110: Nichola Zacher
My guest this week is Canadian author, Nichola Zacher, writer of the adventures of the Marley series of children’s books. The second instalment, ‘Marley the Dreamer’, is newly released and we learn from Nichola how it is a response to her father being diagnosed with dementia. We discover how Nichola’s literary career started. Nichola lives in Ontario but her grandmother was born in Bournemouth...
38m Jul 03, 2021
38m
109: Bob Bowie
My guest this week is Bob Bowie, Professor of Worldviews Education at Canterbury Christ Church University and Director of the National Institute of Christian Education. We learn that Bob, who lives in West Kent, started out by studying classics and philosophy and went on to train as an RE teacher.  We discuss the question of what RE is, whether people study religion because they are religious,...
1hr 5m Jun 26, 2021
1hr 5m
108: Darren Griffin 2021
It was a huge pleasure to record my second Nostalgia Interview with Darren Griffin, Professor of Genetics, whom I first met in 2019 (to hear that episode go to Nostalgia Interviews with Chris Deacy / Darren Griffin (https://audioboom.com/posts/7190361-darren-griffin) ). For our catch up interview we talk about the implications of lockdown on his work and how lockdown has enabled Darren and his ...
1hr 6m Jun 11, 2021
1hr 6m
107: Árni Svanur Daníelsson
My guest this week is Árni Svanur Daníelsson who is the Head of Communication for the Lutheran World Federation. We learn that Árni used to work in a video rental shop and became acquainted with film history. He went on to study theology at university and was involved in a theology and film group Deus ex Cinema. We talk about the theology and film field and the possibilities that online commun...
1hr 1m Jun 05, 2021
1hr 1m
106: Rose Pacatte
It was a huge pleasure to meet Sr. Rose Pacatte, who is based in Culver City CA, around 9 miles from Hollywood, for my latest Nostalgia Interview. Rose is from San Diego originally and we learn that she planned to be a Sister from a young age. She started the Pauline Center for Media Studies and in the interview Rose talks about how she became a film critic. Faith and film came about at the sa...
1hr 2m May 29, 2021
1hr 2m
105: Paul Hedges
My guest this week is Paul Hedges, Associate Professor in Interreligious Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, in Singapore. Paul and I were contemporaries in the University of Wales and we learn about how Lampeter made him the academic and person that he is today. We learn about the days when computers weren’t used for writing essays, ...
1hr 13m May 22, 2021
1hr 13m
104: Christine Atchison
My guest this week is Christine Atchison, who lives in the suburbs of Toronto, and recently completed a PhD which explored transcendence in film. Christine talks about how the 1989 Batman film started her interest in this area, as did a conversation in a bar on pluralism in the Patristic period. Christine discusses imposter syndrome and Eliade and talks about why she enjoyed her PhD viva. She ...
1hr 5m May 14, 2021
1hr 5m
103: Kate Fox
It was such a pleasure for my latest Nostalgia Interview to catch up with Kate Fox – poet, stand up comedian, academic, journalist, broadcaster and ethnographer. Kate talks about her last gig before lockdown, our love of lattes and living by the sea, and her connection with the University of Kent through comedy studies and the Autism and the Arts festivals. We discuss our conference food exper...
1hr 11m May 07, 2021
1hr 11m
102: Celia Pontin
My guest this week is Celia Pontin, who works for the Committees of Advertising Practice, and has done a PhD (I was her supervisor) on video games and theology. Celia talks about how for her a game is a voluntary attempt to overcome an unnecessary obstacle – and that this is the element that makes it fun. She explains how she drew on the religion and film methodology and looked at how the inte...
1hr 9m Apr 27, 2021
1hr 9m
101: Adele Reinhartz
My guest this week is Adele Reinhartz, Professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa. We learn how work in religion and film became an interest of hers and that Adele was active and non-athletic in childhood. She grew up in a secular Jewish household and ended up majoring in Jewish Studies and by default Religious Studies. We discuss whether Judaism i...
1hr 3m Apr 17, 2021
1hr 3m
100: Pete Paphides
For my 100th Nostalgia Interview, it was a massive pleasure to meet Pete Paphides, a music journalist who has written for Melody Maker, Q and Time Out and has been the chief music critic for The Times. Pete’s memoir Broken Greek, with the wonderful sub-title A Story of Chip Shops and Pop Songs, was Radio 4’s Book of the Week. Pete also went to Lampeter, where he studied Philosophy from 1989-92...
1hr 1m Apr 06, 2021
1hr 1m
99: Anna Neale
Anna Neale is my latest Nostalgia Interview guest, and it was a huge pleasure to meet up with Anna who is a music industry professional. Anna is an artist, songwriter, composer, engineer and producer, she has toured the world, and released three albums. Anna has also served on various music industry committees including the Ivors and has been in the music industry for 20 years.  Anna, who is b...
1hr Mar 27, 2021
1hr
98: Theo Wildcroft
For my latest Nostalgia Interview it was a huge pleasure to meet up with Theo Wildcroft. Theo has undertaken a PhD with the Open University in the area of practice relationships in Yoga and we find out why Theo misses driving time, and will now walk with her greyhound during lockdown. We talk about the importance of having designated work space and we discuss the role of fieldwork in her PhD, ...
1hr 7m Mar 17, 2021
1hr 7m
97: Aled Thomas
For my latest Nostalgia Interview it was a huge pleasure to meet up via Zoom with Aled Thomas. Aled currently works at the University of Wolverhampton and did his first degree in Religious Studies at Trinity College Carmarthen from 2007-10. We learn how his goal had been to become an RE teacher but that academia called him back. Aled’s research area is the Church of Scientology and we learn h...
1hr 18m Mar 07, 2021
1hr 18m
96: Christopher Greenfield
For this week’s Nostalgia Interview it was fantastic to catch up via Zoom from Abu Dhabi with Christopher Greenfield, one of my best friends from the Bishop of Llandaff Church in Wales High School in Cardiff. Christopher graduated from Cardiff in 1994 with a degree in Astrophysics, taught first aid with St. John Ambulance, became a schoolteacher and was invited to Houston in 1997, where he lat...
1hr 19m Feb 20, 2021
1hr 19m
95: Tamar Jeffers McDonald
It was a huge pleasure for this week’s Nostalgia Interview to meet up via Zoom with Tamar Jeffers McDonald, an expert on Doris Day. Tamar is Reader in Film and Head of the School of Arts at the University of Kent. We learn that she dropped a copy of her book Doris Day Confidential: Hollywood, Sex, and Stardom to Carmel, California, for Doris Day to read and Tamar talks about how a few years ag...
1hr 3m Jan 30, 2021
1hr 3m
94: John Lyden
It was a delight this week via Zoom to meet John Lyden for my latest Nostalgia Interview. John is Blizek Professor of Religion and Film at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and has been editor of the Journal of Religion and Film since 2011, a field of study which John has been keen to get people to take seriously. We talk about the importance of interdisciplinarity and how his religion and fi...
1hr 18m Jan 09, 2021
1hr 18m
93: Johanna Stiebert
My guest this week is Johanna Stiebert, Professor of Biblical Hebrew at the University of Leeds. The interview took place against the backdrop of Covid 19, and Johanna explains why she has revamped her modules in the light of the events of 2020. The other big event at the time was the US Presidential election, the outcome of which was not known when we recorded the interview, and Johanna talks ...
1hr 3m Dec 19, 2020
1hr 3m
92: Penny Bernard
My guest this week is Penny Bernard who gets to wallow in heritage and nostalgia as part of her job translating archaeology for school audiences. We discover that one silver lining in what has been a challenging year for everybody is that Penny has been able to follow her dream of going to art college. We also learn about her family Tudor dinner party and how she finds that children are better...
1hr 2m Dec 05, 2020
1hr 2m
91: Stephen Garner
My guest this week is Stephen Garner who works at Laidlaw College in New Zealand as Academic Dean and Senior Lecturer in Theology. He talks about how the seasons are different between our two countries, and how Christmas, and its attendant nostalgia, fits into this framework. He once celebrated his birthday twice in one year. Stephen works in the areas of technology/new media and bioethics/tra...
1hr 9m Nov 25, 2020
1hr 9m
90: Brendan McSharry OBE
My guest this week is Brendan McSharry, Editor of The Link, who studied History and English at Lampeter from 1968-71. He has received an OBE for services to education and culture in Iraq where he spent four years working for the British Council.  Born in North West London in 1949, Brendan explains why he wanted to study as far away as possible from the city, and he remembers the long train jou...
1hr 4m Nov 14, 2020
1hr 4m
89: Angela Puca
Angela Puca joins me for this week’s fascinating Nostalgia Interview. Based at Leeds Trinity University, where she is a PhD student, Angela and I talk about how we can no longer have physical conferences during lockdown and why she moved to the UK from Italy in order to do her PhD.  We learn that Angela, who sticks to a daily writing schedule, has her own YouTube channel called Angela’s Sympos...
1hr 4m Nov 04, 2020
1hr 4m
88: Jessica Frazier
It was a huge pleasure this week to interview Jessica Frazier from the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. We talk about representing the exotic, teaching religion and Jessica’s fascination with the meaning of life. Jessica was born in Washington D.C. and came to England when a child. Jessica reveals her apprehension of the different seasons, how she fantasized about going to Narnia as a kid, and ...
59m Oct 24, 2020
59m
87: Leslie de Vries
My guest this week is Leslie de Vries, who is Lecturer in East Asian Traditions at the University of Kent. Born in Antwerp, Belgium, we learn why Les doesn’t really look back to his childhood. He has a sister who was very sporty while his parents lived quite different lives. He explains why he didn’t perceive his family situation as normal. Les’ father was involved in managing bands and footbal...
1hr 9m Oct 14, 2020
1hr 9m
86: Richard King
Richard King is Professor Emeritus of Buddhist and Asian Studies at the University of Kent and in this wide ranging interview Rich begins by talking us through the different places where he has worked. He never would have imagined having the career he does as no one in his family had stayed in education beyond the age of 14. We learn that he might have ended up as a road sweeper. His parents we...
59m Sep 25, 2020
59m
85: Justin Lewis-Anthony
My guest this week, in my first face-to-face interview since lockdown, is Justin Lewis-Anthony, Rector of Chingford. Justin talks about how he ended up doing a PhD with me and why the topic of leadership was something that made him angry. He refers to how cinema is the functioning mythological delivery system of the age and how many people expect Church leaders to function like John Wayne. Just...
1hr 31m Sep 12, 2020
1hr 31m
84: John Partridge
My guest this week is John Partridge, Honorary Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of Kent. John came to Canterbury from Bavaria in 1977 where he had taught English. We talk about how we once bumped into each other at a Gerry and the Pacemakers gig and about broaching conversations with idols. John tells us about his PhD on performative verbs and we discuss whether new forms of language...
51m Aug 28, 2020
51m
83: Gaye Morris
My guest this week is Gaye Morris who lives in North Carolina and was previously based in in the UK and with whom I collaborated about 15 years ago on a book called Theology and Film. We talk about our rationale in writing it and the relationship between the Christian and the secular world. It was a validation of working on popular culture and there is a fascinating moment when Gaye talks about...
1hr 10m Aug 02, 2020
1hr 10m
82: Michael Gibson
My guest this week is Michael Gibson who lives in Athens, Georgia, and works as a Senior Editor at Lexington Books. He has written on Paul Schrader and Stanley Kubrick and we learn why film has been a significant part of Michael’s journey and why he is influenced by Schrader’s work on abundant vs. sparse cinema. We talk about Schrader’s contribution to film scholarship, and we learn why Schrade...
55m Jul 17, 2020
55m
81: Craig Detweiler
My guest this week is filmmaker, screenwriter and theologian Craig Detweiler who is based in Los Angeles. Craig grew up in North Carolina and went to film school in California where he has lived since. He has taught Destin Daniel Cretton, the director/screenwriter of Just Mercy (2019) which was the first movie in Hollywood to be made with an inclusion rider. We talk about Destin’s next project ...
56m Jun 27, 2020
56m
80: Heidi Campbell
My guest this week is Heidi Campbell, Professor of Communications at Texas A&M University where she has been based for the last 15 years. Originally from Michigan, Heidi trained as a journalist and then morphed into a Religious Studies scholar where she does some pioneering, interdisciplinary work in media, religion and culture. Heidi has just edited an online collection on the coronavirus pand...
48m Jun 06, 2020
48m
79: Chris Gordon
It is two years this week since my first Nostalgia Interview was broadcast, and, on the second anniversary, I am putting out my first interview to be recorded via Zoom. My guest is Chris Gordon who runs a podcast called Hellblazerbiz (https://www.hellblazerbiz.com/), in which he interviews people in the movie business. Chris tells us how he got into it and how he was once talked about on the re...
1hr 10m May 23, 2020
1hr 10m
78: Esther Weller
My guest this week is Esther Weller, Chair of the Lampeter Society who was a student in Lampeter in the mid to late 90s. Esther was born in London but then moved to Wales when she was six months old and grew up in the South Wales Valleys. We learn that she wanted to find out about her family background before it is too late and we find out what she found out. Esther talks about her father’s Jew...
48m May 09, 2020
48m
77: Alex Davis
My guest this week is Alex Davis who is an MA Ancient History student at the University of Kent. Alex talks about growing up in Lydd and going to university as a mature student after working in her parents’ family business. She tells us how she went from working in the accounts department to doing a degree in Classics and Ancient History, where her passion for her subject came from and how she ...
1hr 3m Apr 24, 2020
1hr 3m
76: Linda Pike
My guest this week is Linda Pike who works at BT HQ as a Project Manager and graduated from Lampeter in French in 1995. Linda reveals why Lampeter was like a pleasure dome, and how it wasn’t a judgemental place and how she embraced the ‘away from home’ experience. We talk about the ‘melting pot’ of people and how she would get paid to socialise by working down the bar. We find out about how she...
1hr 33m Apr 11, 2020
1hr 33m
75: John Loaring
My guest this week is John Loaring, whose claim to fame is that he invented PPI, and who was at Lampeter from 1964-67 while it made the transition from being an all-male theological college. He recounts how many of his contemporaries thought that having female students was an experiment that would fail and go away, and John recounts how he ended up going to Lampeter in the first place. We learn...
51m Mar 24, 2020
51m
74: Onyeka Nubia
My guest this week is Onyeka Nubia, author, historian and TV presenter. Onyeka works in the area of diversifying and developing a more inclusive university curriculum and teaching history in a way that means we can reframe British identity. In this very erudite and illuminating interview, Onyeka expresses his concern about how university programmes don’t always teach properly and are insufficie...
1hr 2m Mar 15, 2020
1hr 2m
73: Heidi Colthup
My guest this week is Heidi Colthup who works in the Department of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Kent. We learn about the unusual criteria she uses to remember how long she has been here and we discover that Heidi has also worked as a freelance journalist and trained as a primary school teacher. Heidi talks about why she felt powerless in that profession apart from when ...
1hr 31m Mar 06, 2020
1hr 31m
72: Murray Smith
My guest this week is Murray Smith, Professor of Film in the School of Arts at the University of Kent where he has been based since 1992. We talk about the concept of ‘trading places’ in academia and about how love is part of how he ended up at Kent and whether we’d be the same people now if we’d made different choices at 18. Murray grew up in Potters Bar and he talks about what he did in respo...
1hr 33m Feb 26, 2020
1hr 33m
71: Marion Stuart
My guest this week is Marion Stuart who studied Divinity at Lampeter in the 1980s and talks about the oddity of being in the same peer group as her lecturers. She reflects on how she took a subject which her parents wouldn’t really have approved of and she remembers the legendary DP Davies. From childhood Marion recalls the bombs that dropped during the Second World War and when the Crystal Pal...
56m Feb 17, 2020
56m
70: Andy White
My guest this week is stand up comedian Andy White. We start by talking about his victory on ‘The Weakest Link’ in 2002 and how the prize enabled him to pay for his wedding. Andy tells us about the work he has done for the National Autistic Society and we talk about our apprehension of ‘slightly obscure celebrities’. We learn how he ended up at university - Andy initially went to Aston to study...
49m Feb 08, 2020
49m
69: Elizabeth & George Severn
My guests this week are Elizabeth and George Severn. We learn about their respective periods of studying at the University of Kent and about George’s tactical decision to move to a Joint Honours degree programme so that he could go on a Year Abroad. We learn why his years in Spain have been the best of his life and why he felt like a ‘nosy anthropologist’ when he returned there. George talks ab...
1hr 11m Jan 30, 2020
1hr 11m
68: Alvise Sforza Tarabochia
Alvise Sforza Tarabochia lectures in Italian Studies at the University of Kent. In this fascinating interview we discuss Alvise’s love of heavy metal, his degree in Philosophy from his native Italy and why the prospect of doing a PhD in Philosophy was not the right path for him. We learn that Alvise grew up wanting to be a surgeon and that his mother is a retired academic in the history of medi...
1hr 6m Jan 21, 2020
1hr 6m
67: Timothy Brittain-Catlin
Timothy Brittain-Catlin is an architect and Reader in the Kent School of Architecture, and we begin this insightful and informative interview by talking about buildings which elude even architects and how some of us are more image based and others function using words. Timothy also discloses why he thinks the Sat Nav is the work of the devil. Timothy talks about growing up just within the bound...
1hr 9m Jan 12, 2020
1hr 9m
66: Lorraine Millard
It was a great pleasure for this week’s Nostalgia Interview to meet Lorraine Millard who has been a therapist since around 1984 and works at the University of Kent. We talk about how she has a job which deals with authenticity and how great an honour that is, and we discuss the evolution of student support over the years and the leap that students have to make from school to university. The con...
1hr 2m Dec 24, 2019
1hr 2m
65: Philip Boobbyer
Philip Boobbyer, Reader in History and a specialist on Russia, is my guest this week. Philip has been at the University of Kent since 1995, and we begin the interview by discussing the changes he has witnessed over the years. Philip grew up in Oxford to a sports-loving family and whose parents worked for a Christian charity. Philip talks about how faith has changed the way he looks at the world...
1hr 2m Dec 15, 2019
1hr 2m
64: Trystan Hughes
My guest this week is Revd. Dr. Trystan Hughes, an Anglican vicar in the Church in Wales and a tutor in Applied Theology. We talk about growing up in North Wales and doing all of his schooling through the medium of Welsh, and we discuss the advantages of having a multi-lingual education, as well as the evolution of school education and the eleven-plus. Trystan talks about how he was obsessed wi...
1hr 9m Dec 06, 2019
1hr 9m
63: Mary Sullivan
My guest this week is Mary Sullivan who undertook a long journey towards doing a degree in History and Religious Studies at the University of Kent, having previously worked as a psychiatric nurse and a social worker. We talk about her previous experience of going to Ruskin College, Oxford which specialized in offering education for working class people, and about how the two sides of her degree...
1hr 19m Nov 27, 2019
1hr 19m
62: Carla Morris
My guest this week is Carla Morris who is International Pathways Manager in the Centre for English & World Languages at the University of Kent where she has been for the last 10 years, and we begin by talking about an embarrassing meeting we once had as Senior Tutors for our respective Schools. Carla grew up in Dublin in the 1960s and went to a Methodist school which was her first multicultural...
1hr 17m Nov 18, 2019
1hr 17m
61: Patty Baker
My guest this week is Patty Baker, Senior Lecturer in Classical & Archaeological Studies at the University of Kent. Patty, who is originally from Pennsylvania, has been at Kent for 18 years, and she talks about how it feels to go back and we discuss the concept of ‘home’ and the notion of moving on. We discuss what happens when you run into people from your past and the lessons that can be lear...
1hr 1m Nov 09, 2019
1hr 1m