Sam Fullerton, "Sexual Politics in Revolutionary England" (Manchester UP, 2026)

Sam Fullerton, "Sexual Politics in Revolutionary England" (Manchester UP, 2026)

Author: New Books Network January 15, 2026 Duration: 53:50
Samuel Fullerton joins Jana Byars to talk about Sexual Politics in Revolutionary England (Manchester UP 2024) to celebrate its paperback release. It recounts a dramatic transformation in English sexual polemic that unfolded during the kingdom's mid-seventeenth-century civil wars. In early Stuart England, explicit sexual language was largely confined to manuscript and oral forms by the combined regulatory pressures of ecclesiastical press licensing and powerful cultural notions of civility and decorum. During the early 1640s, however, graphic sex-talk exploded into polemical print for the first time in English history. Over the next two decades, sexual politics evolved into a vital component of public discourse, as contemporaries utilized sexual satire to reframe the English Revolution as a battle between licentious Stuart tyrants and their lecherous puritan enemies. By the time that Charles II regained the throne in 1660, this book argues, sex was already a routine element of English political culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dive into the complex and ever-evolving world of human intimacy with New Books in Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Work. As part of the New Books Network's extensive academic library, this channel offers a space for serious, accessible conversation about the latest scholarship. Each episode features an in-depth interview where authors discuss their recent publications with a knowledgeable host, breaking down intricate research into engaging dialogue. You'll hear about historical perspectives on desire, scientific explorations of attraction, cultural analyses of identity, and the social and political dimensions of sex work. The discussions are nuanced and thoughtful, moving beyond headlines to explore the real questions scholars are asking today. This podcast makes cutting-edge academic work available to anyone curious about the forces that shape our most personal lives. By focusing on newly published books, it ensures listeners are connected to the most current ideas and debates across multiple disciplines, from history and social science to arts and literature. Tune in for a consistently enlightening exploration of the books that are defining how we understand sex and sexuality.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

New Books in Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Work
Podcast Episodes
Donna J. Drucker, "Fertility Technology" (MIT Press, 2023) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 30:20
A concise overview of fertility technology—its history, practical applications, and ethical and social implications around the world. In the late 1850s, a physician in New York City used a syringe and glass tube to injec…
Timothy Gitzen, "Unscripting the Present" (SUNY Press, 2025) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:26
Timothy Gitzen's Unscripting the Present (SUNY Press, 2025) interrogates contemporary sex panics in the United States, looking especially at popular culture texts to conceptualize queer youth survival strategies. Sex pan…
Oliver Davis and Tim Dean, "Hatred of Sex" (U Nebraska Press, 2022) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:20
How well do we understand our relationship to sex? According to Oliver Davis and Tim Dean, authors of the new book Hatred of Sex (University of Nebraska Press, 2022), we tend to overlook the “unpleasurable pleasures” tha…
Karen Weingarten, "Pregnancy Test" (Bloomsbury, 2023) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:02
In the 1970s, the invention of the home pregnancy test changed what it means to be pregnant. For the first time, women could use a technology in the privacy of their own homes that gave them a yes or no answer. That answ…