Unspeakable Acts
James Pratt and John Smith were the last men hanged in England for the crime of sodomy, reported to the authorities by nosy landlords who later petitioned for clemency. Tom Crewe joins Thomas Jones to...
1 Maj 202449min
Where does culture come from?
The word ‘culture’ now drags the term ‘wars’ in its wake, but this is too narrow an approach to a concept with a much more capacious history. In the closing LRB Winter Lecture for 2024, Terry Eagleton...
24 Apr 20241h 11min
Remembering the Future
In her recent LRB Winter Lecture, Hazel V. Carby discussed ways contemporary Indigenous artists are rendering the ordinarily invisible repercussions of ecocide and genocide visible. She joins Adam Sha...
17 Apr 202439min
Leaving Haiti
Since the 2010 earthquake, ordinary life in Haiti has become increasingly untenable: in January this year, armed gangs controlled around 80 per cent of the capital. Pooja Bhatia joins Tom to discuss H...
10 Apr 202444min
Gurle Talk
Modern English speakers struggle to find sexual terms that aren’t either obscene or scientific, but that wasn’t always the case. In a recent review of Jenni Nuttall’s Mother Tongue, Mary Wellesley con...
4 Apr 202435min
The Belgrano Diary: Half a Million Sheep Can't Be Wrong
When Argentina invades the Falkland Islands, Margaret Thatcher sends a huge flotilla on an 8000-mile rescue mission – to save a forgotten remnant of the empire, and her premiership. Onboard the nuclea...
28 Mars 202432min
Architecture Repopulated
Rosemary Hill, reviewing Steven Brindle’s Architecture in Britain and Ireland, 1530-1830, celebrates his approach to architecture as a social, collaborative endeavour, where human need (and human gree...
27 Mars 202450min
Introducing: The Belgrano Diary
On 2 May 1982, the British submarine HMS Conqueror sank the Argentinian warship, the General Belgrano, killing 323 men. It was the bloodiest event of the Falklands War – and the most controversial. Th...
21 Mars 20243min
