BBC Radio 4 – In Our Time, The Romantics
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideals, exponents and legacy of Romanticism. In the space of a few years around the start of the nineteenth century the Romantic period gave…
The Driving Instructor
a poem by MARION WINIK
Whatcha Reading, Michael Hobbes?, by Martin McClellan
Michael Hobbes is a Seattle-based journalist, writer, and supremely-talented untangler of our culture’s messiest cultural hairballs. He is the other half (the first being Sarah Marshall, who did this column…
BBC Radio 4 – Short Cuts, Series 20, Mary Oliver
“Tell me, what is it you plan to dowith your one wild and precious life?”- Mary Oliver Josie Long heads out alone into nature to present short documentaries and adventures…
‘Everything is not going to be okay’: How to live with constant reminders that the Earth is in trouble
The anthropocene — whether it began with agriculture, the colonization of the West, the Industrial Revolution or the atomic bomb — was born of human ingenuity. That’s what empowered us…
The Future of Shame and Hope: A Conversation with L.X. Beckett
Not all is bad and terrible and grim in the future. Sometimes disaster means change, and change means growth, and growth means a future full of cool ideas and good-hearted…
Syphilis, sex and fear: How the French disease conquered the world
It got its name in the mid 16th century from a poem by a Renaissance scholar: its eponymous hero Syphilus, a shepherd, enrages the Sun God and is infected as…
The South African Art Collective That Imagined the End of Apartheid
In 1978, Serote and Thamsanqa (Thami) Mnyele founded the Medu Art Ensemble, an art collective that advocated for an end to the South African apartheid government through creative expression —…
The Woman Behind #SurvivorPrivilege Was Kicked Out Of School After Being Raped
Wanjuki’s hashtag #SurvivorPrivilege went on to trend widely among people sharing their experiences as survivors of sexual violence. Their voices became part of a widespread backlash against The Washington Post…