENGAGED WITH HISTORICAL DRAMA WITH THE BOSTON SISTERS®

ENJOY⁠ past podcasts and bonus episodes

⁠SIGN UP⁠ for our mailing list

SUPPORT this podcast ⁠ SHOP THE PODCAST⁠ on our affiliate bookstore

Buy us a Coffee! You can support by buying a coffee ☕ here — ⁠buymeacoffee.com/historicaldramasisters⁠

Thank you for listening!

Susanne Simpson, Executive Producer of the PBS drama series, MASTERPIECE, shares how this 50-year phenom is changing to bring more diversity to the stories, casts, and creative production of historical dramas, fiction adaptations, and mystery series set in the past with UK partners.

Winner of 83 Primetime Emmys® and 18 Peabody Awards, MASTERPIECE has been essential Sunday night viewing for millions of fans since 1971. MASTERPIECE is known for hits such as All Creatures Great and Small, Sherlock, Downton Abbey and Victoria, and beloved classics such as Upstairs Downstairs, Prime Suspect, The Forsyte Saga and Poldark.

Watch MASTERPIECE on PBS stations, pbs.org and on the PBS app. Also available on Amazon.

MASTERPIECE series website

More information

Get to know us, The Boston Sisters, Michon and Taquiena, your co-hosts for this podcast,  Historical Drama with The Boston Sisters. Hear about upcoming episodes and find out how you can join the conversation on historical drama films and series.

Michon Boston and Taquiena Boston are real-life sisters who grew up surrounded by history in Washington, DC, where their parents introduced them to movies and took them to museums as entertainment.

More information.

Coming soon!