Alle afleveringen van In Our Time – pagina 4 van 23

John Donne

9 februari 2023 · 52 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Donne (1573-1631), known now as one of England’s finest poets of love and notable in his own time as an astonishing preacher. He was born a Catholic in a Protestant country and, when he married Anne More without her father's knowledge, Donne lost his job in the government circle and fell into a poverty that only ended once he became a priest in the Church of England. As Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, his sermons were celebrated, perhaps none more than his final one in 1631 when he was plainly in his dying days, as if preaching at his own funeral. Lees meer

The image above is from a miniature in the Royal Collection and was painted in 1616 by Isaac Oliver (1565-1617)

With

Mary Ann Lund
Associate Professor in Renaissance English Literature at the University of Leicester

Sue Wiseman
Professor of Seventeenth Century Literature at Birkbeck, University of London

And

Hugh Adlington
Professor of English Literature at the University of Birmingham

The Great Stink

26 januari 2023 · 50 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the stench from the River Thames in the hot summer of 1858 and how it appalled and terrified Londoners living and working beside it, including those in the new Houses of Parliament which were still under construction. There had been an outbreak of cholera a few years before in which tens of thousands had died, and a popular theory held that foul smells were linked to diseases. The source of the problem was that London's sewage, once carted off to fertilise fields had recently, thanks to the modern flushing systems, started to flow into the river and, thanks to the ebb and flow of the tides, was staying there and warming in the summer sun. The engineer Joseph Bazalgette was given the task to build huge new sewers to intercept the waste, a vast network, so changing the look of London and helping ensure there were no further cholera outbreaks from contaminated water. Lees meer

The image above is from Punch, July 10th 1858 and it has this caption: The 'Silent Highway'-Man. "Your Money or your Life!"

With

Rosemary Ashton
Emeritus Quain Professor of English Language and Literature at University College London

Stephen Halliday
Author of ‘The Great Stink of London: Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Cleansing of the Victorian Metropolis’

And

Paul Dobraszczyk
Lecturer at the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London

Persuasion

19 januari 2023 · 51 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jane Austen’s last complete novel, which was published just before Christmas in 1817, five months after her death. It is the story of Anne Elliot, now 27 and (so we are told), losing her bloom, and of her feelings for Captain Wentworth who she was engaged to, 8 years before – an engagement she broke off under pressure from her father and godmother. When Wentworth, by chance, comes back into Anne Elliot's life, he is still angry with her and neither she nor Austen's readers can know whether it is now too late for their thwarted love to have a second chance. Lees meer

The image above is from a 1995 BBC adaptation of the novel, with Amanda Root and Ciarán Hinds

With

Karen O’Brien
Vice-Chancellor of Durham University

Fiona Stafford
Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford

And

Paddy Bullard
Associate Professor of English Literature and Book History at the University of Reading

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Citizen Kane

12 januari 2023 · 54 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Orson Welles' film, released in 1941, which is widely acclaimed as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, films yet made. Welles plays the lead role of Charles Foster Kane, a newspaper magnate, and Welles directed, produced and co-wrote this story of loneliness at the heart of a megalomaniac. The plot was partly inspired by the life of William Randolph Hearst, who then used the power of his own newspapers to try to suppress the film’s release. It was to take some years before Citizen Kane reached a fuller audience and, from that point, become so celebrated. Lees meer

The image above is of Kane addressing a public meeting while running for Governor.

With

Stella Bruzzi
Professor of Film and Dean of Arts and Humanities at University College London

Ian Christie
Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck, University of London

And

John David Rhodes
Professor of Film Studies and Visual Culture at the University of Cambridge

Producer: Simon Tillotson

The Irish Rebellion of 1798

5 januari 2023 · 55 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the momentum behind rebellion in Ireland in 1798, the people behind the rebellion and the impact over the next few years and after. Amid wider unrest, the United Irishmen set the rebellion on its way, inspired by the French and American revolutionaries and their pursuit of liberty. When it broke out in May the United Irishmen had an estimated two hundred thousand members, Catholic and Protestant, and the prospect of a French invasion fleet to back them. Crucially for the prospects of success, some of those members were British spies who exposed the plans and the military were largely ready - though not in Wexford where the scale of rebellion was much greater. The fighting was initially fierce and brutal and marked with sectarianism but had largely been suppressed by the time the French arrived in August to declare a short-lived republic. The consequences of the rebellion were to be far reaching, not least in the passing of Acts of Union in 1800. Lees meer

The image above is of Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763 - 1798), prominent member of the United Irishmen

With

Ian McBride
Foster Professor of Irish History at Hertford College, University of Oxford

Catriona Kennedy
Senior Lecturer in Modern History at the University of York

And

Liam Chambers
Head of Department and Senior Lecturer in History at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick

Producer: Simon Tillotson

The Nibelungenlied

29 december 2022 · 55 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The Song of the Nibelungs, a twelfth century German epic, full of blood, violence, fantasy and bleakness. It is a foundational work of medieval literature, drawing on the myths of Scandinavia and central Europe. The poem tells of two couples, Siegfried and Kriemhild and Gunther and Brunhilda, whose lives are destroyed by lies and revenge. It was extremely popular in its time, sometimes rewritten with happier endings, and was rediscovered by German Romantics and has since been drawn from selectively by Wagner, Fritz Lang and, infamously, the Nazis looking to support ideas on German heritage. Lees meer

The image above is of Siegfried seeing Kriemhild for the first time, a miniature from the Hundeshagenschen Code manuscript dating from 15th Century.

With

Sarah Bowden
Reader in German and Medieval Studies at King’s College London

Mark Chinca
Professor of Medieval German and Comparative Literature at the University of Cambridge

And

Bettina Bildhauer
Professor of Modern Languages at the University of St Andrews

Producer: Simon Tillotson

The Challenger Expedition 1872-1876

22 december 2022 · 51 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the voyage of HMS Challenger which set out from Portsmouth in 1872 with a mission a to explore the ocean depths around the world and search for new life. The scale of the enterprise was breath taking and, for its ambition, it has since been compared to the Apollo missions. The team onboard found thousands of new species, proved there was life on the deepest seabeds and plumbed the Mariana Trench five miles below the surface. Thanks to telegraphy and mailboats, its vast discoveries were shared around the world even while Challenger was at sea, and they are still being studied today, offering insights into the ever-changing oceans that cover so much of the globe and into the health of our planet. Lees meer

The image above is from the journal of Pelham Aldrich R.N. who served on the Challenger Surveying Expedition from 1872-5.

With

Erika Jones
Curator of Navigation and Oceanography at Royal Museums Greenwich

Sam Robinson
Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute Research Fellow at the University of Southampton

And

Giles Miller
Principal Curator of Micropalaeontology at the Natural History Museum London

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Demosthenes' Philippics

15 december 2022 · 57 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the speeches that became a byword for fierce attacks on political opponents. It was in the 4th century BC, in Athens, that Demosthenes delivered these speeches against the tyrant Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, when Philip appeared a growing threat to Athens and its allies and Demosthenes feared his fellow citizens were set on appeasement. In what became known as The Philippics, Demosthenes tried to persuade Athenians to act against Macedon before it was too late; eventually he succeeded in stirring them, even if the Macedonians later prevailed. For these speeches prompting resistance, Demosthenes became famous as one of the Athenian democracy’s greatest freedom fighters. Later, in Rome, Cicero's attacks on Mark Antony were styled on Demosthenes and these too became known as Philippics. Lees meer

The image above is painted on the dome of the library of the National Assembly, Paris and is by Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863). It depicts Demosthenes haranguing the waves of the sea as a way of strengthening his voice for his speeches.

With

Paul Cartledge
A. G. Leventis Senior Research Fellow at Clare College, University of Cambridge

Kathryn Tempest
Reader in Latin Literature and Roman History at the University of Roehampton

And

Jon Hesk
Reader in Greek and Classical Studies at the University of St Andrews

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Bauhaus

8 december 2022 · 57 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Bauhaus which began in 1919 in Weimar, Germany, as a school for arts and crafts combined, and went on to be famous around the world. Under its first director, Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus moved to Dessau and extended its range to architecture and became associated with a series of white, angular, flat-roofed buildings reproduced from Shanghai to Chicago, aimed for modern living. The school closed after only 14 years while at a third location, Berlin, under pressure from the Nazis, yet its students and teachers continued to spread its ethos in exile, making it even more influential. Lees meer

The image above is of the Bauhaus Building, Dessau, designed by Gropius and built in 1925-6

With

Robin Schuldenfrei
Tangen Reader in 20th Century Modernism at The Courtauld Institute of Art

Alan Powers
History Leader at the London School of Architecture

And

Michael White
Professor of the History of Art at the University of York

Producer: Simon Tillotson

The Morant Bay Rebellion

1 december 2022 · 54 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the rebellion that broke out in Jamaica on 11th October 1865 when Paul Bogle (1822-65) led a protest march from Stony Gut to the courthouse in nearby Morant Bay. There were many grounds for grievance that day and soon anger turned to bloodshed. Although the British had abolished slavery 30 years before, the plantation owners were still dominant and the conditions for the majority of people on Jamaica were poor. The British governor suppressed this rebellion brutally and soon people in Jamaica lost what right they had to rule themselves. Some in Britain, like Charles Dickens, supported the governor's actions while others, like Charles Darwin, wanted him tried for murder. Lees meer

The image above is from a Jamaican $2 banknote, printed after Paul Bogle became a National Hero in 1969.

With

Matthew J Smith
Professor of History and Director of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery at University College London

Diana Paton
The William Robertson Professor of History at the University of Edinburgh

And

Lawrence Goldman
Emeritus Fellow in History at St Peter’s College, University of Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Wilfred Owen

24 november 2022 · 57 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the celebrated British poet of World War One. Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) had published only a handful of poems when he was killed a week before the end of the war, but in later decades he became seen as the essential British war poet. His works such as Anthem for Doomed Youth, Strange Meeting and Dulce et Decorum Est went on to be inseparable from the memory of the war and its futility. However, while Owen is best known for his poetry of the trenches, his letters offer a more nuanced insight into him such as his pride in being an officer in charge of others and in being a soldier who fought alongside his comrades. Lees meer

With

Jane Potter
Reader in The School of Arts at Oxford Brookes University

Fran Brearton
Professor of Modern Poetry at Queen’s University Belfast

And

Guy Cuthbertson
Professor of British Literature and Culture at Liverpool Hope University

Producer: Simon Tillotson

The Fish-Tetrapod Transition

17 november 2022 · 56 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the greatest changes in the history of life on Earth. Around 400 million years ago some of our ancestors, the fish, started to become a little more like humans. At the swampy margins between land and water, some fish were turning their fins into limbs, their swim bladders into lungs and developed necks and eventually they became tetrapods, the group to which we and all animals with backbones and limbs belong. After millions of years of this transition, these tetrapod descendants of fish were now ready to leave the water for a new life of walking on land, and with that came an explosion in the diversity of life on Earth. Lees meer

The image above is a representation of Tiktaalik Roseae, a fish with some features of a tetrapod but not one yet, based on a fossil collected in the Canadian Arctic.

With

Emily Rayfield
Professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Bristol

Michael Coates
Chair and Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago

And

Steve Brusatte
Professor of Palaeontology and Evolution at the University of Edinburgh

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Berthe Morisot

10 november 2022 · 1 uur

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the influential painters at the heart of the French Impressionist movement: Berthe Morisot (1841-1895). The men in her circle could freely paint in busy bars and public spaces, while Morisot captured the domestic world and found new, daring ways to paint quickly in the open air. Her work shows women as they were, to her: informal, unguarded, and not transformed or distorted for the eyes of men. The image above is one of her few self-portraits, though several portraits of her survive by other artists, chiefly her sister Edma and her brother-in-law Edouard Manet. Lees meer

With

Tamar Garb
Professor of History of Art at University College London

Lois Oliver
Curator at the Royal Academy and Adjunct Professor of Art History at the American University of Notre Dame London.

And

Claire Moran
Reader in French at Queen's University Belfast

Producer: Simon Tillotson

The Knights Templar

3 november 2022 · 50 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the military order founded around 1119, twenty years after the Crusaders captured Jerusalem. For almost 200 years the Knights Templar were a notable fighting force and financial power in the Crusader States and Western Europe. Their mission was to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land, and they became extremely wealthy yet, as the crusader grip on Jerusalem slipped, their political fortune declined steeply. They were to be persecuted out of existence, with their last grand master burned at the stake in Paris in 1314, and that sudden end has contributed to the strength of the legends that have grown up around them. Lees meer

With

Helen Nicholson
Professor of Medieval History at Cardiff University

Mike Carr
Lecturer in Late Medieval History at the University of Edinburgh

And

Jonathan Phillips
Professor of Crusading History at Royal Holloway, University of London

Producer: Simon Tillotson

The Electron

27 oktober 2022 · 50 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss an atomic particle that's become inseparable from modernity. JJ Thomson discovered the electron 125 years ago, so revealing that atoms, supposedly the smallest things, were made of even smaller things. He pictured them inside an atomic ball like a plum pudding, with others later identifying their place outside the nucleus - and it is their location on the outer limit that has helped scientists learn so much about electrons and with electrons. We can use electrons to reveal the secrets of other particles and, while electricity exists whether we understand electrons or not, the applications of electricity and electrons grow as our knowledge grows. Many questions, though, remain unanswered. Lees meer

With

Victoria Martin
Professor of Collider Physics at the University of Edinburgh

Harry Cliff
Research Fellow in Particle Physics at the University of Cambridge

And

Frank Close
Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics and Fellow Emeritus at Exeter College at the University of Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Plato's Atlantis

20 oktober 2022 · 54 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Plato's account of the once great island of Atlantis out to the west, beyond the world known to his fellow Athenians, and why it disappeared many thousands of years before his time. There are no sources for this story other than Plato, and he tells it across two of his works, the Timaeus and the Critias, tantalizing his readers with evidence that it is true and clues that it is a fantasy. Atlantis, for Plato, is a way to explore what an ideal republic really is, and whether Athens could be (or ever was) one; to European travellers in the Renaissance, though, his story reflected their own encounters with distant lands, previously unknown to them, spurring generations of explorers to scour the oceans and in the hope of finding a lost world. Lees meer

The image above is from an engraving of the legendary island of Atlantis after a description by Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680).

With

Edith Hall
Professor of Classics at Durham University

Christopher Gill
Emeritus Professor of Ancient Thought at the University of Exeter

And

Angie Hobbs
Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Nineteen Eighty-Four

13 oktober 2022 · 53 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss George Orwell's (1903-1950) final novel, published in 1949, set in a dystopian London which is now found in Airstrip One, part of the totalitarian superstate of Oceania which is always at war and where the protagonist, Winston Smith, works at the Ministry of Truth as a rewriter of history: 'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' The influence of Orwell's novel is immeasurable, highlighting threats to personal freedom with concepts he named such as doublespeak, thoughtcrime, Room 101, Big Brother, memory hole and thought police. Lees meer

With

David Dwan
Professor of English Literature and Intellectual History at the University of Oxford

Lisa Mullen
Teaching Associate in Modern Contemporary Literature at the University of Cambridge

And

John Bowen
Professor of English Literature at the University of York

Producer: Simon Tillotson

John Bull

28 juli 2022 · 54 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origin of this personification of the English everyman and his development as both British and Britain in the following centuries. He first appeared along with Lewis Baboon (French) and Nicholas Frog (Dutch) in 1712 in a pamphlet that satirised the funding of the War of the Spanish Succession. The author was John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), a Scottish doctor and satirist who was part of the circle of Swift and Pope, and his John Bull was the English voter, overwhelmed by taxes that went not so much into the war itself but into the pockets of its financiers. For the next two centuries, Arbuthnot’s John Bull was a gift for cartoonists and satirists, especially when they wanted to ridicule British governments for taking advantage of the people’s patriotism. Lees meer

The image above is by William Charles, a Scottish engraver who emigrated to the United States, and dates from 1814 during the Anglo-American War of 1812.

With

Judith Hawley
Professor of 18th Century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London

Miles Taylor
Professor of British History and Society at Humboldt, University of Berlin

And

Mark Knights
Professor of History at the University of Warwick

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Angkor Wat

21 juli 2022 · 49 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the largest and arguably the most astonishing religious structure on Earth, built for Suryavarman II in the 12th Century in modern-day Cambodia. It is said to have more stone in it than the Great Pyramid of Giza, and much of the surface is intricately carved and remarkably well preserved. For the last 900 years Angkor Wat has been a centre of religion, whether Hinduism, Buddhism or Animism or a combination of those, and a source of wonder to Cambodians and visitors from around the world. Lees meer

With

Piphal Heng
Postdoctoral scholar at the Cotsen Institute and the Programme for Early Modern Southeast Asia at UCLA

Ashley Thompson
Hiram W Woodward Chair of Southeast Asian Art at SOAS University of London

And

Simon Warrack
A stone conservator who has worked extensively at Angkor Wat

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Dylan Thomas

14 juli 2022 · 50 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the celebrated Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas (1914 - 1953). He wrote some of his best poems before he was twenty in the first half of his short, remarkable life, and was prolific in the second half too with poems such as those set in London under the Blitz and reworkings of his childhood in Swansea, and his famous radio play Under Milk Wood (performed after his death). He was read widely and widely heard: with his reading tours in America and recordings of his works that sold in their hundreds of thousands after his death, he is credited with reviving the act of poetry as performance in the 20th century. Lees meer

With

Nerys Williams
Associate Professor of Poetry and Poetics at University College Dublin

John Goodby
Professor of Arts and Culture at Sheffield Hallam University

And

Leo Mellor
The Roma Gill Fellow in English at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge

Producer: Simon Tillotson

The Death of Stars

7 juli 2022 · 58 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the abrupt transformation of stars after shining brightly for millions or billions of years, once they lack the fuel to counter the force of gravity. Those like our own star, the Sun, become red giants, expanding outwards and consuming nearby planets, only to collapse into dense white dwarves. The massive stars, up to fifty times the mass of the Sun, burst into supernovas, visible from Earth in daytime, and become incredibly dense neutron stars or black holes. In these moments of collapse, the intense heat and pressure can create all the known elements to form gases and dust which may eventually combine to form new stars, new planets and, as on Earth, new life. Lees meer

The image above is of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, approximately 10,000 light years away, from a once massive star that died in a supernova explosion that was first seen from Earth in 1690

With

Martin Rees
Astronomer Royal, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge

Carolin Crawford
Emeritus Member of the Institute of Astronomy and Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge

And

Mark Sullivan
Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Southampton

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Hegel's Philosophy of History

23 juni 2022 · 52 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss ideas of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 - 1831) on history. Hegel, one of the most influential of the modern philosophers, described history as the progress in the consciousness of freedom, asking whether we enjoy more freedom now than those who came before us. To explore this, he looked into the past to identify periods when freedom was moving from the one to the few to the all, arguing that once we understand the true nature of freedom we reach an endpoint in understanding. That end of history, as it's known, describes an understanding of freedom so far progressed, so profound, that it cannot be extended or deepened even if it can be lost. Lees meer

With

Sally Sedgwick
Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Boston University

Robert Stern
Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield

And

Stephen Houlgate
Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Comenius

16 juni 2022 · 57 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Czech educator Jan Amos Komenský (1592-1670) known throughout Europe in his lifetime under the Latin version of his name, Comenius. A Protestant and member of the Unity of Brethren, he lived much of his life in exile, expelled from his homeland under the Catholic Counter-Reformation, and he wanted to address the deep antagonisms underlying the wars that were devastating Europe especially The Thirty Years War (1618-1648). A major part of his plan was Universal Education, in which everyone could learn about everything, and better understand each other and so tolerate their religious differences and live side by side. His ideas were to have a lasting influence on education, even though the peace that followed the Thirty Years War only entrenched the changes in his homeland that made his life there impossible. Lees meer

The image above is from a portrait of Comenius by Jürgen Ovens, 1650 - 1670, painted while he was living in Amsterdam and held in the Rikjsmuseum

With

Vladimir Urbanek
Senior Researcher in the Department of Comenius Studies and Early Modern Intellectual History at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences

Suzanna Ivanic
Lecturer in Early Modern European History at the University of Kent

And

Howard Hotson
Professor of Early Modern Intellectual History at the University of Oxford and Fellow of St Anne’s College

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Tang Era Poetry

9 juni 2022 · 47 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss two of China’s greatest poets, Li Bai and Du Fu, who wrote in the 8th century in the Tang Era. Li Bai (701-762AD) is known for personal poems, many of them about drinking wine, and for finding the enjoyment in life. Du Fu (712-770AD), a few years younger, is more of an everyman, writing in the upheaval of the An Lushan Rebellion (755-763AD). Together they have been a central part of Chinese culture for over a millennium, reflecting the balance between the individual and the public life, and one sign of their enduring appeal is that there is rarely agreement on which of them is the greater. Lees meer

The image above is intended to depict Du Fu.

With

Tim Barrett
Professor Emeritus of East Asian History at SOAS, University of London

Tian Yuan Tan
Shaw Professor of Chinese at the University of Oxford and Professorial Fellow at University College

And

Frances Wood
Former Curator of the Chinese Collections at the British Library

Producer: Simon Tillotson

The Davidian Revolution

2 juni 2022 · 50 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the impact of David I of Scotland (c1084-1153) on his kingdom and on neighbouring lands. The youngest son of Malcolm III, he was raised in exile in the Anglo-Norman court and became Earl of Huntingdon and Prince of Cumbria before claiming the throne in 1124. He introduced elements of what he had learned in England and, in the next decades, his kingdom saw new burghs, new monasteries, new ways of governing and the arrival of some very influential families, earning him the reputation of The Perfect King. Lees meer

With

Richard Oram
Professor of Medieval and Environmental History at the University of Stirling

Alice Taylor
Professor of Medieval History at King’s College London

And

Alex Woolf
Senior Lecturer in History at the University of St Andrews

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Early Christian Martyrdom

26 mei 2022 · 53 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the accounts by Eusebius of Caesarea (c260-339 AD) and others of the killings of Christians in the first three centuries after the crucifixion of Jesus. Eusebius was writing in a time of peace, after The Great Persecution that had started with Emperor Diocletian in 303 AD and lasted around eight years. Many died under Diocletian, and their names are not preserved, but those whose deaths are told by Eusebius became especially celebrated and their stories became influential. Through his writings, Eusebius shaped perceptions of what it meant to be a martyr in those years, and what it meant to be a Christian. Lees meer

The image above is of The Martyrdom of Saint Blandina (1886) at the Church of Saint-Blandine de Lyon, France

With:

Candida Moss
Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology at the University of Birmingham

Kate Cooper
Professor of History at Royal Holloway, University of London

And

James Corke-Webster
Senior Lecturer in Classics, History and Liberal Arts at King’s College London

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Olympe de Gouges

19 mei 2022 · 49 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the French playwright who, in 1791, wrote The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen. This was Olympe de Gouges (1748-93) and she was responding to The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen from 1789, the start of the French Revolution which, by excluding women from these rights, had fallen far short of its apparent goals. Where the latter declared ‘men are born equal’, she asserted ‘women are born equal to men,’ adding, ‘since women are allowed to mount the scaffold, they should also be allowed to stand in parliament and defend their rights’. Two years later this playwright, novelist, activist and woman of letters did herself mount the scaffold, two weeks after Marie Antoinette, for the crime of being open to the idea of a constitutional monarchy and, for two hundred years, her reputation died with her, only to be revived with great vigour in the last 40 years. Lees meer

With

Catriona Seth
Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature at the University of Oxford

Katherine Astbury
Professor of French Studies at the University of Warwick

And

Sanja Perovic
Reader in 18th century French studies at King’s College London

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Homo erectus

12 mei 2022 · 51 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of our ancestors, Homo erectus, who thrived on Earth for around two million years whereas we, Homo sapiens, emerged only in the last three hundred thousand years. Homo erectus, or Upright Man, spread from Africa to Asia and it was on the Island of Java that fossilised remains were found in 1891 in an expedition led by Dutch scientist Eugène Dubois. Homo erectus people adapted to different habitats, ate varied food, lived in groups, had stamina to outrun their prey; and discoveries have prompted many theories on the relationship between their diet and the size of their brains, on their ability as seafarers, on their creativity and on their ability to speak and otherwise communicate. Lees meer

The image above is from a diorama at the Moesgaard Museum in Denmark, depicting the Turkana Boy referred to in the programme.

With

Peter Kjærgaard
Director of the Natural History Museum of Denmark and Professor of Evolutionary History at the University of Copenhagen

José Joordens
Senior Researcher in Human Evolution at Naturalis Biodiversity Centre and Professor of Human Evolution at Maastricht University

And

Mark Maslin
Professor of Earth System Science at University College London

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Polidori's The Vampyre

5 mei 2022 · 51 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential novella of John Polidori (1795-1821) published in 1819 and attributed first to Lord Byron (1788-1824) who had started a version of it in 1816 at the Villa Diodati in the Year Without A Summer. There Byron, his personal physician Polidori, Mary and Percy Shelley and Claire Clairmont had whiled away the weeks of miserable weather by telling ghost stories, famously giving rise to Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'. Emerging soon after, 'The Vampyre' thrilled readers with its aristocratic Lord Ruthven who glutted his thirst with the blood of his victims, his status an abrupt change from the stories of peasant vampires of eastern and central Europe that had spread in the 18th Century with the expansion of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The connection with Lord Byron gave the novella a boost, and soon 'The Vampyre' spawned West End plays, penny dreadfuls such as 'Varney the Vampire', Bram Stoker’s 'Dracula', F.W Murnau's film 'Nosferatu A Symphony of Horror', and countless others. Lees meer

The image above is of Bela Lugosi (1882-1956) as Count Mora in Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer's 'Vampires of Prague' (1935)

With

Nick Groom
Professor of Literature in English at the University of Macau

Samantha George
Associate Professor of Research in Literature at the University of Hertfordshire

And

Martyn Rady
Professor Emeritus of Central European History at University College London

Producer: Simon Tillotson

The Sistine Chapel

28 april 2022 · 56 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the astonishing work of Michelangelo (1477-1564) in this great chapel in the Vatican, firstly the ceiling with images from Genesis (of which the image above is a detail) and later The Last Judgement on the altar wall. For the Papacy, Michelangelo's achievement was a bold affirmation of the spiritual and political status of the Vatican, of Rome and of the Catholic Church. For the artist himself, already famous as the sculptor of David in Florence, it was a test of his skill and stamina, and of the potential for art to amaze which he realised in his astonishing mastery of the human form. Lees meer

With

Catherine Fletcher
Professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan University

Sarah Vowles
The Smirnov Family Curator of Italian and French Prints and Drawings at the British Museum

And

Matthias Wivel
The Aud Jebsen Curator of Sixteenth-Century Italian Paintings at the National Gallery

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Antigone

21 april 2022 · 54 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss what is reputedly the most performed of all Greek tragedies. Antigone, by Sophocles (c496-c406 BC), is powerfully ambiguous, inviting the audience to reassess its values constantly before the climax of the play resolves the plot if not the issues. Antigone is barely a teenager and is prepared to defy her uncle Creon, the new king of Thebes, who has decreed that nobody should bury the body of her brother, a traitor, on pain of death. This sets up a conflict between generations, between the state and the individual, uncle and niece, autocracy and pluralism, and it releases an enormous tragic energy that brings sudden death to Antigone, her fiance Haemon who is also Creon's son, and to Creon's wife Eurydice, while Creon himself is condemned to a living death of grief. Lees meer

With

Edith Hall
Professor of Classics at Durham University

Oliver Taplin
Emeritus Professor of Classics, University of Oxford

And

Lyndsay Coo
Senior Lecturer in Ancient Greek Language and Literature at the University of Bristol

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Charisma

14 april 2022 · 53 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea of charismatic authority developed by Max Weber (1864-1920) to explain why people welcome some as their legitimate rulers and follow them loyally, for better or worse, while following others only dutifully or grudgingly. Weber was fascinated by those such as Napoleon (above) and Washington who achieved power not by right, as with traditional monarchs, or by law as with the bureaucratic world around him in Germany, but by revolution or insurrection. Drawing on the experience of religious figures, he contended that these leaders, often outsiders, needed to be seen as exceptional, heroic and even miraculous to command loyalty, and could stay in power for as long as the people were enthralled and the miracles they had promised kept coming. After the Second World War, Weber's idea attracted new attention as a way of understanding why some reviled leaders once had mass support and, with the arrival of television, why some politicians were more engaging and influential on screen than others. Lees meer

With

Linda Woodhead
The FD Maurice Professor and Head of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at King's College London

David Bell
The Lapidus Professor in the Department of History at Princeton University

And

Tom Wright
Reader in Rhetoric at the University of Sussex

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Seismology

7 april 2022 · 50 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the study of earthquakes. A massive earthquake in 1755 devastated Lisbon, and this disaster helped inspire a new science of seismology which intensified after San Francisco in 1906 and advanced even further with the need to monitor nuclear tests around the world from 1945 onwards. While we now know so much more about what lies beneath the surface of the Earth, and how rocks move and crack, it remains impossible to predict when earthquakes will happen. Thanks to seismology, though, we have a clearer idea of where earthquakes will happen and how to make some of them less hazardous to lives and homes. Lees meer

With

Rebecca Bell
Senior lecturer in Geology and Geophysics at Imperial College London

Zoe Mildon
Lecturer in Earth Sciences and Future Leaders Fellow at the University of Plymouth

And

James Hammond
Reader in Geophysics at Birkbeck, University of London

Producer: Simon Tillotson

The Arthashastra

31 maart 2022 · 56 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ancient Sanskrit text the Arthashastra, regarded as one of the major works of Indian literature. Written in the style of a scientific treatise, it provides rulers with a guide on how to govern their territory and sets out what the structure, economic policy and foreign affairs of the ideal state should be. According to legend, it was written by Chanakya, a political advisor to the ruler Chandragupta Maurya (reigned 321 – 297 BC) who founded the Mauryan Empire, the first great Empire in the Indian subcontinent. As the Arthashastra asserts that a ruler should pursue his goals ruthlessly by whatever means is required, it has been compared with the 16th-century work The Prince by Machiavelli. Today, it is widely viewed as presenting a sophisticated and refined analysis of the nature, dynamics and challenges of rulership, and scholars value it partly because it undermines colonial stereotypes of what early South Asian society was like. Lees meer

With

Jessica Frazier
Lecturer in the Study of Religion at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

James Hegarty
Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Religions at Cardiff University

And

Deven Patel
Associate Professor of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Peter Kropotkin

24 februari 2022 · 52 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Russian prince who became a leading anarchist and famous scientist. Kropotkin (1842 - 1921) was born into privilege, very much in the highest circle of Russian society as a pageboy for the Tsar, before he became a republican in childhood and dropped the title 'Prince'. While working in Siberia, he started reading about anarchism and that radicalised him further, as did his observations of Siberian villagers supporting each other without (or despite) a role for the State. He made a name for himself as a geographer but soon his politics landed him in jail in St Petersburg, from which he escaped to exile in England where he was fêted, with growing fame leading to lecture tours in the USA. His time in Siberia also inspired his ideas on the importance of mutual aid in evolution, a counter to the dominant idea from Darwin and Huxley that life was a gladiatorial combat in which only the fittest survived. Kropotkin became such a towering figure in public life that, returning to Russia, he was able to challenge Lenin without reprisal, and Lenin in turn permitted his enormous public funeral there, attended by 20,000 mourners. Lees meer

With

Ruth Kinna
Professor of Political Theory at Loughborough University

Lee Dugatkin
Professor of Biology at the University of Louisville

And

Simon Dixon
The Sir Bernard Pares Professor of Russian History at University College London

Romeo and Juliet

17 februari 2022 · 50 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Shakespeare's famous tragedy, written in the early 1590s after a series of histories and comedies. His audience already knew the story of the feuding Capulets and Montagues in Verona and the fate of the young lovers from their rival houses, but not how Shakespeare would tell it and, with his poetry and plotting, he created a work so powerful and timeless that his play has shaped the way we talk of love, especially young love, ever since. Lees meer

The image above is of Mrs Patrick Campbell ('Mrs Pat') as Juliet and Johnson Forbes-Robinson as Romeo in a scene from the 1895 production at the Lyceum Theatre, London

With

Helen Hackett
Professor of English Literature at University College London

Paul Prescott
Professor of English and Theatre at the University of California Merced

And

Emma Smith
Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, University of Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Walter Benjamin

10 februari 2022 · 51 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most celebrated thinkers of the twentieth century. Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, critic, historian, an investigator of culture, a maker of radio programmes and more. Notably, in his Arcades Project, he looked into the past of Paris to understand the modern age and, in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, examined how the new media of film and photography enabled art to be politicised, and politics to become a form of art. The rise of the Nazis in Germany forced him into exile, and he worked in Paris in dread of what was to come; when his escape from France in 1940 was blocked at the Spanish border, he took his own life. Lees meer

With

Esther Leslie
Professor of Political Aesthetics at Birkbeck, University of London

Kevin McLaughlin
Dean of the Faculty and Professor of English, Comparative Literature and German Studies at Brown University

And

Carolin Duttlinger
Professor of German Literature and Culture at the University of Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson

The Temperance Movement

3 februari 2022 · 52 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the momentum behind teetotalism in 19th Century Britain, when calls for moderation gave way to complete abstinence in pursuit of a better life. Although arguments for temperance had been made throughout the British Isles beforehand, the story of the organised movement in Britain is often said to have started in 1832 in Preston, when Joseph Livesey and seven others gave a pledge to abstain. The movement grew quickly, with Temperance Halls appearing as new social centres in towns in place of pubs, and political parties being drawn into taking sides either to support abstinence or impose it or reject it. Lees meer

The image above, which appeared in The Teetotal Progressionist in 1852, is an example of the way in which images contained many points of temperance teaching, and is © Copyright Livesey Collection at the University of Central Lancashire.

With

Annemarie McAllister
Senior Research Fellow in History at the University of Central Lancashire

James Kneale
Associate Professor in Geography at University College London

And

David Beckingham
Associate Professor in Cultural and Historical Geography at the University of Nottingham

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Colette

27 januari 2022 · 51 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the outstanding French writers of the twentieth century. The novels of Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873 - 1954) always had women at their centre, from youth to mid-life to old age, and they were phenomenally popular, at first for their freshness and frankness about women’s lives, as in the Claudine stories, and soon for their sheer quality as she developed as a writer. Throughout her career she intrigued readers by inserting herself, or a character with her name, into her works, fictionalising her life as a way to share her insight into the human experience. Lees meer

With

Diana Holmes
Professor of French at the University of Leeds

Michèle Roberts
Writer, novelist, poet and Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia

And

Belinda Jack
Fellow and Tutor in French Literature and Language at Christ Church, University of Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson

The Gold Standard

20 januari 2022 · 49 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the system that flourished from 1870 when gold became dominant and more widely available, following gold rushes in California and Australia. Banknotes could be exchanged for gold at central banks, the coins in circulation could be gold (as with the sovereign in the image above, initially worth £1), gold could be freely imported and exported, and many national currencies around the world were tied to gold and so to each other. The idea began in Britain, where sterling was seen as good as gold, and when other countries rushed to the Gold Standard the confidence in their currencies grew, and world trade took off and, for a century, gold was seen as a vital component of the world economy, supporting stability and confidence. The system came with constraints on government ability to respond to economic crises, though, and has been blamed for deepening and prolonging the Great Depression of the 1930s. Lees meer

With

Catherine Schenk
Professor of Economic and Social History at the University of Oxford

Helen Paul
Lecturer in Economics and Economic History at the University of Southampton

And

Matthias Morys
Senior Lecturer in Economic History at the University of York

Produced by Eliane Glaser and Simon Tillotson

Thomas Hardy's Poetry

13 januari 2022 · 51 min

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After 27 years, Melvyn Bragg has decided to step down from the In Our Time presenter’s chair. With over a thousand episodes to choose from, he has selected just six that capture the huge range and depth of the subjects he and his experts have tackled. In this second of his choices, we hear Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss one of his favourite poets. Lees meer

Their topic is Thomas Hardy (1840 -1928) and his commitment to poetry, which he prized far above his novels. In the 1890s, once he had earned enough from his fiction, Hardy stopped writing novels altogether and returned to the poetry he had largely put aside since his twenties. He hoped that he might be ranked one day alongside Shelley and Byron, worthy of inclusion in a collection such as Palgrave's Golden Treasury which had inspired him. Hardy kept writing poems for the rest of his life, in different styles and metres, and he explored genres from nature, to war, to epic. Among his best known are what he called his Poems of 1912 to 13, responding to his grief at the death of his first wife, Emma (1840 -1912), who he credited as the one who had made it possible for him to leave his work as an architect's clerk and to write the novels that made him famous.

With

Mark Ford
Poet, and Professor of English and American Literature, University College London.

Jane Thomas
Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Hull and Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Leeds

And

Tim Armstrong
Professor of Modern English and American Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world

Fritz Lang

30 december 2021 · 55 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Austrian-born film director Fritz Lang (1890-1976), who was one of the most celebrated film-makers of the 20th century. He worked first in Weimar Germany, creating a range of films including the startling and subversive Mabuse the Gambler and the iconic but ruinously expensive Metropolis before arguably his masterpiece, M, with both the police and the underworld hunting for a child killer in Berlin, his first film with sound. The rise of the Nazis prompted Lang's move to Hollywood where he developed some of his Weimar themes in memorable and disturbing films such as Fury and The Big Heat. Lees meer

With

Stella Bruzzi
Professor of Film and Dean of Arts and Humanities at University College London

Joe McElhaney
Professor of Film Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York

And

Iris Luppa
Senior Lecturer in Film Studies in the Division of Film and Media at London South Bank University

Producer: Simon Tillotson

The Hittites

23 december 2021 · 52 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the empire that flourished in the Late Bronze Age in what is now Turkey, and which, like others at that time, mysteriously collapsed. For the next three thousand years these people of the Land of Hatti, as they called themselves, were known only by small references to their Iron Age descendants in the Old Testament and by unexplained remains in their former territory. Discoveries in their capital of Hattusa just over a century ago brought them back to prominence, including cuneiform tablets such as one (pictured above) which relates to an agreement with their rivals, the Egyptians. This agreement has since become popularly known as the Treaty of Kadesh and described as the oldest recorded peace treaty that survives to this day, said to have followed a great chariot battle with Egypt in 1274 BC near the Orontes River in northern Syria. Lees meer

With

Claudia Glatz
Professor of Archaeology at the University of Glasgow

Ilgi Gercek
Assistant Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Languages and History at Bilkent University

And

Christoph Bachhuber
Lecturer in Archaeology at St John’s College, University of Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson

A Christmas Carol

16 december 2021 · 56 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Charles Dickens' novella, written in 1843 when he was 31, which has become intertwined with his reputation and with Christmas itself. Ebenezer Scrooge is the miserly everyman figure whose joyless obsession with money severs him from society and his own emotions, and he is only saved after recalling his lonely past, seeing what he is missing now and being warned of his future, all under the guidance of the ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Yet To Come. Redeemed, Scrooge comes to care in particular about one of the many minor characters in the story who make a great impact, namely Tiny Tim, the disabled child of the poor and warm-hearted Cratchit family, with his cry, "God bless us, every one!" Lees meer

With

Juliet John
Professor of English Literature and Dean of Arts and Social Sciences at City, University of London

Jon Mee
Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of York

And

Dinah Birch
Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Cultural Engagement and Professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool

Producer: Simon Tillotson

The May Fourth Movement

9 december 2021 · 53 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the violent protests in China on 4th May 1919 over the nation's humiliation in the Versailles Treaty after World War One. China had supported the Allies, sending workers to dig trenches, and expected to regain the German colonies on its territory, but the Allies and China's leaders chose to give that land to Japan instead. To protestors, this was a travesty and reflected much that was wrong with China, with its corrupt leaders, division by warlords, weakness before Imperial Europe and outdated ideas and values. The movement around 4th May has since been seen as a watershed in China’s development in the 20th century, not least as some of those connected with the movement went on to found the Communist Party of China a few years later. Lees meer

The image above is of students from Peking University marching with banners during the May Fourth demonstrations in 1919.

With

Rana Mitter
Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China and Fellow of St Cross College, University of Oxford

Elisabeth Forster
Lecturer in Chinese History at the University of Southampton

And

Song-Chuan Chen
Associate Professor in History at the University of Warwick

Producer: Simon Tillotson

The Battle of Trafalgar

2 december 2021 · 52 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the events of 21st October 1805, in which the British fleet led by Nelson destroyed a combined Franco-Spanish fleet in the Atlantic off the coast of Spain. Nelson's death that day was deeply mourned in Britain, and his example proved influential, and the battle was to help sever ties between Spain and its American empire. In France meanwhile, even before Nelson's body was interred at St Paul's, the setback at Trafalgar was overshadowed by Napoleon's decisive victory over Russia and Austria at Austerlitz, though Napoleon's search for his lost naval strength was to shape his plans for further conquests. Lees meer

The image above is from 'The Battle of Trafalgar' by JMW Turner (1824).

With

James Davey
Lecturer in Naval and Maritime History at the University of Exeter

Marianne Czisnik
Independent researcher on Nelson and editor of his letters to Lady Hamilton

And

Kenneth Johnson
Research Professor of National Security at Air University, Alabama

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Plato's Gorgias

25 november 2021 · 50 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of Plato's most striking dialogues, in which he addresses the real nature of power and freedom, and the relationship between pleasure and true self-interest. As he tests these ideas, Plato creates powerful speeches, notably from Callicles who claims that laws of nature trump man-made laws, that might is right, and that rules are made by weak people to constrain the strong in defiance of what is natural and proper. Gorgias is arguably the most personal of all of Plato's dialogues, with its hints of a simmering fury at the system in Athens that put his mentor Socrates to death, and where rhetoric held too much sway over people. Lees meer

With

Angie Hobbs
Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield

Frisbee Sheffield
University Lecturer in Classics and Fellow of Downing College, University of Cambridge

And

Fiona Leigh
Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at University College London

Producer: Simon Tillotson

The Decadent Movement

18 november 2021 · 51 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the British phase of a movement that spread across Europe in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. Influenced by Charles Baudelaire and by Walter Pater, these Decadents rejected the mainstream Victorian view that art needed a moral purpose, and valued instead the intense sensations art provoked, celebrating art for art’s sake. Oscar Wilde was at its heart, Aubrey Beardsley adorned it with his illustrations and they, with others, provoked moral panic with their supposed degeneracy. After burning brightly, the movement soon lost its energy in Britain yet it has proved influential. Lees meer

The illustration above, by Beardsley, is from the cover of the first edition of The Yellow Book in April 1894.

With

Neil Sammells
Professor of English and Irish Literature and Deputy Vice Chancellor at Bath Spa University

Kate Hext
Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Exeter

And

Alex Murray
Senior Lecturer in English at Queen’s University, Belfast

Producer: Simon Tillotson

William and Caroline Herschel

11 november 2021 · 51 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Herschel (1738 – 1822) and his sister Caroline Herschel (1750 – 1848) who were born in Hanover and made their reputation in Britain. William was one of the most eminent astronomers in British history. Although he started life as a musician, as a young man he became interested in studying the night sky. With an extraordinary talent, he constructed telescopes that were able to see further and more clearly than any others at the time. He is most celebrated today for discovering the planet Uranus and detecting what came to be known as infrared radiation. Caroline also became a distinguished astronomer, discovering several comets and collaborating with her brother. Lees meer

With

Monica Grady
Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences at the Open University

Carolin Crawford
Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge and an Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge

And

Jim Bennett
Keeper Emeritus at the Science Museum in London.

Studio producer: John Goudie

The Song of Roland

4 november 2021 · 52 min

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss an early masterpiece of French epic poetry, from the 12th Century. It is a reimagining of Charlemagne’s wars in Spain in the 8th Century in which Roland, his most valiant knight, chooses death before dishonour, guarding the army’s rear from a pagan ambush as it heads back through the Roncesvalles Pass in the Pyrenees. If he wanted to, Roland could blow on his oliphant, his elephant tusk horn, to summon help by calling back Charlemagne's army, but according to his values that would bring shame both on him and on France, and he would rather keep killing pagans until he is the last man standing and the last to die. Lees meer

The image above is taken from an illustration of Charlemagne finding Roland after the Battle of Roncevaux/Roncesvalles, from 'Les Grandes Chroniques de France', c.1460 by Jean Fouquet, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, Ms Fr 6465 f.113

With

Laura Ashe
Professor of English Literature and Fellow in English at Worcester College, University of Oxford

Miranda Griffin
Assistant Professor of Medieval French at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Murray Edwards College

And

Luke Sunderland
Professor in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Durham University

Studio producer: John Goudie