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Hysteria!

By: Phoebe Bennett, Nick Minter
Narrated by: Alice Lowe
Free with 30-day trial

$16.45/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

  • Summary

  • Hysteria! presents tales of howling nuns, fainting schoolgirls, witches, wombs, online panics and threats, both imagined and real. Crossing decades and continents, and from personal panics to societal scares, Alice Lowe explores hysterical behaviour. Come join the delirium....

    Hysteria is a word that regularly gets misused. It gets attached to everything from overly emotional behaviour to moral panics, via stock market crashes, stampedes, viral videos and more. It's often used, pejoratively, about women, and it shares its roots with the ancient Greek word for womb. The story of hysteria touches on issues of stigma, gender, morality and power. But how do we separate mass psychogenic illness from mere emotional excess?

    Filmmaker, actress and writer Alice Lowe has long been fascinated by the grey area between behavioural control and abandon. In this six-part series, she explores what we really mean when we talk about frenzies, fevers, manias and panics, both individually and throughout society.

    Produced by Wisebuddah for Audible Originals.

    This is an Audible Original Podcast. Free for members. You can download all6 episodes to your Library now.
    ©2019 Audible, Ltd. (P)2019 Audible, Ltd.
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Psychology Psychology & Mental Health
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Episodes
  • Ep. 1: Film, Nuns and Deathly Dances

    Ep. 1: Film, Nuns and Deathly Dances
    Jul 24 2019

    Cinema thrives on hysterical characters, especially when they inhabit closed environments such as convents or girls schools. But what can we make of the dozens of people who died during a dancing epidemic in medieval France?
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    34 mins
    Free with 30-day trial
  • Ep. 2: Witches, Wombs and Women

    Ep. 2: Witches, Wombs and Women
    Jul 24 2019

    Hysteria shares its etymological roots with the ancient Greek word for womb. Does that explain why women are still more likely than men to be accused of hysterical behaviour?
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    25 mins
    Free with 30-day trial
  • Ep. 3: Spirits, Angels and Seances

    Ep. 3: Spirits, Angels and Seances
    Jul 24 2019

    Death – or being in close proximity to death – encourages unusual social behaviour. From the birth of Spiritualism to WW1 and beyond, how are our beliefs shaped by the people we lose?
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    28 mins
    Free with 30-day trial

What listeners say about Hysteria!

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great listen!

loved it! Informative, interesting, good narrator, looked her up and got "Blood on Satans claw"

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Fascinating!

Really well done. I would say though don't listen at night or when you're potentially easily scared. I actually found myself looking over my shoulder in ep 6!!!

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Profile Image for Dhawal

Alice is such an amazing storyteller

I recommend get the Hysteria. Love the tales and interviews done by Alice.
Alice you must make a TV series. The content is absolutely mind-blowing.

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Profile Image for TrexTeaTime

Thoroughly entertaining and compelling

This was such a great listen. Thoroughly entertaining, compelling and thought provoking.

The true stories are accompanied by sound effects and music that really set the scene.
A broad range of sub topics relating to hysteria are covered, and each episode delves into the history and science of these mass hysteria events.

I love the way the podcast is set out. It's presented like an intelligent discussion with a friend. It's funny and scientific. It asks questions and admits what we still don't know.

I don't think I've ever experienced a science based/non-fiction book that has had open discussions about how much is still unknown, and the importance of being comfortable with this, and fact checking. And that's important.

Give this one a listen.

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Highly recommended.

Alice Lowe is engaging, thoughtful and funny in her delivery, and the content - while very complex and occasionally confronting - is fascinating.

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Great work!

I love the range of topics & stories involved. Just when you think they have done it all they add new angle you wouldn’t think to look into. It is very well done.

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Totally Hysterical

I really loved this podcast. I'd only just finished listening to Victorian Secrets narrated by Stephen Fry and Hysteria was the perfect segue! Highly recommended!

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Profile Image for Anonymous User

Great historical information

Really enjoyed the content and it's application for today. A great way to look inside how hysteria can spread, and often does, through society or communities - especially in today's easy culture of social media. Thanks for thinking outside the square!

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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.