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In this very special pandemic themed episode, we dive into the story of Daniel Defoe and his 1722 The Journal of the Plague Year: spies, quarantine, seventeenth-century clickbait, academic squabbling, and people running naked through the streets screaming about death all make an appearance. 

Today I'm gonna dive into the story of the first horror novel in English literature, Matthew Lewis's the Monk. Join me as I (and Coleridge) relentlessly bag on Lewis and his novel, discuss Gothic fiction and what the difference between terror and horror is, talk about the French Revolution and people being real weird about convents, and end by talking about edgelords on the internet. Enjoy!Sources and Reading List:·         Matthew Lewis, The Monk, Oxford World’s Classics, 2016 edition, Notes and Introduction by Nick Groom. ·         Lyn Pykett, “Sensation and the Fantastic in the Victorian Novel”, Cambridge Companion to The Victorian Novel.  ·         Mark R. Blackwell, “The Gothic: Moving in the World of Novels” in A Concise Companion to The Restoration and Eighteenth Century. ·         Nigel Leask, “Matthew Gregory Lewis” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.  ·         The Wikipedia entries on The Monk and Gothic Fiction. ·         Matthew Lewis’s The Monk: A Special Issue of Romanticism on the Net, October 1 2009, especially James Whitlark, “Heresy Hunting: The Monk and the French Revolution”. ·         Vartan P. Messier, “The Conservative, the Transgressive, and the Reactionary: Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian as a Response to Matthew Lewis’ The Monk”, Atenea. ·         George Haggerty, “Gothic Success and Gothic Failure: Formal Innovation in a Much-Maligned Genre”, Cambridge History of the English Novel. ·         William B. Todd, “The Early Editions and Issues of "The Monk" with a Bibliography”, Studies in Bibliography Vol. 2, 1949/1950.

This episode is a (very) detailed summary of the (very) soap opera-esque Gothic horror novel The Monk by Matthew Lewis, made available for those of you who don't want to read a 300+ page novel in order to understand the next episode of Story Dive.Edition used: Oxford World's Classics, 2016.

Chimney sweeps weren't always the cheerful, well-choreographed entertainers that you see in the likes of Mary Poppins, or the workaday tradesmen that clean chimneys today. Join me as we dive into the story of the malnourished, naked orphans that were Britain's climbing boys. Sources and Reading List:·         Cara Giaimo, ‘The Many Possible Reasons British People Hire Chimney Sweeps for Their Weddings’, Atlas Obscura, 20 April 2017. ·         Chimney Sweep, Wikipedia. ·         Sonia W. Addis-Smith, “Porter, David”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 03 January 2008. ·         George Lewis Phillips, ‘Chimney-Sweepers’ Signboards and Symbols of the Nineteenth Century’, Folklore, vol. 73 no. 2 (1962), pp. 113-119. o   – “The Abolition of Climbing Boys”,  The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc, vol. 9 no. 4 (1950) pp. 445-462 ·         Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, Oxford World Classics, 2012 o   Notes and Introduction, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst ·         Charles Kingsley, The Water Babies, Oxford World Classics, 2014 o   Notes and Introduction, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst ·         Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, Barnes and Noble Classics, 2003 o   Notes and Introduction by Jill Muller ·         Benita Cullingford, British Chimney Sweeps: Five Centuries of Chimney Sweeping, New Amsterdam Books, 2000. ·         Martin K. Nurmi, “Fact and Symbol in ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ of Blake’s Songs of Innocence” Bulletin of the New York Public Library vol. 68 no. 4 (1964). ·         Judith Bailey Slagle, “Literary Activism: James Montgomery, Joanna Baillie, and the Plight of Britain’s Chimney Sweeps” Studies in Romanticism vol. 51 no. 1 (2012)

In the inaugural episode of Story Dive, we dive into the increasingly unbelievable story of 24 and American torture policy. As it turns out, not all cases of fiction inspiring people to make a change in the world ends happily. Sources and Reading List ·         “Scalia and Torture”, The Daily Dish in The Atlantic, June 19, 2007.  ·         “Can Jack Bauer Convince You to Torture?” by Noah Berlatsky in Pacific Standard, originally published Jan 5, 2015 and updated May 3, 2017. ·         ‘If Torture is Wrong, What About 24? Torture and the Hollywood Effect’ by Erin M. Kearns and Joseph K. Young, Crime and Delinquency, Vol 64.12, 2018, p. 1568-89. ·         ‘When Data Don’t Matter: Exploring Public Perceptions of Terrorism’ by Erin M. Kearns, Allison E. Betus and Anthony F. Lemieux, forthcoming in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism ·         ‘A Rose by Another Name: Legal Definitions, Sanitized Terms, and Imagery of Torture in 24’ by Jinee Lokaneeta, Law, Culture and the Humanities Vol 6.2, 2010, p. 245-73. ·         “US Military tells Jack Bauer: Cut out the Torture Scenes…or else!” by Andrew Buncombe, The Independent, February 13th 2007 ·         “Lithwick: How Jack Bauer Shaped U.S. Torture Policy” by Dahlia Lithwick, Newsweek, July 25th 2008 ·         “Whatever it Takes: The Politics of the Man Behind 24” by Jane Mayer, The New Yorker 11 February 2007 ·         “Does 24 Encourage US Interrogators to ‘Torture’ Detainees” by Tom Regan, The Christian Science Monitor, 12 February 2007 ·         Secrets of 24: the Unauthorized Guide to the Political and Moral Issues behind TV’s Most Riveting Drama by Dan Burstein and Arne J. De Keijzer, Sterling Publishing Company, 2007. ·         Rachel Ablow, “Tortured Sympathies: Victorian Literature and the Ticking Time Bomb Scenario”, ELH vol 80 no 4 (2013), pp. 1145-1171. ·         Dan Clarendon, “Fox Has Been Trying to Reboot and Revive ‘24’ for Years”, TV Insider, January 20, 2020. ·         Michael Ausiello, “24 Update: Fox Scraps 2 Spinoff Ideas, Including Potential Prequel Series Centered on Young Jack Bauer”, TV Line, January 7 2020.