Jennifer Yee

Short #frenchpodcast about the Russian disinformation that spread memes of blue stars graffitied in Paris; I learned the expression ‘ingérance numérique ‘. www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...

This was an eye-opening and sometimes hilarious series covering the Frankopan conquest of @empirepoduk.bsky.social along with Normans doing much more than conquering out-of-the-way islands with dismal weather.

Louis Bonaparte tried to handle genius-older-brother syndrome by doing the best he could for the kingdom he was given (the Netherlands). It didn’t end well. Short #frenchpodcast podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/l...

What are Universities, and how have they survived for 1000 years ? Really interesting podcast with my colleague William Whyte @ppfideas.bsky.social Not much on whether they will survive the next few decades… podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/p...

Julie d’Aubigny, brilliant fencer and opera singer of the 17thC, fought duels, loved men and women, and lived a life much less plausible than the novel that it inspired, Mlle de Maupin. #frenchpodcast podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/l...

So… ‘matrixer’ is now a verb in French. Is it in English too? Maybe I already knew this and there’s just been a momentary glitch. Mini #frenchpodcast www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/...

I've just binge-listened to this gripping 6-part series on the events of the Terror, 1793-4: occasionally farcical, often unhinged, but one can (sort of) see how they got there. I kept thinking of Hugo's sinister title 'Quatrevingt-treize'. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

A lively account of the series of errors committed by king François 1er that led to him being captured at the battle of Pavia. Always listen to your mother, guys. Short #frenchpodcast with dramatic music. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/l...

Short #frenchpodcast on a new exhibition on Monet's series paintings (of haystacks, waterlilies, the façade of Rouen Cathedral) that attempt to capture the movement of time. www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/...

After his death Balzac was claimed on the Left and Right, and notably reinvented as a proto-fascist antisemite. Really interesting #frenchpodcast on the post-Balzac Balzac, and what 'balzacien' has meant at different times. www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...

If the revolutionaries of 1793 are 'terrorists', we should recognise it as State terrorism, @theresthistory.bsky.social ? (Interesting that Robespierre believed in shocking things like universal male suffrage and progressive taxation.) Episode 2 in series. podcasts.apple.com/in/podcast/t...

First in a series on the Terror from @theresthistory.bsky.social : the assassination of the decidedly unpleasant Marat by the young Charlotte Corday, and how everyone had read too much Rousseau. 1793, what a year. podcasts.apple.com/in/podcast/t...

Napoleon was really serious about invading Britain, with a giant encampment at Boulogne; he tried to plan a nautical strategy the way he planned a land strategy. Short #frenchpodcast www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pebt...

In 1830 there was more than one French revolution. The 'Bataille d'Hernani' was actually more like a war: for several performances the new young 'Romantiques' confronted the aristocratic 'Classiques' over Victor Hugo's play. Dynamic #frenchpodcast www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/...

AI winning literary prizes... under a human name. An ongoing 'affaire' in France. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...

Did the radical feminist/banlieusard movement 'Ni Putes ni Soumises' fail because its leader accepted a role in Sarkozy's government? Its feminism seems oddly dated now, with the primacy of identitarian politics. Interesting #Frenchpodcast www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/...

Anatole France, who made his way from a humble background to be a literary celebrity and member of the Académie française, later a ataunch dreyfusard, is now unfashionable because of the clarity of his style… #frenchpodcast podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/l...

Also from the Bodleian pets exhibition : a Persian court lady and her cat; Adam naming some animals (mostly very attentive, though the cat has its back turned).

From the Bodleian exhibition on pets, I note that this ancient Egyptian papyrus is a receipt for a congestion charge for a camel. The choice of wording is, I suspect, a very Oxford joke.

We remember the 1816 shipwreck of the Medusa for the raft, the cannibalism, and Géricault's painting, but a 16-year old girl was one of those evacuated in a lifeboat and nearly abandoned by soldiers in the desert. She lived to write her story. Short #frenchpodcast podcasts.apple.com/ch/podcast/u...

On Jean Genet's childhood and youth: a fostered child taken back by the State, compulsive petty thief in and out of disciplinary institutions; inventing his own worlds. Short #frenchpodcast www.radioclassique.fr/histoire/jea...

Resharing for #WorldHoneyBeeDay 🍯🐝

Some look down on Elisabeth Vigée le Brun because she painted flattering portraits, but she was an impressive businesswoman and innovative artist. And was clever enough to survive her patron Marie-Antoinette. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/i...

⚠️BREAKING NEWS IN AUSTRALIA - BOLLARDS FLIP A TESLA⚠️ #WorldBollardAssociation

Did Napoleon III accidentally found modern art by creating the Salon des refusés, just because he was worried about an imminent election? Interesting #FrHistory podcast podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/v...

Reading private diaries from the French Revolution gives a sense of the emotions - from joy to trauma - of ordinary people. Interesting podcast about a forthcoming book. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/n...

From the Richard Dadd exhibition at the Royal Academy. What was the fairy painter of Bedlam telling us with his map of the Great Plains of Complaint and Great Panic Bay?

Listening to this #frenchpodcast made me wish I could spend a few weeks with George Sand and her brilliant guests, putting on puppet shows in her house in Nohant. www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...

We may be in a period of decadence, but people of periods that called themselves 'decadent' in the past (Weimar Germany, fin-de-siècle France...) seemed to have a much more entertaining time. Another great podcast from @ppfideas.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

This account of Tintin au Congo doesn't so much ask the simple question 'was it racist?' (answer: yes) as situate that racism in the more general context of Hergé's Nazi sympathies. #Frenchpodcast www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/...

On Annie Ernaux's book Les Années (The Years) as a political fiction - not how I had thought of it before, but perhaps an approach that might reconcile me to l'écriture plate. www.ppfideas.com/episodes/the...

Interesting analysis of Laurent Binet's novel HHhH as an exploration of evil and resistance only possible in fiction. I thought that was meant as a criticism at first. www.ppfideas.com/episodes/the...

Surrealism, from André Breton's revolutionary manifesto onwards: reactions against war, against colonialism, against almost everything - but not necessarily against all rationality. Series of 5 short #frenchpodcast s. www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/...

This is a fun discussion of the context of The Picture of Dorian Gray, its style ('lush') and dangerously obvious gay content. podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/o...

'Rigolboche' was the stage name of a 2nd Empire dancer from the beginnings of the infamous cancan. One can almost hear her voice, but only via a memoir in fact written by a man under her name. #frenchpodcast in a series on the voices of the invisible. www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...

The plague struck Paris in... 1920. A dramatic #frenchpodcast with rag-and-bone pickers, rodents, state cover-ups and, inevitably, antisemitism 1920s-style. #FrHistory www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/...

Really interesting exhibition on Hawaii at the British Museum. Many extraordinary things - gods, capes, crested helmets - made with feathers and plant fibre, an art that is still alive and evolving today.

A selection of ‘livres d’artiste’ from a temporary exhibition at the Taylorian.

A discussion of French attitudes to travel in the 19thC that begins with Baudelaire and ends with Rimbaud, but covers a great deal of mileage in between, with the always excellent Sylvain Venayre. #frenchpodcast www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...

‘Kneel’, by Dorothy Cross, from the marvelous sculpture trail in Worcester College gardens.

18thC Paris was fascinated by two sisters, exoticised as 'Lappons', who were actually members of the Finnish Protestant bourgeoisie. Comment peut-on être lapon? In Voltaire's hands they became a running joke aimed at Maupertuis. #Frenchpodcast www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...

On how Mme de Sévigné narrowly escaped the convent as an infant, eventually becoming a witty widow and letter-writer extraordinaire, and would not have called herself a 'précieuse', or 'ridicule'; a #frenchpodcast www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...

On Michel Houellebecq's most recent volume of poetry, sub-Baudelairean depression put in jingoistic rhymes and full of ambiguously-worded references to the end times and the need to massacre 'apes', a short #frenchpodcast 😱. www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...

Podcast (in English!) on Christine de Pizan, perhaps the first female writer to make a living from her pen, and her active participation in contemporary debates on whether women were to blame for everything and needed to be kept safely in their places. #FrHistory podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/c...

Was the legal concept of 'pure blood' invented in 1449 in Toledo, taking religious identity one step (or possibly several generations) further? #frenchpodcast in a series on the history of racism. www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...

Je sommes des autres? All writers project an alternate self, but some definitely engage in more imposture/posturing than others. #frenchpodcast with Marie-Ève Thérenty and Pierre Bayard. www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...

Zoonation performing a hip-hop Mad Hatter’s Tea Party at Oxford’s new Centre for the Humanities.

Is it possible to simplify French spelling, which sometimes appears mainly designed to create problems? On some (failed) attempts to do so, an interesting if frustrating #frenchpodcast, broadcast most appropriately on April Fool's day. www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/...

I read two of these Wikipedia AI detection test articles and guessed both correctly, somewhat to my amazement - but it is a very disconcerting exercise. In the current climate I must say I cherish Wikipedia.