The Royal Studies Podcast

In this episode, host Ellie Woodacre interviews Stephanie McCarter about her new book Women in Power: Classical Myths and Stories from the Amazons to Cleopatra (Penguin Books, 2024). As we discuss in the episode, this work brings together excerpts from Classical texts which discuss the life and rule of a variety of women, from mythical figures like the Amazons, to a range of ruling queens including well known figures like Zenobia, Boudicca and Cleopatra to those who aren't often discussed, like Salome Alexandra or Amanirenas.

Guest Bio:
Stephanie McCarter is professor of Classics at the University of the South in Sewanee, where she has taught since 2008. Her teaching and research interests include Latin poetry, translation theory and practice, gender and sexuality in classical antiquity, feminist reception of the classics, and Greek and Roman philosophy and ethics. McCarter’s books include Horace between Freedom and Slavery (University of Wisconsin Press, 2015) as well as two works of translation, Horace’s Epodes, Odes, and Carmen Saeculare (University of Oklahoma Press, 2020) and Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Penguin Classics, 2022), which won the 2023 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets. She has penned numerous academic articles in journals such as Classical Journal, Eugesta, and American Journal of Philology, as well as essays, translations, reviews, and interviews in The Washington Post, The Sewanee Review, Literary Hub, Electric Literature, Lapham’s Quarterly, Hyperallergic, The Brooklyn Rail, and elsewhere. 

In this roundtable episode, host Ellie Woodacre is joined by a panel of five experts on monarchy in premodern Asia--including the Indian subcontinent, China and Southeast Asia. This episode captures a vibrant discussion on the impact of Buddhism on the ideals and practice of monarchy in the region, drawing on their respective research.

Speaker Bios: 

Stephanie Balkwill is Associate Professor of Chinese Buddhism at the University of California Los Angeles, where she is also the Director of the Center for Buddhist Studies. She publishes broadly on the connection between women, Buddhist affiliation, and political opportunity in early medieval China. She is the author of The Women Who Ruled China: Buddhism, Multiculturalism, and Governance in the Sixth Century (UC Press 2024) as well as the co-Editor of Buddhist Statecraft in East Asia (Brill 2022)--both are Open Access.

Megan Bryson is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Chair of the Asian Studies program at the University of Tennessee. Her work focuses on gender, ethnicity, and kingship in East Asian Buddhism, specifically in the regimes of Nanzhao (653–903) and Dali (937–1253) that were based in what is now China’s Yunnan province. Bryson is the author of the book Goddess on the Frontier: Religion, Ethnicity, and Gender in Southwest China (Stanford UP, 2016), co-editor of the volume Buddhist Masculinities (Columbia UP, 2023), and she is currently finishing a book about Buddhist transmission along the Southwestern Silk Road.

Alice Collett: Prior to joining St Andrews, Professor Collett worked at several universities around the world, in teaching, research and senior management roles, including a period as Acting Dean at Nalanda University in India. Her research specialism is ancient Indian religions, with a focus on women. Her publications include Women in Early Indian Buddhism: Comparative Textual Studies (OUP, 2013) and Translating Buddhism: Historical and Contextual Perspectives (SUNY, 2021).  

Bruno Shirley is a historian of medieval Sri Lanka, interested in ideas about and practices of religion, politics, and gender. He is currently a research fellow in Buddhist Studies at Heidelberg University. 

Trent Walker is assistant professor of Southeast Asian studies and Thai Professor of Theravada Buddhism at the University of Michigan. Prior to moving to Ann Arbor, he completed postdoctoral fellowships at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand and the Ho Center for Buddhist Studies at Stanford University. A specialist in Southeast Asian Buddhist music, literature, and manuscripts, he is the author of Until Nirvana's Time: Buddhist Songs from Cambodia (winner of the 2024 Khyentse Foundation Prize for Outstanding Translation) and co-editor of Out of the Shadows of Angkor: Cambodian Poetry, Prose, and Performance through the Ages. 

In this episode, Ellie Woodacre interviews three members of the organizing committee for next year's Kings & Queens 14 conference: Manuela Santos Silva, Maria Dávila and Inês Olaia. We talk about the conference theme, plans for the conference (including the much loved excursions), celebrating the anniversary of Leonor de Lencastre's death and tips for those who are planning to attend.

The call for papers for Kings & Queens 14 “Beyond the King: Diplomacy, Social Roles and Family Dynamics of Monarchies” is out now--the deadline for submissions is 15 December and the conference will take place from 2-5 June 2025 at the University of Lisbon. The full call for papers and more information can be found on the Royal Studies Network website.

Errata: please note that the Call for Papers for Kings and Queens 14 is due on 15 December 2024, not 2014.

Guest Bios:

Manuela Santos Silva is an Associate Professor at the History Department of the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon, at present supervisor of the Specialize Program in Gender and History. As a Researcher of the Centre for History of the University of Lisbon, she coordinates the research group “Court Studies and Diplomacy”.

Within her various fields of interest and research, queenship has been one of the most productive, as she has co-edited several books and collections with colleagues and authored books and a substantial number of articles in collective volumes and scientific journals.

She is a researcher in some international projects such as “MUNARQAS: La reginalidad ibérica desde hacia la Europa Atlántica Economías territoriales, escenarios curiales y geografías relacionales (ss. XII-XV)"”, "(REGINET) REDES DE PODER Y AUTORIDAD DE LAS REINAS E INFANTAS EN LAS MONARQUÍAS IBÉRICAS (1350-1500)", “Examining the Resources & Revenues of Royal Women in Premodern Europe”, and in a Portuguese project about Latin urban legislation.

Maria Dávila is an Assistant Professor at the University of Lisbon and a researcher at its Centre for History. Her main research interests include Court Studies, especially the relationship of women and power, during the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, and the beginning of the Portuguese expansion. She is a member of several international research projects, including Munarqas coordinated by Diana Pelaz, "Examining the Resources & Revenues of Royal Wemen in Premodern Europe”, and the “Poder Feminino e Mecenato” project coordinated by Ana Maria Rodrigues and Murielle Gaude Ferragu. She has published several papers about elite women in the 15th century and is currently working on a new book about women at the Portuguese court, with Pedro Urbano.

Inês Olaia is a PhD candidate in Medieval History at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon. She’s working on a thesis titled “By the Grace of God Queen of Portugal: queens’ functions and practices in Medieval Portugal”, for which she was granted a Scholarship (04440.2020.BD) from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia. She holds a MA in Medieval History, with a dissertation studying the jurisdictions of Alenquer and Aldeia Galega da Merceana [alternatively: two medieval adjacent towns near Lisbon] and the queens’ rule over these towns. She has published several articles in scholarly publications, including a study on emotions and political change in Portuguese chronicles in 2020, an inquest into Filipa of Coimbra, sister of queen Isabel, wife of Afonso V, in 2022, a study on the rule of queens Teresa and Sancha over a few towns in Portugal and a work on the itineraries of the queens from the time of Manuel I in 2023. Inês has also worked in the history of emotions and published a dozen sources. She’s a team member of several projects, including the eReginae Project (devoted to ed

In this episode, Magdalena Biniaś-Szkopek and Darius von Güttner join host Susannah Lyon-Whaley to discuss their Polish Queens project, which examines Polish queens' roles as spouses, mothers, and queens. The project is also interested in looking into the emotional side of queenship and the emotions of the individual women themselves.

Guest Bios:
Magdalena Biniaś-Szkopek, Ph.D., Professor at UAM, Department of Archivistics, Faculty of History, Director of the Polish Academy of Sciences Kornik Library. Her areas of research interest include the history of late medieval Poland, Poland of the Jagiellonians, church and secular chancelleries in the Middle Ages and modern times, changes in the institution of marriage in Poland as well as in Europe in the fifteenth century, archival science with a particular focus on issues related to diplomacy, the development of chancery forms in history. She is the author of three monographs including Spouses before the court of the bishop of Poznań in the first quarter of the 15th century, Institute of History of the Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań 2019 (Małżonkowie przed sądem biskupiego oficjała poznańskiego w pierwszej ćwierci XV wieku, Wydawnictwo Instytutu Historii UAM, Poznań 2019). She is the author of more than 30 studies and scientific articles. She is currently the grant manager of the project "Polish queens of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as wives and mothers” (2022 - 2026). 

Darius von Güttner is a historian of East Central Europe with a particular interest in cultural aspects of transmission of ideas and identity; Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Arts; General Editor of series “East Central Europe” published by Brepols Publishers. Professor von Güttner completed his PhD at the University of Melbourne and now serves as the Dean of the Australian Catholic University’s Canberra Campus. His book, Poland, Holy War, and the Piast Monarchy, challenges long-held beliefs about Poland's involvement in religious conflicts, specifically the Crusades. Beyond medieval and early modern Europe, his research has broadened to tackle global history and the societal roles of elite women, such as Bona Sforza, Queen of Poland and her mother Isabella d’Aragona. He is also a regular contributor to ABC Radio Canberra's weekly history segment.

Find out more about the Polish Queens project and stay tuned for their forthcoming volume with Brepols. You can find out more about Darius’s research interests here. 

In this episode, host Ellie Woodacre interviews Dr Mishka Sinha, co-curator of the Untold Lives: A Palace at Work exhibition at Historic Royal Palaces (running until 27 October 2024). In the interview we discuss how the development of the exhibition. the ways it which it reveals the hidden histories of palace courtiers and servants and the unexpected modern twist which brings the past and present inhabitants of the palace together.

Episode Notes:

• Polly Putnam is co-curator of the exhibition
• Clarification--during the discussion of fires at Kensington Palace it should be noted that the palace nearly burnt down three times

Guest Bio: Mishka is a cultural and intellectual historian of global and imperial history from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Her interdisciplinary research interests include the histories of universities, knowledge, texts, oriental languages, cultural and material heritage, women’s history, and underrepresented people and cultures in Europe, the United States and Asia. Mishka received her B.A. degree from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, an M.Phil from the University of Oxford, and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. She has taught at several UK and continental European universities and received several research grants and fellowships including a British Academy PDF at Cambridge, a Max Weber Fellowship in Florence, and others at Edinburgh, Oxford and Berlin. Mishka has worked with museums and heritage in India, and collaborated as an actor and performer with a contemporary Indian artist on multiple projects since 2003. 

• Blog Posts written by Dr Sinha
  • HRP: The tale of Abdullah and 'the Shah Goest'
  • HRP: Searching for the young Black man in the portrait of William III, with Camilla de Koning
    • Part I 
    • Part II
  • St. John's College, Oxford

In this episode, host Ellie Woodacre interviews Charlotte Boland, the curator of the Six Lives exhibition currently running at the National Portrait Gallery, London. In this interview we discuss the inspiration behind the exhibition, new approaches to the history of the Six Lives and the unusual and diverse selection of visual and material culture in the exhibition.

The exhibition is running until 8 September 2024--click here for more information or to book tickets.

If you are not in the UK or are listening to this episode after the exhibition has finished you can purchase the exhibition catalogue, which includes all of the material exhibited and features a range of articles from academics in the field on the Six Lives.

Guest Bio: Dr Charlotte Bolland is a Senior Curator at the National Portrait Gallery—she joined in 2011 as Project Curator for the Making Art in Tudor Britain project. Her role combines responsibility for the acquisition, research and interpretation of portraits dating from the sixteenth century, with co-ordination of research activity within the curatorial department. She has co-curated a number of exhibitions at the NPG, including The Real Tudors: Kings and Queens Rediscovered (2014) and The Encounter: Drawings from Leonardo to Rembrandt (2017). 

Charlotte studied for her PhD at Queen Mary, University of London, in collaboration with The Royal Collection as part of an AHRC funded CDA—her doctoral thesis was entitled Italian Material Culture at the Tudor Court. It explored the many items that were owned by the Tudor monarchs that had been brought to England by Italian individuals, either through trade or as gifts. 

Selected Publications:

C. Bolland and T. Cooper, The Encounter: Drawings from Leonardo to Rembrandt (National Portrait Gallery, 2017)

 C. Bolland and T. Cooper, The Real Tudors: Kings and Queens Rediscovered (National Portrait Gallery, 2014)

CONTENT WARNING: Please be aware that there are brief discussions of infant and child mortality in this episode.

In this episode Susannah Lyon-Whaley interviews Alexandra Forsyth on her fascinating research on the dauphines of late medieval France.

Guest Bio: Alexandra is a doctoral candidate in History at the University of Auckland. Her doctoral thesis examines the fertility, maternity, and childlessness of the ten Valois dauphines from 1350-1559. She is particularly interested in how the dauphines may have sought to enhance their fertility through the use of magical-medicinal and religious remedies. Alexandra holds a Master of Arts and BA (Hons) in History, both with First Class Honours. 

Alexandra is currently working as an Editorial Advisor for the Powers 1100-1550 section of Routledge Resources Online: Medieval Studies and has two forthcoming encyclopaedic entries on this platform, namely, Margaret of Scotland (1424-1445); Salic Law and French Royal Succession.

Alexandra’s recommended readings:

Translated primary source: The Trotula: An English Translation of the Medieval Compendium of Women’s Medicine. Translated and edited by Monica H. Green. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002. Book on the Conditions of Women was discussed. 

Susan Broomhall. The Identities of Catherine de' Medici. Leiden: Brill, 2021. 

Jennifer Evans. Aphrodisiacs, Fertility, and Medicine in Early Modern England. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2014.  

Kristen L. Geaman. Anne of Bohemia. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2022. 

Kristen L. Geaman, "Anne of Bohemia and Her Struggle to Conceive, Social History of Medicine." Social History of Medicine 29, 2 (2016): 224-244.  

Daphna Oren-Magidor. Infertility in Early Modern England. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. 

Regina Toepfer. Infertility in Medieval and Early Modern Europe Premodern Views on Childlessness. Translated by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.  

To celebrate the release of the Royal Studies Journal special issue 'Defining Aristocracy' (issue 11.1: June 2024), we have two roundtable episodes with the guest editor, Cathleen Sarti, and her contributors--one in English and another in German: a first for our podcast! This episode is the German version, hosted by Erik Liebscher and featuring Cathleen Sarti, Nadir Weber and Marion Dotter. You can find out more about all of the participants in this episode in the guest bios below.

Cathleen Sarti: Cathleen Sarti is Departmental Lecturer for History of War at the University of Oxford. She holds a Phd from the University of Mainz which has been published as Deposing Monarchs: Domestic Conflict and State Formation, 1500-1700 with Routledge in 2022. She often works with Charlotte Backerra from the University of Göttingen on Monarchy & Money: the research seminar, several publications, and a book series with AUP.  The research is connected to Examining the Resources and Revenues of Royal Women in Premodern Europe. Cathleen is currently working a book on War Materials in European Warfare from the Baltic and the Economic Agency of Danish Queens.

Marion Dotter: Marion Dotter is a research assistant at the Collegium Carolinum in Munich, Germany. From 2018 to 2021, she wrote her dissertation on Noble Politics in the late Habsburg Monarchy as part of the research project The Desk of the Emperor. Her research interest in Habsburg administrative practice led to the publication of the anthology "Allerunterthänigst unterfertigte Bitte. Bittschriften und Petitionen im langen 19. Jahrhundert". She is currently working on a study on the relationship between the Catholic Church and Communism in East-Central and South-East Europe in the Second Half of the 20th century.

Nadir Weber: Nadir Weber is Professor of Early Modern Swiss History at the University of Bern and is currently leading the SNF Eccellenza project Republican Secrets: Silence, Memory, and Collective Rule in the Early Modern Period. He completed his PhD in Bern on the Principality of Neuchâtel and its political relations with Prussia. He then explored the history of hunting and human-animal relations, particularly at court, in various publications including a recent article on the concept of aristocracy in the political language of the early modern period.   

Erik Liebscher: Erik Liebscher's work focusses on personal testimonies, the lower nobility, societies and sociability in the 18th century. He holds a PhD from the University of Erfurt (2024) which analyzed diaries of the Gotha court nobility around 1800. Since May 2024, he has been a research assistant at the Chair of Early Modern History at the University of Leipzig.

To celebrate the release of the Royal Studies Journal special issue 'Defining Aristocracy' (issue 11.1: June 2024), we have two roundtable episodes with the guest editor, Cathleen Sarti, and her contributors--one in English and another in German: a first for our podcast!

This episode (in English) is hosted by Ellie Woodacre and features Cathleen Sarti and two contributors, Alexander Isacsson and Nicola Clark. In this roundtable we discuss the "fuzzy" definition of aristocracy, Alexander's article on the perception of the aristocracy in Swedish historiography and Nikki's ideas of "hard" and "soft" aristocracy in her study of women at the Tudor court. To find out more about our guest, see their bios below.

Guest bios:
Cathleen Sarti: Cathleen Sarti is Departmental Lecturer for History of War at the University of Oxford. She holds a Phd from the University of Mainz which has been published as Deposing Monarchs: Domestic Conflict and State Formation, 1500-1700 with Routledge in 2022--see our episode on her book here. She often works together with Charlotte Backerra from the University of Göttingen, in particular on all things regarding Monarchy & Money – there is a research seminar, several publications, and of course the book series with AUP.  The research is also connected to the wider project from within the RSN on Examining the Resources and Revenues of Royal Women in Premodern Europe. Cathleen is currently working a book on War Materials in European Warfare from the Baltic (introduced in a blog), and will then turn to the question of Economic Agency of Danish Queens.

Dr Nicola Clark is a Senior Lecturer in early modern history at the University of Chichester. Her first book, Gender, Family, and Politics: The Howard Women, 1485-1558 was published by Oxford University Press in 2018, and she has issued widely on women's roles, the Reformation, and sixteenth century politics. She also writes for public audiences, and her latest book The Waiting Game: The Untold Story of the Women Who Served the Tudor Queens was published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 2024.

Alexander Isacsson is a researcher in history at Lund University, Sweden. He obtained his doctorate in 2023 after having published his dissertation Defining Dukeship: The Problem of Royal Spares and Dynasty Formation in Sweden, 1556–1622. He is currently working within a project financed by the Swedish Research Council and headed by Liesbeth Geevers at Lund University. The project, entitled New Princes: Duke Johan of Östergötland (1589-1618) and Archduke Charles of Austria (1590-1624), explores how the role of second sons changed in European monarchies in the seventeenth century from a comparative perspective. Besides royal studies and dynastic history, Alexander is also interested in historiography and media history.

In this episode, host Ellie Woodacre interviews the winner of the Royal Studies Journal Book Prize 2024--Matthew Fitzpatrick. In the interview, we discuss his prize winning book The Kaiser and the Colonies: Monarchy in the Age of Empire (Oxford University Press, 2022), including the inspiration behind the project, the character of Kaiser Wilhelm II and his relationships (good, bad and ugly!) with other global monarchs.

Guest Bio: Matt Fitzpatrick is a Future Fellow and Matthew Flinders Professor of International History at Flinders University. His research is in the field of modern European history, in particular German imperial history. He is the author of three books on this topic, The Kaiser and the Colonies being his most recent. A fourth book, on the history of German Samoa, is due for publication in late 2024 / early 2025. He lives and works on Kaurna country, which is in South Australia.  

Links/Further information:

• Matt Fitzpatrick--institutional webpage
• Project Webpage: Monarchy, Democracy and Empire in Germany
• Follow Matt on Bluesky
• Follow Matt on X: @kilderbenhauser