Radio days for women of substance

Writer Sylvia Plath and Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem, both revered at the time, were the focus of national radio broadcasts in the UK and in the USA 

UNIVERSITY of Huddersfield academics, both respected authorities in their fields, were invited to contribute to award-winning radio programmes on twin sides of the Atlantic.  They were medieval historian Dr Katherine Lewis and Sylvia Plath biographer Heather Clark, who is Professor of Contemporary Poetry.  Both are based in the Department of English, Linguistics and History and both spoke about women who made their mark on history.

Professor Clark is a leading expert on Sylvia Plath, the American writer who married the Yorkshire-born Ted Hughes, later Poet Laureate.  The marriage broke down and Plath committed suicide in 1963, shortly after the publication of her autobiographical novel The Bell Jar, regarded as a masterpiece.

The novel drew its inspiration from a period in the summer of 1953, when the 19-year-old Sylvia Plath was awarded the post of guest editor of a New York fashion magazine.  It was to be a troubling experience that helped shape her life.  The episode was the topic of an edition of a series named New York Icons, broadcast by Studio 360,  an American weekly public radio programme about the arts and culture, broadcast weekly on more than 160 terrestrial radio stations throughout the country – garnering an audience of millions – and also available as a podcast.

Professor Clark is completing a major new biography of Sylvia Plath, and was invited to make expert contributions to the New York Icons programme, which told how Sylvia, already a published author, was reduced to writing fashion blurbs at the magazine.  It was a summer job that contributed to her growing sense of disillusion.

“She became part of vast propaganda machine that turned women into objects.  She wanted to be the subject of her own life, not the object of someone else’s life,” Professor Clark told the programme.  On her last night in the city, Plath threw away her girdles, calling them instruments of torture.

The New York experience would be the basis of The Bell Jar, a book about a young woman having a nervous breakdown.  “Between the lines is a question – are you sick or did society make you sick?” said Professor Clark.

The New York Icons podcast also includes excerpts from interviews that Sylvia Plath gave to the BBC after she had relocated to Britain and married Ted Hughes.

University of Huddersfield historian Dr Katherine Lewis has become a regular contributor to one of BBC Radio 4’s longest-running and most-respected programmes – In Our Time, presented by Melvyn Bragg.

In her latest appearance – now available in extended edition online – Dr Lewis joined a panel of three medieval experts who discussed the life, times and political struggles of Melisende, who was Queen of Jerusalem in the 1100s, after the city and region had been conquered by the Crusaders.

As the eldest daughter of Baldwin II, King of Jerusalem, who had no sons, Melisende was heir to the kingdom and would have had a political education, Dr Lewis told the programme.  She married Fulk V of Anjou, who expected to become sole ruler of Jerusalem.  But the formidable Melisende – noted for her wrathful temper – managed to reassert her rights as co-ruler.

After Fulk’s death, she ruled with her son Baldwin III, but when he was older he took up arms against his mother and besieged her in Jerusalem.  Melisende went into retirement and died in 1161.