Litscipod: The Literature And Science Podcast

Produced by: Catherine Charlwood (@DrCharlwood) and Laura Ludtke (@lady_electric) Music composed and performed by Gareth Jones. About the episode: This sixth episode of the third series of LitSciPod features an interview with Dr Heather Love, Assistant Professor of English Literature at the University of Waterloo (Canada). Heather discusses her work on cybernetics in the works of Ezra Pound, John Dos Passos, and Virginia Woolf, as well as modernism and diagnosis. She introduces us to her new project on obstetrics and explores her unique relationship with the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). Together, we consider the importance of the concept of the cluster to her research. At the end of the episode, you can hear Heather read an excerpt from Gertrude Stein’s Everybody’s Autobiography (1937). Episode resources (in order of appearance): • Gabriel Roberts, “ The Humanities in Modern Britain: Challenges and Opportunities”, Higher Education Policy Institute (2021) • Lord Browne, “Secur

Produced by: Catherine Charlwood (@DrCharlwood) and Laura Ludtke (@lady_electric) Music composed and performed by Gareth Jones. About the episode: This fifth episode of the third series of LitSciPod features an interview with Dr John Holmes, Professor of Victorian Literature and Culture at the University of Birmingham. John discusses how poetry helps us to negotiate the legacies of Darwin’s discoveries and the Pre-Raphaelites’ shaping of the culture of Victorian science (and vice versa). He introduces us to the Synopsis Network, which explores art in natural history museums, to the Ruskin Land project in the Wyre Forest, and to his more recent work responding to COP26 from an humanities perspective. We also debate the importance of method to disciplines. At the end of the episode, you can hear John read ‘Editorial. By the President of the Therolinguistics Association’ from ‘The Author of the Acacia Seeds and Other Extracts from the Journal of the Association of Therolinguistics" by Ursula K. Le Guin. Epis

Produced by: Catherine Charlwood (@DrCharlwood) and Laura Ludtke (@lady_electric) Music composed and performed by Gareth Jones. About the episode: This fourth episode of the third series of LitSciPod features an interview with Professor Simon John James (@ProfSJJames) of Durham University. A well-established literary critic of the nineteenth-century novel, Simon discusses his long-standing interests in the relationship between literature and science: its historical origins and H. G. Wells’s role, all the way up to what scientists and literary critics can offer each other today. Given Simon’s role in the Durham Commission on Creativity in Education, we also discuss the importance of an interdisciplinary perspective within our schooling systems. Episode resources (in order of appearance): Kazuo Ishiguro, The Buried Giant (2015) The 1870 Education Act Simon James, ‘Literature and Science’ (2011) Richard Bower and Simon James, ‘Time travel: a conversation between a physicist and a literature professor’ (2

Produced by: Catherine Charlwood (@DrCharlwood) and Laura Ludtke (@lady_electric) Music composed and performed by Gareth Jones. About the episode: This third episode of the third series of LitSciPod features an interview with education researcher and recent DPhil graduate Dr Ashmita Randhawa (@Rand_Ash). Through a discussion of Ashmita’s thesis on studio schools, we consider educational policy, STEM and the language of aspiration, and the long history of STEM shortages. At the end of the episode, you can hear Ashmita read Sarah Key’s poem ‘Be’. You can watch Sarah Kay reading it here https://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_kay_if_i_should_have_a_daughter?language=en Materials discussed: Catherine Charlwood, ‘“Context is all: Science, society and the novel’, English Review, Vol. 31, No. 4 (2021) Ashmita Randhawa, STEM and the Studio: understanding the role of Studio Schools in technical education, DPhil thesis James Robson, Ashmita Randhawa, and Ewart Keep, ‘Employability Skills in Studio Schools: Investigating

Produced by: Catherine Charlwood (@DrCharlwood) and Laura Ludtke (@lady_electric) Music composed and performed by Gareth Jones. About the episode: This second episode of the third series of LitSciPod features an interview with modern linguist, early modernist and Francophile Dr Jennifer Oliver (@jenhelenoliver) discussing shipwrecks and technological developments. Materials discussed: Gordon Lightfoot, “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuzTkGyxkYI) Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The Wreck of the Deutschland” (1875–6,1918) About the Edmund Fitzgerald: https://www.shipwreckmuseum.com/edmund-fitzgerald/the-fateful-journey/ Maritime Museum of the Great Lakes: https://www.marmuseum.ca/ Josephine Mandamin’s Water Walker movement: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/trekking-the-great-lakes-on-foot-to-raise-awareness-about-water-pollutants-1.4161467 Truth and Reconciliation: the legacy of Canada’s residential schools: http://nctr.ca/reports.php Great Lakes Guardian’s Coun

Produced by: Catherine Charlwood (@DrCharlwood) and Laura Ludtke (@lady_electric) Music composed and performed by Gareth Jones. About the episode: This first episode of the new, third series of LitSciPod sees the co-hosts reflecting on what the pandemic has taught us about the indivisible connection between the humanities and the sciences. We cover vaccine communications and vaccine hesitancy, Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro’s reflections on scientific truth, and books which have got us thinking. Materials discussed: Sally Frampton, ‘Vaccine scepticism is as old as vaccines themselves. Here's how to tackle it’ The Guardian (23 Feb 2021): https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/23/vaccine-scepticism-how-to-tackle-it Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun (Faber, 2021) Adam Curtis, Can’t Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World (2021) Charlotte Sleigh, “The abuses of Popper,” Aeon (16 Feb 2021): https://aeon.co/essays/how-popperian-falsification-enabled-the-rise-of-neoliberal

Produced by: Catherine Charlwood (@DrCharlwood) and Laura Ludtke (@lady_electric) Music composed and performed by Gareth Jones. About the episode: The sixth episode of the second series of LitSciPod is all about analogy and language shared between literature (especially poetry), science, and science writing. Laura and Catherine are joined by a special guest: Dr Greg Tate (@drgregorytate), Lecturer in Victorian Literature at the University of St Andrews. Greg shares his research on matter, form, and rhythm in nineteenth century poetry and the physical sciences. He asks why there is so much poetry in the science writing of the period (and even today) and what that says about the connections between literature and science. Greg also discusses how Hardy’s poetry draws on Einstein’s theory of relativity, why the concept of the ether is so important to science and poetry. At the end of the episode, you can hear Greg read an excerpt from Mathilde Blind’s The Ascent of Man (1889). Episode resources (in order of

Produced by: Catherine Charlwood (@DrCharlwood) and Laura Ludtke (@lady_electric) Music composed and performed by Gareth Jones. Laura and Catherine are joined by a special guest: Dr Robert C. Engen (@RobertEngen), Assistant Professor in the Department of Defence Studies at the Canadian Forces College. Robert discusses his interdisciplinary research on parallels between the military responses to the 1918 pandemic and the current COVID-19 pandemic, public health and global conflict, a project commemorating the Battle of Hill 70, as well as more recent work on the human dimension of AI in warfare. At the end of the episode, you can hear Robert read an extract from The Glass Bead by Herman Hesse. Episode resources (in order of appearance): Introduction: -Katie Russell, ‘“Arts subjects have as much value as STEM”: the new education campaign tackling the myth of 'soft' degrees’, The Telegraph (25 June 2020) -Vanessa Thorpe, ‘University and Arts Council in drive to re-brand “soft” academic subjects’, The Guardian

Produced by: Catherine Charlwood (@DrCharlwood) and Laura Ludtke (@lady_electric). Music composed and performed by Gareth Jones. Laura and Catherine are joined by a special guest: Dr Kari Nixon (@HalfSickShadows). At the end of the episode, you can hear Kari read the poem ‘Inskripsjoner/Inscriptions’ bilingually in Norweigian and English by Tarjei Vesaas, trans. by Kenneth G. Chapman. Episode resources: Introduction: Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South (1854) Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932) Catherine Charlwood, ‘“Habitually Embodied” Memories: The Materiality and Physicality of Music in Hardy's Poetry’, Nineteenth-Century Music Review (2020) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479409819000338 Sile O’Modhrain and R. Brent Gillespie (2018) ‘Once More, with Feeling: Revisiting the Role of Touch in Performer-Instrument Interaction’. In: Papetti S., Saitis C. (eds) Musical Haptics. Springer Series on Touch and Haptic Systems. Springer, Cham Roland Barthes, Mythologies (1957) Interview: Pamela K. Gilbert

Teaser for Episode 4.

Produced by: Catherine Charlwood (@DrCharlwood) and Laura Ludtke (@lady_electric). Music composed and performed by Gareth Jones. Laura and Catherine are joined by a special guest: Dr Emilie Taylor-Pirie (@DrETaylorPirie, née Taylor-Brown), an Early Career Academic specialising in the intersections between literature, science and culture. Millie discusses nineteenth-century responses to malaria and how scientists couched their work in imaginative language; how studying a joint honours in English Literature and Biology set her up for an interdisciplinary career; the importance of being prepared for a zombie apocalypse; and much more! At the end of the episode, you can hear Millie read an extract from Henry Seton Merriman’s imperial romance novel With Edged Tools (1894): ‘The Accursed Camp’ Introduction: Kari Nixon, ‘The way we talk about coronavirus matters’, 3 March 2020, CNN.com Alice Bennett (@AlicePonderland), ‘A lot of people …’, Twitter, 20 March 2020 Adrian Bott (@Cavalorn), ‘For those who didn't kno

Coming soon... Outbreak: A Two Cultures Pinch-Point, feat. Dr Emilie Taylor-Brown

Produced by: Catherine Charlwood (@DrCharlwood) and Laura Ludtke (@lady_electric). Music composed and performed by Gareth Jones. Laura and Catherine are joined by a special guest: Dr Olivia Smith (@OliveFSmith), a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow based at Wolfson College, University of Oxford. Olivia discusses her work on early modern life writing and biology, exploring the importance of cognition and recognition to the pre-history of scientific research. In a wide-ranging discussion, she covers archives, letters, objects philosophical and scientific, and the relationship of the early modern imagination to interdisciplinarity. Olivia also talks about her work with the charity Arts Emergency (@artsemergency) and the importance of a political argument for access to the creative arts. At the end of the episode, you can hear Olivia read the poem ‘A World in an Eare-ring’, by Margaret Cavendish (1623-73). Episode resources (in order of appearance): Introduction Sydney Ross, ‘Scientist: The Story of a Word’, Annals

Produced by: Catherine Charlwood (@DrCharlwood) and Laura Ludtke (@lady_electric) Music composed and performed by Gareth Jones. Laura and Catherine are joined by a special guest: Professor Sharon Ruston (@SharonRuston), Chair in Romanticism at Lancaster University’s Department of English and Creative Writing. Sharon is the author of ​Creating Romanticism ​(2013) and​ Shelley and Vitality ​(2005) and co-editor of the forthcoming ​Collected Letters of Sir Humphrey Davy​. Sharon talks about her LitSci research on Mary Shelley, describes her MOOC on the nineteenth-century chemist Sir Humphrey Davy, and introduces her current project, crowdsourcing transcriptions for Davy’s notebooks. At the end of the episode, you can hear Sharon read an extract from Mary Shelley’s novel​Frankenstein(​1818). Episode resources (in order of appearance): Introduction ● Alix Nathan, ​The Warlow Experiment ​(2019) ● Jeanette Winterson, ​Frankissstein: A Love Story​ (2019) ● Ian McEwan’s ​Machines Like Me​ (2019) Interview ● Helen Edmu

LitSciPod is coming back for Series 2.

Produced by: Catherine Charlwood (@DrCharlwood) and Laura Ludtke (@lady_electric) Music composed and performed by Gareth Jones Laura and Catherine discuss the recent BSLS Winter Symposium on the theme of Extinctions and Rebellions, held at the University of Liverpool. If you weren’t able to make the event, we talk through the panels we attended (and between us we went to all of them!), the impact roundtable and our key takeaways from the day. Episode resources (in order of appearance): Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Harvard UP, 2011) Cherie Dimaline, The Marrow Thieves (Dancing Cat Books, 2017) E. W. Cooke, Grotesque Animals (Longmans, 1872) Sam Gayton, The Last Zoo (Random House, 2019) The Errant Muse exhibition - a collaboration between artist Charlotte Hodes and poet Prof Deryn Rees-Jones - is at the Victoria Museum and Gallery, Liverpool, running from 16th November 2019 until 28th March 2020, open Tues-Sat 10am-5pm. Further details can be found here.

Produced by: Catherine Charlwood (@DrCharlwood) and Laura Ludtke (@lady_electric) Music composed and performed by Gareth Jones Laura and Catherine are (re)joined by a special guest: Dr Rachel Crossland, Senior Lecturer in Modern Literature at the University of Chichester. Rachel takes the B/III/iii challenge while discussing how to talk about discoveries in physics past and present; the difficulties of being asked to know what you don’t yet know; and the relationship betwen the popular press and scientific ideas. Episode resources (in order of appearance): Gillian Beer, Open Fields: Science in Cultural Encounter (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996) 'Problems of Description in the Language of Discovery', which was originally published in George Levine's One Culture: Essays in Science and Literature (Madison, Wis.: Wisconsin University Press, 1987) 'Discourses of the Island', in Frederick Amrine, ed., Literature and Science as Modes of Expression (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1989), 1-27. N. Katherine Hayles, Ch

 Produced by: Catherine Charlwood (@DrCharlwood) and Laura Ludtke (@lady_electric) Music composed and performed by Gareth Jones Laura and Catherine are joined by a special guest: Dr Peter Fifield, Lecturer in Modern Literature at Birkbeck, University of London. Peter relates how his interest in bodies and their ailments grew out of his work on Samuel Beckett, discussing where his research and teaching intersects with #litsci and the medical humanities. Peter also debates whether Dorothy Richardson has written “the great dentistry novel” and introduces his current project, Sick Literature, which considers a range of non-psychological illnesses and ailments as well as explore the gendered assumptions that underpin early twentieth century understanding of illness. At the end of the episode, you can hear Peter read an extract from Dorothy Richardson’s novel The Tunnel (1919). Episode resources (in order of appearance): Introduction Alexander Stewart’s patent at the Wellcome Collection Advertisement for Te

 Episode 5: Epigenetics, Race, Activism Or, Who are we and what do we think we’re doing? Produced by: Catherine Charlwood (@DrCharlwood) and Laura Ludtke (@lady_electric) Music composed and performed by Gareth Jones Laura and Catherine are joined by a special guest: Dr Lara Choksey (@larachoksey),  postdoctoral research associate at the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health at the University of Exeter. In addition to discussing #litsci aspects of her research and teaching, Lara also explores the intricacies of the language we use to talk about such topics as colonialism, her work with the Global Warwickshire Collective, and what #litsci might be able to offer in terms of decolonising the curriculum, or combating racism.  At the end of the episode, you can hear Lara read an extract from Saidiya Hartman’s, Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route (2006). Episode resources:  Michael Symmons Roberts, ‘To John Donne’ and ‘Mapping the Genome’ John Akomfrah

Produced by: Catherine Charlwood (@DrCharlwood) and Laura Ludtke (@lady_electric) Music composed and performed by Gareth Jones Laura and Catherine are joined by a special guest: Dr Will Abberley (@WillAbberley), Lecturer in Victorian Literature at the University of Sussex. In addition to discussing #litsci aspects of his research and teaching, Will also explores language in scientific writings, biology and the imagination, human effects on the environment, and the importance of communicating to a broad public.  At the end of the episode, you can hear Will read Grant Allen’s article ‘Strictly Incog’ from the Cornhill Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 44 (Feb 1887): 142-57. Episode resources: Books mentioned: Meredith Hooper, The Pebble in my Pocket: A History of Our Earth (Viking Children’s Books, 1996) Adelene Buckland, Novel Science: Fiction and the Invention of Nineteenth-Century Geology (University of Chicago Press, 2013)  Adelene Buckland, ‘Thomas Hardy, Provincial Geology and the Material Imagination,’