Live from Josh's bathtub, it's a countdown of the worst books he read for the first time in 2022! Access the (much better sounding) Best Books episode at: patreon.com/unseenacademicals Contact: unseenacademicalspod@gmail.com ..read more

Josh is back to talk some more about Hogfather (1996) and its connections to Christmas traditions, covering the history of the Tooth Fairy and Hogswatch, the relationship between Father Christmas and Father Time, and the relationship between Christmas and the modern fantasy tradition, paying particular attention to works by Charles Dickens, J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, as well as films like The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Miracle on 34th Street (1947 ..read more

Dr Nadav Prawer joins Josh for the first part on 1996's Hogfather, examining Susan's character development, her contrasts to Teatime, the nature of justice, the power of belief, falling angels, rising apes, Kierkegaardian existentialism, lies to children and the possible psychological (and legal!) ramifications of believing in the tooth fairy.* *All jingling bell sounds in the background are indicative of cats, not the encroachment of any Verruca Gnomes. I hope...  Contact: unseenacademicalspod@gmail.com Support: patreon.com/unseenacademicals ..read more

Josh shares some initial thoughts about Rob Wilkins' official biography, Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes (2022). Contact: unseenacademicalspod@gmail.com Support: patreon.com/unseenacademicals ..read more

A quick update about the podcast schedule. Contact: unseenacademicalspod@gmail.com Support: patreon.com/unseenacademicals ..read more

Our long-awaited second episode on Carpe Jugulum, covering the literary development of the vampire from the early-nineteenth century through to the publication of Carpe Jugulum almost two hundred years later in 1998 and beyond! We discuss Lord Byron (a lot) and his influence on the early vampire characterisation and his influence on other nineteenth-century vampire texts, including the unjustly overlooked Varney the Vampire as well as the more influential Carmilla and Dracula. (After moving house and catching COVID,) we then turn to the twentieth-century, discussing early cinematic iterations ..read more

Episode 7A of Unseen Academicals, discussing Carpe Jugulum and exploring Pratchett's subversion of the triple goddess, magpie rhymes, Gothic landscapes, modernisation, notions of progress, "quilted" signifiers and more! Contact: unseenacademicalspod@gmail.com Support: patreon.com/unseenacademicals ..read more

Did you know Alice does another podcast called Of the Devil's Party, where they and their friend Rowan do a deep dive into dark hero archetypes?  It's really good. You should listen to it! ...It also might help explain what all this "Byronic" stuff we keep talking about is. On this bonus/preview episode Alice and Rowan begin their discussion of Gothic villains by examining Byron’s 1817 closet drama Manfred and its debt to the Gothic tradition. The pair discuss Byron’s life, work,  and experimentation with dark hero archetypes, and whether there is  actually such as thing as ..read more

We discuss Maskerade, exploring the origins triple goddess, the many guises of The Phantom of the Opera,distinctions between high and low culture, the gentrification of opera, masks, physical appearances, the archetype of the Gothic Villain and its theatrical transformation into a Romantic Hero of Sensibility and more! Contact: unseenacademicalspod@gmail.com Support: patreon.com/unseenacademicals ..read more

Preview for our first ever bonus episode of Unseen Academicals, covering issue 19 of Neil Gaiman's comic series The Sandman: "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1991). We compare Gaiman's treatment of Shakespeare's titular play to that of Pratchett's Lords and Ladies (1992), while examining the history of Shakespeare in comics and fairy illustration, the Faerie connections to the underworld, Faustian bargains, the history of Puck and his "reverse Pandora," Tolkien's opinions on fantasy and drama, as well as the origins of drag and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and more! Unock the full episode ..read more