In this episode: we hear from Dr Claire O’Callaghan, Senior Lecturer in English at Loughborough University and Editor-in-Chief of Brontë Studies, the official journal of the Brontë Society; Prof Melissa Fegan, Professor of Irish and Victorian Literature at the University of Chester; and Dr Sophie Franklin, Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of English, Drama and Film at University College Dublin and author of ‘Violence and the Brontës: Language, Reception, Afterlives’. She is also an Associate Editor of the Brontë Studies journal.

In this episode: to mark International Women's Day, we discuss a number of prolific women across history - 'A History of France in 21 Women', by Katherine Pangonis, the author Maria Edgeworth and the 225th anniversary of her novel Belinda, and Hever Castle historian Dr Owen Emmerson tells us about how and why Anne Boleyn's image has changed over the centuries.

In this episode: Dr Danica Cerce from the Steinbeck Review; Dr Susan Shillinglaw, Director of the Steinbeck Center, California; Dr Nicholas P Taylor, Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies, San Jose State University; and Dr Tara Guissin-Stubbs, Associate Professor in English Literature and Director of Studies in English Literature and Creative Writing at Oxford University.

Featuring: Dr Bernadette Whelan, professor emeritus at the School of History and Geography at the University of Limerick; Dr Colum Kenny, Professor Emeritus, Dublin City University; and Prof Eunan O’Halpin, Fellow Emeritus in History at Trinity College Dublin.

In this episode: Nationalist Michael Davitt and how he inspired reform movements around the world; the aristocrat who became a champion of Catholic emancipation; and the history of intelligence. Featuring Ciara Daly, curator of the Michael Davitt exhibition at Trinity College Dublin; Síle McGuckian, author of Anglesey in Ireland, 1828-1833: Worse Than War; and Dr David Brydan, King's College London historian.

In this episode, the 125th anniversary of the birth of Brendan Bracken, the Irish born adventurer who became Winston Churchill's greatest supporter, with biographer Charles Lysaght; the 400 year fight to end slavery in the Americas, with historian Carrie Gibson; and treasure and ghosts in the London clay, with author Victoria Shepherd.

We're looking at the life and legacy of one of the American Revolution's greatest villains, Benedict Arnold, and we'll find out how his name became synonymous with treachery and betrayal. Featuring: Dr Eliga Gould, Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford; Dr Tom Sebrell, history lecturer at University College London; Dr Charlene Boyer-Lewis, professor of history and director of American Studies at Kalamazoo College, Michigan, and author of the upcoming ‘Traitor, Wife: Peggy Shippen Arnold and Revolutionary America’; and Emma Parry, author of the upcoming novel ‘Mrs Benedict Arnold’.

In this episode, we find out about the first staging of Seán O'Casey's play The Plough and The Stars 100 years ago and why it provoked such furious debate and even riots. Our panel features: Dr Ciara Murphy, Lecturer in Drama at TU Dublin and Vice President of the Irish Society of Theatre Research; Mairéad Delaney, Archivist at the Abbey Theatre Archive; Dr Bess Rowen, assistant professor of theatre and a theatre theorist and historian at Villanova University, Pennsylvania, and an expert on Seán O’Casey’s work and the 1926 riot; and Prof Nicholas Grene, Fellow Emeritus in English Literature at Trinity College Dublin.