Pause for Thought
From full stops to emojis, a Tudor letter to texting - how has the use of punctuation marks developed over the centuries? Florence Hazrat thinks about the way brackets help us understand the pandemic....
5 Touko 202214min
Opium Tales
Linking tea, sugar, opium, addiction and trade, Fariha Shaikh's essay looks at the novel An Insular Possession published in 1986 by Timothy Mo, and at Amitav Ghosh's trilogy which began in 2008 with S...
5 Touko 202212min
New Generation Thinkers: Alexander and the Persians
What made him great? Celebrated as a military leader, Alexander took over an empire created by the Persians. Julia Hartley's essay looks at two examples of myth-making about Alexander: The Persian Boy...
4 Touko 202213min
Windows
From Hitchcock to George Formby, stained glass to Rachel Whiteread, Cindy Sherman to Rembrandt. A new exhibition called Reframed: The Woman in the Window is the starting point for today's conversation...
4 Touko 202244min
Kawanabe Kyōsai and Yukio Mishima
Frogs, farting competitions, art connoisseurs, courtesans and crows all feature in the art of Kawanabe Kyōsai,- a key Japanese figure who challenged traditions of Japanese art. Kyōsai blurred the line...
3 Touko 202245min
A Brazilian soprano in jazz-age Paris
Xangô (the god of thunder) and Paso Ñañigo’, composed by the Cuban Moises Simons, were two of the numbers performed by Elsie Houston in the clubs of Paris in the 1920s. Also able to sing soprano in Po...
2 Touko 202215min
John Baptist Dasalu and fighting for freedom
An 1856 portrait shows a 40 year old man from Benin who managed to secure his freedom after being captured. Dasalu was taken from Dahomey to Cuba, alongside over five hundred adults and children in th...
29 Huhti 202215min
May Day rituals
The People's History Museum researcher Dr Shirin Hirsch, folk expert Tim Healey and writer Zoe Gilbert join Matthew Sweet to explore rituals and beliefs associated with May Day, including the otherwor...
29 Huhti 202244min
