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RSDS RADIO SOCIETÀ DEI SOGNI
Hosted by Società dei Sogni · IT
La radio delle fragilità
13episodes
Episodes
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The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Sep 30, 202100:49:43Tap to summarizeMelvyn Bragg and guests discuss Anne Bronte's second novel, published in 1848, which is now celebrated alongside those of her sisters but which Charlotte Bronte tried to suppress as a 'mistake'. It examines the life of Helen, who has escaped her abusive husband Arthur Huntingdon with their son to live at Wildfell Hall as a widow under the alias 'Mrs Graham', and it exposes the men in her husband's circle who gave her no choice but to flee. Early critics attacked the novel as coarse, as misrepresenting male behaviour, and as something no woman or girl should ever read; soon after Anne's death, Charlotte suggested the publisher should lose it for good. In recent decades, though, its reputation has climbed and it now sits with Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights as one of the great novels by the Bronte sisters.The image above shows Tara Fitzgerald as Helen Graham in a 1996 BBC adaptation.WithAlexandra LewisLecturer in English and Creative Writing at the University of Newcastle (Australia)Marianne ThormählenProfessor Emerita in English Studies, Lund UniversityAndJohn BowenProfessor of Nineteenth Century Literature at the University of YorkProducer: Simon Tillotson
Transcribe →Herodotus
Sep 23, 202100:53:35Tap to summarizeMelvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Greek writer known as the father of histories, dubbed by his detractors as the father of lies. Herodotus (c484 to 425 BC or later) was raised in Halicarnassus in modern Turkey when it was part of the Persian empire and, in the years after the Persian Wars, set about an inquiry into the deep background to those wars. He also aimed to preserve what he called the great and marvellous deeds of Greeks and non-Greeks, seeking out the best evidence for past events and presenting the range of evidence for readers to assess. Plutarch was to criticise Herodotus for using this to promote the least flattering accounts of his fellow Greeks, hence the 'father of lies', but the depth and breadth of his Histories have secured his reputation from his lifetime down to the present day.WithTom HarrisonProfessor of Ancient History at the University of St AndrewsEsther EidinowProfessor of Ancient History at the University of BristolAndPaul CartledgeA. G. Leventis Senior Research Fellow at Clare College, University of CambridgeProducer: Simon Tillotson
Transcribe →The Evolution of Crocodiles
Sep 16, 202100:53:16Tap to summarizeMelvyn Bragg and guests discuss the remarkable diversity of the animals that dominated life on land in the Triassic, before the rise of the dinosaurs in the Jurassic, and whose descendants are often described wrongly as 'living fossils'. For tens of millions of years, the ancestors of alligators and Nile crocodiles included some as large as a bus, some running on two legs like a T Rex and some that lived like whales. They survived and rebounded from a series of extinction events but, while the range of habitats of the dinosaur descendants such as birds covers much of the globe, those of the crocodiles have contracted, even if the animals themselves continue to evolve today as quickly as they ever have.WithAnjali GoswamiResearch Leader in Life Sciences and Dean of Postgraduate Education at the Natural History MuseumPhilip MannionLecturer in the Department of Earth Sciences at University College London AndSteve BrusatteProfessor of Palaeontology and Evolution at the University of EdinburghProducer Simon Tillotson
Transcribe →Shakespeare's Sonnets
Jun 24, 202100:52:34Tap to summarizeMelvyn Bragg and guests discuss the collection of poems published in 1609 by Thomas Thorpe: Shakespeare’s Sonnets, “never before imprinted”. Yet, while some of Shakespeare's other poems and many of his plays were often reprinted in his lifetime, the Sonnets were not a publishing success. They had to make their own way, outside the main canon of Shakespeare’s work: wonderful, troubling, patchy, inspiring and baffling, and they have appealed in different ways to different times. Most are addressed to a man, something often overlooked and occasionally concealed; one early and notorious edition even changed some of the pronouns. With:Hannah CrawforthSenior Lecturer in Early Modern Literature at King’s College LondonDon PatersonPoet and Professor of Poetry at the University of St AndrewsAndEmma SmithProfessor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, OxfordProducer: Simon Tillotson
Transcribe →Edward Gibbon
Jun 17, 202100:53:17Tap to summarizeMelvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and ideas of one of the great historians, best known for his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (published 1776-89). According to Gibbon (1737-94) , the idea for this work came to him on 15th of October 1764 as he sat musing amidst the ruins of Rome, while barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter. Decline and Fall covers thirteen centuries and is an enormous intellectual undertaking and, on publication, it became a phenomenal success across Europe. The image above is of Edward Gibbon by Henry Walton, oil on mahogany panel, 1773.WithDavid WomersleyThe Thomas Wharton Professor of English Literature at St Catherine’s College, University of OxfordCharlotte RobertsLecturer in English at University College LondonAnd Karen O’BrienProfessor of English Literature at the University of OxfordProducer: Simon Tillotson
Transcribe →Booth's Life and Labour Survey
Jun 10, 202100:48:57Tap to summarizeMelvyn Bragg and guests discuss Charles Booth's survey, The Life and Labour of the People in London, published in 17 volumes from 1889 to 1903. Booth (1840-1916), a Liverpudlian shipping line owner, surveyed every household in London to see if it was true, as claimed, that as many as a quarter lived in poverty. He found that it was closer to a third, and that many of these were either children with no means of support or older people no longer well enough to work. He went on to campaign for an old age pension, and broadened the impact of his findings by publishing enhanced Ordnance Survey maps with the streets coloured according to the wealth of those who lived there.The image above is of an organ grinder on a London street, circa 1893, with children dancing to the Pas de QuatreWithEmma GriffinProfessor of Modern British History at the University of East AngliaSarah WiseAdjunct Professor at the University of CaliforniaAndLawrence GoldmanEmeritus Fellow in History at St Peter’s College, University of OxfordProducer: Simon Tillotson
Transcribe →Kant's Copernican Revolution
Jun 3, 202100:53:26Tap to summarizeMelvyn Bragg and guests discuss the insight into our relationship with the world that Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) shared in his book The Critique of Pure Reason in 1781. It was as revolutionary, in his view, as when the Polish astronomer Copernicus realised that Earth revolves around the Sun rather than the Sun around Earth. Kant's was an insight into how we understand the world around us, arguing that we can never know the world as it is, but only through the structures of our minds which shape that understanding. This idea, that the world depends on us even though we do not create it, has been one of Kant’s greatest contributions to philosophy and influences debates to this day. The image above is a portrait of Immanuel Kant by Friedrich Wilhelm SpringerWith Fiona HughesSenior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of EssexAnil GomesAssociate Professor and Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Trinity College, OxfordAnd John CallananSenior Lecturer in Philosophy at King’s College LondonProducer: Simon Tillotson
Transcribe →The Interregnum
May 27, 202100:52:33Tap to summarizeMelvyn Bragg and guests discuss the period between the execution of Charles I in 1649 and the unexpected restoration of his son Charles II in 1660, known as The Interregnum. It was marked in England by an elusive pursuit of stability, with serious consequences in Scotland and notorious ones in Ireland. When Parliament executed Charles it had also killed Scotland and Ireland’s king, without their consent; Scotland immediately declared Charles II king of Britain, and Ireland too favoured Charles. In the interests of political and financial security, Parliament's forces, led by Oliver Cromwell, soon invaded Ireland and then turned to defeating Scotland. However, the improvised power structures in England did not last and Oliver Cromwell's death in 1658 was followed by the threat of anarchy. In England, Charles II had some success in overturning the changes of the 1650s but there were lasting consequences for Scotland and the notorious changes in Ireland were entrenched.The Dutch image of Oliver Cromwell, above, was published by Joost Hartgers c1649With Clare JacksonSenior Tutor at Trinity Hall, University of CambridgeMicheál Ó Siochrú Professor in Modern History at Trinity College DublinAndLaura StewartProfessor in Early Modern History at the University of YorkProducer: Simon Tillotson
Transcribe →Journey to the West
May 20, 202100:51:58Tap to summarizeMelvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great novels of China’s Ming era, and perhaps the most loved. Written in 1592, it draws on the celebrated travels of a real monk from China to India a thousand years before, and on a thousand years of retellings of that story, especially the addition of a monkey as companion who, in the novel, becomes supersimian. For most readers the monk, Tripitaka, is upstaged by this irrepressible Monkey with his extraordinary powers, accompanied by the fallen but recovering deities, Pigsy and Sandy.The image above, from the caricature series Yoshitoshi ryakuga or Sketches by Yoshitoshi, is of Monkey creating an army by plucking out his fur and blowing it into the air, and each hair becomes a monkey-warrior.With Julia LovellProfessor of Modern Chinese History and Literature at Birkbeck, University of LondonChiung-yun Evelyn LiuAssociate Research Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, TaiwanAndCraig ClunasProfessor Emeritus of the History of Art at Trinity College, University of OxfordProducer: Simon Tillotson
Transcribe →Longitude
May 13, 202100:51:14Tap to summarizeMelvyn Bragg and guests discuss the search for Longitude while at sea. Following efforts by other maritime nations, the British Government passed the Longitude Act in 1714 to reward anyone who devised reliable means for ships to determine their longitude at sea. Mariners could already calculate how far they were north or south, the Latitude, using the Pole Star, but voyaging across the Atlantic to the Caribbean was much less predictable as navigators could not be sure how far east or west they were, a particular problem when heading for islands. It took fifty years of individual genius and collaboration in Britain and across Europe, among astronomers, clock makers, mathematicians and sailors, for the problem to be resolved.WithRebekah HiggittPrincipal Curator of Science at National Museums ScotlandJim BennettKeeper Emeritus at the Science MuseumAnd Simon SchafferProfessor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of CambridgeProducer: Simon Tillotson
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