Cosy comfort reading or Nietzsche?
A cosy cottage with warming fireplaces, comfort food, crime dramas on tv: Matthew Sweet and guests discuss art, literature and drama that are comfortable to engage with and how difficulty, a dedicatio...
15 Nov 202456min
Milton and our modern world
Political upheaval, the role of the press and free speech, attitudes towards divorce: the poet John Milton thought and wrote about all of these issues which also concern us today. Milton (9th Dec 1608...
8 Nov 202456min
Ghosts, death and ecstatic states
With Day of the Dead, Halloween and All Souls Day being marked in different countries around the world - Shahidha Bari's guests discuss the belief in ghosts and the search for meaning in mysticism. Th...
1 Nov 202457min
Are we all American now?
Does the reach of the USA and its cultural influence mean "we're all American now?" Anne McElvoy and her guests discuss the similarities and differences across the Anglosphere and think about the chan...
25 Okt 202456min
Insiders & Outsiders
The philosopher Leo Strauss claimed that many of the great texts of Western philosophy can be read in two ways. There's the message intended for everybody, but also a deeper level, accessible only to ...
18 Okt 202456min
Childhood and innocence
Can we still be idealistic about childhood? How do we square the impact of war, stories of sexual abuse, the impact of time spent on screens with the idea of children's experiences being about play, l...
11 Okt 202456min
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 ou...
4 Okt 202456min
The eternal dynamic of Rivalry, Fredric Jameson, the newly reopened Warburg Institute
Sibling rifts, leadership battles in politics and history, philosophical schools of thoughts and their key players all come into our discussion of the way rivalry shapes the world. Roger Luckhurst ref...
27 Sep 202456min
