Pop Enlightenments

In this final episode of its second season, the Pop Enlightenments podcast explores the strange world of eighteenth-century castrati and how they've been portrayed in popular culture of recent decades. Emrys is again joined by Brianna Robertson-Kirkland to discuss the film Farinelli (1994), Anne Rice's novel Cry to Heaven (1982), the play Farinelli and the King (2015) and the BBC's Casanova (2005).

In this episode, Emrys welcomes historical musicologist, Dr Brianna Robertson-Kirkland, to discuss how eighteenth-century music is used in historical drama. Shows and films covered include Master and Commander (2003), The Favourite (2019), Outlander (2014-) and Versailles (2015-18).

For this bumper-sized episode, Emrys is joined by Dr Stephanie Howard-Smith to talk about how the eighteenth century has been represented in recent video games. Pop cultural sources include the Assassin's Creed franchise and 2018 narrative game, The Council.

In this episode, Emrys and Adam mark the two-hundredth anniversary of Peterloo by discussing screen portrayals of the massacre and by thinking about the role of eighteenth-century history in modern politics more generally. Among the pop cultural artefacts under discussion are Sharpe's Justice (1997) and Mike Leigh's Peterloo (2018).

In this episode, Emrys welcomes back Adam James Smith to celebrate the three-hundredth anniversary of the publication of Robinson Crusoe. Among the novel's many pop cultural legacies, they discuss a board game, a 2016 animated adaptation and a range of science-fiction works inspired directly or indirectly by Crusoe's adventures.