Julian of Norwich

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss whether religion can still be seen as a way of interpreting and judging good and evil in modern western civilisation and examines what the discoveries of Darwin and our knowledge of the true physiological nature and history of man has done for us in terms understanding our concepts of good and evil. As we entered the 20th century Nietzsche announced that God is dead. Was his hatred of Christianity a natural consequence of his belief in the unlimited possibility of mankind’s self creation? If we have enough basic self confidence in our own selves, do we need God?Leszek Kolakowski and Galen Strawson map the current terrain of morality as perceived through philosophy, politics and Darwin and Christ.With Leszek Kolakowski, author and Professor of Philosophy, Oxford University; Galen Strawson, author and Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy, Jesus College, Oxford.

1 Huhti 199928min

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the rise in so-called spectacular architecture at the end of the 20th century. Is architecture to do with what we live in, where it’s located, the buildings that accommodate at best so much more than a few private bodies, or is it the spectacular, even show-off, extravagance, even fantasy, of architects - or is it engineers who see the huge swash of public money as an opportunity to plant a place in posterity? Daniel Libeskind has been heralded as one of the greatest architects of his generation and of the latter half of the 20th century. He is the architect of some spectacular buildings - two of which are the Jewish Museum in Berlin and the highly controversial Spiral Extension to London’s own Victoria and Albert Museum, which his critics have described as looking like imploding cardboard boxes.But why are we witnessing at the end of the century a sudden glut of spectacular buildings, such as Libeskind’s? What do they say about the state of contemporary architecture? And do they show a blatant disregard for history? Is it merely‘the architecture of excess in a world of diminishing resources, a chic counterpoint at the end of the 20th century’?With Daniel Libeskind architect of the Jewish Museum in Berlin and the Spiral Extension to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum; Richard Weston, architect and lecturer at De Montfort University.

25 Maalis 199927min

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the role of animals in humankind's search for knowledge. Since the Greek physician Galen used pigs for anatomical studies in the 2nd century, animals have been used by scientists to further human knowledge. Yet few, if any subjects in this country, raise such violent feelings and passions as animals and their place in our society. With the growing politicisation of animal rights, it is a subject which is increasing in intensity. Do animals have rights and do our needs permit us to use them still to enhance our own lives in the twentieth century? Is it still necessary to experiment on animals for the good of humankind? Or is that morally unacceptable and barbaric - particularly in the light of new research into animal consciousness?With Colin Blakemore, Professor of Physiology, Oxford University, President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Fellow of the Royal Society and targeted in the 1980s by animal welfare activists protesting at his research methods; Dr Lynda Birke, biologist, teacher at Lancaster and Warwick Universities, and previously worked for 7 years in animal behaviour at the Open University.

18 Maalis 199928min

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the importance of geography and ecology in determining world history since civilisation began. The 18th century historian Thomas Carlyle said that world history was the history of what great men have accomplished, but this understanding of history is being increasingly called into question. Professor Jared Diamond’s book Guns, Germs and Steel, which won the 1998 Rhone Poulenc Prize for Science and the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, is a re-evaluation of the last 13,000 years of the history of mankind - particularly in the light of geography and ecology. But what are the implications of looking at world history as being determined by geography and ecology? Is environment really the determining factor in history? And if so, what role does cultural heritage play in shaping different histories? With Professor Jared Diamond, ecologist and physiologist at the Los Angeles Medical School, University of California, and author of Guns, Germs and Steel; Richard Evans, Professor of Modern History, Cambridge University.

11 Maalis 199927min

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the enduring popular and academic appeal of Shakespeare. Did he invent the human personality as we inhabit it now? Professor Harold Bloom claims:“Shakespeare is universal. Shakespeare is the true multicultural author. One has to ask the biblical question “Where shall wisdom be found? And I suppose for me the answer is: wisdom is to be found in Shakespeare provided you get at it in the right way.”But why does Shakespeare still hold the popular and indeed academic imagination in the twentieth century? Should we read him above all others as Harold Bloom suggests in the way he suggests? And what does this say about the state of literary criticism today? With Harold Bloom, literary critic, Professor of Humanities, Yale University and Berg Professor of English, New York University; Jacqueline Rose, literary critic and Professor of English, University of London.

4 Maalis 199927min

Melvyn Bragg examines the social and aesthetic impact of the Avant Garde and discusses whether it has failed in making painting relevant in the 20th century.Avant-garde is in the dictionary as 'anything that is in the forefront of new developments in their media'. Jackson Pollack in the 1960s was seen as one of the leaders of Avant Garde painting. But for the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, Jackson Pollack is merely representative of the uncertainty which has plagued the Avant Garde visual arts movements in the twentieth century, and which has led to paintings' ultimate demise and lack of relevance in the modern age. With Professor Eric Hobsbawm, eminent historian and author of Behind The Times: The Decline and Fall of the Twentieth Century Avant-Gardes; Frances Morris, specialist in contemporary art and Art Programme Curator for the Tate Gallery of Modern Art.

25 Helmi 199928min

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of thought about space, and examines whether cyberspace has introduced a new concept of space in our world or if its roots are in Einsteinian physics. It would have seemed extraordinary to Dante or Newton, from their different perspectives, that at the end of the 20th century there would be learned scholars who would find no place for religion in the great schemes of thought and belief. In the 20th century our notions of physical space have been revolutionised. Einstein said that space was not a separate entity; we’ve probed and explored the outer reaches of our physical space with space flight, powerful telescopes and theoretical physics. But in the last 20 years, with the birth of the Internet, a virtual form of space has been introduced to us - cyberspace - where people can meet and communicate ideas; you sit at home, punch the keys and you can rove all over the world - the keyboard becomes a magic carpet. But does cyberspace introduce a new concept of space in our world? Or does it really have its roots in Einsteinian physics and even in Medieval theologyAccording to the science writer Margaret Wertheim, cyberspace - life on the surfing internet - gives us not only virtual reality, but a soul. Dr John Polkinghorne, the distinguished physicist and ordained priest in the C of E, is not happy with this news, but he does believe that religion is not destroyed by the new technology, and that latest theories in physics reinforce it. With The Reverend Dr John Polkinghorne, Fellow of Queen’s College, Cambridge and Canon Theologian of Liverpool; Margaret Wertheim, science writer and author of The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet.

18 Helmi 199928min

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of our ideas about the formation of language. The psychologist George Miller worked out that in English there are potentially a hundred million trillion sentences of twenty words in length - that’s a hundred times the number of seconds since the birth of the universe. “Language”, as Chomsky put it, “makes infinite use of finite media”. “Language”, as Steven Pinker puts it, “comes so naturally to us that it’s easy to forget what a strange and miraculous gift it is”. “All over the world”, he writes, “members of our species spend a good part of their lives fashioning their breath into hisses and hums and squeaks and pops and are listening to others do the same”. Jean Jacques Rousseau once said that we differ from the animal kingdom in two main ways - the use of language and the prohibition of incest. Language and our ability to learn it has been held up traditionally as our species’ most remarkable achievement, marking us apart from the animals. But in the 20th century, our ideas about how language is formed are being radically challenged and altered. With Dr Jonathan Miller, medical doctor, performer, broadcaster, author and film and opera director; Steven Pinker, cognitive scientist, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Centre for Neuroscience, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, California.

11 Helmi 199927min