The Dead Ladies Show: Recent Episodes
Katy Derbyshire, Susan Stone & Florian Duijsens
The Dead Ladies Show is a series of entertaining and inspiring presentations on women who achieved amazing things against all odds, presented live on stage in Berlin at event space ACUD. This podcast is based on that series. @deadladiesshow on Instagram and Twitter. Facebook: thedeadladiesshow.
In this episode, we hop over to New York to encounter our Dead Lady of the hour, May Ziadeh, a Lebanese-Palestinian poet, writer, translator, and feminist, whose work explored themes of love, identity, and the liberation of women. Books were her beloved companions throughout her life, and proved more steadfast than people. May began writing at an early age, started an important literary salon, and had moments of fame, but is perhaps better known for the years of isolation and tragedy that marked her life. She deserves more. May wrote in her diary: “After my death, I hope that someone will do me justice and find the sincerity and honesty contained in my small writings.”
Our presenter is Rosana Elkhatib, a designer, researcher, and curator. She is a co-founding principal of feminist architecture collaborative f-architecture and has taught at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation.
DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire joins host/producer Susan Stone to introduce the talk.
Thanks to the team at Dead Ladies NYC for sharing this presentation with us: Molly O’Laughlin Kemper, Sheila Enright, Christopher Neil and the KGB Bar’s Lori Schwarz.
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Pocket Casts.
Show notes:
May at her deskTitle page of May’s first book, published in French under a pseudonym in 1911May in a hatMay Ziadeh got a Google Doodle in 2012Read three of May’s poems in English translation here: https://losangelesreview.org/3-poems-translated-rose-demaris/
If you’re in New York and want to see the show live, stay up-to-date with Dead Ladies NYC via their newsletter here: https://deadladiesshow.substack.com/
If you’re in Berlin and want to stay in touch, our newsletter is here: https://deadladiesshowberlin.beehiiv.com
And find us on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/deadladiesshow
Need even more Dead Ladies in your life? Become a member of our Patreon and get exclusive episodes of our Dead Lady Book Club, where we chat about books, ideas, music and more — by and about Dead Ladies. For just a couple of dollars, pounds or euros a month, you can support our work and join in the fun. Check it out at patreon.com/deadladiesshowpodcast
In this episode of our podcast, DLS co-host Florian Duijsens tells us about journalist, writer, and witness to history Dorothy Thompson. As a foreign correspondent in Germany, she was among the first to caution against the growing tides of fascism, warning urgently against the Nazis and Hitler. Unfortunately, the world didn’t listen. Dorothy continued to speak out throughout her life, and during her career peak, was read and heard on the radio by millions.
Her personal life at times also made the news — she was married to Pulitzer Prize-winning author and alcoholic Sinclair ‘Hal’ Lewis but was also less openly involved with German-Hungarian novelist, playwright and sculptor Christa Winsloe, the author of the notorious girl’s boarding school lesbian story which became Mädchen in Uniform, an even more notorious film starring Dead Lady Romy Schneider.
Katy Derbyshire, our other DLS co-founder joins host/producer Susan Stone to introduce the story.
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Pocket Casts.
Join our newsletter to stay updated on our events, including our May 13th Anniversary Show in Berlin: https://deadladiesshowberlin.beehiiv.com/
Tickets can be found here: https://literatur-berlin.tickettoaster.de/produkte/3707-tickets-dead-ladies-show-39-the-10th-anniversary-edition-lettretage-berlin-am-13-05-2025
Join the newsletter for Dead Ladies NYC here. Their next show is May 8: https://deadladiesshow.substack.com/
Show notes:
Young Dorothy was an avid reader.Dorothy as a suffragist organizerRead the New York Times article on the work of Cincinnati’s pioneering Social Unit during the influenza epidemic here.
Dorothy at home with her first husband, Joseph BardThe chief of her newspaper’s Berlin bureau, recliningSinclair Lewis (aka Red or Hal) was a love-bomber – and Dorothy’s second husband.In Moscow, finallyThe newlyweds and their honeymoon caravanDorothy and Hal’s home in Vermont is now a fancy resort.Dorothy looking gorgeousChrista Winsloe holding a dog at the fateful winter holiday in SemmeringTraveling with young Michael in 1935You can watch an interview with Dorothy about her expulsion from Germany on the Facebook page of the Holocaust museum.
By 1937, Dorothy was one of the first women on American radio.In 1941, Dorothy wrote her eerily resonant Harper’s article “Who Goes Nazi?” You can watch a documentary Dorothy wrote about her war-time farming initiative here (it was partly shot at her home in Vermont).
Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy parodied Dorothy’s marriage to Sinclair Lewis.A restored version of the first documentary of Palestinian refugees, introduced by DorothyIf you want to know more about her, look no further than Peter Kurth’s massive biography, American Cassandra, not in print, but available as an eBook, her friend Vincent Sheean remarkable collection of her letters and diaries, Dorothy & Red, very out of print, and Deborah Cohen’s Last Call at the Hotel Imperial, on the American foreign correspondents of WWII (with Emily Hahn cameos!).
You can find NPR’s recent feature on Dorothy Thompson here. And Florian is excited about the new German biography by Karina von Tippelskirch coming in October!
Thanks for listening! We will be back next month with another fabulous Dead Lady.
We’re back with Season Eight of the Dead Ladies Show Podcast!
In this episode, DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire brings us the story of Boudica, an ancient British queen who fought the Romans. Though she led her Iceni tribe in a rebellion, the Romans prevailed, but wrote a fair bit about her in the history books.
In her afterlife, Boudica became a mascot for the suffragettes but also co-opted as a symbol for all things British; also, Enya wrote a song about her.
DLS co-founder Florian Duijsens joins producer/host Susan Stone to set the stage.
For more on the Boudica-inspired perfume Susan mentioned, look here: https://www.boudiccawode.com/
Dead Ladies NYC has a show March 6 — find out more here on their newsletter: https://deadladiesshow.substack.com/
And in Berlin we are celebrating 10 years of DLS! Come see us May 13th, and find out more via our website: https://deadladiesshowberlin.beehiiv.com/
Please consider joining our Patreon! We have lots of fun interviews and book chat and more over at patreon.com/deadladiesshowpodcast
If you like, follow us on social media @deadladiesshow where we share pictures and info about all of the wonderful Dead Ladies we’ve covered so far. You can also drop us a line via info@deadladiesshow.com and we’re on BlueSky, too: https://bsky.app/profile/deadladiesshow.bsky.social
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Pocket Casts.
Show notes:
Read more: Podcast #79: BoudicaVoadicea imagined in 1577Boadicea, Queen of BritainVictorian statue of BoadiceaSome queenly comparisons
Suffragettes in 1909’s Pageant of Great WomenThe home of the Iceni tribeIceni gold coinAmazing Iceni torc found in SnettishamFison Way industrial estateThetford back in the dayWhere Boudica may or may not have lived
Surviving Roman arch in ColchesterIron-Age brooch, droppedReconstructed chariotTwo great sources: Miranda Aldhouse-Green’s Boudica Britannia, and Hingly & Unwin’s Boudica. Iron Age Warrior Queen
On screen: the movie Boudica, Queen of War and Channel 4’s Queens That Changed the World.
Our theme music is “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon. Thanks for listening! We’ll be back with a new episode next month.
It’s our last episode of Season Seven, and our last episode of 2024, which means it’s Rotkäppchen time! Join us as we toast to Dead Ladies with German fizzy wine, and hear the story of another fabulous woman.
DLS cofounders Katy Derbyshire and Florian Duijsens join the party as we get ready to hear the story of writer Paula Fox. As Florian explains, this talented author’s personal plot twists and turns include a stint as foreign correspondent, receiving a baby alligator in the mail, writing award-winning children’s books and a novel adapted for a film starring Shirley MacLaine, oh—also being Courtney Love’s grandmother (but not knowing that for decades).
Want to hear our end of year review and our Dead Lady gift list chat? This time it’s exclusive on Patreon, but you can join up starting at only $2 or 2€ and get access to all our special content past, present, and future. You can also gift (or request) a subscription to the Dead Ladies Show by following this link.
We can tell you this already: we will be live in Berlin on February 16th and May 13th, when we celebrate our 10th anniversary of the Dead Ladies Show in Berlin! Save the date, dears!
If you’re in NYC, go see our pals Dead Ladies Show NYC on January 16 at the KGB Bar Red Room. Find out more from them on Instagram @deadladiesnyc or join up for their newsletter if you like here.
We’d also be pleased as punch if you follow us on social media @deadladiesshow where we share pictures and info about all of the wonderful Dead Ladies we’ve covered so far. You can also drop us a line via info@deadladiesshow.com and we’re on BlueSky too!
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Pocket Casts.
Show notes:
Read more: Podcast #78: Paula FoxPaula’s great-granddaughter Frances Bean Cobain in and ex uteroPaula Fox’s gorgeous, terrible parents, Elsie de Sola and Paul Hervey FoxPaula and her beloved Uncle Elwood CorningPaula’s first movie star, Lilyan TashmanYoung Paula in QueensPosters for the worst movie Graham Greene ever sawThe last thing Paula neededPaula as a young womanPaula’s marvelous memoirs of her childhood and her time as a journalist in war-torn EuropeThe movie that bought Paula her brownstonePaula in said brownstoneThe only biography of Paula’s so far is in GermanOur theme music is “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon. Thanks for listening! We’ll be back with a new episode next year.
In this episode we hear a story that feels sadly relevant—a miscarriage of justice. Anna Göldi was the last woman to be legally executed after being accused of witchcraft in Switzerland, in 1782; just seven years before the French Revolution, and a century after witch trials were rampant in Europe (as well as infamously in Salem, Massachusetts). Anna came from a poor family, and worked as a maid in various households, but she was also an independent and freethinking woman. In 1781 she was looking after a young girl who allegedly began spitting up pins and nails.
Her wealthy employers accused her of witchcraft, and she was tortured until she admitted being in league with the devil. Anna Göldi was sentenced to death by decapitation for poisoning, even though the girl had not died. Not until 2007 was her case reevaluated and her name cleared. There’s now a museum, several podcasts, films and books that cover Anna’s life and story. DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire tells it for us, and host/producer Susan Stone and our other co-founder Florian Duijsens come along to set things up.
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Pocket Casts. You can find the transcript, created by Susan, here.
Show notes:
Continue reading
Wedding party looks like fun; the subsequent trial and penalty less so. Glarus back thenA woman operating a mechanical loom, in development during 1780s
Masha Karrell in the Anna Göldi musicalDr Tschudi’s house in Glarus, now the Anna Göldi MuseumThe wanted noticeThe pins as illustrated in the new media Cornelia Kempers in Gertrud Pinkus’s Anna Göldi feature filmTwo German books about Anna: the novel (left) by Eveline Hasler and one of several excellent non-fiction books by Walter Hauser, who campaigned for her rehabilitation.
Our theme music is “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon. Thanks for listening! We’ll be back with a new episode next month.
The Dead Ladies Show is a series of entertaining and inspiring talks about women who achieved amazing things against all odds, presented live in Berlin and beyond. This podcast is based on that series. Because women’s history is everyone’s history.
The Dead Ladies Show was founded by Florian Duijsens and Katy Derbyshire.
The podcast is created, produced, edited, and presented by Susan Stone.
In this episode, Rachel Pronger of the Invisible Women film collective brings us the story of iconoclastic Czech film multi-talent Ester Krumbachová. Ester was a screen writer, costume and stage designer, author, and film director. Her work was quirky, colorful, and political, lashing out at patriarchy and authoritarianism. She had a defining influence on Czech New Wave cinema, collaborating on more than twenty movies from the early 1960s on, including the delightful Daisies and the perplexing Murdering the Devil. Her involvement in the satire A Report on the Party and Guests meant she was blacklisted from working in film by the Czechoslovakian communist party during much of the 1980s. She worked under pseudonyms, painted and made jewelry, returning to the film industry in the 1990s.
DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire joins producer/host Susan Stone to set the scene.
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Pocket Casts. You can find the transcript, created by Susan, here.
Show notes:
Ester Krumbachová enjoying a beverageThe trailer for Věra Chytilová’s documentary Looking for Ester (2005)A stern-looking Ester and her parentsEster dazzling at 19Miroslav Macháček later in life – on stage and feeding a baby chimpA still from Oldřich Lipský’s The Man from the First Century (1961), the first film Ester worked on as a costume designerDirected by Ester’s second husband Jan Němec, Diamonds of the Night (1964) would see Ester expand her role beyond costume design into screenwriting and dramaturgy.Němec’s A Report on the Party and Guests (1966) was based on a story by Ester.Gorgeous posters for some films Ester would work onEster co-wrote and designed Witchhammer (1970), Otakar Vávra’s grimly powerful film about 16th-century witch trials (allegory!).That same year, Ester co-wrote and designed the dazzling erotic fairytale Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970)Vera Chytilová’s Daisies (1966) is a surreal anarchist romp which follows two spoiled young women, both called Marie, who scam their way around Prague, tricking men into buying them dinner and causing general chaos. Ester was a co-writer, costume designer, and creative consultant.Ester on the set of Murdering the Devil (1969)The trailer for the newly restored edition of Ester’s debut (and sadly only) filmEster not giving a fuckArt and jewelry created by Ester in her troubled later yearsKaren Elson wearing Ester’s jewelry in Czech VogueEster and one of her beloved felinesLearn more about Ester’s work at Esterkrumbachova.org. Rachel Pronger is a freelance writer, editor and curator based in Berlin. Her writing has been published by outlets including Sight & Sound, The Guardian, MUBI Notebook, Art Monthly, Elephant Art, and BBC Culture. She is also co-founder of archive activist feminist film collective Invisible Women, and has served as a programme adviser for Sheffield DocFest, BFI London Film Festival and Aesthetica Short Film Festival.
In this episode, we’re live at PodFest Berlin! DLS co-founders Katy Derbyshire and Florian Duijsens do the introducing, while DLSP Producer Susan Stone tells us about the amazing life of Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress (in 1968). Four years later, Shirley was the first Black person and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. She was known for her hard work on behalf of equal rights, introducing legislation that helped women and children, workers and the poor. Additionally, she was called the “best dressed woman on Capitol Hill” for her sharp style. Shirley’s legendary campaign slogan was “Unbought and unbossed,” and she kept the philosophy throughout her long political career. Shirley never wanted to be remembered as the “first” this or that, but as someone who fought for change and blazed a path for those like her in politics. Her legacy is undeniable.
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Pocket Casts.
Show notes:
Little Shirley with grandmother Emmeline Searle, 1925Shirley’s graduation photo, 1942Shirley and first husband Conrad ChisholmWith cool guy in hat, her political mentor Wesley McDonald Holder (Mac)Shirley with Rosa Parks
Being sworn into Congress by House Speaker McCormack, January 1969Inspiring readers…
The only woman in the room… Congressional Black Caucus, 1971You can watch Shirley’s full speech declaring her presidential bid here.
Unbought and unbossedShirley’s style!!
See recent advice for the current Democratic presidential candidate in the Guardian: “the style lesson Kamala Harris can learn from Shirley Chisholm”.
With second husband Arthur Hardwick Jr.President Bill Clinton & Shirley Chisholm in the Oval Office, July 1993 Official portrait by Kadir NelsonRead more in Shirley’s own books: Unbought and Unbossed and The Good Fight, or in Barbara Winslow’s biography Shirley Chisholm, Catalyst for Change.
Thanks to PodFest Berlin’s Dan Stern, Eman Khallouf, and Grace Hamdam, as well as Ben Currey from House of Color.
Our theme music is “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon.
Drop us a line info@deadladiesshow.com
Thanks for listening! We’ll be back with a new episode next month.
In this episode we run off to New York to get a post-Olympic sports fix! Writer and editor Sheila Enright who is both a former track and field runner and co-host of Dead Ladies NYC brings us the story of American gold medallist Wilma Rudolph.
Born into a family of 22 children in segregated Tennessee, Wilma Rudolph was diagnosed with polio at a young age and told she would never walk again. But her mother told her she would, and young Wilma decided not only would she walk, she would run! A skilled sprinter, she qualified for her first Olympics at the age of 16, bringing home a bronze medal as part of the relay team. She decided to go further, faster, and at the 1960 Olympics she set records and won 3 gold medals, being dubbed “The Fastest Woman on Earth.”
During and after her athletic career, Wilma Rudolph used her celebrity to further important causes, from desegregation to sports education for children.
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts, and Stitcher.
Show notes:
Here’s Sheila Enright working her magic in the Red Room!
The book that piqued Sheila’s interestWilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World’s Fastest Woman by Kathleen Krull, illustrated by David Diaz
Young Wilma, rightWith the relay team at her first Olympics, 1956Wilma and her kidsRunning at school……and winning in Rome, 1960The integrated parade (and Cadillac) in Wilma’s honorPolitical actionWilma and Florence Griffith JoynerUltimate achievement: postage stampWatch Wilma running on the Olympics website or YouTube.
And if you want more fast-moving dead ladies, check out our second ever podcast, featuring Sarah Fisher on Fanny Blankers-Koen.
Our upcoming show September 14th at 4pm at PodFest Berlin will have tickets available soon. Find out more about the event here: https://www.podfestberlin.com/
Get tickets for DLS NYC’s next event on September 25th here: https://tinyurl.com/DLSNYCSept25
Thanks to Molly O’Laughlin Kemper, Sheila Enright, Christopher Neil, and Lori Schwartz, general manager of the KGB Bar Red Room.
Our theme music is “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon.
Check out our Patreon here: www.patreon.com/deadladiesshowpodcast
Thanks for listening! We’ll be back with a new episode next month.
In this episode of our podcast, DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire brings us the story of Therese Giehse, a German actor, pacifist and exile known for founding an anti-Nazi cabaret (which, really, we could all get behind these days). Therese had artistic and other adventures with her lover Erika Mann (daughter of Thomas Mann), was photographed by Annemarie Schwarzenbach, and embodied several of Bertolt Brecht’s best-known characters on stage. She also acted in movies with Vivien Leigh and previous DLS star Romy Schneider.
Born in Munich in 1898, she went against her liberal Jewish family’s expectations to train as an actor, cast as older characters even as a young woman. The Pfeffermühle cabaret started up in 1933, swiftly moving to Zürich to escape the Nazis. With Erika and Klaus Mann, Giehse toured the political show around Europe, never mentioning any names but using parables and storytelling to rip the piss out of Hitler and his henchmen.
Therese returned to Zürich in 1937, where she joined the outstanding cast at the Schauspielhaus theatre, many of them also emigrants like her. During the war, she performed in the premiere staging of Brecht’s anti-war play Mother Courage, defining the title role in what some directors have called the greatest play of the 20th century.
She went on working with Brecht and other key playwrights and directors after 1945, in Munich, Zürich and East Berlin. Therese Giehse maintained her pacifist stance throughout her life, criticizing the Vietnam War at public events. She died in 1975 and is buried with her sister in Zürich.
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Acast. You can download the transcript, created by Susan, here.
Show notes:
Therese singing Brecht’s “Mutter Beimlein hat ein Holzbein”Young Therese GiftTherese at 21Therese’s teacher, Toni Wittels-SturyIn her conehead costume in Munich“Crazy owl” Hitler and his Beer Hall Putsch croniesErika Mann, Annemarie Schwarzenbach, Klauss Mann gondola-ing through VeniceErika in her Pierrot modeThe Peppermill cabaret gang (Therese in her big coat, with Erika and Klaus down in front)Therese as “Stupidity”Therese in exile, by Annemarie SchwarzenbachHandsome hat-wearer (and husband) John Hampson, by Howard CosterThe American edition of the Peppermill was not a success.Therese originated the titular role in Brecht’s Mother Courage.The stunning Marianne Hoppe in 1935Romy and Therese in Mädchen in Uniform (1958)Therese in Dürrenmatt playsTherese Giehse in Münchner GeschichtenTherese’s final film was Black Moon (1975)Our theme music is “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon.
Check out our Patreon here: www.patreon.com/deadladiesshowpodcast
Thanks for listening! We’ll be back with a new episode next month.
In this episode, DLS co-founder Florian Duijsens introduces us to Dame Miriam Rothschild, a British zoologist, entomologist, and botanist. Coming from a wealthy family (yes, those Rothschilds) with an active interest in nature, she started collecting ladybirds and caterpillars and taking a tame quail to bed with her at the age of four. During a stint of WWII codebreaking at Bletchley Park, she pressured the British government to take in more Jewish refugees, providing housing for 49 children in her own (stately) home. She then became a leading authority on fleas, with sidelines in other parasites, butterflies, and meadow restoration.
DLS co-host Katy Derbyshire joins producer Susan Stone to kick off the fun.
If you are in New York, you can see a Dead Ladies Show July 17 and September 25 at the KGB Bar’s Red Room. Find out more from them on Instagram @deadladiesnyc or join up for their newsletter if you like here.
Don’t forget we have a Patreon! This month, Florian is there telling Susan all about another Rothschild — Pannonica, Miriam’s sister, who was named for a moth, and known as the Jazz Baroness for her patronage of and friendships with musical greats including Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk. You can join up for as little as $2 or 2 euros a month and enjoy our full archive of special features, and our eternal gratitude. Here’s the link!
We’d also be grateful if you follow us on social media @deadladiesshow where we share pictures and info about all of the wonderful Dead Ladies we’ve covered so far. You can also drop us a line via info@deadladiesshow.com
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Acast.
Show notes:
Kennedy Fraser’s Ornament & Silence: Essays on Women’s Lives from Edith Wharton to Germaine Greer is the book in which Florian first encountered Miriam. You can read her New Yorker story, delightfully titled “Fritillaries and Hairy Violets” in their archives.
Miriam’s home in Ashton Wold in all its gloryHere you can see Miriam’s “floppily uncorseted” garden in the flesh!Miriam’s mother, Rózsika was an avid athlete and an activist on behalf of Zionism.Miriam as an avid milkmaidThis documentary about Miriam’s sister Pannonica (by Miriam’s niece) is fascinating in and of itself, but also shows how Miriam grew up.The British government’s Balfour Declaration, which committed them to “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” was addressed to Miriam’s uncle Walter, seen below perched on a giant turtle.Miriam’s troubled father, Charles, and the plague flea he discoveredYoung Miriam was undecided on what to do with her life.Miriam’s husband, a Hungarian water polo player who chose the name George Lane when he joined X Troop, a secret commando of exiled European Jews fighting for the British, often behind enemy lines.A stark contrast between Miriam’s workplace at Bletchley Park and her “billet” at Mentmore TowersMiriam spent decades studying fleas.Marie-Louise von Motesiczky’s contrasting portraits of Miriam. You can read her very kind letter here at the Tate.Miriam and her kids in her labThe results of the special seed mix Miriam concocted called “Farmer’s Nightmare”Miriam talking about her favorite thingsIf you’d like to know more about Miriam Rothschild, do listen to her charming Desert Island Discs episode (better than her brother’s appearance on that same show), this episode of The Science Show from Australian radio, or check out these two books below: The Women of Rothschild: The Untold Story of the World’s Most Famous Dynasty by Natalie Livingstone and Miriam’s own, delightful Butterfly Cooing Like A Dove. And if you’d like to know more about the history of Palestine, I most heartily recommend The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi; if you’d like to learn more about its native plants, go see Jumana Manna’s beautiful film Foragers.
Miriam in her moonboots!************
Our theme music is “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon. Thanks for listening! We’ll be back with a new episode next month.
The Dead Ladies Show is a series of entertaining and inspiring talks about women who achieved amazing things against all odds, presented live in Berlin and beyond. This podcast is based on that series. Because women’s history is everyone’s history.
The Dead Ladies Show was founded by Florian Duijsens and Katy Derbyshire.
The podcast is created, produced, edited, and presented by Susan Stone.
In this episode, we take a jaunt to New York to find out about the talented and difficult Patricia Highsmith. You might know one of her most notorious characters, Tom Ripley, from your Netflix queue (the new series Ripley) or via one of the many films based on what might be Highsmith’s best-known novel, The Talented Mr. Ripley. Highsmith wrote several books that redefined the concept of the thriller, as well as one of the few stories to give a lesbian couple a happy ending.
That novel, The Price of Salt, was adapted into the 2015 film Carol, starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. It was inspired by one of Highsmith’s many obsessive relationships (or in this case, just an obsession) with women. Long a closeted lesbian, Highsmith was engaged to a man (as required by 1950s societal mores) yet aggressively seduced lady after lady.
She also wrote obsessively, was highly ambitious, and kept thousands of pages of diaries written in various languages to avoid spilling her secrets (they have been translated since her death in 1995). She was misanthropic and bigoted, and even her friends considered her unpleasant to be around, but her psychological thrillers have remained classics, partly for how they provide insight into the mind of the criminal.
The talk by writer and educator Hannah Meyer comes courtesy of our friends at Dead Ladies Show NYC. DLS co-founder Florian Duijsens was there for the event in NYC, and he joins producer/host Susan Stone to help introduce the episode.
Find Dead Ladies NYC on Instagram: @deadladiesnyc and follow Hannah Meyer @hannahrenee_m
Show notes:
The “lover’s chart”
A chart from Patricia Highsmith’s 1945 diaries in which she compared her lovers. The initials of the women have been removed to protect their privacy.The first novel
Adapted for the screen…
It’s Carol! Adapted from the novel The Price of Salt
Charismatic fictional murderer Tom Ripley has captured many imaginations, with “a great deal of evil coming off the page”
The fifth novel, with some patronizing praise
Curmudgeonly decade
Read Hannah’s essay about Patricia Highsmith and obsession on LitHub .
Subscribe to the NYC newsletter.
In New York? Get tickets to the NYC May 22nd show!
In Berlin? Get tickets for our May 16th show if you’re quick!
If you’re a Patreon member, you already got an early preview of this episode! Not a member? Join up at https://www.patreon.com/deadladiesshowpodcast
Thanks to Molly O’Laughlin Kemper, Sheila Enright, Christopher Neil, and Lori Schwartz, general manager of the KGB Bar Red Room.
Our theme music is “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon.
Drop us a line info@deadladiesshow.com or find us on social media @deadladiesshow
Thanks for listening! We’ll be back with a new episode next month.
* NOTE: This episode’s Dead Lady had a very challenging existence, particularly when she was younger, and her story is marked by multiple incidents of violence and sexual abuse. Please use caution when listening ***
In this episode, we join forces with the Ms Informed podcast to bring you the story of Phoolan Devi.
Known as India’s “Bandit Queen,” Phoolan Devi overcame a life of poverty, illiteracy, and abuse, first as a child bride, and later enduring after being kidnapped by bandits and rising to lead the gang. She eventually became a politician, campaigning for women’s causes and the poor. Even today, Phoolan is a symbol for the anger, vengeance and injustice against women in India, as well as an inspiration for the lower classes.
Madhvi Ramani and Rina Grob told her story at a recent live DLS show in Berlin.
DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire joins host/producer Susan Stone to introduce this episode.
Discover the Ms Informed podcast wherever you like to listen, and here. As mentioned, Katy and Susan have done an interview with them which will appear on Ms Informed Episode 165. You can also follow them on Instagram.
Show notes:
Read more: Podcast #70: Phoolan DeviPhoolan Devi in February 1995Making dung cakesPhoolan’s cousinPhoolan’s fatherPhoolan in her bandit years
Phoolan and others before surrendering to the police in 1983Phoolan after prisonVersion 1.0.0To learn more about Phoolan Devi, check out her autobiography I, Phoolan Devi: The Autobiography of India’s Bandit Queen and Malan Sen’s India’s Bandit Queen: The True Story of Phoolan Devi, and on Phoolan’s legacy, read The Furies: Three Women and their Fight for Justice by journalist and writer Elizabeth Flock. As for Shekhar Kapur’s film Bandit Queen, you’re better off reading Arundhati Roy’s essay on the film.
Also mentioned was the Mann Deshi Foundation, a woman-founded charity that set up the first rural bank for women in India and helps women and girls in rural areas in India so that they are given a chance in life and help their communities.
Daughters of Destiny, available on Netflix, follows five girls from the Dalit class, who enter Shanti Bhavan, a school that educates the poorest children
If you are interested in attending the upcoming Dead Ladies Show at the Droste Festival in Muenster, get more details on the event here. And if you’d like to come see us in Berlin May 16th, consider subscribing to our newsletter to receive updates. Fans of the New York show can get their newsletter here.
Want to see the CBS News feature about us? You can find it linked to on our About page and pinned on our Instagram feed.
Our theme music is “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon.
Don’t forget, we have a Patreon! Thanks to all of our current supporters! Please consider supporting our transcripts project and our ongoing work.
Drop us a line info@deadladiesshow.com or find us on social media @deadladiesshow
Thanks for listening! We’ll be back with a new episode next month.
In this episode, we bring you…the woman known as the “Mother Theresa of Reggae!
Sister Mary Ignatius, a white Jamaican Catholic nun dedicated her life to the Alpha Boys’ School in Kingston, where she taught football, cricket, boxing, table tennis and dominoes – but most importantly, music. A lover of jazz and blues, she inspired hundreds of “wayward boys” to become professional musicians, including future Skatalites Tommy McCook and Don Drummond, trombonist Rico Rodriguez and the conductor Leslie Thompson. Without Sister Mary Ignatius, who died at the age of 81 in 2003, we might never have had reggae.
DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire tells the story of the woman known to her young charges as “Sister Iggy.” And she joins host/producer Susan Stone to introduce this episode, the first of Season Seven of the Dead Ladies Show Podcast, and to wish you all a happy International Women’s Day on March 8th!
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Acast.
And you can download our transcript, prepared by Susan Stone, here.
If you’re in New York by any chance, put Tuesday, March 19 in your diary for Dead Ladies Show NYC. More details here!
Show notes:
At Old Spanish Town, 1921The enormous baobab tree at the young Davies’ schoolYoung MarjorieThe Alpha Boys’ School more recentlyFormer bauxite mining site, JamaicaNuns probably don’t wear 70s-style eye-shadowBut there’s no rule against playing the saxophoneInfluential ska band the Skatalites, including several Alpha boys Sister Ignatius with some sound equipmentThe Mutt & Jeff sound system, built at Alpha Boys’ School and used by Sister Ignatius every Saturday
Former Jamaican poet laureate Lorna GoodisonYou can buy Goodison’s poetry collection Mother Muse, which contains the poem “The Near Noonday Dance of Sister Iggy”.
Or find out more from one of these two excellent sources: Heather Augustyn’s Alpha Boys’ School or Lloyd Bradley’s Bass Culture: When Reggae Was King.
View the catalogue of Sister Ignatius’s record collection online at the Seattle Museum of Pop Culture.
And lastly, you’d be foolish not to listen to Alpha Boys’ School Radio!
Our theme music is “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon.
Don’t forget, we have a Patreon! Thanks to all of our current supporters! Please consider supporting our transcripts project and our ongoing work: www.patreon.com/deadladiesshowpodcast
In this episode, the last of Season Six, we bring you a show live from PodFest Berlin! DLS-ers Susan Stone and Katy Derbyshire joined the city’s fine and friendly podcasters at the yearly event in front of a small but perfectly formed audience.
From that event, producer Susan brings us the fascinating story of June Tarpé Mills, a comics pioneer and the first woman to create a female superhero, Miss Fury. The alter ego of socialite Marla Drake, Miss Fury wore a cursed black leopard skin and travelled the world fighting evil (mostly Nazis). She was sexy and smart, and a global hit from 1941–1951, during which she appeared in 100 newspapers, millions of comic books, and on the side of several US bombers. Then she, like her creator, largely disappeared. Decades after her death in obscurity, Mills is finally getting the recognition she deserves, from a headstone for her unmarked grave to induction into the Comic Industry Hall of Fame.
We mentioned our wonderful friend Andy Horn, who introduced us to Tarpé Mills. Read more about Andy here.
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Acast. You can download the transcript, created by Susan, here.
Read more: Podcast #68: June Tarpé MillsShow notes:
June Tarpé Mills and her cat Perri-PurrEarly work: 1938–1941The introduction of Black FuryMiss Fury’s gorgeous title panelsMiss Fury vs. a familiar-looking “impostor”Fan-favorite nemesis Erica von KampfMore supporting characters/nemesesFantomah was created by Fletcher Hanks in 1940Miami Daily News, 1944Wonder Woman debuted six months after Miss Fury (and looked very similar)US Military World War II BombersMarla Drake’s pin-upThe 1947 image that caused 37 newspapers to drop Miss FuryA hard-to-recognize Miss Fury from 1951The picture Red took on his last assignmentMarvel: Our Love Story #14 from 1971The gorgeous cover of the 1979 Miss Fury collectionMiss Fury appearing on the cover of 2007’s TwelveMiss Fury’s afterlife in comicsThe gorgeous 2011/2013 Library of Comics reissues of the original Miss Fury runMiss Fury watching over the Prada runway in Milan, 2017
To learn more, check out these books, and of course the official June Tarpe Mills websiteOne last note — If you’d like to support us and get a bit of Dead Lady content before we come back with season seven, please check out our Patreon where we have loads of exclusive content including interviews and book reviews, and even entire Dead Ladies Show presentations that you’ll get to hear before (almost) anyone else. Thanks to everyone who already supports us there, including our new friend Rita Durant!
Our theme music is “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Tri-Tachyon/the-kleptotonic-ep/little-lily-swing
You can browse our TeePublic shop at this link: https://www.teepublic.com/user/dead-ladies-show
We are on Instagram and Twitter @deadladiesshow and on BlueSky @deadladiesshow.bsky.social
Thanks for listening! We’ll be back soon with a new season full of fabulous Dead Ladies!
In this episode, we hear once again from our friends at Dead Ladies NYC. Nafisa Ferdous presents Amrita Sher-Gil, a queer, feminist, Hungarian-Indian artist, writer, and art critic who left a profound impact on art despite her untimely death. Sher-Gil was an incredibly charismatic non-conformist whose work reframed discussions on art and feminism, orientalism, and colonialism, while merging European technique and classical Indian aesthetics into something new. DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire joins producer/host Susan Stone to introduce the story.
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Acast. You can download the transcript, created by Susan Stone, here.
Show notes:
Early self-portraits by Amrita Sher-Gil
Topless on a beach
Those bourgeois parents, Marie-Antoinette and Umrao
Young Amrita sketching, as always
Eighteen in Paris
Award-winning painting Young Girls
Self-portrait as a Tahitian
Amrita back in Shimla
Later works
What an icon!
Amrita Sher-Gil by Nafisa Ferdous. Our presenter Nafisa is is a talented illustrator who often draws Dead Ladies! Find her art here: https://www.nafisaferdous.com/ and here: https://www.instagram.com/__petni/
There are a couple of biographies out there; Nafisa worked with this one, by Yashodhara Dalmia.
You can follow Dead Ladies NYC on Instagram @deadladiesnyc and get tickets to their upcoming show on September 27 here.
The Dead Ladies Show Podcast will be recording live at PodFest Berlin October 14th! Get your tickets and find out more about the festival here.
Our theme music is “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon.
Check out our Patreon here: www.patreon.com/deadladiesshowpodcast
And browse our TeePublic shop at this link: https://www.teepublic.com/user/dead-ladies-show
We are on Instagram and Twitter @deadladiesshow and on BlueSky @deadladiesshow.bsky.social
Thanks for listening! We’ll be back with a new episode next month.
In this episode, we encounter the show’s very first featured geographer. Doreen Massey was a pioneer in her field. She challenged existing ideas about space, place and power, was compassionate, politically active, and hopeful. She worked mainly at the Centre for Environmental Studies think tank, and at British early-morning TV fans’ beloved Open University … Continue reading "Podcast #66: Doreen Massey"
In this episode, DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire has the story of a deutsche Diva — an iconic German actress and singer and best-selling author known for her glamour and scandal, her smoky voice and sweeping false eyelashes. Hildegard Knef was also an unreliable narrator and a serial fabulator who was alternately loved and hated in … Continue reading "Podcast #64: Hildegard Knef"
In this episode, translator Laura Radosh introduces us to the fascinating and troubled writer Djuna Barnes. The journalist, novelist, and artist mixed with everyone from James Joyce to Peggy Guggenheim, and was at the center of Bohemian life in 1920s New York and Paris, though perhaps not quite as much as she would like. Best known (if at all) for her modernist novel Nightwood, Djuna once called herself ”the most famous unknown in the world.”
DLS co-founder Florian Duijsens joins producer/host Susan Stone to muse on Djuna and her circle of modernist Dead Ladies.
If you’d like to get advance tickets for our May show in Berlin they are here. DLS NYC tickets can be purchased here.
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Acast.
Show notes:
Read more: Podcast #63: Djuna BarnesBarnes’s place on Patchin PlaceAnother portrait by sometime roommate Berenice AbbottYoung DjunaGrandma ZadelThe note from Zadel Laura mentionsDjuna’s experiential journalism for the Brooklyn EagleOne of Djuna’s elegant drawingsBaroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, who tragically picked Djuna to be her literary executorMary Pyne, the lover whom Djuna nursed until her death of tuberculosis in 1919Djuna eyeing Mina LoyThe “fountain syringe” used the bottom-left nozzleTo Paris!Djuna and the Baroness in happier timesJanet Flanner, who covered Paris for the New YorkerMargaret Anderson & Jane Heap, editors of the Little ReviewNatalie Barney, here with Romaine BrooksBrooks’s typically severe self-portraitYou can see Natalie Barney’s Parisian home and garden with its Temple of Friendship in this documentary.Silverpoint artist Thelma Wood, who inspired Djuna’s famous Nightwood (1936)Greta Schiller’s Paris Was a Woman (1996) is well worth seeking out in full!Peggy GuggenheimCharles Henri Ford, buttoning upListen to Dylan Thomas reading Nightwood here.You can hear Djuna reading from her autobiographical play in verse The Antiphon at the Paris Review, and check out our episodes on Berenice Abbott and Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven.
Our theme music is “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon. Want to suggest a Dead Lady for us? Drop us a line to info@deadladiesshow.com or tell us on social media. Thanks for listening! We’ll be back with a new episode next month.
Our story for this episode comes from our friends at the Dead Ladies Show NYC, which is organized and hosted by Molly O’Laughlin Kemper with Sheila Enright. Photographer, professional eccentric, and guinea-pig lover JR Pepper (previously on the pod with Mae West) tells the tale of artist Leonor Fini, a glamorous, passionate iconoclast (and cat lover) with a brilliant creative mind who was fiercely independent — at a time when women were allowed to be muses, not painters.
Like her friend Leonora Carrington, Fini is often called a Surrealist, but she didn’t consider herself one of their group due to their misogynistic views, which included viewing women as either childlike muse or femme fatale. Her paintings utilized the female gaze, and often featured catlike and other creatures inspired by Fini’s own striking appearance, accompanied by languid men. Leonor Fini’s life was as rule-breaking as her art; she had many lovers, and spent much of her life living in a happy throuple — along with about 20 cats.
DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire joins producer/host Susan Stone to introduce this episode’s featured Dead Lady.
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Acast.
Show notes:
Leonor dropping her mask in 1938Gala, Salvador Dali, Leonor Fini and Andre Dimandiargues hanging out in 1940Leonor and feline friendPeggy Guggenheim in sensible footwear at the Art of This Century Gallery with paintings from the 31 Women exhibitionLeonor Fini’s La Bergere des Sphinx, 1941Leonor Fini’s L’Alcove (Self-portrait with Nico Papatakis), 1941Leonor Fini’s Femme Assise Sur un Homme Nu, 1942Leonor’s illustration for Marquis de Sade’s Juliette, 1944Rogomelec (Paris, Stock, 1979). English translation by William Kulik and Serena Shanken Skwersky (Cambridge MA: Wakefield Press, 2020)Leonor’s perfume bottle design for Schiaparelli, allegedly inspired by Mae WestThe very expensive 1933 portrait by Henri Cartier BressonLeonor and many many cats photographed by Cecil BeatonLeonor’s La Vie Ideale, 1950Leonor Fini, Les Mutantes, 1971Leonor Fini, Chthonian Divinity Watching Over the Sleep of a Young Man, 1947The happy throuple: Leonor, Stanislao Lepri, and Konstanty Jeleński in Corsica, 1960sLeonor Fini, Autoportrait au scorpion, 1938Leonor masked in 1948,
photographed by A. OstierStill from House of O, 1974Leonor Fini, Le Bout du Monde, 1949The Leonor Fini-inspired Christian Dior Haute Couture Spring-Summer show, 2018
For DLS NYC info and tickets, sign up to their newsletter here or follow them on Instagram.
Find JR Pepper on Instagram @girlduality.
Our theme music is “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon.
Thanks for listening! We’ll be back with a new episode next month.
For our 60th episode, we bring back the presenter who appeared in our very first podcast episode, writer and translator Karen Margolis. Drawing from her own history in higher mathematics, Karen ably tells the tale of Germany’s Emmy Noether, who developed key theorems in theoretical physics and made important contributions to abstract algebra. Excluded from academic positions in Germany as a woman, she worked unpaid and under other lecturers’ names. Once she was finally allowed to teach in 1919, she had only 14 years until the Nazis banned her from universities, as a Jew. In American exile, she taught at the women’s college Bryn Mawr and occasionally at Princeton, though she felt she was not welcome at “the men’s university, where nothing female is admitted.” Nowadays, everything from fellowships to a crater on the moon has honored Emmy, so it was clearly our turn to do so.
DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire joins producer/host Susan Stone to introduce things.
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Acast.
Show notes:
Emmy Noether with her three brothersThe plaque on the building where Emmy Noether was born, in ErlangenAn early supporter, the British mathematician David Hilbert with his trademark hatTitle page of Emmy Noether’s doctorate, which translates as “On Complete Systems of Invariants for Ternary Biquadratic Forms”And a typical example of one of her innovative and exciting algebraic formulaeContent at last, now that she can teachEmmy at the centre of things, on an excursion with fellow mathematiciansNoether’s theorem, described as beautiful and symmetricalDeep in thoughtEmmy Noether’s modest memorial at Bryn Mawr CollegeThe beautiful, symmetrical Emmy Noether High School in BerlinA cheerful photo to finish offA couple of book recommendations if you want to splash some cash to find out more: Proving It Her Way: Emmy Noether, A Life in Mathematics by David E. Rowe and Mechthild Koreuber, and Emmy Noether’s Wonderful Theorem by Dwight E. Neuenschwander.
And here’s the Emmy Noether page on Etsy, for your paper doll and inspirational poster needs.
In this episode, we’re going to hear about a woman sometimes called a sculptress of sound — “the unsung heroine of British electronic music” — Delia Derbyshire, ably presented by our very own DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire.
A working-class girl from Coventry, England, Delia studied music and mathematics, and went on to work at the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop. If you’re a SciFi fan, you’ve probably heard one of her best known works — the otherworldly theme tune to the TV show Doctor Who. A true pioneer of pre-synthesizer electronic sounds, Delia created music for more than 200 projects, but remained anonymous due to the BBC’s bureaucratic structures. She also set up studios making electronic music for soundtracks, festivals and theatre productions, until she left the public eye in 1975.
DLS co-founder Florian Duijsens joins producer Susan to set things up.
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Acast. You can download the transcript, created by Rachel Pronger, here.
Show notes:
Delia Derbyshire doing a patient face in the BBC Radiophonic WorkshopDelia’s reel-to-reel recorder in the Coventry Music MuseumCoventry before 1940……and afterA woman playing a spinetDelia used instruments electronic……and acousticClaiming credit on a programme from a Unit Delta Plus eventA new jobIn the kitchen, avoiding washing dishesIf you’d like to find out more about Delia Derbyshire’s later life, Katy recommends this fascinating article by David Butler: Whatever Happened to Delia Derbyshire? Delia Derbyshire, Visual Art and the Myth of her Post-BBC Activity.
For those with a little more time, there’s Caroline Catz’s fab film Delia Derbyshire: The Myths & The Legendary Tapes.
And if you’re looking for a deep dive with a triple helping of women’s biography, it’s got to be Cosi Fanni Tutti’s RE-SISTERS. The limited-edition package behind the link gets you “a fine bound copy of the book, signed on page one by the author and numbered by hand; a pewter erotic pilgrim brooch with Re-Sisters waveform motif, in a velvet pouch; and an audio tape cassette with Music to Read By composed and performed by Cosey Fanni Tutti in a colour printed cardboard sleeve.” Go on!
Our theme music is “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon.
Drop us a line info@deadladiesshow.com or reach us on social media @deadladiesshow
Thanks for listening! We’ll be back with a new episode next month.
Welcome to our first podcast of 2023! In this episode, we zoom in on photographer Berenice Abbott. This American artist has a bit of a six-degrees-of separation going on with a number of our previous Dead Ladies, including Baroness von Freytag-Loringhoven and Emma Goldman. As told by DLS co-founder Florian Duijsens, Berenice’s story includes stints in Paris and Berlin, falling in love with eligible ladies, and learning photography from Man Ray. She took portraits of various greats, and when she returned to New York she switched to documenting the changing city, resulting in what’s called the “the greatest collection of photographs of New York City ever made.” Later in life she also excelled at scientific photography, taking with her studies of light and motion contributing to the understanding of physical laws and properties of solids and liquids, as she also made innovations in camera technology.
DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire joins producer Susan Stone to introduce our episode.
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Acast.
Show notes:
Read more: Podcast 58: Berenice AbbottPenicillin mold (1946), as seen in NYPL’s wonderful Treasures exhibitionPortrait of Berenice by Baroness Elsa von Freytag-LoringhovenJoyce, Flanner, Barnes & Emma Goldman‘s boyfriend, as photographed by BereniceBerenice and Leonora Carrington, various menBerenice’s newly sophisticated haircutMan Ray’s Berenice or Baroness?The only extant photograph of Berenice’s sculpture workThelma WoodMan Ray’s portrait of ProustTylia Perlmutter, Gwen la GalliennePeggy Guggenheim, Jean Cocteau, Claude McKay, & Sylvia BeachPhotoweigh picturesSelf-portrait with new cameraYou cab see Berenice’s image of a Central Park Hooverville here, and read more about her MoMA mural here.
M37937-1 001Berenice’s most famous early images of NYC, plus that contested pic of someone taking a very similar picture to Night View, New York from the top of the brand-new Empire State BuildingElizabeth McCausland (aka Butchy) looking adoringly at Gertrude SteinGlorious Penn StationThe NYPL has all of their Changing New York images up for your perusal, and you read McCausland’s original captions in Sarah M. Miller’s Documentary in Dispute.Photographer Douglas Levere went back to the exact sites of Berenice’s pictures decades later, showing how much New York had changed again.You can watch the full PBS doc The Quantum Universe at Archive.org and learn more about Berenice’s inventions like the Supersight camera here.
Bubbles!Berenice’s final portraitDo watch Martha Wheelock & Kay Weaver’s Berenice Abbott: A View of the 20th Century!To learn more, check out The Unknown Berenice Abbott, Berenice Abbott: Portraits of Modernity, or Berenice Abbott: A Life in Photography by Julia van Haaften.Muriel Rukeyser’s eye, for more on their collaboration, read Rowena Kennedy-Epstein’s Unfinished Spirit
Muriel Rukeyser’s Twentieth Century.Our theme music is “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon.
It’s our final podcast of 2022!
DLS co-founders Florian Duijsens and Katy Derbyshire join producer Susan Stone to toast the holiday season, chat about this year’s good news in Dead Ladies, and to introduce our featured Dead Lady, artist Ruth Asawa.
Born to Japanese parents on a farm in California, Ruth Asawa first developed her artistic tendencies tracing shapes in the dirt. When her family was interned during World War II by the US government (along with thousands of US citizens with Japanese heritage, following the bombing of US military base Pearl Harbor by the Japanese) her life was put on hold, but she made opportunity where she could find it. When she was prevented from becoming a teacher by anti-Japanese prejudice and laws, she studied art and became a sculptor, often weaving cheap found material and wire. Her public artworks and her art education advocacy made her chosen home city, San Francisco, a more beautiful place, and her sculptures are now auctioned for millions, and exhibited around the world.
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Acast. You can download the transcript, created by Annie Musgrove, here.
Show notes:
A young Ruth Asawa, front and center with her feet missing
Ruth in the Arkansas camp (second left) with her teacher Mrs. Beasley (standing) / Ruth’s caricatures for the yearbookGeneral Black Mountain fun / A very young Albert LanierRuth, Albert, and family
Art and family
First show, San Francisco 1960
More wire art, from above
That mermaid fountain, first of many
Working with children
Working with her son Paul Lanier
Philately
Susan recommends the biography Everything She Touched by Marilyn Chase, and the website ruthasawa.com.
For more of Susan Stone’s podcasting prowess, why not try Spatial Delight about geographer Doreen Massey, which is edited by Susan and hosted and produced by 2-time DLS Podcast star Agata Lisiak.
Our theme music is “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon.
What’s your favorite Dead Lady news of the year? Drop us a line info@deadladiesshow.com or tell us on social media @deadladiesshow
Thanks for listening! We’ll be back with a new episode next month.
To kick off Season 6 of our podcast, writer Leon Craig brings us the story of award-winning English author Angela Carter. Known for her feminist, gothic, and erotic sensibilities and for re-inventing folk and fairy tales with her now seminal collection The Bloody Chamber, Carter’s life had quite a few plot twists of its own. … Continue reading "Podcast 57: Angela Carter"
Courtesy of our pals at DLS NYC, we meet the first meta sex symbol: Mae West. Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Mae was brazen, buxom, bawdy, sensational, and sexy. She was known for her husky voice, risqué performances, and double entendres that slipped past the film censors. With over 70 years in show business … Continue reading "Podcast 56: Mae West"
This episode was recorded at the second-ever PodFest Berlin, a local two-day event full of workshops, networking, free ice cream, and live tapings from podcasts in various languages, including one from us. Dead Ladies Show co-founder Katy Derbyshire and podcast producer/host Susan Stone were there for a mini DLS, and took turns hosting and presenting bilingually … Continue reading "Podcast 55: Virginia Andrews"
In this Episode, we drop in on our New York-based sister spinoff show, DLS NYC, which returned to the KGB Bar’s Red Room after a long hiatus. DLS co-founder Florian Duijsens happened to be visiting from Berlin, and took to the stage to introduce the fabulous Memphis Minnie. Tobacco-chewing blues singer MEMPHIS MINNIE (1897–1973) ran away from … Continue reading "Podcast 54: Memphis Minnie"
In this buzz-worthy episode, DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire (and translator) brings us the story of leading bee scientist Eva Crane. Born to humble beginnings, Eva obtained a PhD in nuclear physics but quickly shifted her attention from atoms to apiculture. She travelled the world to document all things bees, and was particularly interested in the … Continue reading "Podcast #53: Eva Crane"
In this episode we’ll be hearing from the multi-talented Hinemoana Baker. Hinemoana hails from New Zealand, she is a writer and musician of Māori and Pākehā heritage; here, she presents her reflections on the life of another New Zealand writer — Katherine Mansfield. Mansfield was a very influential modernist writer, who left New Zealand for … Continue reading "Podcast #52: Katherine Mansfield"
The world is a troubling place, but we hope you can still find some inspiration out there, and in honor of International Women’s Day, we wanted to bring you the story of a woman who fought, loved, and sacrificed, in troubling times of her own — the revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg. Rosa was a Polish-born Jewish … Continue reading "Podcast #51: Rosa Luxemburg"
In this episode, DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire conjures up a Victorian-era Dead Lady magician who dazzled audiences and broke boundaries. Starting from her childhood in England, Adelaide Herrmann (née Scarcez) was a born performer, first notable for dance, acrobatics, and trick cycling. She met and married magician Alexander Herrmann, and became his on-stage assistant and … Continue reading "Podcast #50: Adelaide Herrmann"
We kick off 2022 with an episode devoted to a woman famed for her wit and beauty, and later for her status as a sort of early inoculation influencer. Her tale is told by DLS co-founder and devoted traveler, Florian Duijsens. English aristocrat Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was raised to keep her opinions to herself, … Continue reading "Podcast #49: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu"
Mal was anderes: ab und zu produzieren wir außerhalb der Reihe eine deutschsprachige Podcastepisode! Diesmal erzählen Aurélie Maurin und Michael Ebmeyer anlässlich des Translationale-Festivals von einer ehemaligen Übersetzerin, die sagenumwobene La Malinche. Immer noch eine machtvolle Ikone in Mexiko, La Malinche war die versklavte Dolmetscherin zwischen dem spanischen Konquistador Hernán Cortés und den Menschen, die … Continue reading "Dead Ladies Show Deutsch: La Malinche Bonus-Episode"
In our last episode of 2021, The DLS team of Susan Stone, Katy Derbyshire, and Florian Duijsens all come together to clink glasses of bubbly, and discuss our favorite Dead Lady news of the year. Plus, DLS Producer and journalist Susan Stone presents our featured Dead Lady, architect Zaha Hadid. Born in Baghdad, Zaha started … Continue reading "Podcast #48: Zaha Hadid"
In this edition of the Dead Ladies Show Podcast, DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire brings you the story of Milena Jesenská live from the stage of the Berlin translation festival Translationale, held at the Collegium Hungaricum. A journalist, writer, editor and translator, Milena Jesenská is often simply called “Kafka’s Milena” for her connection to the famous … Continue reading "Podcast #47: Milena Jesenská"
In this edition of the Dead Ladies Show Podcast, DLS co-founder Florian Duijsens introduces us to the eccentric Dada artist Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. An eternally eclectic, German-born New Yorker, the Baroness was known for living life as a work of art, wearing a collage of found items, from tin cans to postage stamps to … Continue reading "Podcast #46: Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven"
In the first episode of our fifth podcast season, you’ll hear the Berlin-based British-Ghanaian author and political activist Sharon Dodua Otoo talking about her favourite woman who ever lived: Nana Yaa Asantewaa. This Asante queen led the 1900 war against British colonialism in present-day Ghana. When the British governor demanded the kingdom’s emblem of power, … Continue reading "Podcast #45: Nana Yaa Asantewaa"
In this episode of the podcast, DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire introduces us to daring German writer Irmgard Keun. As an ingenue, Irmgard’s writing debut was much more consequent than her acting debut, and she garnered praise and a film adaptation. Her books explored women’s lives in Weimar-era Berlin with a humor all her own, which of course meant the Nazis banned them. There’s dark wit, wild parties in the face of danger, and fabulous costume changes — oh, and an unreliable narrator. It’s a bit of Babylon Berlin meets Cabaret, perhaps.
Irmgard Keun is also one of the original Dead Ladies (along with Dorothy Parker) that sparked the creation of the Dead Ladies Show in the first place!
Our other DLS co-creator Florian Duijsens joins podcast producer and host Susan Stone for the introducing duties in our last episode of DLSP Season Four!
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Acast.
Notes:
Irmgard looking dashing Plaque marking where (and which actual year) she was born in Berlin Young Irmgard Irmgard basking in her big fur coat Brigitte Helm in the film version of Gilgi, Eine von uns and Helm in Metropolis Stuck in Ostend with Joseph Roth and free again in Nice Reports of Irmgard’s death were greatly exaggerated Irmgard’s rather intense interior in Cologne Released from hospital! And at the height of the Keunissance in the film version of After Midnight * * * * * *
If you want to read Irmgard (or more about Irmgard, start here! Channel this energy next time someone tries to get you to work for free Our theme music is “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon. Thanks for listening!
We’ll be back with a new season and new episode in September.
This episode presents a first: our presenter (our very own Susan Stone!) actually met the lady in question. Bebe Barron was a bohemian, composer, and electronic music pioneer. She and her husband Louis worked avant-garde art-makers like John Cage and Maya Deren, and hung out with Anais Nin, Henry Miller, Joseph Campbell, and more. The pair is credited with inventing the tape loop, and possibly the audio book. It’s certainly the case that they composed and created the first electronic music — or electro-acoustic — feature film soundtrack. Electronic music as we know it would not exist without Bebe, nor would the sounds we associate with outer space.
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Acast.
Notes:
A real reel-to-reel recorder Anaïs Nin, and you can find out more about their friendship in this interview. An excerpt from Anaïs Nin’s House of Incest audiobook as produced and recorded by the Barrons. You can order a CD copy here. Tubular! Louis & Bebe, bohemians Louis & Bebe, professionals The sole surviving copy of Bells of Atlantis Kirk Douglas, Vincente Minnelli, Lana Turner, and Dore Schary, on the set of The Bad and the Beautiful An excerpt from Forbidden Planet, with gloriously bleepy sound effects from the Barrons
If you try this out, let us know if it works! Bebe in later years Bebe and her husband Leonard Neubauer in 2005, picture by Susan Stone And you can watch the new doc on Bebe and the other electronic pioneers, Sisters With Transistors, here. You can still hear Susan’s NPR story on Bebe from 2005 here. Our theme music is not by Bebe, but “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon. Thanks for listening!
Episode 42 is all about the American writer and journalist Emily Hahn, also known as Mickey.
She qualified as a mining engineer, wrote greeting-card copy, travelled the world and authored 54 books and more than 200 articles and short stories. Aside from that, she led an unconventional private life and kept a number of different monkeys. Hear all about her from our co-founder Florian Duijsens, recorded at Berlin’s ACUD Studio in April 2019.
Show notes:
A young Emily (back row, second right) with her family Emily’s first book Emily’s second book was a little different, a rather censored memoir of her year in Africa. Followed by a novelized story of local women suffering at the hands of white men. One of Victor Sassoon’s tamer photos Poet Shao Xunmei * * * *
Some of Mickey’s monkey material On returning to the USA Carola’s father Charles Boxer joins the family. * *
Emily Hahn at work If you’d like to find out more, Florian recommends two biographies:
Ken Cuthbertson’s Nobody Said Not to Go and Taras Grescoe’s Shanghai Grand.
Taras Grescoe also authored this fascinating New Yorker story about the time Emily was taken for a spy.
And here’s daughter Carola Boxer Vecchio on Advanced Style…
Our theme music is “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon.
Thanks for listening! We’ll be back with a new episode next month!
In this episode, Anneke Lubkowitz introduces us to the brilliant and strange 19th-century writer and poet Annette von Droste-Hülshoff. This Dead Lady was a Lady in the literal sense – she was born into nobility, and the life her family expected for her was far different from the one she led. Choosing the male occupation of poet, and the unladylike hobby of fossil collecting, nature devotee Annette could often be found wandering the muddy moors or writing away in a turret. Her ahead-of-her-time way with verse included timeless poems and a work of gothic fiction considered by some to be one of the first murder mysteries.
Via Zoom from the bright green rooms of Annette von Droste-Hülshoff’s former home Haus Ruschhaus, Anneke also reads some newly translated poems from Droste’s collections (thanks to the translators: Shane Anderson, Daniel Falb, Monika Rinck, and Annie Rutherford!).
Anneke live from Annette’s study, Katy and Florian smiling from their homes in Berlin This show was created in collaboration with StAnza, Scotland’s International Poetry Festival, with help from the Burg Hülshoff Center for Literature. Thanks to both!
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Acast. You can read the transcript here.
Notes:
Gazing at us from one side of the 20 DM note Burg Hülshoff on a sunny day Young Annette Some of her favorite fossils The Bökerhof, drawn by Annette herself. Read Karen Duve’s well-researched novel Fräulein Nette’s kurzer Sommer or Barbara Beuys’ excellent biography to learn what happened here. The Rüschhaus Her “snail’s shell” Casper David Friedrich’s Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog (1818) Annette at 41, portrait by Johann Joseph Sprick, 1838 Annette in her garret overlooking Lake Constance Daguerrotype from 1845 Our theme music is “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon.
Thanks for listening! We’ll be back with a new episode next month!