PODULARITY: Episodes
Mark Vernon has just brought out a book on wellbeing in a new series of which he’s general editor. But this isn’t a run-of-the-mill self-help series.
The series is called The Art of Living and it’s published by independent philosophy specialist, Acumen. Their stated aim is to “open ...
“In marketing and in politics people have got more sophisticated in their manipulation techniques, so more than ever we need to know what they are, so that we can spot the truth when we see it.”
Julian Baggini is the first guest to pay a return visit to the Podularity studio. I last interviewed ...
“The book is written against the view that a philosopher’s biography is of no importance and that philosophy can be reduced to a series of systems of thought.
It’s really an attempt to rewrite the history of philosophy as a history of philosophers. That was the way that philosophy was ...
“The chemistry of this is more than a century old… The basic physics of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases has been known for a very long time. In fact some back-of-the-envelope calculations were made then which more or less stand the test of time a century later.”
A few weeks ...
“I’m interested in saying, look, how can you challenge the Asterix-and-the-Romans kind of image that we tend to have of Rome?
“We are determined to turn a blind eye to Roman subtlety, humour and sophistication because the Romans do a very good job for us of being bridge-builders and ...
“In Russian music you have a very different portrayal of Russia [from the one you find in literature], which has very strong rhythms, very festive images. It’s very bright, very colourful, very, very different from the melancholy Russian soul.”
Writing of Glinka’s opera A Life ...
“It’s almost as though my poetry is an extended passport application… It’s an attempt to be naturalized. I think I’ve failed to be naturalized and therefore there is this German residue about things. It’s something I feel haunted by…”
I’m delighted ...
“I think the burning question is: we think of printing as having revolutionized intellectual life in Europe, how come it doesn’t appear to have revolutionized intellectual life in China?
There’s no great fanfare when it arrives. It seems to creep in and people don’t talk about ...
‘You always suppose you’re the heroine in the story of your life; the day you discover you’re the monster, it’s apt to come as a surprise’
Dol McQueen, ‘flash-girl’, 1862
Chris Hannan’s dazzlingly accomplished first novel, Missy , is published today in ...
On 14 June 1940 German tanks swept into Paris. That the city would fall to the Nazis was by then a foregone conclusion; it had been declared an ‘open city’ the day before. In other words, it would put up no resistance against the invaders. The government had already packed up and left.
‘As soon as humans make images, they make them about humans and they make them about animals and the relationship between them.’
My guest on this week’s programme is Martin Kemp, Professor of the History of Art at Oxford, whose latest book, The Human Animal is a rich and thought-provoking ...
Philosophy can seem the most cerebral and abstract of disciplines. So what would happen if a philosopher stepped out of his study and ‘embedded’ himself in an ordinary (but unfamiliar) community in his own country and tried to work out whether the English people have anything which could ...
This week’s Podularity podcast features an interview with Catriona Kelly, who has just published a monumental new history of childhood in twentieth-century Russia.
What aspects of our human character do we inherit from our fellow primates? Until recently, the answer would have been ‘all the bad bits’. Footage of chimpanzees killing their own kind influenced the view in the popular imagination that ‘killer’ and ‘ape’ were virtual synonyms.
A few years ago Sofka Zinovieff became fascinated by the life of her grandmother and namesake, Sofka Dolgorouky, who was born into a noble family in imperial Russia exactly a century ago.
Sofka had known her grandmother when she was already an old woman and, although she knew something of her colourful ...
On the morning of 1 September 2004, children and teachers all over Russia were getting ready for the first day of the new school year.
So begins Timothy Phillips’ account of the terrible siege of School No. 1 in Beslan, North Ossetia.
This week’s podcast features Tom McCarthy, author of Tintin and the Secret of Literature.
Tom has recently come to prominence as a novelist and his book, Remainder, has been acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic. But in Tintin he shows he also possesses a sharp (and playful) critical mind into the bargain.
If mention of Vienna makes you think of Mozart, cream cakes and Gemütlichkeit, John Leake’s new book may make you think again.
John Leake is a young Texan writer who found himself living in Vienna. The city captivated his imagination (his favourite film is The Third Man) and he soon began searching ...
Ten billion years in the life of our planet. That’s the subject of this first podularity podcast. And all in a little more than 17 minutes…