@jenwhy.bsky.social
Oxford prof. French and world cultures. Literature and visual arts & all things 19thC. Slow city cyclist. Don't ask me where I'm from, it takes too long to explain.
Needless to say I was completely hooked listening to this 8-part series on the Indian Uprising of 1857 ('Mutiny' would sound like something on a much smaller scale) from @willdalrymple.bsky.social and @anitaanand.bsky.social. Still my favourite podcast. podcasts.apple.com/sg/podcast/3...
22.02.2026 14:05 — 👍 12 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
Surprisingly gripping #frenchpodcast on how Bismarck used fake news & media manipulation to get the French to declare war in 1870. But is this really what set the stage for two world wars? High stakes claims. #FrHistory www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/...
22.02.2026 13:52 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Who has a right to tell someone’s story? Interesting read on Kamel Daoud’s novel Houris and the woman whose lived experience may have been stolen. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/f...
19.02.2026 21:30 — 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
A four-part series on the war between Rome and Carthage, with Hannibal, elephants & massacres; also a disconcerting suggestion that had Scipio Africanus been at Oxford, he would have been at my college. Hard to shake this vision as I cross the Quad to lunch. podcasts.apple.com/tz/podcast/r...
16.02.2026 19:56 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Debates about French national identity date back to the late 18thC. Racial (Thierry) or defined by history (Michelet)? Cameo appearances from Clovis and Vercingetorix, and some hilarious songs, in this #frenchpodcast with the excellent Sylvain Venayre. #FrHistory www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...
15.02.2026 13:52 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
So did George Sand really play a part in inspiring the figure of Pinocchio? very short and not exactly conclusive #frenchpodcast www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...
15.02.2026 13:46 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Mate, it was 1066. Move on.
11.02.2026 17:37 — 👍 2755 🔁 429 💬 286 📌 25I binge-listened this 4-part series from @theresthistory.bsky.social on the Iranian revolution, starting in 1979 with the abrupt fall of the Shah, Jimmy Carter's pal. A story of idealism, cronyism, realpolitik, and sheer bungling incompetence. therestishistory.com/episodes/fal...
08.02.2026 13:55 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Amazing Gobelins tapestries in this exhibition we’re currently missing… 😢😍
07.02.2026 19:37 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
In the 1880s France briefly fell in love with General Boulanger, because of his fine beard and military bearing, and a general desire to have a Strong Man with no ideas in charge. 'Le boulangisme', one form of populism: #frenchpodcast #FreHistory www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/...
07.02.2026 13:40 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Is it really meaningless to talk about the concept of the self (le moi) just because the word hadn't yet been used as a noun? #frenchpodcast on the exploration of the self by Montaigne, with Antoine Compagnon and Blandine Perona. www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...
05.02.2026 20:31 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
When Henry VI comes to the throne of England at 9 months old, he is supposedly heir to the kingdom of France as well. What could possibly go wrong? A story of uncles behaving badly and the Parliament of Bats (ie wooden clubs). Sort of #FrHistory podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/p...
01.02.2026 14:43 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 1
First of two #frenchpodcast on Saint Louis, who was not bad as kings of France go, apart from all that crusading. Handy histoire événementielle for those who get their Louis mixed up. #Frhistory podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a...
01.02.2026 14:35 — 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
How did French Enlightenment thinkers situate themselves in relation to colonialism? Some odd disagreements (on whether 'colonialism' means just settler colonialism, and what exactly Voltaire and Diderot were being critical of...) in this #frenchpodcast #FrHistory www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...
01.02.2026 14:27 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Fascinating #frenchpodcast on how the musée Napoléon (aka Louvre) was filled with the looted art of Europe … and then had to give it back in1815. #Frhistory with Bénédicte Savoy. www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...
28.01.2026 20:37 — 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0So… the Brits want to learn English? I guess it’s about time.
25.01.2026 13:16 — 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
First in a multi-series #frenchpodcast on the French gift of the statue of Liberty to the USA, an idea born out of Republican resistance to the French 2nd Empire and a response to the US's own civil war and the 'end' of slavery. www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/...
25.01.2026 11:36 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
24.01.2026 12:39 — 👍 357 🔁 109 💬 0 📌 2
The scene would be much more interesting as a meeting with a polar bear.
24.01.2026 13:34 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
The beginnings of photography, in France and partly in Nice, which wasn’t French at that point. #frenchpodcast full of obsessive inventors who didn’t make much money. #Frhistory www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...
24.01.2026 12:13 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
A remarkably acerbic review of the film Hamnet: a long advert for the actors, fake history , full of Romantic clichés - in this short #frenchpodcast Disclaimer : I haven’t seen it.https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/les-midis-de-culture/critique-cinema-hamnet-de-chloe-zhao-9036621
24.01.2026 12:07 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0This escalated quickly.
18.01.2026 13:01 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Painting of snow drops.
‘I wonder if the sap is stirring yet,
If wintry birds are dreaming of a mate,
If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun
And crocus fires are kindling one by one:
Sing robin, sing:
I still am sore in doubt concerning Spring’ ~ Christina Rossetti.
🖼️ William Bell Scott
View from the office window on a misty morning.
17.01.2026 18:14 — 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
First of a four-part series on Joan of Arc, who heard voices but unlike most young girls with celestial visions scorned miraculous healing in favour of winning military victories, and liked to cross-dress. #FrHistory podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/j...
17.01.2026 16:44 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
In 1803 Napoleon sold off an enormous amount of land (mostly lived on by first peoples rather than by the French or Spanish), doubling the size of the USA. Counter-intuitively, this was partly because the French had just lost Haiti. Interesting podcast #FRhistory www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
13.01.2026 20:09 — 👍 4 🔁 3 💬 1 📌 0
Jane Austen liked to note down her family’s reactions to the drafts of her novels. Seen at the British Library, along with her specs.
11.01.2026 13:50 — 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Some bling from the’Marie-Antoinette Style’ exhibition at the V&A: a replica of the infamous diamond necklace. Not as shiny as the real diamonds on show, necklaces made with the stolen stones.
11.01.2026 13:33 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0Yes, this sums it up well. I feel aggrieved that no one bothered to produce a sustained programme of legalistic lies in advance.
04.01.2026 15:07 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Bokassa, dictator (briefly 'emperor') of the Central African Republic, loved Charles de Gaulle, Napoleon and buying French châteaux; not the best model of decolonisation though rumours of cannibalism are probably exaggerated. 3-part 'Real Dictators' podcast. www.noiser.com/real-dictato...
04.01.2026 15:00 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
