Oxford Brookes historian to appear on Valentine’s Day themed podcasts

Dr Sally Holloway and Jonathan Van Ness
Dr Sally Holloway is a guest on Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness

An Oxford Brookes University academic with expertise in the history of romantic relationships will appear in two hit podcasts this Valentine’s Day.

Dr Sally Holloway, Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow in History & History of Art, will feature on the BBC history podcast ‘You’re Dead To Me’, and ‘Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness’, discussing her research over the last decade on romantic relationships.

Speaking of her involvement in the podcasts, Dr Holloway said: “February is always a busy time to be a historian of love and romance, and I’m delighted to have had the opportunity to bring the history of romantic relationships to a much wider audience, from practices we all recognise today such as exchanging flowers and valentine cards, to rituals which have long since fallen out of use, such as baking valentine buns and taking part in lotteries.”

The award-winning ‘You’re Dead To Me’ podcast is presented by the historian, author and broadcaster Greg Jenner, and brings together academic experts and comedians to discuss a new subject each week. Dr Holloway joined Greg and the actor and comedian Cariad Lloyd from the improvisation group Austentatious to launch the sixth series with a step-by-step guide to dating in Georgian England. The episode is now available on BBC Sounds and other podcast apps.

Dr Holloway will also appear on  TV star and author Jonathan Van Ness’s hugely popular podcast ‘Getting Curious’, discussing the origins and development of Valentine’s Day as a ritual celebration, including how it evolved over the eighteenth century with the rise of print culture and  commercialisation of romance. The episode draws on Dr Holloway’s published research on Valentine’s Day customs and will be released on 15 February.

This will be the second time that Dr Holloway has appeared on ‘Getting Curious’. In April last year, she joined Jonathan to discuss love and courtship in Georgian England

Dr Holloway, of the School of History, Philosophy and Culture at Oxford Brookes University, is an expert in the history of emotions, gender, and visual and material culture in Britain and the world during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 

She has a decade of experience as a researcher and consultant to factual history programmes on BBC Two, BBC Four, and BBC Radio 4, and gave an interview about eighteenth-century love letters on A Very British Romance with Lucy Worsley in 2015. She can be found discussing her work in the Observer and Boston Globe, and The Thing about Austen and History Extra podcasts.