The Spectral Summit

This podcast looks at historic literature and figures from the past. We'll start with a 16-year-old Ben Franklin pranking his brother James in 1722 by writing essays as a middle-aged New England widow who savagely critiques colonial Boston and Harvard. Future episodes include interviews with Warren G. Harding, FDR, Eleanor Roosevelt and Edgar Allen Poe. Stay tuned!

The Spectral Summit is a history podcast hosted by Creative Actors Lab, with 13 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Creative Actors Lab hosts The Spectral Summit, a history show with 13 episodes published.

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  Episode #13

  Silence Dogood Essay 10 - Insuring a Widow's Future

  Jul 27, 202615 minS1

  Send us Fan Mail In her tenth letter to the New England Courant, Silence Dogood turns her sharp eye to a problem colonial society preferred not to discuss: what happens to a woman when her husband dies and takes the family's security with him. Her proposal — a fund women could pay into during marriage, to protect against poverty in widowhood — was a strikingly modern idea for 1722. What her readers didn't know was that "Silence" wasn't a widow at all, but the pen name of sixteen-year-old apprentice Benjamin Franklin. Join us as we explore this early glimpse of financial foresight, hidden identity, and a teenage boy's surprisingly progressive take on women's economic security. Learn more about The Spectral and Literary Summit at our website - www.spectral-summit.com. We offer historic and literary videos and podcasts that make the past and literature come alive. This is a production of Creative Actors Lab . Check out our Instagram page here.

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  Episode #12

  Silence Dogood - Essay No. 9 - Religious Hypocrites

  Jun 29, 20269 minS1

  Send us Fan Mail Benjamin Franklin published fourteen Silence Dogood essays in the New-England Courant in 1722, slipping them under the print shop door so his brother James wouldn't know who wrote them. It's the first case of a founding father not only trolling his brother but also catfishing when James developed an affection for Silence. By Essay Nine, Silence had found her footing — and her targets. This one aims at a particular Boston type: the man who wraps himself in religion just long enough to get elected, then sets it aside like a Sunday coat. Franklin was sixteen years old when he wrote it, and he already understood that the loudest piety in the room is often the least trustworthy. Learn more about The Spectral and Literary Summit at our website - www.spectral-summit.com. We offer historic and literary videos and podcasts that make the past and literature come alive. This is a production of Creative Actors Lab . Check out our Instagram page here.

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  Episode #11

  Episode 10 - Dorothy Parker - The Telephone Call

  May 31, 202619 minS1

  <p>Send us Fan Mail</p><p>Join us as we explore the wit and dark humor of Dorothy Parker who is best remembered for her razor wit. "The Telephone Call" which originally appeared in the January 1928 issue of The Bookman, is one of her most psychologically raw interior monologues — strips away the wit entirely, leaving a woman in agony over a phone that won't ring. It's Parker at her most unguarded: funny and excruciating at the same time, a masterclass in the way we negotiate with ourselves when we're powerless, so yeah, we’ve all been there. </p><p>So si...

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  Episode #10

  Episode 9 - The Literary Summit - Tell Tale Poe

  May 4, 202634 minS1

  <p>Send us Fan Mail</p><p>Welcome to our exploration of The Raven, The Tell-Tale Heart, and Annabel Lee — three of Edgar Allan Poe’s most haunting and enduring works.  In this episode, Kelley discusses the meaning while Max reads three of Poe's classics. </p><p>In these pieces, Poe invites us to travel through the darker corners of the human mind. The Raven captures the torment of grief and obsession, as a mysterious bird becomes the voice of loss that cannot be silenced. The Tell-Tale Heart plunges into the mind of a narrator who insists on his sanity even a...

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  Episode #9

  Silence Dogood Essay No. 8 - Freedom of Speech

  Apr 27, 202611 minS1

  <p>Send us Fan Mail</p><p>In this essay, teen Ben Franklin addresses the importance of Freedom of Speech after his brother James is arrested by the authorities in New England for "Publishing too freely." While his brother is in jail, Ben the apprentice, who was not allowed to publish under his own name, uses his outrage as Silence Dogood to reference an article in the London Journal that addresses what would become our First Amendment.</p><p>It's a bold essay from a London publication that calls out suppressing a person's right to express freely in 1722. At the...

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