Speaking of podcasts, here are some of my favorites (pre-modern history mostly)

And an introduction to All the Buried Women

I still have three more days till I get a walking boot (I haven’t put weight on my left leg since my surgery on January 14!), which means I am still mostly stuck at home with limited mobility. Luckily I have a lot to keep me busy—by the time Becoming the Pastor’s Wife launches I will have done at least 31 podcasts and interviews. Savannah Locke and I finished the edits to our forthcoming podcast with The Bible for Normal People—All The Buried Women.

The introductory episode launched yesterday, an interview with Savannah and I about the miniseries will air on Monday, and the first episode will launch next Thursday (March 13) with a new episode every Thursday through April 10. We hit the top 100 podcasts in Religion & Spirituality yesterday with our short 7 minute intro, earning a spot one above Mark Driscoll, which is poetic in the words of Savannah. (And I just looked today and saw we had moved up to 64!).

For those of you who don’t know, All the Buried Women is a miniseries born in my research for Becoming the Pastor’s Wife and the genius of Savannah Locke. It focuses on telling the stories of women “buried” in the Southern Baptist archives. It will also help you understand what is going on with the SBC and why it matters for women more broadly. I think you are really going to love it.

I better appreciate the work of podcasts now that I have experienced creating one. Indeed, during the past year while I have been working on ATBW with Savannah, I have found podcasts to be one of my favorite ‘activities’ while I am exercising, doing household chores, cooking, or driving around town. They also are a fast way to learn more about a topic, such as when I was getting ready for my trip to Whitby Abbey last January.

So here are a few of my favorite podcasts with short bios for each. And, you will notice, two of these belong to History Hit and two are BBC.

Gone Medieval painted my house for me. I just hit play on the first episode and let it play through several while I painted the inside of our new house. The official description is: “The "Gone Medieval" podcast is focused on exploring the Middle Ages in Europe and beyond, covering topics like Viking ships, royal burials, power struggles, myths, religion, and the daily lives of ordinary people during that period, hosted by Dr. Eleanor Janega on the History Hit platform.” Eleanor Janega (PhD University College London and lecturer in medieval and early modern history at London School of Economics; also the author of The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women’s Roles in Society) co-hosts alongside Matthew Lewis, a popular fiction and non-fiction author ( who focused on medieval history (especially related to the War of the Roses). They interview scholars (historians, archaeologists, etc.), tackle myths about the medieval era, and do a great job in bringing medieval history to a broad non-specialist audience.

I especially love how Eleanor Janega continuously takes on the misnomer of labelling the medieval era as “the Dark Ages.” Also, the episode about finding the body of Richard III is not one you will ever forget.

After Dark is my newest obsession. I think I have listened to every episode by this point. It combines two of my favorite things—investigative history and tales of the supernatural (I love ghost stories). In the words of the press release for the series, “After Dark will give true crime, paranormal and folklore fans the opportunity to discover the true facts behind history’s darkest and most unusual stories.” Which is exactly what it does. It is hosted by two historians, Madeleine Pelling and Anthony Delaney, who both have their PhDs (University of York and University of Exeter) and specialize in the eighteenth century.

I really loved the episode on the Amityville Horror and Ghosts of the Deep South.

If you prefer to historical comedy to historical crime (or if you like both like me), You’re Dead to Me is just so fun. The BBC description is “the comedy podcast that takes history seriously…brings together the best names in comedy and history to learn and laugh about the past.” It is hosted by Greg Jenner, a public historian (BA and MA in history, elected fellow of Royal Historical Society, and honorary fellow at University of York), who pairs a scholar and a comedian to explore a historical event, person, topic, etc. The first one I listened to was about Mary Anning (and if you don’t know who she is, listen to it :) and it was so good I immediately followed the show. The Minoan Civilization episode is also one of my favorites.

In Our Time is one of the first academic podcasts I ever listened to. It is slower than the ones above but is fantastic for up-to-date scholarly conversations that are communicated in an accessible way. The host, Melvyn Bragg, has now produced more than 1000 episodes. They are each 45 minutes and feature Bragg quizzing “academic specialists about almost any subject of interest in human life, including history, science, philosophy, religion and the arts. The rules are that there must be no book-plugging and the guests must be active in teaching the subject.” Honestly, I don’t know which are my favorites. but one of the most recent ones I listened to is this one on St. Hilda.

Have fun listening! I’ll have a new post on Sunday so don’t forget to listen to the introduction to All the Buried Women!

Also, I’ve been on several podcasts lately and had a few interviews, so I will pull those together in a post and keep it updated.