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Dirty Sexy History

Written by: Jessica Cale
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  • Summary

  • Going beyond the sanitized and idealized to the dirty reality of human history with Jessica Cale. There's more to history than what you learned in high school, and we're going to skip to the good stuff together.
    Jessica Cale
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Episodes
  • Episode 4.4. Abortion in Early Modern Italy

    Episode 4.4. Abortion in Early Modern Italy
    Jun 12 2024
    Just this week, all but two Senate Republicans voted against the Right to Contraception Act. At the same time, the GOP is calling for a nationwide ban on abortion. But what happens when abortion is banned? It happened in Italy in 1588…but it didn’t work. It was overturned only three years later in 1591. This week, Jess talks to Dr John Christopoulos about Early Modern family planning and the difference between Church doctrine and the sex lives of real people. We cover bans, common practice, extramarital sex, same-sex relationships in convents, and more. Dr Christopoulos’s book is the award-winning Abortion in Early Modern Italy, out now from Harvard University Press.
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    53 mins
  • Episode 4.3. The History of Nostalgia

    Episode 4.3. The History of Nostalgia
    May 30 2024
    Nostalgia can be both good and bad—at its best, it manifests in historical reenactment, vintage fashion, and mid-century modern furniture. At its worst, it can drive regressive political policies, fascism, and book bans. But nostalgia itself isn’t a bad thing—it’s a bittersweet, rose-tinted longing for the past, but how did people in the past experience it? In this thoughtful episode, Jess talks to Dr. Agnes Arnold-Forster about historical ideas about nostalgia, nostalgia as a medical condition, and the surprising link to a poltergeist that took the form of a talking mongoose called Gef. Dr. Arnold-Forster’s new book is Nostalgia: A History of a Dangerous Emotion.
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    57 mins
  • Episode 4.2. Josephine McCarty: Abortionist, Spy, Mother of the Year?

    Episode 4.2. Josephine McCarty: Abortionist, Spy, Mother of the Year?
    May 15 2024
    During Josephine McCarty’s trial for murder, she was portrayed as an ordinary woman—a mother of six, she was only looking out for her children when she shot her lover in the face in front of dozens of witnesses. Over the course of her trial, she told the story of her life—she had been a lobbyist, an abortion provider, one of the first female doctors in the United States, and a double agent during the Civil War. Josephine was anything but ordinary, but her experiences mirror those of other nineteenth-century women: struggles with marriage, divorce, and child support; the pursuit of higher education and independent income; and navigating a chaotic healthcare system that was never built for women. Half medical history and half true crime, her story will have you on the edge of your seat. Our guest this week is R.E. Fulton, author of The Abortionist of Howard Street: Medicine and Crime in Nineteenth-Century New York, out today from Cornell University Press.
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    1 hr and 17 mins
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