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Dungeons & Dragons plays a huge part in fiction and popular culture more generally, but it is often overlooked or misunderstood. In this episode I gather together an experienced Dungeon Master and some complete novices (including myself) to play D&D for the first time. Joining me to explore this new world is academic, and life-time D&D fan, Professor Curt Carbonell, who has recently published a book on the subject.  WTTE is part of the HeadStuff Podcast Network. You can support the show and get bonus content and more by becoming a member of HeadStuff+. Go to HeadStuffPodcasts.com For full transcripts, links, references, and more the home of the podcast is wttepodcast.com

From medieval ballads to the poetry of John Keats, stage productions to children’s songs, novels to comic books, silent movies to glorious technicolour, Disney classics to Kevin Costner blockbusters to Mel Brooks parodies to gritty reimaginings and lots, lots more, Robin Hood is certainly one of the most recognisable characters in all of western popular culture. Joining me to explore the legendary outlaw is Prof Valerie Johnson, from the University of Montevallo, Alabama. WTTE is part of the HeadStuff Podcast Network. You can support the show and get bonus content and more by becoming a member of HeadStuff+. Go to HeadStuffPodcasts.com For full transcripts, links, references, and more the home of the podcast is wttepodcast.com

What does the word "Gothic" mean to you? Gothic cathedrals and castles? Gothic fiction? Teenage goths dressed in black? Horror and the supernatural? This episode explores the origins of the gothic and one man's lasting influence on this most important of genres. Joining me as my gothic guide is Prof Dale Townshend, Professor of Gothic Literature at Manchester Metropolitan University. WTTE is part of the HeadStuff Podcast Network. You can support the show and get bonus content and more by becoming a member of HeadStuff+. Go to HeadStuffPodcasts.com For full transcripts, links, references, and more the home of the podcast is wttepodcast.com

 A Word To That Effect is a new series of bonus mini-episodes about a single word or phrase with a distinctly literary origin. This week: serendipity. WTTE is part of the HeadStuff Podcast Network. You can support the show and get bonus content and more by becoming a member of HeadStuff+. Go to HeadStuffPodcasts.com For full transcripts, links, references, and more the home of the podcast is wttepodcast.com

A Word To That Effect is a new series of bonus mini-episodes about a single word or phrase with a distinctly literary origin. This week: cliffhanger! WTTE is part of the HeadStuff Podcast Network. You can support the show and get bonus content and more by becoming a member of HeadStuff+. Go to HeadStuffPodcasts.com For full transcripts, links, references, and more the home of the podcast is wttepodcast.com

Sensation fiction was a hugely popular genre in the 1860s. The novels were sensationally popular, but they also caused a sensation, with their plots of bigamy and murder, forgery and blackmail. In so many ways the influence of sensation fiction can still be felt today. WTTE is part of the HeadStuff Podcast Network. You can support the show and get bonus content and more by becoming a member of HeadStuff+. Go to HeadStuffPodcasts.com For full transcripts, links, references, and more the home of the podcast is wttepodcast.com

Knights in shining armour, damsels in distress, castles, chivalry and courtly love, heroic quests, dragons. King Arthur, Camelot, Merlin, the Knights of the Round Table, the Holy Grail. Think of King Arthur and the medieval romance and a huge number of images and tropes and cliches spring to mind. Where does all this come from? WTTE is part of the HeadStuff Podcast Network. You can support the show and get bonus content and more by becoming a member of HeadStuff+. Go to HeadStuffPodcasts.com For full transcripts, links, references, and more the home of the podcast is wttepodcast.com

Dragons have been around for a very long time.  They are one of the very few mythological creatures that have become absolutely central to popular culture; everyone knows what a dragon is. There are other important and well-known mythological creatures, but none are as ubiquitous as dragons, which can be found in Europe and the Americas, in classical and Biblical traditions, in ancient Indian tales and across Asian mythology.  So where do dragons come from? Why are they so common across cultures, and what do they mean to us today?  I chat to Professor Scott Bruce, author of the recently published Penguin Book of Dragons and an authority on dragons from antiquity to the present day.  WTTE is part of the HeadStuff Podcast Network. You can support the show and get bonus content and more by becoming a member of HeadStuff+. Go to HeadStuffPodcasts.com For full transcripts, links, references, and more the home of the podcast is wttepodcast.com

Words To That Effect is back! Find out what's coming up on Season 6, launching on Jan 25th

There is a complex and fascinating relationship between humans and the ocean, how people and cultures across the world know and understand the sea, whether through myths and legends, through trade or fishing, exploration or entertainment.  This episode explores one particular aspect of all this - our relationship with the undersea, what lies beneath the surface of the oceans.  It is the 4th place in a loose miniseries of literary locations: Antarctica, the desert, the forest, and now the undersea. From early myths and legends to the naturalists of the 19th century; from the first transatlantic cables to the underwater habitats of the 1960s; from scientific attempts at a "homo aquaticus" to science fiction tales of underwater civilizations, there's plenty to explore in the ocean depths.  Joining me on this deep dive episode is Prof Helen Rozwadowski, Professor of History and Maritime Studies at the University of Connecticut.

How do we use fiction in food? What does a character's choice of food reveal about them? Do you simply have to go and make a dish when it's described beautifully in a book? On this very special episode, a collaboration with the wonderful Spice Bags podcast, we discuss everything from 17th century Spanish literature to contemporary American horror, Italian detective novels to Japanese magical realism. Grab yourself a glass of Amarone and have a listen! Support the show and get lots of bonus content by becoming a member of HeadStuff+. Find out more at HeadStuffPodcasts.com

The forest is a place we have very mixed feelings about. Forests can be calm and peaceful, full of ancient and natural beauty.   Until they’re not.  The forest, in so many ways, is a place we fear. They are dark and dense and overgrown, all too easy to get lost in. They hold secrets and mysteries, and creatures we’d rather not meet alone, far from home.  And if the monsters of the forest don’t get us, then the forest itself will. The strange, malevolent powers of the trees themselves.  The forest can be a terrifying place.  On this week's episode I'm joined by Dr Elizabeth Parker, who guides us through the deep dark woods.