Demons and Dames is a tongue-in-cheek feminist history podcast. Ashley Mauritzen and Sarah Worley-Hill dive deep into the stories of notorious women who shaped history - by design or simply by being in the right (or wrong) time or place. We examine how they were viewed by their contemporaries, and how and why their stories have been interpreted, shaped and passed down. We also laugh. A lot.
Sarah and Ash are joined by anthropologist and author Margaret Willson, who shares the story of Thurídur Einarsdóttir. Living in Iceland in the 1800s, Captain Thurídur was a famous female sea captain who stood out for her skill at sea and her fearless outspokeness on land. Margaret Willson brings Thurídur to life after decands of research - and even explains how this notorious women ended up solving crimes.
24 Aug 2022
Guest Episode on Rigoberta Menchú
"Let there be freedom for the Indians, wherever they may be in the American Continent or elsewhere in the world, because while they are alive, a glow of hope will be alive as well as a true concept of life." - Rigoberta Menchú
Join Sarah and Dr Linda Westman from the Urban Institute at Sheffield University to discuss the life and accomplishments (thus far) of Rigoberta Menchú. Rigoberta is a renowned Kʼicheʼ Indigenous feminist and human rights activist, politician, and Nobel Peace Prize winner who has spent her life fighting for the lives and rights of indigenous Guatemalans.
Dr Linda Westman is a Postdoctoral Research Associate whose work engages with the governance of sustainability and climate change, urban sustainability transformations, and justice. Dr Westman is excited to join Demons and Dames to discus how Rigoberta's work has provided an alternative perspective on the familiar concept of sustainability.
Documentaries:
Dawn Gifford Engle. Rigoberta Menchu: Daughter of the Maya (2016). Documentary.
Pamela Yates, Newton Thomas Sigel. When the Mountains Tremble (1983). Documentary.
Pamela Yates. Granito: How to Nail a Dictator (2011), Documentary.
Testimonial Biography:
Menchú, R., & In Burgos-Debray, E. (1984). I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian woman in Guatemala
17 Aug 2022
Madeleine Smith: Murder She Wrote
“Emile, for god’s sake do not send my letters to papa. It will be an open to rupture. I will leave the house. I will die...”
So wrote Madeleine Smith to her erstwhile and soon-to-be-deceased lover Emile L’Angelier in 1857. But just what drove this delicately-raised upper middle-class belle (a lover of dances, romantic intrigue and sentimental poetry) to an act of murder? Why did Victorian society have no choice but to let her get away with it?
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Flanders, J. (2011). The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime. Thomas Dunne Books.
House, J. (1961). Square Mile of Murder. W. & R. Chambers.
17 Aug 2022
Maria Бочкарёва & the Battalion of Death
"Day and night my imagination carried me to the fields of battle, and my ears rang with the groans of my wounded brethren. The spirit of sacrifice took possession of me. My country called me. An irresistible force from within pulled me."
So said Maria Bochkareva in her 1917 memoirs, recounting the passionate impulse that compelled her to join the Russian Army at the outbreak of war in 1914. In just six short years she would become Commander of the inaugural Women's Battalion of Death, prove a short-lived democratic government's staunchest ally, and be the proud recipient of a rather garish golden pistol. Maria Bochkareva propelled women onto the frontline of combat with a passionate ass-kicking bravado rarely seen before - or since.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Botchkareva, Mariya Leontievna, and Isac Don Levine. Yashka: My life as Peasant, Exile and Soldier (1919). Print.
Fell, Alison S., and Ingrid. Sharp. The Women's Movement in Wartime: International Perspectivess, 1914-1919 (2007). Print.
Stoff, Laurie. They Fought for the Motherland: Russia's Women Soldiers in World War I and the Revolution (2006). Print.
Stockdale, Melissa K. “‘My Death for the Motherland Is Happiness’: Women, Patriotism, and Soldiering in Russia's Great War, 1914-1917.” The American Historical Review, vol. 109, no. 1, 2004, pp. 78–116.
The Russian Film Battalion directed by Dmitriy Meshiev and released to cinemas in February 2015
17 Aug 2022
Mary Toft: Mother of Rabbits
“From Guildford comes a strange, but well attested piece of News. That a poor Woman who lives at Godalmin, near that Town, who has an Husband and two Children now living with her was about a Month past, deliver’d by John Howard an eminent surgeon and man-midwife living at Guildford of a creature resembling a rabbit.” - 'British Gazeteer', 10th October 1726
Meet Mary Toft, who convinced the Enlightenment medical establishment that she had given birth to rabbits. By doing so, she played to established beliefs in the power of the maternal imagination and monstrous birth - and performed a radical act of protest.
WARNING: This episode contains graphic descriptions that may be distressing to those who emotionally project onto rabbits as a species. As well as those invested in the correct pronunciation of 'Goldaming'.
BILBLIOGRAPHY:
Bondesen, J. (1997). A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities. I.B. Tauris.
Lynch, J.T. (2008). Deception & Detection in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Ashgate Publishing Ltd.
Todd, D. (1995). Imagining Monsters: Miscreations of the Self in Eighteenth-Century England. University of Chicago Press.
17 Aug 2022
Introducing Demons & Dames
Ashley Mauritzen and Sarah Worley-Hill introduce their Podcast and explain what all the fuss is about. Are you excited? We can hardly contain ourselves.
Originally aired November 2019
26 Aug 2020
Guest Episode on Barbara Jordan
“What the people want is very simple - they want an America as good as its promise.”
― Barbara Jordan
Join Sarah and our guest, Dr Tom Packer as they explore the exception life of Barbara Jordan - American lawyer, educator and politician who was a leader at the heart of the Civil Rights Movement. Barbara Jordan is an inspirational politician and orator who could, in her own word, harness "the voice of god" to command attention and sway the nation.
Dr Tom Packer is a Fellow at the Institute for the Study of the Americas, University College London. He has also taught previously at Durham University, Warwick, Oxford and LSE. Dr Packer's areas of expertise includes US political history particularly that of the US political right, the US South and the electoral history of the United States and the Western World. His research focuses on American conservatism in the second half of the 20th century. He is currently working on a book exploring the career of Senator Jesse Helms, the leading ultra-conservative Senator, and the political culture of North Carolina. Sarah can't wait to read it.
19 May 2020
The Night Witches: the Soviet Women who helped win the war
“I sometimes stare into the blackness and close my eyes. I can still imagine myself as a young girl, up there in my little bomber. And I ask myself, ‘Nadia, how did you do it?’ ” So reminisced Nadezhda Popova, one of the legendary "Nitght Witches" and pilot for the Soviet's 588th Night Bomber Aviation Regiment. The 588th was the only all-female bomber unit to be active throughout WWII and the Night Witches flew 30,000 missions over four years of warfare and dropped 23,000 tons of bombs. They destroyed 17 river crossings, 12 fuel depots, and 176 armored cars. Join Sarah and Ash as they explore the formation and success of this legendary air force unit that so terrorised the Germans that they took on the mantel of the supernatural.
Full notes and bibliography available at www.demonsanddames.com
28 Apr 2020
Demons & Dames meet Storm the Palace
Join us for this exciting bonus episode in which Sarah interviews Sophie Dodds and Willa Bews from the band Storm the Palace.
Sophie and Willa talk about two of their favorite musicians - Dory Previn and Carol Kaye - as well as their own music and what inspires them as song writers.
The episode ends with Sarah's favorite Storm the Palace song, 'Fractal Pterodactyl' for your listening pleasure.
You may be familiar with Storm the Palace's song, 'Lovely White Sofa' which is Demons and Dame's theme music. You can check out more of their music at https://stormthepalace.bandcamp.com/ (https://stormthepalace.bandcamp.com/)
14 Apr 2020
London, Quarantine, and the Plague in the 17th Century
London, 1665. "Thus this month ends with great sadness upon the publick, through the greatness of the plague every where through the kingdom almost. Every day sadder and sadder news of its encrease. In the City died this week 7,496 and of them 6,102 of the plague. But it is feared that the true number of the dead, this week is near 10,000; partly from the poor that cannot be taken notice of, through the greatness of the number, and partly from the Quakers and others that will not have any bell ring for them." So wrote Samuel Peyps in his diary during The Great Plague.
Join Ash and Sarah in this bonus episode in which they discuss how their quarantines are going and reflect on what history can teach us on hygiene, quarantine etiquette and what it was really like in London in the 17th century when facing yet another outburst of the Bubonic plague.
Full notes and bibliography at www.demonsanddames.com
31 Mar 2020
Violette Noziere: monster in a skirt or victim?
Paris, 1934. In this episode, Sarah explores a murder that captivated 1930s France - so much so that during the Nuremberg rally, the left-wing daily L’Oeuvre published a cartoon in which a peeved Nazi officer waved a newspaper at Hitler over a caption that read: “That Violette! It’s all about her!”. Join Sarah and her guest, the wonderful Sophie, as they explore why this crime and its perpetrator so gripped a nation that was coming to terms with modernity and social change while the spectre of WWII loomed.
Read full notes at www.demonsanddames.com
Warning: this episode deals with in detail incest and sexual abuse. If you know this will be triggering for you, please go listen to the minisode on Queen Τεύτα - it will make you smile. I promise.
17 Mar 2020
Empress Theodora: Demoness or Saint?
Constantinople, 527 AD. Mime/Burlesque Actress and influential Christian Theodora is crowned Empress of the [Eastern] Roman Empire. Delve into this real-life Cinderella story of an incredible women who stood up for women's rights, shaped the fate of the Empire, influenced the Church and cavorted with geese.
3 Mar 2020
Mata Hari: Performance Artist
France, 1917. The formerly-feted ‘exotic dancer’, Mata Hari, is accused of being a double agent. She certainly met all the femme fatale touchpoints for a nation seeking a scapegoat. But was she a spy at all?
Find out more at www.demonsanddames.com or follow us @demonsdamespod or facebook.com/groups/demonsanddames/.
11 Feb 2020
Anne Gunter the Oxford Demoniac
Oxford, 1604. Anne Gunter, under extreme pressure from her father, did "feign and counterfeit herself to be bewitched”.
Find out more at www.demonsanddames.com or follow us @demonsdamespod or facebook.com/groups/demonsanddames/.
28 Jan 2020
Artemisia Gentileschi & the Bloody Canvas
Rome, 1612. Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi takes control of her life and her art, breaking the norms of society both in gaining renown for her painting and in taking her rapist to court at a time when few women were able to do either.
Find out more at www.demonsanddames.com or follow us @demonsdamespod or facebook.com/groups/demonsanddames/.
14 Jan 2020
Hedy Lamarr: Beauty & The Brain
1942, America. Screen siren Hedy Lamarr has it all. Beauty, brains and a blueprint for a communications device that might change the course of the war. But no one is taking her seriously.
In this episode, Sarah and Ash explore what happens when a woman has a brain as beautiful as her face. Turns out no one can handle it - and they want to know why the hell not.
Find out more at www.demonsanddames.com or follow us @demonsdamespod or facebook.com/groups/demonsanddames/.
31 Dec 2019
MINISODE: Queen Τεύτα of Illyria (and PIRATES)
Illyria, 231 BC. Queen Τεύτα has ascended the throne and is ready to bring her classical neighbours to their knees. In our first minisode, meet the formidable pirate queen that the (ancient) world forgot.
Find out more at www.demonsanddames.com or follow us @demonsdamespod or facebook.com/groups/demonsanddames/.
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
8 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
3 ratings
Contact Demons and Dames
Guest appearances
Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Host of Demons and Dames?
Claim your podcast to manage its listing and keep your show details accurate.
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show Podcast research with Pod Engine
