Dr. Jess Venner

speaker

222 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 20 Jul

Dr. Jess Venner’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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Science Friday · How do you piece together what life was like in Pompeii? · 20 Jul 2026 podcast

But I argue that, you know, it's like trying to find John Smith after World War Two.

across the world.

You know, how would you do that?

You know, Roman names were very generic and formulaic.

So I find it a little bit difficult to say that at the moment with the evidence that we have, we can track down these survivors.

But yes, there were a lot of survivors.

Jess, what do you think about that?

Music to my ears.

I did the same thing.

And do you know, it's actually got a name for it.

Sometimes critical fabulation.

So if you go up to the boundaries, it's a ridiculous name, but if you go up to the boundaries of the evidence you have, and then do what you do as an actor or what I do as a historian, and then build out these lived experiences of these people based on our experiences, humans.

and, you know, our obvious intelligence and intuition and emotions that we all have and sort of build out those bits, just knowing those people based on, like you said, the amount of research you do.

I was actually going to ask you a question.

Is that okay?

Yeah.

Um...

I was just wondering, because when I started writing this, I've been studying Pompeii for about 12 years now.

I think I counted the other day.

And even writing my book, I got to know these people so well that I felt so emotional doing it.

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