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Hysteria! cover art

Hysteria!

Written by: Phoebe Bennett, Nick Minter
Narrated by: Alice Lowe
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  • Summary

  • Hysteria! presents tales of howling nuns, fainting schoolgirls, witches, wombs, online panics and threats – both imagined and real. Crossing decades and continents, and from personal panics to societal scares, Alice Lowe explores hysterical behaviour. Come join the delirium....

    Hysteria is a word that regularly gets misused. It gets attached to everything from overly emotional behaviour to moral panics, via stock market crashes, stampedes, viral videos and more. It's often used – pejoratively – about women, and it shares its roots with the ancient Greek word for womb. The story of hysteria touches on issues of stigma, gender, morality and power. But how do we separate mass psychogenic illness from mere emotional excess?

    Filmmaker, actress and writer Alice Lowe has long been fascinated by the grey area between behavioural control and abandon. In this six-part series, she explores what we really mean when we talk about frenzies, fevers, manias and panics – both individually and throughout society.

    Produced by Wisebuddah for Audible Originals.

    This is an Audible Original Podcast. Free for members. You can download all6 episodes to your Library now.

    ©2019 Audible, Ltd. (P)2019 Audible, Ltd.
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Episodes
  • Ep. 1: Film, Nuns and Deathly Dances
    Jul 24 2019

    Cinema thrives on hysterical characters, especially when they inhabit closed environments such as convents or girls schools. But what can we make of the dozens of people who died during a dancing epidemic in medieval France?

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    34 mins
  • Ep. 2: Witches, Wombs and Women
    Jul 24 2019

    Hysteria shares its etymological roots with the ancient Greek word for womb. Does that explain why women are still more likely than men to be accused of hysterical behaviour?

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    25 mins
  • Ep. 3: Spirits, Angels and Seances
    Jul 24 2019

    Death – or being in close proximity to death – encourages unusual social behaviour. From the birth of Spiritualism to WW1 and beyond, how are our beliefs shaped by the people we lose?

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    28 mins

What listeners say about Hysteria!

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Interesting and educational

Keeps you wanting to know more about hysteria. The cases that she brings forth are fascinating.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

I wanted it to keep going!

Great narrator, and I loved the examples. I was sad when it ended; a few more episodes in the COVID era would really have rounded it out - that's my only complaint.

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Excellent content!

This was such a well produced and performed piece of content. I was engaged for all the episodes. Wish there were more. Hope this team puts out something similar.

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Excellent series!

Absolutely loved listening to this! It was very thought provoking and eye opening. The narrator was excellent. I will definitely be listening to this again and will try other podcasts by Phoebe Bennett and Nick Minter as well as ones narrated by Alice Lowe.

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amazing!

everything about this title, from narration to content is top notch! would love to see more from the creators

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