In December 2020, audiences around the world were blessed with the first season of the hit Netflix TV show, Bridgerton: a sexy, romantic romp that blended all of the glamour and escapism of a Regency era romance with diverse representation across race and sexuality. The team behind it all called it ‘colour-blind casting’ - except, it wasn’t quite so blind in reality. Six years, four seasons, and a spin-off show later, we’re still asking the important questions: what was Queen Charlotte's so-called "The Great Experiment"? How does the little thing known as the British Empire fit into this delightfully race-blind society? Does Korea, or any other country really, definitely exist in this world?

Join us as we try and unpick what alternative historical context Bridgerton has created and all of the complicated questions and class dynamics that arise from a worldbuilding based, first and foremost, on escapism and fantasy - all set against a string quartet cover of ‘360’.

Music by Max Elliott

Bibliography

• “Black Lives in England | Historic England.” Historic England, 2019, historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/the-slave-trade-and-abolition/sites-of-memory/black-lives-in-england/.

• “Black People in Late 18th-Century Britain.” English Heritage, 2025, www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/portchester-castle/history-and-stories/black-people-in-late-18th-century-britain.

• ‌Burton, Nylah. “Is Color-Blind Casting in Regency-Era Romances Really Progressive? Or Just Delusional?” Refinery 29, 15 Aug. 2022, www.refinery29.com/en-us/2022/08/11082731/color-blind-casting-cons-bridgerton-persuasion.

• ‌Evans, Elinor. “Bridgerton: The Real History Explained.” History Extra, 25 Mar. 2022, www.historyextra.com/period/georgian/bridgerton-real-history-inspiration-historical-accuracy-regency-ton-explained/.

• Evans, Elinor. “Bridgerton: The Real History Explained.” History Extra, 25 Mar. 2022, www.historyextra.com/period/georgian/bridgerton-real-history-inspiration-historical-accuracy-regency-ton-explained/.

• Jean-Philippe, McKenzie. ““Bridgerton” Doesn’t Need to Elaborate on Its Inclusion of Black Characters.” Oprah Daily, 29 Dec. 2020, www.oprahdaily.com/entertainment/tv-movies/a35083112/bridgerton-race-historical-accuracy/.

• Newman-Bremang, Ineye Komonibo,Kathleen. “Does Netflix’s Bridgerton Have a Race Problem?” Refinery 29, 28 Dec. 2020, www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/12/10240235/bridgerton-review-blackness-representation.‌
• Oliver, David. “What Netflix’s Buzzy “Bridgerton” Says about Race: “We Wanted This Show to Reflect the World.”” USA TODAY, 28 Dec. 2020, www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2020/12/28/bridgerton-what-new-netflix-series-has-say-race-diversity/3943806001/.

• Riley, Vanessa. “Black People in the Regency.”, vanessariley.com/blackpeople.php.

• Thulin, Lila. “Why Are Regency-Era Shows like “Bridgerton” so Popular?” Smithsonian Magazine, 1 Apr. 2022, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-are-regency-era-shows-like-bridgerton-so-popular-180979851/.‌
• Wynn, Natalie. “Opulence | ContraPoints.” YouTube, 12 Oct. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD-PbF3ywGo.

At first glance, Celeste appears to be a very straight-forward game: a 2D platformer about a girl climbing a mountain, where the aim is to get to the top of the mountain. It’s a borderline cliché. So why is it that this game is considered to be one of the best of all time?

Join us this episode as we delve into the philosophy of games, with big thanks to the work of C. Thi Nguyen. Why do we play games? And more than that, why do we play hard games? What even is a game? We’ll consider that the genius of Celeste isn’t the premise, the story, or indeed even the platforming, but how all of these elements come together to encapsulate a very particular experience, allowing the player to embody a particular agency, one in which you, if you try and keep trying, can do anything.

Music by Max Elliott

Bibliography

• Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. Vintage International, 1991. 

• “Episode 117: Time is a Child at Play: On the Mystery of Games”. Weird Studies from SpectreVision Radio, 2 March 2022, https://open.spotify.com/episode/4AS7TrNkjjwWhgflEwqDb4?si=b4fa4685f8e34c75&nd=1&dlsi=ee8ac8a181b64ea3

• Game Maker’s Toolkit, “What’s the Point of Hard Games, Anyway?” YouTube, 16 September 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip5pYl-MuYs

• Game Maker’s Toolkit, “Why Does Celeste Feel So Good to Play?”, YouTube, 31 July 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yorTG9at90g&t=710s

• Game Maker’s Toolkit, “What Makes Celeste’s Assist Mode Special”, YouTube, 21 February 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NInNVEHj_G4

• Nguyen, C. Thi. Games: Agency as Art. Oxford University Press, 2020.

• Nguyen, C. Thi. "The Arts of Action”. Philosophers’ Imprint, vol. 20, n.14, 2020, pp. 1-27.

• Screen Therapy, “Celeste: Growing Stronger & Healing Anxiety”, YouTube, 30 December 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On_gtBhjpos

• Shepherd, Nan. The Living Mountain. Scribner, FIND YEAR

• Skyhoppers, “Celeste Proves That You Can Do Anything”, YouTube, 18 June 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TJkCcvqZBY

• Suits, Bernard. The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia. University of Toronto Press, 1978.

• Transparency Boo, “Understanding Celeste: A Reading of a Masterpiece. YouTube, 21 January 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhL4fLiX3d4

• unajoy, “Celeste: The Trans Odyssey", YouTube, 5 December 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys4iew6GC_0

• “169: C. Thi Nguyen on Games, Art, Values, and Agency”. Sean Carroll’s Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas from Sean Carroll and Wondery, 18 October 2021, https://open.spotify.com/episode/5fOYEKR4Nndl0syhIs1FX5?si=448eff5522484381&nd=1&dlsi=df6dfe345f2d4983

Crosses, holy water, and a pair of red leather pants: Buffy the Vampire Slayer put these Christian symbols on the small screen and used them to defeat the forces of darkness. Throughout its seven (fantastic) seasons, the show depicts sacrificial deaths and biblical resurrections in the midst of its camp monster-fighting and iconic villains, always trying to get the upper hand in the battle of good vs evil. Canonically, there is a literal heaven and many dimensions of hell. Yet, God with a capital g is nowhere to be seen. So what do Buffy and her fallen-from-grace, bad-then-good-then-bad-again hot vampire lovers represent for the theology and morality of the show?

Focusing on the best broody vampires (fight me), Angel and Spike, as well as on some of the most religious “Big Bads” of the show, this episode will question and analyze the anxieties and ambiguities Buffy has around Christianity. Where is God when there are demons? Can there be such a thing as inherent good when there is Spike? 

Tune in for our take on television’s most sacred text, all in time for the reboot/sequel.

Music by Max Elliott

Bibliography

• Carroll, Shiloh. “‘A Little Less Ritual and a Little More Fun’: Buffy and Medievalist Religion”. Wordpress. 5 August 2021,  https://shilohcarroll.wordpress.com/2021/08/05/buffy-religion/

• Erickson, Greg. “Religion Freaky or a Bunch of Men Who Died? The (A)theology of Buffy.” Slayage: The Online International Journal of Buffy +, October 2004. 

• Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Penguin Classics, 2003.

• Playdon, ZJ. “Religious imagery and its political significance: a feminist reading” in Reading the Slayer, ed. R Kaveney (London: Tauris Books, 2001).

• TV Tropes. “ Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Writing by the Seat of Your Pants”. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/BuffyTheVampireSlayer

• Whedon, Joss, creator. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Mutant Enemy Productions and 20th Century Fox Television, 1997.

Old libraries and dusty tomes. Gothic spires and cobblestone streets. Corduroy trousers and tweed blazers. Ink stains and candle wax. Dark Academia is every English lit grad’s wet dream, and we, your local former gifted children, are by no means immune to its charms. And neither is Netflix it seems.

Join us this episode as we discuss the pervasiveness of Dark Academia across all corners of pop culture and in particular, Netflix’s contribution to the romanticisation of Oxford University: My Oxford Year. Listen, we can delude ourselves into thinking it’s all for the love of the art, for the love of poetry itself, but set against the backdrop of an ancient elite higher education institution? It’s not all so pretty upon a closer look.

While this episode might just be a thinly veiled excuse for us to rant about how Edna St. Vincent Millay is not a Victorian poet, we’re also here to remind the internet (and ourselves) to stay self-aware as we explore the wealth and class implications of the Dark in Dark Academia.

Music by Max Elliott

Bibliography

• Dead Poets Society. Directed by Peter Weir, Touchstone Pictures, 1989.

• Ellis, Rowan. “The Problem with Dark Academia.” Youtube, 30 June 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfkYXVdkUEE.

• Kevin Dettmar. “Dead Poets Society Is a Terrible Defense of the Humanities.” The Atlantic, The Atlantic, 19 Feb. 2014, www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/02/-em-dead-poets-society-em-is-a-terrible-defense-of-the-humanities/283853/.

• Kuang, R. F. Babel. HarperCollins, 2022.

• Kuang, R. F. Katabasis. Voyager, 2025.

• McLaughlin, Katherine. “The Design Style That Defined 2022 Is Not What You’d Expect.” Architectural Digest, 16 Dec. 2022, www.architecturaldigest.com/story/dark-academia-design-trend.

• My Oxford Year. Directed by Iain Morris, Netflix, 2025.

• Rio, M. L. “All Academia Is Dark Academia - Electric Literature.” Electric Literature, 8 Nov. 2024, electricliterature.com/all-academia-is-dark-academia/.

• Rio, M. L. If We Were Villains. Titan Books, 2017.
• Tartt, Donna. The Secret History. Penguin Books, 1992.

The Gifted Children are going back to school! Today’s lesson: LESBIAN VAMPIRES!

Most specifically, their history and legacy, from Carmilla to First Kill and stopping by some of her most iconic cinematic appearances. Joining us for this episode is the utterly brilliant writer and filmmaker Lulenoxx, whose immense knowledge and passion for queer theory, history, and media makes them the perfect guest lecturer on this subject. They also have written their own take on the dykey vampire in the form of the short film “Thirst”.

“At once an image of death and an object of desire”, as Andrea Weiss writes, the Lesbian (NOTE: just as with “Dyke”, we use the term to refer to her as a cultural idea, but it often does not encompass the complexities of her sexual orientation) Vampire is eternally relevant and dangerously alluring. Chronologically tracing this trope, we uncover our personal and societal fascination with this enigmatic figure who throughout all time seems to embody our darkest secrets: human fears of death, men’s anxieties about female power, and, of course, homoerotic desire, preferably in an all-girls boarding school. We focus our discussion mainly on Dracula’s Daughter (1936), The Hunger (1983), and The Moth Diaries (2011), in order to study how the Lesbian Vampire has both reacted to the culture and politics of her time and  deeply influenced them.

More seminar than essay, exploration rather than dissertation, this episode’s format is as queer as vampires have always been. Listen in to learn a fang or two about our most beloved and complex monster. 

TW: Blood, homophobia, suicide, self-harm.

Music by Max Elliott

Bibliography

• Castle, Terry. The Apparitional Lesbian: Female Homosexuality and Modern Culture.  Columbia University Press, 1993.

• Dracula’s Daughter. Directed by Lambert Hillyer, Universal Pictures, 1936.

• Hanson, Ellis. “Lesbians Who Bite”, Out Takes: Essays on Queer Theory and Film,  Duke University Press, 1999.

• Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan. Carmilla. Edited by Carmen Maria Machado, Lanternfish Press, 2019. 

• San Filippo, Maria. The B Word: Bisexuality in Contemporary Film and Television, Indiana University Press, 2013.

• Sleeping Beauty. Directed by Les Clark, Eric Larson, and Wolfgang Reitherman, Walt Disney Productions, 1959.

• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Directed by David Hand, Walt Disney Productions, 1937.

• The Hunger. Directed by Tony Scott, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1983.

• The Moth Diaries. Directed by Mary Harron, IFC FIlms, 2011.

• Verilybitchie. The Lesbian Vampire in Film (A Deep Dive). Youtube,  2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hP8H1kbT1Q&t=1386s 

• Weiss, Andrea. Dracula’s Daughters: The Female Vampire on Film, Scarecrow Press, 2014.

• Weiss, Andrea. Vampires and Violets: Lesbians in Film, Penguin Books, 1993.

• Zimmerman, Bonnie. "Daughters of Darkness: Lesbian Vampires." Jump Cut, 1981. 

You know them. You love them. You find them inexplicably attractive. In this first ever minisode of the Gifted Child Symposium, we discuss the evergreen trope of the broody male love interest. Think Mr Darcy from Pride & Prejudice, Rhysand from A Court of Thorns and Roses, Edward Cullen from Twilight, and many, many more. What is it about these mysterious, sullen, tall, dark, and handsome men that makes them appear so often and appeal so widely? Join us as we discuss two case studies and unpick the dynamics that make power imbalance in romance hot and also work. Are the girlies okay? That’s an entirely separate discussion.

TV musical episodes - truly the marmite of TV episode genres. Love ‘em, hate ‘em, tolerate ‘em, you can’t deny that they are amongst the funniest and most memorable episodes in  your favourite TV shows. You get to watch your beloved characters sing and dance, whether they want to or not. That’s all there is to it… right?

In this episode, we dig deep into our ability to over-analyse the most banal and cash-grabby content studio execs and showrunners are able to churn by using TV musical episodes as a starting point for an episode all about free will and divine authority. How do we as the audience, the showrunners, and the on-screen characters themselves, justify to ourselves and each other about why we are suddenly accepting that Buffy Summers is singing about her emotions? What dynamic needs to be created in order for us to believe that Snow White and Prince Charming singing about their love for each other is also a powerful weapon to be used against the Evil Queen? Is the Blue Fairy actually God? How does God play into Sam and Dean Winchester witnessing a high school musical production based on their lives? Join us as we crash out to these questions and more. And do enjoy the special musical number we wrote to celebrate this weird and wacky sub-genre of TV episodes.

"The Gifted Child Symposium: The Musical"

• Vocals, songwriters: Felicia Hu and Miyin Delgado Karl
• Producer, mixing, recording, composer: Max Elliott

Music by Max Elliott

Bibliography

• Albright, Richard S. “[B]reakaway pop hit or . . . book number?”: “Once More, with Feeling” and Genre. Slayerworld Offline Library, 2004, http://offline.buffy.de/outlink_en.php?module=/webserver/offline/www.slayage.tv/SCBtVS_Archive/Talks/Albright.pdf

• “Changing Channels.” Supernatural, season 5, episode 8, The CW, 5 Nov. 2009.

• Coates, Lauren. “The Art of the Musical Episode—and Why Buffy’s “Once More with Feeling” Still Slays.” Paste Magazine, 2023, www.pastemagazine.com/tv/musical-episode-buffy-best-tv-musicals-history.

• “Fan Fiction.” Supernatural, season 10, episode 5, The CW, 11 Nov. 2014.

• “Once More, with Feeling.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 6, episode 7, UPN, 6 Nov. 2001.

• “Once More, with Feeling (Buffy the Vampire Slayer).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 31 May 2025.

• PashaO. “The Evolution of Musical Episodes in Television.” All Geek Things, Aug. 2023, www.allgeekthings.co.uk/the-evolution-of-musical-episodes-in-television/.

• Sarah Z. “The Musical Episode.” YouTube, 29 Apr. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRHTtrbUWjs.

• “The Song in Your Heart.” Once Upon a Time, season 6, episode 20, ABC, 7 May 2017.

• Wilcox, Rhonda. Why Buffy Matters. I.B. Tauris, 5 Nov. 2005.

Have you ever thought of Willy Wonka, not as mad genius or whimsical chocolate maker, but as a corrupt CEO? In this episode, we will discuss and shed light on how he and Mark Zuckerberg have more in common than you realize.

This is also the first (although not the last) time The Gifted Child Symposium is featuring a guest! We are joined by Max Elliott, our theme song composer and resident Charlie and the Chocolate Factory expert. Focusing on the 2005 Tim Burton adaptation, which Max has seen more times than anyone we know, we explore the exploitative conditions of the Wonka Chocolate factory, the massive unemployment and poverty rates it has created in local community, and the way the Bucket family manages to see past all of that once Charlie gets the golden ticket. Listen in as we seek justice for the Oompa Loompas, interrogate the practices that keep the poor Buckets poorer, and question why in the world Willy Wonka would want his successor to be an 11-year-old boy.

The answer might lie in the way we venerate powerful men and excuse cruelty for the sake of abstract innovation, or it might be found inside a chocolate bar. Take a look…and you’ll see… into your imagination.

Special guest and music by Max Elliott.

Find Max on Youtube at EMAYEX MUSIC.

Bibliography

• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Directed by Tim Burton, Warner Bros, 2005.

• Dahl, Roland. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Knopf, 1964.

• Dahl, Roald. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Puffin, 2016.

• Lohmann, Meisha. “‘Wonka’ movie holds remnants of novel’s racist past”, The Conversation, 2023. https://theconversation.com/wonka-movie-holds-remnants-of-novels-racist-past-217069

• Miller, Victoria. “The Heartbreaking Charlie And The Chocolate Factory Detail Tim Burton Took From Real Life”, Looper, 2021. https://www.looper.com/671450/the-heartbreaking-charlie-and-the-chocolate-factory-detail-tim-burton-took-from-real-life/ 

• Min, Paige. “The Hypocrisies of Wonka’s Chocolate World: Flipping Dahl’s Story Inside Out”, Tortoise: A Journal of Writing Pedagogy, Princeton University, 2021. https://tortoise.princeton.edu/2021/05/02/the-hypocrisies-of-wonkas-chocolate-world-flipping-dahls-story-inside-out/

• Yacovone, Donald. “Roald Dahl, the Caribbean, and a Warning from His Chocolate Factory”, ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America, Harvard University, 2020. https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/roald-dahl-the-caribbean-and-a-warning-from-his-chocolate-factory/ 

• Wonka. Directed by Paul King, Warner Bros, 2023

Welcome to the first episode of 2025! We’re kicking off the year with a deep-dive into ‘the lakes’, the bonus track on Taylor Swift’s 2020 Grammy-award winning album folklore. Some may wonder how two people can spend over an hour talking about a single 3.5 minute long track, and to that we say: are you even surprised anymore?

Let us first point out that we are huge fans of Taylor Swift’s songwriting. She is a talented lyricist with a serious knack for catchy melodies and no one can say her bridges aren’t genius. folklore is also both of our favourite album by her. So when we heard ‘the lakes’, we were confused. How did that same artist write a song that not only feels completely overwritten, literal, and clunky lyrically, but is also actually factually incorrect?

Part fact-check, part critique, join us as we try and untangle the intentions behind the lyricism of ‘the lakes’, deep-dive into the actual literary and historical context of Romantic poetry, and attempt to answer the question: does Taylor Swift actually know what Romanticism is? Fellow English literature graduates, get your Norton Anthologies out, we’re doing some close reading.

Music by Max Elliott

BIbliography

What do Chaucer, Shakespeare, and MsKingBean89 have in common? What unites them, beyond their abilities to speak to the masses of their time, pioneering brand new literary traditions that represent their own lived identity? RIP Shakespeare, you would’ve loved AO3.

Welcome to the second episode in our two-part series on fanfiction, in which we explore the enduring and necessary tradition of transformative works in literary innovation, historically and contemporarily. Touching on translation, copyright etiquette and law, and the very concept of identity - and by proxy originality - by way of the Ship of Theseus paradox, join us in our defence of adaptation, our celebration of literary legacy. The essential practice of fanfiction is the very backbone of artistic innovation, whether you’re Shakespeare or an anonymous AO3 username.

Music by Max Elliott

Bibliography

• Borges, Jorge Luis. “On William Beckford's ‘"Vathek’”, Selected Non-Fictions. Penguin Random House, 1999.

• Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benso. Houghton Mifflin, 1987.

• Fathallah, Judith May. “From Foucault to Fanfic.” Fanfiction and the Author, Amsterdam University Press, 2017, pp. 17–32. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1v2xsp4.5. 

• Higgins, Charlotte. “The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson review – a new cultural landmark” The Guardian, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/08/the-odyssey-translated-emily-wilson-review 

• Hobbes, Thomas. “Of Identity and Difference” in The Collected Works of Thomas Hobbes. Routledge / Thoemmes Press, 1992. 

• Illyriantremors. A Court of Mist and Fury (Rhysand’s POV). Archiveofourown.org, 2017. https://archiveofourown.org/series/685860 

• Kuang, R. F. Babel, Or, The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution. Harper Voyager, 2022.

• Mayer-Schonberger, Viktor. “Fan or Foe: Fan Fiction, Authorship, and the Fight for Control.” IDEA: The Intellectual Property Law Review, 2013

• Merriam-Webster. “Definition of FAN FICTION.” Merriam-Webster.com, 2020, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fan%20fiction.

• MsKingBean89. All the Young Dudes. Archiveofourown.org, 2018. https://archiveofourown.org/works/10057010 

• Murdock, Chelsea J. “Making Fanfic: The (Academic) Tensions of Fan Fiction as Self-Publication.” Community Literacy Journal, 2017, 12, 1, 48 2017, https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1085&context=communityliteracy 

• Price, Ludi. “Fan Fiction in the Library.” Transformative Works and Cultures, City University of London, 2017.

• Sarah Z. “An Exhaustive Defense of Fanfiction.” Youtube, 2022, www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvP_BLMgYBg.

• Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. Washington Square Press, 2002.

• The Try Guys. “The Try Guys Find Their Harry Potter Patronus”, Youtube, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56cSkkfsI-U