Episodes

  • The History of Sabrina Pasterski
    Sep 26 2023

    The history of Sabrina Pasterski may be the most recent history covered so far, but it is no less jampacked. From building a plane at nine years old to offering Jeff Bezos that she can send him Mars, and being the first woman to graduate with a perfect GPA from MIT in two decades (in addition to being cited by Stephen Hawking), Sabrina has lots to brag about but hates hype.


    Five years after Sabrina's hype has calmed, the season one finale of Hot Girl Histories includes discussions on the consequences of being called "the Next Einstein" as a twenty-two-year-old woman, imposter syndrome, dislike for the Internet, pop-science, turning bad into good, and talking too fast.


    Sabrina's website: http://physicsgirl.com


    Cover credits: Photo taken by Jan Welters for Marie Claire Young Women's Honors article by Brooke Hauser (January 2017, p. 100).

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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • Interviewing Gloria Steinem, Becoming Miss U.S.A, and Beginning Again ft. Kathleen O'Malley Taylor
    Sep 5 2023

    Grab your favorite mug, some tea, and a cozy blanket for this chilllll episode <3 besides chatting about Gloria Steinem and entering a 1980 beauty pageant to get into college, my mother and I speak mostly about dreams: being a young woman with big writing dreams, then transitioning into being a single mom with big dreams. Holding onto dreams, putting them down, picking them back up. Silences, pauses, aging, faith,and feeling worthy enough, all tied together with a big announcement....


    The Courage to Write: https://www.amazon.com/Courage-Write-Devotions-Encourage-Writing/dp/B0B1CP8FBW


    HGH Reading List to find all the sources we talk about, and further reading related to episodes: https://locrian-sociology-cc4.notion.site/Reading-List-Hot-Girl-Histories-b82200d1eb604b12b1731422f9bccfca

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    45 mins
  • Womenheimer: Men Will Take You Only So Far... ft. Theoretical Physicist Tomasz Taylor
    Aug 15 2023

    Theory will take you only so far? MEN will take you only so far! Joined by my particle physicist father, we dissect Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer and some of the many women involved in the Manhattan Project that the movie fails to mention including Mary Frankel, Elizabeth Riddle Graves, Naomi Livesay, Maria Goeppert Mayer, and C.S Wu. But before that, we break down all the men on the screen and the ways in which the movie ignores the Trinity Test's impact on native populations. From babies to blue jeans to espionage, we discuss family life at Los Alamos, and (however surprising to the modern audience) how many women look back on their war-time at Los Alamos as the best years of their lives.


    Go to the HGH Reading List to find all the sources we talk about, and further reading related to this episode: https://locrian-sociology-cc4.notion.site/Reading-List-Hot-Girl-Histories-b82200d1eb604b12b1731422f9bccfca

    Leave a rating here on Spotify, and a review on Apple Podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hot-girl-histories/id1694099420

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    1 hr and 1 min
  • A History of Female Hysteria: Neurosis, Witches, and Humours Oh My! ft. Mayu
    Jul 17 2023

    Hot Girl Historian Mayu returns to speak on the first mental disorder attributed to women: hysteria, aka the daughter's disease, aka the madness of love! We start in 2000 BC with Hippocrates' idea of hysteron, move to Galen and Soranus' thoughts on how to deal with venomous humours coming from "bad" uteruses, then entertain the feminization of madness at the beginning of the 19th century and Freud's psychoanalytical views, and end with our thoughts on today's TikTok girlies calling themselves delulu.

    We examine questionable theories on the prevalence of hysteria in women living in non-western societies, the role syphilis played in hysteria diagnoses, and the reasons why hysterical neurosis was only deleted from the DSM in 1980.

    TW: mention of mental illness and its consequences (hospitalization, suicide, murder) and medical and non-medical abuse toward women.

    Check out The Feminist Space on Instagram (especially our post on Female Rage!): https://www.instagram.com/the_feminist_space/

    Also, go to the HGH Reading List to find all the sources we talk about, and further reading related to this episode: https://locrian-sociology-cc4.notion.site/Reading-List-Hot-Girl-Histories-b82200d1eb604b12b1731422f9bccfca

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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • Slay thy Manor House Down! Medieval Queers, Sex Work, and Disabilities ft. Naoki Matsumoto
    Jun 26 2023
    Joined by medievalist Naoki Matsumoto, Hot Girl Histories says HAPPY PRIDE MONTH! by diving into trans studies in medieval history. We examine cases of "transvestites," "sodomites," and lesbians, then digress into sex work and physical disability histories in the medieval period. Starting in 1394 with the case against Eleanor Rykener in London, we debate historiography about deadnaming and pronouns in relation to historical actors. We also discuss Rolandina Ronchaia, a transwoman from mid-fourteenth century Venice, and the trial of Katherina Hetzeldorfer in 1477 Nuremberg, the only case of lesbian female sodomy. Finishing off with examples of medieval communal solidarity for those suffering from Hansen's disease and blindness, we debunk popular perceptions of the "dark ages." HGH IS NOW ON APPLE PODCASTS!!! Go leave a review and I will love you forever :) For all things HGH: https://beacons.ai/hotgirlhistories Works Cited and Related Reading On queer people, women, and sex workers in the medieval period: Boyd, David Lorenzo, and Ruth Mazo Karras. “The Interrogation of a Male Transvestite Prostitute in Fourteenth-Century London.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 1, no. 4 (1995): 459–65. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-1-4-459.Bychowski. The transgender turn, Eleanor Rykemer speaks back. in Trans historical, gender plurality before the modern ed. Greta Lafleur, Masha Raskolnikov and Annna Klosowka, (Ithaca, 2021)https://transreads.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/2021-12-23_61c4ded98f1a1_TransHistoricalGenderPluralitybeforetheModernbyGretaLaFleureditorMashaRaskolnikoveditorAnnaKlosowskaeditor.pdfKarras, Ruth Mazo, and Tom Linkinen. “John/Eleanor Rykener Revisited.” In Founding Feminisms: Essays in Honor of E. Jane Burns, edited by Daniel O’sullivan and Laine Dogged. D.S. Brewer, 2016.http://hdl.handle.net/2262/91231 Karras, Ruth Mazo. Common Women : Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England. Cary: Oxford University Press, USA, 1996. McSheffrey, Shannon, ‘The Case of Rolandina Ronchaia, a 14th-century transwoman?’, Princeton University [accessed 26 November 2022] Page, Jamie, Prostitution and Subjectivity in Late Medieval Germany (Oxford, 2021). Paolella, Christopher, Human trafficking in Medieval Europe: Slavery, sexual exploitation and prostitution, (Amsterdam, 2020). Rasmussen, Ann Marie and Westphal-Wihl, Sarah (eds.), Ladies, whore and holy women: A sourcebook in courtly, religious and urban culture of late Medieval Germany, (Kalamazoo, 2010). Spencer-Hall, Alicia, and Blake Gutt, eds. Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography. Amsterdam University Press, 2021. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1ks0cj4. 'The Trial of Katherina Hetzeldorfer (1477)', in Helmut Puff, 'Female Sodomy', 60-61, https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/4/article/16457/pdf On disabilities: Scott, Anne M. Experiences of Charity 1250-1650 Revisiting Religious Motivations in the Charitable Endeavour. Lund Humphries Publishers, 2015. https://r3.vlereader.com/Reader?ean=9781472443397. Eyler, Joshua. Disability in the Middle Ages : Rehabilitations, Reconsiderations, Reverberations. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010. 'Humbert of Romans, To the Leprous', in Goodich, Other Middle Ages, 146-149 https://doi-org.ezproxy.st-andrews.ac.uk/10.4324/9781315577388. Metzler, Irina. Disability in Medieval Europe. Routledge, 2006. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/st-andrews/reader.action?docID=261311. O'Tool, Mark P., 'The povres avugles of the Hôpital des Quinze-Vingts: disability and community in Medieval Paris' in Difference and identity in Francia and medieval France, ed. Meredith Cohen & Justine Firnhaber-Baker (Farnham, 2010) 157-174 https://content.talisaspire.com/sta/bundles/61dc28901b02c958c5778774.
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    51 mins
  • Second-Wave Feminism: Germany, Chornobyl, & the Wave Metaphor ft. Charlotte Oakes
    May 21 2023

    Hot Girl Historian Charlotte Oakes joins Claire to discuss second-wave feminist movements in East and West Germany, Chornobyl's impact on the evolution of eco-feminism, real-existing socialism for women, mummy politics, and the double burden of women in East Germany during Soviet times. We also discuss the complications of the wave metaphor being used to refer to feminist movements, universal womanhood, global feminisms, and how every day is a school day when it comes to learning feminist histories!!!

    But first, we learn a bit about Charlotte who is currently completing her MLitt in Modern History at the University of St Andrews and will soon begin her PhD in Women's Studies at the University of York.


    Mentioned works and further reading:

    Tara Anand, "A Brief Summary Of The Second Wave Of Feminism" https://feminisminindia.com/2018/04/25/summary-second-wave-of-feminism/

    Barbara Molony and Jennifer Nelson, Women's Activism and "Second Wave" Feminism (2017), specifically Introduction:

    https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/womens-activism-and-second-wave-feminism/introduction and Chapter 8: https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/womens-activism-and-second-wave-feminism/ch8-making-a-point-by-choice-maternal-imperialism-second-wave-feminism-and-transnational-epistemologies

    Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1978).

    Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (1963).

    Kristen Ghodsee, Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence (2018).

    Lucy Delap, Feminisms: A Global History (2020).

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    1 hr and 11 mins
  • The Edinburgh Seven ft. Janey Jones
    May 1 2023

    I'm honored to have Janey Jones, the author of The Edinburgh Seven, on the podcast to discuss the incredible stories of Sophia Jex Blake, Isabel Thorne, Edith Pechey, Helen Evans, Matilda Chaplin, Emily Bovell, and Mary Anderson.

    In 1869, they fought to be the first women to study medicine in Scotland at the University of Edinburgh. We discuss the seven pillars of the book including the Hope Affair and the riot at Surgeon's Hall, and wider superstitions around women in science in the Victorian era: women were supposed to be midwives, but not doctors. Their brains were too small to practice other forms of medicine, and they would faint while dissecting a corpse! The Edinburgh Seven disproved these claims, scoring higher than their male peers on exams. Edith Pechey even achieved the highest mark in a first-term chemistry examination, but a male student received a scholarship instead for ranking second in this exam.

    A fascinating story about incredibly driven women, this history book highlights how men fear the ways in which confident, smart women can change patriarchal aspects of society. More broadly, Janey Jones' work proves (and we discuss!) how women in history need not remain a mystery.


    Order The Edinburgh Seven on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Edinburgh-Seven-Story-Medicine-Trailblazing/dp/139909923X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

    Order from Pen & Sword Books: https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Edinburgh-Seven-Hardback/p/23121

    Or go to your local bookstore! The paperback will become available this summer.


    New here? All Things Hot Girl Histories: https://beacons.ai/hotgirlhistories

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    1 hr and 4 mins
  • Esperanto Wor(l)ds and Girls: The Early Days of a Constructed Language ft. Dr. Bernhard Struck and Dr. Guilherme Fians
    Apr 25 2023

    Esperant...huh? Who's Zamenhof? What's Esperanto? You're telling me people in Dundee, Scotland were speaking this constructed language in 1910? Yes, and that's what Esperanto Wor(l)ds: Scotland, Postcards, and the Creation of an International Language, on display at the Wardlaw Museum until 29 May 2023, is all about! Joined by the Founding Director of the St Andrews Institute for Transnational & Spatial History and Reader in the School of History, Dr. Bernhard Struck, and Leverhulme Research Fellow in the School of History, Dr. Guilherme Fians, we discuss where scholarship on Esperanto is headed, how we decided to do this exhibition (none of us had any prior experience in historical curation), how we executed it, and, 11 days into the exhibition being on display, how it has been received by the St Andrews community.

    Learn more about the Esperanto and Internationalism, c. 1880-1920s project in the Institute for Transnational and Spatial History here at St Andrews: https://www.transnationalhistory.net/esperanto/en/705ea-home/


    Guilherme Fians research profile: https://risweb.st-andrews.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/guilherme-moreira-fians(2ba6e892-ea90-4296-853f-240345d2b6a1).html and a link to his book: https://risweb.st-andrews.ac.uk/portal/en/researchoutput/esperanto-revolutionaries-and-geeks(9fff8609-a9d6-4030-9d02-9ea787d11b75).html

    Bernhard Struck's research profile: https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/people/bs50

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    1 hr and 9 mins