There is a complex and fascinating relationship between humans and the ocean, how people and cultures across the world know and understand the sea, whether through myths and legends, through trade or fishing, exploration or entertainment.  This episode explores one particular aspect of all this - our relationship with the undersea, what lies beneath the surface of the oceans.  It is the 4th place in a loose miniseries of literary locations: Antarctica, the desert, the forest, and now the undersea. From early myths and legends to the naturalists of the 19th century; from the first transatlantic cables to the underwater habitats of the 1960s; from scientific attempts at a "homo aquaticus" to science fiction tales of underwater civilizations, there's plenty to explore in the ocean depths.  Joining me on this deep dive episode is Prof Helen Rozwadowski, Professor of History and Maritime Studies at the University of Connecticut. 

Words To That Effect

54: Underwater Worlds

How do we use fiction in food? What does a character's choice of food reveal about them? Do you simply have to go and make a dish when it's described beautifully in a book? On this very special episode, a collaboration with the wonderful Spice Bags podcast, we discuss everything from 17th century Spanish literature to contemporary American horror, Italian detective novels to Japanese magical realism. Grab yourself a glass of Amarone and have a listen! Support the show and get lots of bonus content by becoming a member of HeadStuff+. Find out more at HeadStuffPodcasts.com 

53: Fiction & Food

The forest is a place we have very mixed feelings about. Forests can be calm and peaceful, full of ancient and natural beauty.   Until they’re not. The forest, in so many ways, is a place we fear. They are dark and dense and overgrown, all too easy to get lost in. They hold secrets and mysteries, and creatures we’d rather not meet alone, far from home.  And if the monsters of the forest don’t get us, then the forest itself will. The strange, malevolent powers of the trees themselves.  The forest can be a terrifying place. On this week's episode I'm joined by Dr Elizabeth Parker, who guides us through the deep dark woods. 

52: Gothic Forests

How do we imagine and portray the desert? And what does it say about us and our relationship to each other and, crucially, to the planet we live on?In this, the second in a loosely connected series on places in fiction and popular culture, I chat to Dr Aidan Tynan about deserts in fiction and philosophy, from Mad Max to Burning Man, Nietzsche to Baudrillard,  Cormac McCarthy to China Miéville.

51: Desert Fictions

 In 1905 in Paris, the publisher Pierre Laffite had an idea. His new journal Je Sais Tout had just launched and he was looking for an author who could do for his magazine, what Arthur Conan Doyle’s phenomenally popular Sherlock Holmes had done for The Strand magazine, in London. He turned to the writer Maurice Leblanc and one of the most memorable and successful characters in French popular fiction was born: the gentleman thief Arsène Lupin. Lupin is cunning, sophisticated, quick-witted, a master of disguise, always one step ahead of the police, and a thief of humble origins who steals only from the wealthy upper classes.   But why did this gentleman thief achieve such instant and lasting renown? How does he fit into popular crime fiction more widely and how, you may be wondering, did he end up as the basis for one of the most popular shows Netflix has ever made? 

50: Arsene Lupin

Robots as high-tech labour-saving devices, and as usurpers of human jobs. Robots as distinctly Other and as dangerously indistinguishable from humans. Robots as a means of questioning what it is to be human, and highlighting the ethics behind the creation of artificial life.  To help me explore all of this I chatted to a roboticist who also writes about literature, and a literature professor who has worked and published extensively on robotics. Support WTTE by becoming a member of HeadStuff+ (https://headstuffpodcasts.com/) For links, references, full transcripts and more head to wttepodcast.com (https://wttepodcast.com/)

49: Robots

A quick update episode on the new HeadStuff membership platform, HeadStuff+ Have a listen to find out more about what's on it and how you can join (although the joining bit is very straightforward - just click here (https://headstuffpodcasts.com/show/words-to-that-effect-7moojax9ed) ).  I'm really excited to be a part of this and I hope if you are a regular listener and would like to support the show, and the network it is a part of, you'll consider becoming a member. Plus you get a load of extra stuff so it's win-win really! 

Announcement: WTTE & HeadStuff+

 The continent of Antarctica was only discovered two centuries ago, even if it had long been theorized. It's a place shrouded in mystery with no human history and no permanent residents. It’s a land of superlatives: the coldest, the windiest, the driest continent. It is a grand scientific experiment, a habitat for animals, with spectacular icescapes luring tourists and scientists alike. And it’s somewhere that exists in the popular imagination in a multitude of ways, often contradictory and, it must be said, frequently confused with the Arctic. There’s a long tradition of gothic and horror stories set in, and inspired by, Antarctica. There are heroic adventure tales from the early 20th century onwards, thrillers and adventure tales, science fiction novels, and crime and detective stories set on this inscrutable continent. Joining me to talk about all these stories and more is Prof Elizabeth Leane. 

48: Fictions of Antarctica

In one sense alternate history is a very specific kind of story - sometimes seen as a subgenre of science fiction, more often as a genre onto itself. But in a broader sense alternate history is something we are all interested in. We all think about what might have happened differently in our live and in the wider world, we all feel relief and regret.  What if?

47: Alternate History

In a way it’s maybe strange that the western is such a prominent genre. It's seemingly connected to a very specific time and place: the mid-to-late 19th century American west. And yet we are all so familiar with the many tropes of the western: cowboys and Indians, shootouts and saloons, cattle rustlers and sheriffs, tumbleweed and canyons?  The western has a particular hold on the popular imagination, partly for reasons of historical and cultural influence, but ultimately because of its supreme adaptability, its capacity to mingle and merge with other genres. The weird western is a hybrid genre: space westerns, steampunk westerns, supernatural and horror westerns, time travel westerns, westerns drawing on Afrofuturism and indigenous futurism, and many, many more. For full transcripts, notes, links, and more head to wttepodcast.com/weirdwestern (https://wttepodcast.com/046) Support the show on Patreon (https://patreon.com/wtte) for bonus episodes and more!

46: Weird Westerns

Remix, mashup, sample, adaptation, parody, homage, knock-off. The lines between these, and so many other similar terms, are not always very clear. In one sense, all culture is a remix, nothing exists in a vacuum. On the other hand, some people may take a dim view of lifting almost the entire text of Pride & Prejudice and republishing it with additional zombie action. Which is where Seth Grahame-Smith’s best-selling 2009 classic, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, comes in. For lots more details, links, transcripts, and more, head to the Words To That Effect website (https://wttepodcast.com/045)

45: Mashups, Remixes, and Frankenfiction

WTTE is back! Season 5 launches on Tuesday 10th November. Find out what's coming up this season.

Season 5 Trailer

Last year Caroline Crampton (of Shedunnit (https://shedunnitshow.com) ) and I teamed up to create a joint live show, called Words Dunnit: a 200-year history of detective fiction in an hour. We performed the show live at the Dublin Podcast Festival (https://dublinpodcastfestival.ie/) in November 2019, and then again at Pod UK (https://www.rocksaltevents.com/poduk2020) , in Birmingham, in Feb of this year. We had a lot of fun making and performing it, so here it is in full. For notes, links, pictures and more head to the WTTE website (https://wttepodcast.com/wordsdunnit) Support the show on Patreon (https://patreon.com/wtte) !

44: Words Dunnit (WTTE + Shedunnit Live)

There are countless great works of literature we have tantalizing glimpses of, works we know existed but are, as far as anyone can tell, lost to history. Huge swathes of ancient Greek literature, for example, or a lost Shakespeare play based on the story of Don Quixote.  And then there are the works we rescue. Kate Macdonald, at Handheld Press, specialises in finding and reprinting lost classics, works that have fallen out of print but deserve another chance and a new audience. In this episode I chat to her about lost literature, the intricacies of reprinting old books, and authors who will never go out of print.

43: Lost Books

Sasquatch. Bigfoot. The Abominable Snowman. Yeti. The Yowie, the Yeren, the Almas  Ape-men, cave men, wild men.  The Missing Link. The idea of the missing link came about in the mid-19th century, with the rise of Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. In 1859 Darwin published his book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, and it was radical, revolutionary, and highly contentious.  The problem, though, was that the mechanism by which it all worked wasn’t really understood yet, and there was a need for some hard evidence that would clinch his theory. If evolution really did work as Darwin described it; if, most controversially of all, humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and other apes all had a common ancestor, it should all be there in the fossil record.  There was a missing link in the theory. Support WTTE on at https://patreon.com/wtte and get bonus episodes and more

42: The Missing Link

Words To That Effect: Stories of the Fiction that Shapes Popular Culture. WTTE is a narrative storytelling show that explores the intriguing places where fiction, history, science, and popular culture intersect and inspire. From the Victorian past to utopian futures, dinosaurs to detectives, zombies to mummies, how does literature shape our understanding of popular culture? Find out more at wttepodcast.com (https://wttepodcast.com). Support the show at patreon.com/wtte.

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Words To That Effect

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