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The Scholar's Armchair

by Dr. John Burton

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Latest episodes

  • The Exile Who Changed English Culture | Dr Annalisa Nicholson

    October 11, 2026 · 51 min

    What happens when exiles create a cultural world of their own?In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, Dr John Burton talks to Dr Annalisa Nicholson of King’s College London about her fascinating book, A Salon-in-Exile: Hortense Mancini…

  • A History of England in 25 Poems

    October 4, 2026 · 47 min

    Can poetry act as a time machine into the past? What can a poem reveal about history that archaeology, chronicles and official records cannot?In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, Dr John Burton talks to Professor Catherine Clarke…

  • Eight Women Who Rewrote Their Lives | Prof Anne Fernald

    September 27, 2026 · 52 min

    How much freedom do we really have to write the story of our own lives?In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with Anne E. Fernald about her new book, Her Own Voice: Eight Women Who Rewrote Life and Art.With Virginia Woolf and…

  • Charles DICKENS and Victorian Psychology

    September 20, 2026 · 1 hr 1 min

    Was Charles Dickens not only one of the great novelists, but also one of the great psychologists of the Victorian age? In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, Dr John talks to Tyson Stolte, Associate Professor of English at New Mexico…

  • The Curious Relationship Between Modernism and Religion | Prof Annarose Steinke

    September 13, 2026 · 56 min

    What happens to religion in poetry when belief itself becomes uncertain? In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with Professor Annarose Steinke about her book Religious Culture in Modernist Verse: Form, Belief, and…

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  • When healthcare became a profession | Dr Karen Bloom Gevirtz

    September 6, 2026 · 1 hr 2 min

    How did medicine become something we buy? And what happened to the women who had provided much of our everyday healthcare for centuries? In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with Karen Bloom Gevirtz about her fascinating…

  • How American was Renaissance England? | Dr Lauren Working

    August 30, 2026 · 43 min

    How American was Shakespeare’s England? We tend to imagine the English Renaissance as the world of Shakespeare, Elizabeth I, Walter Raleigh and the great voyages of discovery. But what happens when we reverse the direction of travel and…

  • When WW2 writing becomes treason | Prof Marius Hentea

    August 23, 2026 · 1 hr 1 min

    Can words be treason? Can a writer be held responsible not simply for what they do, but for what they write? In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with Marius Hentea, Professor of Modern Anglophone Literature at the…

  • Can MYSTICISM Free us from Ourselves? | Prof Simon Critchley

    August 16, 2026 · 52 min

    What does mysticism have to offer us in a secular age? Have we lost not only religious faith, but our capacity for wonder, ecstasy and experiences that take us beyond ourselves? In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I speak with…

  • How did Alchemy create modern chemistry? | Dr Kit Chapman

    August 9, 2026 · 37 min

    What if modern chemistry didn’t replace alchemy—but was born from it? In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I’m joined by science writer Kit Chapman to discuss his fascinating book, The Age of Alchemy: How Early Innovators Shaped…

  • How to Stay Alive in Renaissance England | Dr Alanna Skuse

    August 2, 2026 · 41 min

    How did people decide who to trust with their lives before modern medicine? In this episode of The Scholar’s Armchair, I’m joined by historian and literary scholar Dr Alanna Skuse to discuss her fascinating book, The Surgeon, the Midwife…

  • The Lost Art of Dying Well | Molly Conisbee

    July 26, 2026 · 59 min

    Death is one of the few experiences every human being shares, yet in the modern world it has become something we rarely talk about. How did that happen? And what have we lost by pushing death to the margins of everyday life? In this…

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About the show

Great minds on the greatest ideas: Conversations with scholars on their area of expertise for a general audience. Less like a lecture, more a conversation with an expert. Check us out on YouTube!