Do poets choose their words or are they predetermined? Read more
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Choice
Do poets choose their words or are they predetermined?
Frieze: Museums in the 21st century
Anne McElvoy talks to the directors at London's National Gallery, Yale and New York's Met.
Colour
Artist Lubna Chowdhary, author Michèle Roberts, art historians James Fox and Kelly Grovier
Sugar
Matthew Sweet examines how sugar built the modern world.
Black British theatre archives and an Afro-Cuban star
From an 18th-century Black Juliet to Ira Aldridge’s daughter Amanda. Plus, Rita Montaner.
Rationality and Tradition
Tim Stanley on tradition and Steven Pinker on rationality. Anne McElvoy hosts.
The Language of Flowers
Rebecca Solnit's new book on George Orwell explores his interest in gardening and the land
Twilight
Poet Pascale Petit, photographer Jasper Goodall, Alexandra Harris, composer Sally Beamish.
Time
As the clocks go back, Matthew Sweet and guests host a party for time travellers.
Oceans, art and pacific poetry
Tania Kovats describes her sculptures from bleached coral and concrete moulded wetsuits.
Caesar, Hogarth and images of power
Rana Mitter talks to Professor Mary Beard, artist Ali Cherri and looks at Hogarth's art.
God's Body
Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Hetta Howes and Mark Vernon join Matthew Sweet.
The Imperial War Museum Remembrance Discussion 2021
How do we define a war? Anne McElvoy and guests look at how language changes attitudes.
Dogs
Labradors Olive and Mabel became a Covid internet hit - can we know what a dog thinks?
Being Human 2021
Reseach into covid comics, codes in Dickens, projecting books onto hospital ceilings.
Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex
One of the key French existentialists in the 50s, how does Simone de Beauvoir read today?
Marvin Gaye's What's Going On
Matthew Sweet and guests discuss what inspired Marvin Gaye's 1971 album What's Going On?
Faking It and Trompe-l'oeil
From fake flowers carved by Grinling Gibbons to modern craft and internet images.
Romanian History and Literature
Novelists Mircea Cărtărescu and Georgina Harding and historian Philippe Sands on Romania.
Christopher Logue's War Music
Shahidha Bari and guests read Logue's version of Homer's Iliad and look at its language.
Toys
How toys are shaped by politics and why they have a spooky side.
Dürer, Rhinos and Whales
Writer Philip Hoare, curator Robert Wenley, historian Helen Cowie talk celebrity animals.
Caribbean Art
As a Tate Britain show opens, Shahidha Bari looks at Caribbean post-war writing and art
The Day of the Triffids
Matthew Sweet and guests re-read John Wyndham's post-apocalyptic novel from 1951.
The TV Debate
Gore Vidal v William F Buckley Jr, Germaine Greer v Norman Mailer. Have debates changed?
Witchcraft and Margaret Murray
Matthew Sweet and guests look at 1921's The Witch-Cult in Western Europe and witches now.
Early Buddhism, Sheila Rowbotham
Two Buddhism scholars and British socialist feminist Sheila Rowbotham join Rana Mitter.
Colm Tóibín, David Cohen winner, Dullness
Is it a good thing to stand out? Anne McElvoy and guests explore the virtue of being dull.
Jean-Paul Belmondo and the French New Wave
The French film star who burst onto the scene in 1960 in Godard's Breathless.
Gloves
From python skin to Nintendo gaming, PPE to vegan materials: how gloves are evolving.
Appeasement
How does Neville Chamberlain's capitulation to Hitler in 1938 affect politics in 2022?