To mark this year’s International Women’s Day, an episode of the new podcast Studio UP Barbie and Ken in the Middle Ages premiered.
Just like the film Barbie (directed by Greta Gerwig), the podcast focuses on gender as an analytical concept. Through the dynamics of gender relations, the film reveals the underlying principles of how Barbieland and Kendom function. In a similar way, examining gender relations also helps us understand how medieval society worked as a whole.
The podcast therefore explores some of the questions raised by the film and looks for their parallels in the Middle Ages—for example ideas about marriage, childhood, female power, and the reactions that women’s authority could provoke within society. The episode highlights selected themes that allow us to gain broader insight into how medieval society functioned.
The podcast is written and hosted by Michaela Antonín Malaníková and Patrik Paštrnák from the Department of History, Faculty of Arts, Palacký University Olomouc.
🎧 In this episode you will learn, for example:
- whether the earliest dolls really looked like children,
- what the idealisation of female beauty looked like in the Middle Ages,
- and what these themes reveal about medieval society.
The full episode is available on the university’s platforms on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
For more information see here.