Historical Frictions

Welcome to Historical Frictions, a historical fiction podcast.

We are back, delving into the nitty-gritty of history, fiction, and everything in between, hosted by Hilary, Tess, and Lachlan.

In this bonus episode, we are discussing the P.T Barnum biopic/musical The Greatest Showman (2017). 

For some recommendations:

Bejamin Reiss, The Showman and the Slave: Race, Death, and Memory in Barnum’s America (2001)

If you have any feedback, email us at [email protected]

And as always, find us by searching on all the socials.

Tess, Lachlan, and Hilary would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land they live and work: Kaurna Country (Adelaide Plains) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Sydney), and pay our respects to the Elders both past and present.

Welcome to Historical Frictions, a historical fiction podcast. We are back, delving into the nitty-gritty of history, fiction, and everything in between, hosted by Hilary, Tess, and now Lachlan. We welcome previous guest Lachlan McCarron, a postgraduate student at the University of Adelaide, to join us permanently. We hope you enjoy having him on board as much as we do! 

This week we are discussing The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams, read by Hilary.

For some recommendations: 

Pip Williams discussing her book: Chapter One by Dymocks here

Simon Winchester, The Surgeon on Crowthorne (1998)

Hilary also discusses: The Madman and the Professor (2019)

If you have any feedback, email us at [email protected]

And as always, find us by searching on all the socials.

Tess, Lachlan, and Hilary would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land they live and work: Kaurna Country (Adelaide Plains) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Sydney), and pay our respects to the Elders both past and present.

Welcome to Historical Frictions, a historical fiction podcast.

This is a fortnightly podcast where we delve into the nitty-gritty of history, fiction, and everything in between, hosted by Hilary and Tess.

This episode features special guest Lachlan McCarron, a postgraduate student at the University of Adelaide. After Lachlan recommended this book to Tess we thought we'd invite him on for a chat.

For the book recommendations from Lachlan: 

Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (2008)

Mark S. Schantz, Awaiting the Heavenly Country: The Civil War and America's Culture of Death (2008)

View the VR by The New York Times here. 

Thank you, Lachlan for joining us. 

We will be back in your ears in September (hear the brief discussion of our short hiatus at the end of this episode). 

If you have any feedback, email us at [email protected]

And as always, find us by searching on all the socials.

Tess and Hilary [and Lachlan] would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land they live and work: Kaurna Country (Adelaide Plains) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Sydney),  and pay our respects to the Elders both past and present.

Welcome to Historical Frictions, a historical fiction podcast.

This is a fortnightly podcast where we delve into the nitty-gritty of history, fiction, and everything in between, hosted by Hilary and Tess.

This episode features our very first special guest, Dr Thomas A. Mackay. With a background in American history and capitalism studies, Tom comes to the podcast to chat about the article that he co-wrote with Hilary about the recent video game Red Dead Redemption 2. This also leads to a discussion of how Hilary and Tom used their specialities to discuss both the reception and representation of history in the game and the American West in popular culture more broadly. 

For those interested, we will link to the article in our feeds when it is released (we believe it will be open access), and in it, you will find a plethora of sources and further reading to engage with if this topic has interested you. 

Thanks again Tom for joining us! 

If you have any feedback, email us at [email protected]

And as always, find us by searching on all the socials. 

Tess and Hilary [and Tom] would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land they live and work: Kaurna Country (Adelaide Plains) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Sydney),  and pay our respects to the Elders both past and present.

Welcome to Historical Frictions, a historical fiction podcast.

This is a fortnightly podcast where we delve into the nitty-gritty of history, fiction, and everything in between, hosted by Hilary and Tess.

This week we will be discussing Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, read by Hilary. 

Find the mentioned discussion between Yaa Gyasi and Zadie Smith here, and The Chicago Humanities Festival chat here, and the BBC Africa Book Club here. 

If you have any suggestions, please email us [email protected]

Find us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram by searching for historical frictions podcast

Tess and Hilary would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land they live and work: Kaurna Country (Adelaide Plains) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Sydney),  and pay our respects to the Elders both past and present.

Welcome to Historical Frictions, a historical fiction podcast.

This is a fortnightly podcast where we delve into the nitty-gritty of history, fiction, and everything in between, hosted by Hilary and Tess. 

This week we discuss Holding the Man by Tim Conigrave, read by Tess. 

To learn more about Tim and John’s story, the documentary Remembering the Man is available online, it is on Kanopy if you have institutional access or available to purchase. It uses the audio recordings from the 1993 interview with Tim, as part of the Australian Response to AIDS oral history project, which you can listen to yourself at the National Library of Australia as it is open to the public on request. 

Both the writer and theatre company director who was involved with the adaptations have written about the experience and these are well worth a read.

Tommy Murphey and Interview

David Berthold

Timothy’s own theatrical works can be purchased as well, and you can read a bit about him as a playwright here.

Overland Review

And if you are interested in the way Holding the Man portrays the AIDS response in Australia, start here.

There is plenty of information out there about Australia’s AIDS response, Tess would suggest:

This article by Graham Willett, “How we saved our lives: the gay community and the Australian response to AIDS”

Shirleene Robinson and Emily Wilson’s article in Social History of Medicine “Working Together? Medical Professionals, Gay Community Organisations and the Response to HIV/AIDS in Australia, 1983-1985”. 

Dennis Altman is a famous gay Australian activist and writer, his book: Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation was published in 1971 and now has an anniversary edition, but he has also written on AIDS and gay communities. His book Power and Community: Organisational and Cultural Responses to AIDS is well worth a read (not just about Australia but it is included!).

Not specific to Australia, but Bertram Cohler’s book on gay memoir is interesting: Writing desire: sixty years of gay autobiography. 

Some work on memoir as history:

https://www.janefriedman.com/memoir-trend/

Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (1998), by William Zinsser

The Memoir and the Memoirist: Reading & Writing and Personal Narrative, by Thomas Larson,

Memoir: a history, by Ben Yagoda

The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing and Life by Marion Roach Smith

A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives, by Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson

Memory in Memoir & Biography: Science, Place, and Agency by Johnathan E. Longo (Thesis, online)

Tess and Hilary would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land they live and work: Kaurna Country (Adelaide Plains) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Sydney),  and pay our respects to the Elders both past and present.

Welcome to Historical Frictions, a historical fiction podcast.

This week, we present you with something a little different for a bonus episode. Featuring the audio of our live Facebook Watch Party, you can listen to us watch and react to the first episode of The Tudors (2007). You can either enjoy the episode on its own, watch the episode along with us, or enjoy the Facebook video, which is still on our page (link below).

We thoroughly enjoyed doing this kind of event, and we will be doing it in the future.

Until next time, happy reading!

Facebook video: https://www.facebook.com/histofricpod/videos/1181007125601513/

Welcome to Historical Frictions, a historical fiction podcast.

This week, we are discussing the novel Into the World by Stephanie Parkyn, read by Hilary. Set in 1791, it follows the Marie-Louise Girardin and her time abroad the ship Resercher disguised as a man after fleeing revolutionary France after giving birth to an illegitimate son. 

We recognise that some of the themes of this book are timely given the Black Lives Matter and BIPOC movements and protests that are occurring globally as we recorded this episode. As such, we ask that listeners please educate yourself about the realities of Australian colonial history and the violence and oppression it inflicted, and still is, upon Aboriginal Australians. Please see our post, put together by Tess, of some historical fiction resources available to you for about the subject.

Hilary apologises for her mispronunciation of the French names in this podcast. For a full list of crew members see the Google Books version of the book

For additional reading: 

The French Explorers and the Aboriginal Australians 1772-1839, Colin L. Dyer

Australian Fiction as Archival Salvage: Making and Unmaking the Postcolonial Novel, by A. Frances Johnson

The Axe Had Never Sounded: Place, People and Heritage of Recherche Bay, Tasmania, by John Mulvaney

The Killing Times: the massacres of Aboriginal people Australia must confront by Lorena Allam and Nick Evershed published by The Guardian including an interactive map of massacres of Indigenous peoples in Australia.

Conflict, Adaptation, Transformation: Richard Broome and the Practice of Aboriginal History, edited by Ben Silverstein

Also: 

An Account of a Voyage in Search of La Pérouse, by (naturalist crew member) Jacques-Julien Houtou de Labillardière

Vandemonian War: The Secret History of Britain’s Tasmanian Invasion, by Nick Brodie

The Black War: Fear, Sex, and Resistance, by Nicholas Clements

The Nightingale (2018), dir. by Jennifer Kent

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As always, email us: [email protected]

Thank you for listening and happy reading!

Welcome to Historical Frictions, a historical fiction podcast.

This is a fortnightly podcast where we delve into the nitty-gritty of history, fiction, and everything in between, hosted by Hilary and Tess.

This week, in our second bonus episode, we discuss Netflix's 2020 series Hollywood, a retelling, alternative history of golden age Hollywood that is more inclusive in representing queer and racial diversity. 

YouTube Video: The True Stories Behind Hollywood by Netflix UK & Ireland

Stay tuned to the end where we announce our first Watch Party on Facebook Live happening on the 9th of June, 7.30 pm AEST, as well as some cheeky bloopers. 

Follow us on Social Media:

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

As always, email us with any feedback or suggestions: [email protected]

Thank you for listening and happy reading!

Welcome to Historical Frictions, a historical fiction podcast.

This is a fortnightly podcast where we delve into the nitty-gritty of history, fiction, and everything in between, hosted by Hilary and Tess.

This week, we discuss Tidelands by Philippa Gregory, read by Tess. We delve into the historical setting of the Sussex marshlands in 1648, during the English Civil War, where ideas about witchcraft and midwifery, and many more elements of this novel (and its author) that stood out to us.

Please be aware when listening that we discuss some potentially triggering content, specifically abortion near the end of the episode, and a mention of suicide. Also, apologies as Tess's chair does some random creaks at random moments during the episode. 

Sources mentioned

Philippa Gregory's article on J-Stor

Recommended Further Reading:

Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America, edited by Brian P. Levack (there is a preview on Google Books, including Levack’s Introduction chapter!)

The Witch-hunt in Early modern Europe by Brian p. Levack (more traditional history of witchcraft)

The Witch in History by Diane Purkiss (book)

“Managing Our Darkest Hatreds and Fears: Witchcraft from the Middle Ages to Brett Kavanaugh” in Athenaeum Review

“Cunning Histories: Privileging Narratives in the Present” Helen Cornish article, currently open access not sure if always 

David Harley, “Historians as Demonologists: The Myth of the Midwife-witch” Society for the Social History of Medicine, 1990

“Other Sides of the Moon: Assembling Histories of Witchcraft”, by Helen Cornish in Magic and Witchery in the Modern West, pp 65-83

“The Wise-Woman as Healer: Popular Medicine, Witchcraft and Magic” chapter by Leigh Whaley, in Women and the Practice of Medical Care in Early Modern Europe, 1400–1800 pp 174-195.

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As always, email us with any feedback or suggestions: [email protected]