Media-eval: A Medieval Pop Culture Podcast

Netflix release a show thats set in King Arthur continuity and cast lots of women and POC? Of course Sarah is going to talk about it!

This week she is joined by Jillian Sterling Ness all the way from Canada and that Irish lad who talks too much.

Let's see if Cursed lives up to the promise its casting suggests.

Media-eval makes its first foray into Doctor Who! Sarah and guest Elizabeth Bonnemann talk 1066 and how yes, real medieval people would find it strange that they've only met one grumpy monk from the local monastery.

We're back with another look at Wheel of Time, the greatest fantasy epic of them all. Sarah gets technical and Ollie once again has to cut an hour of his fanboy gushing out. Enjoy!

Join Sarah and guest Ollie as they take a look at the greatest fantasy series ever written. They recorded for 5 hours on this and Ollie had to cut out about 2 hours of him gushing. Hopefully you like it! part 2 will come next week!

Sarah and guest Jessica Bluemke Greiff (Friendly Atheist Podcast; Cooper Dooper) get into Army of Darkness ... despite having never seen the non-medieval parts of the trilogy. Come for the campy supernatural; stay for the demon sex - if you wanted to know about the premodern antecedents to Dr. Stella Immanuel's demon sex theories, this is the place to go.

CW: the film depicts kissing without consent and implied sexual assault; both are discussed on the podcast.

Sarah and her mom Beth Greenfeld continue with their Game of Thrones discussion on gender, race, and religion. CW: this episode includes a discussion of sexual assault in the series.

Media-eval finally tackles HBO series Game of Thrones and George R.R. Martin's book series A Song of Ice and Fire - but Sarah and her mom, Beth Greenfeld, have been reading, watching, and discussing for a long time, and had a lot to say! So the episode is divided into two parts. Stay tuned next week for Part 2!

The format is a bit more of a general thematic conversation on this one since, well, who's going to sit down and do a plot summary of all 8 seasons of Game of Thrones? But spoilers abound, so if you haven't seen Game of Thrones and want to do so unspoiled, you might want to hold off on this one!

Enjoy this blast from the past: Sarah and Ollie's Media-eval practice episode on the Sean Bean/Eddie Redmayne film Black Death, recorded all the way back in 2018 and now coming out of the vault and into your ears. This episode also includes a few updated reflections on how the medieval pandemic response compares to the modern one. If you're interested in learning more about why we shouldn't call the current pandemic response "medieval," check out medievalist Guy Geltner's fantastic article: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/174758.

CW for graphic torture and gratuitous violence against women

It had to be done ... Sarah and guest Mabel Slattery wince our way through The Ribald Tales of Canterbury, a porn adaptation of The Canterbury Tales, and find that ... it's not actually the worst adaptation of a medieval text? Listen in to find out how two medievalists can watch an erotic film and then end up talking about the value of currency, sumptuary laws, the best way to prepare boar's head, and medieval anti-Judaism.

Warning: This film obviously includes more graphic sex scenes than most movies and some of those details are discussed. If you ordinarily listen within earshot of colleagues, parents, or kids, you ... might want to grab headphones for this one. But, good news: this movie is strangely WAY better on consent for sexual activity than a lot of the things covered for the podcast.

Sarah and guest Sarah Baggs tackle Disney's take on Victor Hugo's medieval historical fiction: The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Join us as we talk about the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris and its restorations, the Feast of Fools, and the foreskin of Christ (because Sarah will ALWAYS bring up the foreskin of Christ if she gets an opportunity). CW - yes, this CHILDREN'S MOVIE includes sexual harassment and implicit threats of sexual assault.