S8E10: Jacques de Molay
Today’s subject, Jacques de Molay, was the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar/ Ever since their dissolution, the Knights Templar have been associated with all sorts of occult manifestations. Today we’re going to steer away from these fantastical theories, because the reality of the Templars is far more interesting.
Today’s subject, Jacques de Molay, was the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, or to give them their full title, the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon. Ever since their dissolution, the Knights Templar have been associated with all sorts of apparent manifestations - of occultism, of shadowy transnational powerbrokers, as the Guardians of the Holy Grail or whatnot. Today we’re going to steer away from these fantastical theories, because the reality of the Templars is far more interesting.
SOURCES:
Michael Barber, A New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993)
Dan Jones, Crusaders: The Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Land (New York: Viking, 2019)
Dan Jones, The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God's Holy Warriors (New York: Viking, 2007)
Amin Maalouf, The Crusades through Arab Eyes (New York: Schocken Books, 1984)
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix, by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner. Image via.
S8E9: Adele Spitzeder
Adele Spitzeder, born into operatic royalty, washed up when she tried a career on the stage: so instead, she started accepting bank deposits for 10% monthly interest, and paying old customers with new customers' money. In three years, she amassed deposits of 38 million Gulden, or the equivalent of more than 500,000,000 euros: the world’s first Ponzi scheme. Attempts to squirrel away some money by smuggling it with her girlfriend went about as well as expected.
Adele Spitzeder, born into operatic royalty, washed up when she tried a career on the stage: so instead, she started accepting bank deposits for 10% monthly interest, and paying old customers with new customers' money. In three years, she amassed deposits of 38 million Gulden, or the equivalent of more than 500,000,000 euros: the world’s first Ponzi scheme. Attempts to squirrel away some money by smuggling it with her girlfriend went about as well as expected.
SOURCES:
“Adele Spitzeder.” Accessed February 18, 2025. https://www.literaturportal-bayern.de/themen?task=lpbtheme.default&id=697.
“Betty Vio – Biographische Informationen aus der WeGA.” Accessed February 18, 2025. https://weber-gesamtausgabe.de/de/A008536.html.
“‘Die Zehn Gebote Der Adele Spitzeder’, Bild 1 von 14 | MDZ.” Accessed February 18, 2025. https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb10999593?q=%28adele+spitzeder%29&page=1.
“Digitale Bibliothek - Münchener Digitalisierungszentrum.” Accessed February 18, 2025. https://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/0006/bsb00067974/images/index.html?fip=193.174.98.30&id=00067974&seite=1000.
Dokumentation, Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon und biographische. “Spitzeder, (Johann) Josef.” Text. ISBN 978-3-7001-3213-4. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2003. https://www.biographien.ac.at/oebl/oebl_S/Spitzeder_Josef_1794_1832.xml.
Freiberger, Harald. “Geld - Adele Spitzeder und ihr Schneeballsystem.” Süddeutsche.de, November 11, 2017. https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/schneeballsystem-es-begann-in-der-au-1.3743735.
“Germany - Metternich, Unification, 1815-71 | Britannica,” February 18, 2025. https://www.britannica.com/place/Germany/The-age-of-Metternich-and-the-era-of-unification-1815-71.
Schumann, Dirk. “Der Fall Adele Spitzeder 1872: Eine Studie Zur Mentalität Der ‘Kleinen Leute’ in Der Grübderzeut.” Zeitschrift Für Bayerische Landesgeschichte 58, no. 2/3 (1995): 991–1025.
Spitzeder, Adele. Geschichte meines Lebens. Stuttgarter Verlagscomptoir, 1878.
Zeno. “Lexikoneintrag zu »Spitzeder-Vio, Betty«. Damen Conversations Lexikon, Band 9. [o.O.] ...” Accessed February 18, 2025. http://www.zeno.org/DamenConvLex-1834/A/Spitzeder-Vio,+Betty.
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner. Image via.
S8E8: Anne Lister
She was an industrialist, a lesbian, a landlord, a traveler, a businesswoman, a womanizer, a butch, a snob, a pioneer of gay marriage, a Tory. She was the original Tory girlboss, and19th century English diarist who coined such terms as "grubbling," for mutual masturbation. Ey up love, been grubbling?
She was an industrialist, a lesbian, a landlord, a traveler, a businesswoman, a womanizer, a butch, a snob, a pioneer of gay marriage, a Tory. She was the original Tory girlboss, and19th century English diarist who coined such terms as "grubbling," for mutual masturbation. Ey up love, been grubbling? She was, of course, Anne Lister.
SOURCES:
Caroline Gonda and Chris Roulston, eds., Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’ (Cambridge, United Kingdom New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2025)
Jill Liddington, Female Fortune: The Anne Lister Diaries, 1833–36: Land, Gender and Authority: New Edition(Manchester University Press, 2022)
H. Whitbread, I Know My Own Heart: The Diaries of Anne Lister, 1791-1840 (New York: New York University Press, 1992)
“Packed With Potential,” https://www.packedwithpotential.org/.
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner. Image via.
S8E7: Larry Kramer
Today we profile Larry Kramer, the writer and AIDS activist. We address Kramer as one of his narrators addressed his stand-in in the first volume of his last novel, The American People: “You fuckster! You are so fucksome. I love you very much.”’
Today we profile Larry Kramer, the writer and AIDS activist. Kramer took space, took credit, operated in the world with tremendous privilege, and was somewhere between actively and passively misogynist and racist. But politically effective people are not always as we imagine them. We document Kramer's exclusions and blind spots, and explore how his hatred and fear of gay male sex culture, one that predated the AIDS epidemic, made his political work less effective; his gay male supremacism that led actual gay men to constantly disappoint him; and his prefiguring of a moralizing social media politics understanding rhetorical maximalism as the proof of radicality. We address Kramer as one of his narrators addressed his stand-in in the first volume of his last novel, The American People: “You fuckster! You are so fucksome. I love you very much.”
SOURCES:
Larry Kramer, Faggots, reprint edition (New York: Grove Press, 2000)
Larry Kramer, “March 27, 1983: 1,112 and Counting,” Los Angeles Blade: LGBTQ News, Rights, Politics, Entertainment(blog), May 27, 2020, https://www.losangelesblade.com/2020/05/27/march-27-1983-1112-and-counting/
Larry Kramer, TheNormal Heart and The Destiny of Me: Two Plays (New York: Grove Press, 2000)
Ben Miller, “Larry Kramer’s Great Expectations,” Literary Hub (blog), June 11, 2020, https://lithub.com/larry-kramers-great-expectations/
Sarah Schulman, Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993 (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc, 2021)
Michael Shnayerson, “Kramer vs. Kramer | Vanity Fair,” Vanity Fair | The Complete Archive, accessed February 4, 2025, https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/1992/10/kramer-vs-kramer
“Larry Kramer’s Anger Is Essential in Historic ‘Plague’ Speech,” accessed February 4, 2025, https://www.advocate.com/news/2020/5/27/larry-kramers-anger-essential-historic-plague-speech
Jane McAlevey on How To Organize for Power,” Current Affairs, April 20, 2019, https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2019/04/jane-mcalevey-on-how-to-organize-for-power.
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner.
S8E6: Abd Al-Ilah
The Crown Prince of Iraq, Abd Al-Ilah, ruled the country as a prince regent on behalf of his nephew, from 1939-1953 - although not interrupted. A member of the powerful Hashemite dynasty, Al-Ilah was also an authoritarian antisemite who once took refuge on a British naval ship called the HMS Cockchafer. A dandy, he charmed MP Chips Cannon into writing: "We are very intimate …I never can resist a Regent.”
The Crown Prince of Iraq, Abd Al-Ilah, ruled the country as a prince regent on behalf of his nephew, from 1939-1953 - although not interrupted. A member of the powerful Hashemite dynasty, Al-Ilah was also an authoritarian antisemite who once took refuge on a British naval ship called the HMS Cockchafer. A dandy, he charmed MP Chips Cannon into writing: "We are very intimate …I never can resist a Regent.”
SOURCES:
Bloch, Michael. Closet Queens: Some 20th Century British Politicians. London: Little, Brown UK, 2016.
Channon, Chips. Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries (Volume 3): 1943-57. Penguin, 2025.
Cole, Juan. “Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in the Twentieth Century” 23 (n.d.).
Draper, Morris. Interview by Charles Stuart Kennedy, February 27, 1991. https://adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Draper,%20Morris.toc.pdf.
Finnie, David. Shifting Lines in the Sand: Kuwait’s Elusive Frontier with Iraq. London: I.B. Tauris, 1992.
Hashimoto, Chikara. The Twilight of the British Empire: British Intelligence and Counter-Subversion in the Middle East, 1948–63. Edinburgh University Press, 2017.
Mansfield, Peter, and Nicolas Pelham. A History of the Middle East: Fifth Edition. Updated edition. New York/N.Y: Penguin Books, 2013.
Schwartz, Adi. “The Adas Affair.” Tablet Magazine, December 9, 2022. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/history/articles/adas-affair-jews-iraq.
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner.
S8E5: Reed Erickson
An eccentric, wealthy businessman–with the pet tiger, Mexican nudist ashram, ketamine and cocaine habits, and baroque legal battles to prove it–who also financially supported trans research, gay history, and dolphin ESP, Reed Erickson forged his own path in a difficult world.
Today's episode profiles an eccentric, wealthy businessman––with the pet tiger, Mexican nudist ashram, ketamine and cocaine habits, and baroque legal battles over the title to various compounds to prove it––who also financially supported trans research, gay history, and dolphin ESP. Reed Erickson forged his own path in a difficult world and his life helps us understand two connections that were crucial for the developing gay and trans liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s: sexology and the New Age.
Today's episode of our podcast was recorded before the 2024 United States Presidental election. Given yesterday's executive orders, discussion of the anti-trans backlash and fighting transphobia are more important than ever. Today, please consider contacting Trans Lifeline if you need support, or donating if you are able.
SOURCES:
One From The Vaults, on Reed Erickson: https://soundcloud.com/onefromthevaultspodcast/oftv-5-the-trans-howard-hughes
Making Gay History, on Reed Erickson: https://makinggayhistory.org/podcast/reed-erickson/
Bello, Ada. “Reed Erickson, Pioneering Transgender Activist and Philanthropist, 1917-1992.” Outhistory. Accessed January 20, 2025. https://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/erickson/essay.
Devor, Aaron, and Nicholas Matte. “Building a Better World for Transpeople: Reed Erickson and the Erickson Educational Foundation.” International Journal of Transgenderism 10, no. 1 (October 12, 2007): 47–68. https://doi.org/10.1300/J485v10n01_07.
Devor, Aaron, and Nicholas Matte. “ONE Inc. and Reed Erickson: The Uneasy Collaboration of Gay and Trans Activism, 1964-2003.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 10, no. 2 (2004): 179–209.
Gill-Peterson, Jules. A Short History of Trans Misogyny. London: Verso, 2024.
Gill-Peterson, Jules. Histories of the Transgender Child. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018.
Lewis, Abram J. “I Am 64 and Paul McCartney Doesn’t Care: The Haunting of the Transgender Archive and the Challenges of Queer History." Radical History Review 120 (Fall 2014), 13-34.
Nunn, Zavier. “Trans Liminality and the Nazi State.” Past & Present 260, no. 1 (August 2023): 123–57. https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtac018.
S8E4: Albrecht Muth
Albrecht Muth claimed to be a dashing German aristocrat and married into Washington's foreign policy elite. The shocking truth became one of official Washington's biggest mysteries...
For today’s episode, I we take you into the murky world of the Washington foreign policy elites, and one of its murkiest characters, a man named Albrecht Muth. Who is Albrecht Muth? Well, that’s another question entirely. He claimed to be a dashing German aristocrat and married into Washington's foreign policy elite. The shocking truth became one of official Washington's biggest mysteries...
SOURCES:
Alexander, Keith L. “Albrecht Muth, 49, Convicted of Murder in Death of Socialite Wife Viola Drath, 91.” Washington Post, January 16, 2014. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/muth-found-guilty-of-murder-in-death-of-socialite-wife/2014/01/16/5a942d9e-7ecd-11e3-93c1-0e888170b723_story.html.
Foer, Franklin. “The Worst Marriage in Georgetown.” The New York Times, July 6, 2012, sec. Magazine. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/magazine/albrecht-muth-and-viola-drath-georgetowns-worst-marriage.html.
Meredith Somers. “Drath Murder Case Exposes Bizarre Lifestyle of Georgetown Couple.” The Washington Times. Accessed January 13, 2025. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/apr/24/drath-murder-case-exposes-bizarre-lifestyle-of-geo/
Martin, Adam. “The Odd Behavior of a Husband Arrested for a D.C. Socialite’s Murder.” The Atlantic (blog), August 17, 2011. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/08/unfortunate-behavior-husband-arrested-dc-socialites-murder/354256/.
The Daily Beast. “Inside D.C.’s Socialite Murder,” September 8, 2011. https://www.thedailybeast.com/socialite-murder-viola-drath-and-albrecht-muths-tumultuous-marriage/.
Washington City Paper. “Viola Drath’s Cultural Legacy: A Look at the Works of a Murdered D.C. Writer,” August 25, 2011. http://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/423666/viola-draths-cultural-legacy-a-look-at-the-works-of-a-murdered-d-c-writer/.
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner. Image via.
S8E3: Elisar von Kupffer
A fascist femboy, a Baltic count, an orientalist white supremacist, editor of the first anthology of gay literature, painter of a 30-meter cyclorama featuring 90 androgynous twinks disporting themselves in the nude in a fantasia of the four seasons, devotee of Adolf Hitler, founder of a new religion, and poet: it's Elisar von Kupffer.
A fascist femboy, a Baltic count, an orientalist white supremacist, editor of the first anthology of gay literature, painter of a 30-meter cyclorama featuring 90 androgynous twinks disporting themselves in the nude in a fantasia of the four seasons, devotee of Adolf Hitler, founder of a new religion, and poet: it's Elisar von Kupffer.
SOURCES:
Marhoefer, Laurie. “Queer Fascism and the End of Gay History.” NOTCHES (blog), June 19, 2018. https://notchesblog.com/2018/06/19/queer-fascism-and-the-end-of-gay-history/.
Marhoefer, Laurie. “Was the Homosexual Made White? Race, Empire, and Analogy in Gay and Trans Thought in Twentieth-Century Germany.” Gender & History 31, no. 1 (March 2019): 91–114. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.12411.
Miller, Ben. In Search Of Lost Time: Primitivist Homomythopoetics and the Self-Invention of the White Gay Man. (Dissertation: Freie Universität Berlin, 2024).
Miller, Ben. “Rejecting the Klarwelt: How Elisàr von Kupffer Complicates Queer History.” In To Be Seen: Queer Lives 1900-1950, edited by Miriam Zadoff and Karolina Kühn, 62–75. Munich: Hirmer, 2023.
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner. Image via.
S8E2: Tom Mitford
Today's episode profiles a very bad bisexual: the lawyer, soldier and society favourite, Tom Mitford. This is not just a profile of Tom himself, but of his six siblings, the famed Mitford Sisters, whose intense, often conflicting relationships have become something of an obsession for English culture, and not always a very healthy one. We also promise to you, as has become a theme of the podcast, some DBNs - Disturbingly British Names.
Today's episode profiles a very bad bisexual: the lawyer, soldier and society favourite, Tom Mitford. But the idea of featuring Tom is partly a ruse. This will be not just a profile of Tom himself, but of his whole family, and especially his six siblings, the famed Mitford Sisters, whose intense, often conflicting relationships have become something of an obsession for English culture - and not always a very healthy one. They embody so much about the English elite: eccentric, vicious, often listless and desperately sad. We also promise to you, as has become a theme of the podcast, some DBNs - Disturbingly British Names. And an indescribable cover of Right Said Fred by Jessica Mitford and Dr. Maya Angelou, on both voice and kazoo.
SOURCES:
Lovell, Mary S. The Mitford Girls: The Biography of an Extraordinary Family. New edition. Abacus, 2002.
Mitford, Jessica. Hons and Rebels. New York Review Books Classics. New York: New York Review Books, 2004.
Mitford, Nancy. The Pursuit of Love. First Edition. New York: Vintage, 2010.
Mitford, Nancy. Love in a Cold Climate. 1st edition. Vintage, 2010.
Mosley, Charlotte, ed. The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters. UK ed. edition. Fourth Estate, 2012.
Thompson, Laura. The Six: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters. St. Martin’s Press, 2016.
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner.
S8E1: Olive Yang
A lesbian — or possibly transmasculine — gangster born royal in 1927 British colonial Burma, who when first married off to a man threw a pot of their own urine at him to prevent the marriage from being consummated. They ran away from polite society, dated actresses, ran opium, were involved with the CIA, and helped negotiate settlements between ethnic groups.
From almost the first season of the show, we’ve been tantalised by stories of the Burmese gangster Olive Yang. Now, to open season 8, we have their story: Olive was a lesbian — or possibly transmasculine — gangster born royal in 1927 British colonial Burma, who when first married off to a man threw a pot of their own urine at him to prevent the marriage from being consummated. They ran away from polite society, dated actresses, ran opium, were involved with the CIA, and helped negotiate settlements between ethnic groups.
SOURCES:
Paluch, Gabrielle. The Opium Queen: The Untold Story of the Rebel Who Ruled the Golden Triangle. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2023.
Scott, James C., ed. The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. Yale Agrarian Studies Series. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner.
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Special: Marianne Woods and Jane Pirie (with Indigo Dunphy-Smith)
Today's special guest is the researcher and museum worker Indigo Dunphy-Smith, who is bringing her expertise to the case of Marianne Woods and Jane Pirie, two Edinburghian school teachers who found themselves embroiled in a sex scandal and court case in the early years of the 19th century. Their legal woes followed accusations by a pupil about sapphic goings-on at their small private school, and raised issues regarding attitudes to sex, race and colonialism in late Georgian era Scotland.
Today's special guest is the researcher and museum worker Indigo Dunphy-Smith, who is bringing her expertise to the case of Marianne Woods and Jane Pirie, two Edinburghian school teachers who found themselves embroiled in a sex scandal and court case in the early years of the 19th century. Their legal woes followed accusations by a pupil about sapphic goings-on at their small private school, and raised issues regarding attitudes to sex, race and colonialism in late Georgian era Scotland.
SOURCES:
Clerk, John, The notorious Drumsheugh Case of 1810: Miss Marianne Woods and Miss Jane Pirie v. Lady Cumming Gordon of Altyre, The Signet Library, Roughead Collection R343.1 H865
Singh, Frances B, Scandal and Survival in Nineteenth-Century Scotland: The Life of Jane Cumming, NED-New edition, Boydell & Brewer, 2020
Rupp, Leila J, Sapphistries: A Global History of Love Between Women, Beacon Press, 2009
Donoghue, Emma, Passions Between Women: British Lesbian Culture 1668–1801, HarperCollins, 1993
Faderman, Lillian, Scotch Verdict: The Real-Life Story That Inspired “The Children’s Hour”, Columbia University Press, 1983
Faderman, Lillian, Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present, William Morrow & Co, 1981
National Records of Scotland, Burgh Register of Sasines for Edinburgh B22/4/31
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrienn, distributed under a Creative Commons license. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner.
Special: Jerome Robbins (with Liz Rosenfeld)
As one of Broadway's star choreographers, Robbins helped define Broadway's Golden Age with striking dance theatre that integrated ballet technique into storytelling. His charisma, abuses of power, and boundary-obliterating working methods helped define an idea of choreographer-as-genius that still disfigures dance today.
Today, special guest Liz Rosenfeld discusses the choreographer Jerome Robbins. Born in New York to Jewish immigrants, Robbins pursued dance and radical politics––until, under the threat of being blacklisted and exposed for his sexuality, reporting on his former comrades to the House Committee on Unamerican Activities. As one of Broadway's star choreographers, he helped define Broadway's Golden Age with striking dance theatre that integrated ballet technique into storytelling. His charisma, abuses of power, and boundary-obliterating working methods helped define an idea of choreographer-as-genius that still disfigures dance today.
SOURCES:
https://www.npr.org/2011/02/24/97274711/the-real-life-drama-behind-west-side-story
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/19/happy-hundredth-jerome-robbins
Jerome Robbins: By Himself: Selections from his letters, journals, drawings, photographs, and an Unfinished Memoir (ed. Amanda Vaill)
Wendy Lesser: Jerome Robbins: A Life in Dance
Jerome Robbins - Something to Dance About, dir. Judy Kinberg
Our intro is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner.
Special: Christopher Marlowe (with Will Tosh)
On today's special episode, we talk about one of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, someone probably less well known but who has been deeply influential for queer writers and theatre practitioners through the ages: Christopher Marlowe.
Today's special guest is Will Tosh, Head of Research at Shakespeare's Globe, London, and the author of a new book, “Straight Acting: The Many Queer Lives of William Shakespeare.” Having answered the obvious question in the prologue, the book becomes a sort of emotional biography of Shakespeare’s private life, but uses that his life and his work to ask broader questions about Elizabethan England, and especially how they understood their own sex gender system at the time. On today's special episode, we talk about one of his contemporaries, someone probably less well known but who has been deeply influential for queer writers and theatre practitioners through the ages: Christopher Marlowe.
SOURCES:
Lukas Erne, 'Biography, Mythography, and Criticism: The Life and Works of Christopher Marlowe', Modern Philology 103.1 (2005), 28-50
Constance Brown Kuriyama, Christopher Marlowe: A Renaissance Life (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002)
Stephen Orgel, 'Tobacco and Boys: How Queer Was Marlowe?', GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 6.4 (2000), 555-576
Christopher Shirley, ‘Sodomy and Stage Directions in Christopher Marlowe’s Edward(s) II’, Studies in English Literature 54.2 (2014), 279–296
Sydnee Wagner, 'New Directions: Towards a Racialized Tamburlaine', in David McInnes (ed.), Tamburlaine: A Critical Reader (London: Bloomsbury, 2020)
Our intro is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner. Image via.
S7E10: Rotha Lintorn-Orman
The story of a dashing tomboy who was the first woman to found a British political party. The only problem: that party was the British fascists.
We close out our season with the story of a dashing tomboy who was the first woman to found a British political party. The only problem: that party was the British Fascists.
SOURCES:
Colin Cross, The Fascists in Britain (London: Saint Martin's Press, 1963)
Julie Gottlieb, Feminine Fascism: Women in Britain's Fascist Movement, 1923-1945 (London: Bloomsbury, 2021)
Asa Seresin, "Lesbian Fascism on TERF Island," 2021 https://asaseresin.com/2021/02/11/lesbian-fascism-on-terf-island/
Richard Thurlow, Fascism in Britain: From Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts to the National Front (London: I. Thurbis, 1998)
Edward White, "Conservatism with Knobs On," The Paris Review, December 2, 2016, https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/12/02/conservatism-with-knobs-on/
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner.
S7E09: Baron Franz Nopcsa von Felső-Szilvás
Today’s subject had a multi-hyphenate name and a multi-hyphenate resume––, in his 55 years of life, he was an adventurer, a geologist, a spy, a dinosaur scientist, one of the founders of paleobiology, the world’s first airplane hijacker, a founder of the field of Albanian studies, a cosplay artist, and a murderer. Born in 1877 in Transylvania, the Baron Franz Nopcsa von Felsö-Szilvás may have been, except perhaps as a pub quiz answer, lost to history since his death, but in his lifetime he had an outsized impact on several scientific disciplines, central European politics and nationalisms, and, unfortunately, the man who he lived with until a murder-suicide ended both of their lives.
SOURCES:
Gëzim Alpion, “Baron Franz Nopcsa and His Ambition for the Albanian Throne,” BESA Journal 6, no. 3 (Summer 2002): 25–32
Gareth Dyke, “The Dinosaur Baron of Transylvania,” Scientific American, October 1, 2011, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-dinosaur-baron-of-transylvania/
Robert Elsie, “1907 | Baron Franz Nopcsa: The Baron Held Hostage in the Mountains of Dibra,” Texts and Documents of Albanian History, accessed April 18, 2024, http://www.albanianhistory.net/1907_Nopcsa2/index.html
Robert Elsie, “The Viennese Scholar Who Almost Became King of Albania: Baron Franz Nopcsa and His Contribution to Albanian Studies,” n.d., http://www.elsie.de/pdf/articles/A1999VienneseNopcsa.pdf
Emily Osterloff, “Franz Nopcsa: The Dashing Baron Who Discovered Dwarf Dinosaurs,” Natural History Museum, accessed April 18, 2024, https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/franz-nopcsa-the-dashing-baron-who-discovered-dwarf-dinosaurs.html
Vanessa Veselka, “History Forgot This Rogue Aristocrat Who Discovered Dinosaurs and Died Penniless,” Smithsonian Magazine, accessed April 18, 2024, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/history-forgot-rogue-aristocrat-discovered-dinosaurs-died-penniless-180959504/
Traveler, Scholar, Political Adventurer: A Transylvanian Baron at the Birth of Albanian Independence: The Memoirs of Franz Nopcsa, NED-New edition, 1 (Central European University Press, 2014), https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7829/j.ctt6wpkrc
"A Field Guide to the Long History of Skyjackings,” CrimeReads(blog), May 10, 2021, https://crimereads.com/skyjackings/
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien, our outro music is by Dj Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner.
S7E08: Qutbuddin Mubarak Shah
Join us for a trip back to the court of 1300s Delhi for a story of love, lust, intrigue, revolution, and “the results of pampering young men and catamites.”
"If you have to take an beautiful enslaved convert boy from another province to become your lover, and then you fall hopelessly in love with him, and then promote him and he attains great power, do be aware than he might actually want to take your throne." Somehow, this extremely specific lesson was forgotten by two generations of rulers. Join us in a trip back to the court of 1300s Delhi for a story of love, lust, intrigue, revolution, and, in the words of a historian of the time, "the results of pampering young men and catamites."
SOURCES:
Indira Chatterjee, "Alienation, Intimacy and Gender: Problems for a History of Love in South Asia," in Ruth Vanita ed., Queering India: Same-Sex Love And Eroticism In Indian Culture And Society (Abingdon: Routledge, 2002)
Abraham Eraly, Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate (Delhi: Penguin India, 2014)
Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai, eds., Same-Sex Love in India: Readings in Indian Literature (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2016)
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner. Image via.
S7E07: Marthe Hanau
Marthe Hanau built a several-hundred-million-franc financial powerhouse: which turned out to be a fraud. Learn how far one woman was able to go to accumulate wealth and power by any means necessary.
Marthe Hanau built a several-hundred-million-franc financial powerhouse: which turned out to be a fraud. Her investors had been promised returns of 8% interest on savings and in investments forty percent a year —but by the time she died in prison, they were owed a hundred and fifty five million francs. Some people even credit her spectacular swindle to the political confluence that brought Leon Blum and his popular front to power in France at the end of the 1930s. This is the fascinating tale of just how far one woman was able to go to accumulate wealth and power by any means necessary.
SOURCES:
Stéphanie Bee, "La Bancquiére des Annès Folles," Univers-L, January 11, 2020, https://www.univers-l.com/portrait_marthe_hanau.html
Janet Flanner, "The Swindling Presidente," The New Yorker, August 18, 1939, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1939/08/26/annals-of-crime
Paul Jankowski, Stavisky: A Confidence Man in the Republic of Virtue (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002).
Dean Jobb, "The Ponzi of Paris," CrimeReads, December 3, 2021, https://crimereads.com/marthe-hanau-paris-ponzi-confidence-woman/
Rod Kedward, La Vie en Bleu - France and the French since 1900 (London: Allen Lane, 2005).
Wilfried Knapp, France--partial Eclipse: from the Stavisky Riots to the Nazi Conquest (London: Macdonald, 1972).
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner. Image via.
S7E06: John Whitgift
Today's episode is about England and its capacity to be deeply weird. We get into one of England's weirdest, bloodiest, and maybe horniest moments, the English Reformation: a time of enormous tumult and violence, but also new ideas that reconfigured and reshaped the world. Today’s Bad Gay is perhaps an unlikely and unfamiliar candidate, but one whose life and loves sheds a light on that time: it’s the theologian, reformer, and Archbishop of Canterbury, John Whitgift.
Today's episode is about England and its capacity to be deeply weird. Weget into one of England's weirdest, bloodiest, and maybe horniest moments, the English Reformation: a time of enormous tumult and violence, but also new ideas that reconfigured and reshaped the world. Today’s Bad Gay is perhaps an unlikely and unfamiliar candidate, but one whose life and loves sheds a light on that time: it’s the theologian, reformer, and Archbishop of Canterbury, John Whitgift.
SOURCES:
Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490-1700, 38831st edition (Penguin UK, 2004)
P. G. Maxwell-Stuart, The Archbishops of Canterbury (Tempus, 2006)
“John Whitgift History,” John Whitgift Foundation(blog), accessed March 18, 2024, https://johnwhitgiftfoundation.org/about-us/john-whitgift-history/.
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner. Image via.
S7E05: James Levine
This powerful American conductor ended his career in scandal after years of rumors culminated in serious allegations of sexual harrassment and assault, including of minors. We talk about what happens when brilliant artists do terrible things.
Warning: this episode contains discussions of child sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and workplace sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised.
Many people may have seen Maestro, a biopic about the American conductor Leonard Bernstein, a handsome and extroverted communicator. The next most famous gay Jewish conductor of the 20th century was, in many ways, Bernstein’s opposite. Neither handsome nor extroverted, he made his musical mark not as a flamboyant podium acrobat or someone who communicated with the public but as a musician’s musician. His career ended after years of rumors culminated in several serious allegations of sexual harassment and assault, including against teenaged boys. We talk about beauty and power and what it means when people who make great art also do terrible things.
SOURCES:
Michael Cooper, “Met Opera to Investigate James Levine Over Sexual Abuse Accusation,” The New York Times, December 3, 2017, sec. Arts, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/02/arts/music/james-levine-sexual-misconduct-met-opera.html
Michael Cooper, “Met Opera Reels as Fourth Man Accuses James Levine of Sexual Abuse,” The New York Times, December 5, 2017, sec. Arts, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/04/arts/music/james-levine-met-opera.html
Michael Cooper, “James Levine’s Final Act at the Met Ends in Disgrace,” The New York Times, March 12, 2018, sec. Arts, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/arts/music/james-levine-metropolitan-opera.html
Matt Dobkin, “Conductor James Levine Spurns Opera Gossips,” New York Magazine, January 6, 2006, https://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/music/features/15494/; Malcolm Gay and Kay Lazar, “In the Maestro’s Thrall,” The Boston Globe, March 2, 2018, https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/03/02/cleveland/cn2Sathz0EMJcdpYouoPjM/story.html
Ben Miller, “Silence, Breaking,” VAN Magazine, December 7, 2017, http://van-magazine.com/mag/james-levine-silence-breaking/
Ben Miller, “Shush Money,” VAN Magazine, May 23, 2018, http://van-magazine.com/mag/james-levine-met-opera-hush-money/
John Rockwell, “Met Opera Changes Managerial Balance,” The New York Times, July 23, 1987, sec. Arts, https://www.nytimes.com/1987/07/23/arts/met-opera-changes-managerial-balance.html
Emily Saul and Ben Feuerherd, “Met Opera, James Levine Reach Settlements amid Sex Misconduct Claims,” New York Post, August 6, 2019, https://nypost.com/2019/08/06/met-opera-james-levine-reach-settlements-amid-sex-misconduct-claims/
James B. Stewart and Michael Cooper, “The Met Opera Fired James Levine, Citing Sexual Misconduct. He Was Paid $3.5 Million.,” The New York Times, September 21, 2020, sec. Arts, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/20/arts/music/met-opera-james-levine.html
Anastasia Tsioulcas, “James Levine Accused Of Sexual Misconduct By 5 More Men,” NPR, May 19, 2018, sec. The Industry, https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2018/05/19/612621436/james-levine-accused-of-sexual-misconduct-by-5-more-men
Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein, “Legendary Opera Conductor Molested Teen for Years: Police Report,” New York Post, December 2, 2017, https://nypost.com/2017/12/02/legendary-opera-conductor-molested-teen-for-years-police-report/
Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein, “Disgraced Met Conductor’s Brother Was ‘in on the Game’: Police Report,” December 9, 2017, https://nypost.com/2017/12/09/disgraced-met-conductors-brother-was-in-on-the-game-police-report/
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien, our outro music was made for us by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner.
S7E04: Elagabalus
This episode has everything: a tyrannical little boy king, a dictator who wanted to overthrow the Roman pantheon and install a meteorite as the object of a new monotheism, prostitution and vestal virgins, and drowning your party guests in rose petals.
This episode has everything: a tyrannical little boy king, a dictator who wanted to overthrow the Roman pantheon and install a meteorite as the object of a new monotheism, prostitution and vestal virgins, and drowning your party guests in rose petals. We break down Elagabalus: the myth, the legend, the gender-bending icon and the searcher for the biggest dicks in the Roman Empire.
SOURCES:
Cassius Cocceianus Dio, Roman History: Books 71-80, trans. E. Cary, New issue of 1927 ed Edition (Harvard University Press, 1927)
Edward Gibbon and Hugh Trevor-Roper, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volumes 1 to 6: Volumes 1-3, Volumes 4-6, Reprint Edition (Everyman’s Library, 2010)
Harry Sidebottom, The Mad Emperor: Heliogabalus and the Decadence of Rome (Oneworld Publications, 2022)
Elijah Burgher, “Our Lady of the Latrines – Western Exhibitions,” https://westernexhibitions.com/exhibition/elijah-burgher/
Anthony Birley, trans., Lives of the Later Caesars: The First Part of the Augustan History, with Newly Compiled Lives of Nerva & Trajan, Reprint edition (Harmondsworth, Eng. ; Baltimore etc.: Penguin Classics, 1976).
Our intro music is "Arpeggia Colorix" by Yann Terrien. Our outro music was made for us by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner.
The image is: Elijah Burgher, Judgment of Paris, 2024. Coloured pencil and watercolour on paper. 14h x 10w in. Courtesy of the artist.