Reading & Empathy
Arts & Ideas4 Okt 2024

Reading & Empathy

"I never read novels" is something you hear people say. What is the point of reading - be it histories or fiction? Does it help us empathize with the situation of other people or shed insights into our historical moment? With the news story that university students these days are, apparently, unaccustomed to reading entire books, cover to cover, favouring excerpts, abridgements, and introductions and ahead of the biggest date in the publishing calendar (Super Thursday on Oct 10th) Shahidha Bari is joined by novelist Elif Shafak - winner of the British Academy's President's Medal, her latest novel is called There Are Rivers in the Sky; journalist Gabriel Gatehouse - host of the podcast and Radio 4 series The Coming Storm; New Generation Thinkers Janine Bradbury - a poet, and Jonathan Egid - a philosopher; Tiffany Watt Smith - a historian of emotions and author of a book on schadenfreude and by the historian of China Professor Rana Mitter - chair of the judges for this year's Cundill History Prize. The winner will be announced on October 30th and the books in contention are: Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia by Gary J. Bass Native Nations: A Millennium in North America by Kathleen DuVal Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights by Dylan C. Penningroth

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Episoder(2000)

Humility

Humility

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Oral tradition and oracy

Oral tradition and oracy

Oracy - the ability to express oneself fluently - has been included in plans to modernise the national curriculum, with a new focus on equipping young people with the skills they need for life and wor...

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Taste

Taste

'It's all in the best possible taste'. But what does it mean to have good taste? And does pursuing good taste lead to favouring style over substance? Who are the thinkers who have considered a philoso...

16 Mar 56min

Women, language & experience

Women, language & experience

In a special programme looking ahead to International Women’s Day on March 8th, Shahidha Bari looks at how women express themselves in language, argument, poetry and art. Her guests include:Sara Ahmed...

6 Mar 56min

Authority

Authority

Is authority a justly unfashionable quality that we should consign to the past? Or does it still have a place in political and business leadership, schools, medical settings and in the home? What is t...

27 Feb 57min

Crime and punishment medieval to modern

Crime and punishment medieval to modern

How have attitudes to punishment changed over time, and what ideas about the rationale for punishment are circulating today? In Radio 4's roundtable discussion programme, Matthew Sweet and guests expl...

20 Feb 56min

Working Class Creativity

Working Class Creativity

From an impoverished neighbourhood in South London, Charlie Chaplin became one of the most significant figures in the development of cinema. More recently, TV writers like Sophie Willan and Michaela C...

13 Feb 56min

Is Might Right?

Is Might Right?

'The strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must'. So claimed the powerful Athenians, according to the Ancient Greek historian Thucydides. Plato tried to demonstrate that might does not m...

6 Feb 56min

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