Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), who was part of the movement known as phenomenology. While less well-known than his contemporaries Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, his popularity has increased among philosophers in recent years. Merleau-Ponty rejected Rene Descartes’ division between body and mind, arguing that the way we perceive the world around us cannot be separated from our experience of inhabiting a physical body. Merleau-Ponty was interested in the down-to-earth question of what it is actually like to live in the world. While performing actions as simple as brushing our teeth or patting a dog, we shape the world and, in turn, the world shapes us. With

Komarine Romdenh-Romluc Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Sheffield

Thomas Baldwin Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of York

And

Timothy Mooney Associate Professor of Philosophy at University College, Dublin

Produced by Eliane Glaser

Reading list:

Peter Antich, Motivation and the Primacy of Perception: Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Knowledge (Ohio University Press, 2021)

Dimitris Apostolopoulos, Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Language (Rowman and Littlefield, 2019)

Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being and Apricot Cocktails (Chatto and Windus, 2016)

Thomas Baldwin (ed.), Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Basic Writings (Routledge, 2004)

Thomas Baldwin (ed.), Reading Merleau-Ponty (Routledge, 2007)

Renaud Barbaras (trans. Ted Toadvine and Leonard Lawlor), The Being of the Phenomenon: Merleau-Ponty’s Ontology (Indiana University Press, 2004).

Anya Daly, Merleau-Ponty and the Ethics of Intersubjectivity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)

M. C. Dillon, Merleau-Ponty’s Ontology (Northwestern University Press, 1998, 2nd ed.)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (trans. Alden L. Fisher), The Structure of Behavior (first published 1942; Beacon Press, 1976)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (trans. Donald Landes), Phenomenology of Perception (first published 1945; Routledge, 2011)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Sense and Non-Sense (first published 1948; Northwestern University Press, 1964)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Signs (first published 1960; Northwestern University Press, 1964)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible (first published 1964; Northwestern University Press, 1968)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (trans. Oliver Davis with an introduction by Thomas Baldwin), The World of Perception (Routledge, 2008)

Ariane Mildenberg (ed.), Understanding Merleau-Ponty, Understanding Modernism (Bloomsbury, 2019)

Timothy Mooney, Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception: On the Body Informed (Cambridge University Press, 2023)

Katherine J. Morris, Starting with Merleau-Ponty (Continuum, 2012)

Komarine Romdenh-Romluc, Merleau-Ponty and Phenomenology of Perception (Routledge, 2011)

Komarine Romdenh-Romluc, The Routledge Guidebook to Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception (Routledge, 2011)

Jean-Paul Sartre (trans. Benita Eisler), Situations (Hamish Hamilton, 1965)

Hilary Spurling, The Girl from the Fiction Department (Penguin, 2003)

Jon Stewart (ed.), The Debate Between Sartre and Merleau-Ponty (Northwestern University Press, 1998)

Ted Toadvine, Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy of Nature (Northwestern University Press, 2009)

Kerry Whiteside, Merleau-Ponty and the Foundation of an Existential Politics (Princeton University Press, 1988)

Iris Marion Young, On Female Body Experience: “Throwing Like a Girl” and Other Essays (Oxford University Press, 2005)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most energetic, varied and innovative playwrights of his time. Thomas Middleton (1580-1627) worked across the London stages both alone and with others from Dekker and Rowley to Shakespeare and more. Middleton’s range included raucous city comedies such as A Chaste Maid in Cheapside and chilling revenge tragedies like The Changeling and The Revenger’s Tragedy, some with the main adult companies and some with child actors playing the scheming adults. Middleton seemed to be everywhere on the Jacobean stage, mixing warmth and cruelty amid laughter and horror, and even Macbeth’s witches may be substantially his work.

With

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

Lucy Munro Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Literature at Kings College London

And

Michelle O’Callaghan Professor of Early Modern Literature at the University of Reading

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Swapan Chakravorty, Society and Politics in the Plays of Thomas Middleton (Clarendon Press, 1996)

Suzanne Gossett (ed.), Thomas Middleton in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2011)

R.V. Holdsworth (ed.), Three Jacobean Revenge Tragedies: A Selection of Critical Essays (Macmillan, 1990), especially ‘Calvinist Psychology in Middleton’s Tragedies’ by John Stachniewski

Mark Hutchings and A. A. Bromham, Middleton and His Collaborators (Northcote House, 2007)

Gordon McMullan and Kelly Stage (eds.), The Changeling: The State of Play (The Arden Shakespeare, 2022)

Lucy Munro, Shakespeare in the Theatre: The King's Men (The Arden Shakespeare, 2020)

David Nicol, Middleton & Rowley: Forms of Collaboration in the Jacobean Playhouse (University of Toronto Press, 2012)

Michelle O’Callaghan, Thomas Middleton: Renaissance Dramatist (Edinburgh University Press, 2009)

Gary Taylor and Trish Thomas Henley (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Thomas Middleton (Oxford University Press, 2012)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests explore the history and reputation of the Persian ruler Cyrus the Great. Cyrus the Second of Persia as he was known then was born in the sixth century BCE in Persis which is now in Iran. He was the founder of the first Persian Empire, the largest empire at that point in history, spanning more than two million square miles.

His story was told by the Greek historians Herodotus and Xenophon, and in the Hebrew bible he is praised for freeing the Jewish captives in Babylon.

But the historical facts are intertwined with fiction.

Cyrus proclaimed himself ‘king of the four corners of the world’ in the famous Cyrus Cylinder, one of the most admired objects in the British Museum. It’s been called by some the first bill of human rights, but that’s a label which has been disputed by most scholars today.

With

Mateen Arghandehpour, a researcher for the Invisible East Project at Oxford University,

Lindsay Allen, Senior Lecturer in Ancient Greek and Near Eastern History at King’s College London,

And

Lynette Mitchell, Professor Emerita in Classics and Ancient History at Exeter University.

Producer: Eliane Glaser

Reading list:

Pierre Briant (trans. Peter T. Daniels), From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire (Eisenbrauns, 2002)

John Curtis and Nigel Tallis (eds.), Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia (The British Museum Press, 2005)

Irving Finkel (ed.), The Cyrus Cylinder: The King of Persia’s Proclamation from Ancient Babylon (I.B.Tauris, 2013)

Lisbeth Fried, ‘Cyrus the Messiah? The Historical Background to Isaiah 45:1’ (Harvard Theological Review 95, 2002)

M. Kozuh, W.F. Henkelman, C.E. Jones and C. Woods (eds.), Extraction and Control: Studies in Honour of Matthew W. Stolper (Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2014), especially the chapter ‘Cyrus the Great, exiles and foreign gods: A comparison of Assyrian and Persian policies in subject nations’ by R. J. van der Spek

Lynette Mitchell, Cyrus the Great: A Biography of Kingship (Routledge, 2023)

Michael Roaf, Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East (Facts On File, 1990)

Vesta Sarkosh Curtis and Sarah Stewart (eds.), Birth of the Persian Empire (I.B.Tauris, 2005), especially the chapter ‘Cyrus the Great and the kingdom of Anshan’ by D.T. Potts

Matt Waters, King of the World: The Life of Cyrus the Great (Oxford University Press, 2022)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production

Since plants have to mate and produce offspring while rooted to the spot, they have to be pollinated – by wind, water, or animals – most commonly insects. They use a surprising array of tricks to attract pollinators: striking colours, iridescent light effects, and enticing scents, to name but a few.

Insects, on the other hand, do not seek to pollinate plants – they are looking for food; so plants make sure it’s worth their while. Insects are also remarkably sophisticated in their ability to find, recognise and find their way inside flowers.

So pollination has evolved as a complex dance between plants and pollinators that is essential for life on earth to continue.

With

Beverley Glover, Director of the Cambridge University Botanic Garden

Jane Memmott, Professor of Ecology at the University of Bristol

And

Lars Chittka, Professor of Sensory and Behavioural Ecology at Queen Mary, University of London.

Producer: Eliane Glaser

Reading list:

Stephen L Buchmann and Gary Paul Nabhan, The Forgotten Pollinators (Island Press, 1997)

Lars Chittka, The Mind of a Bee (Princeton University Press, 2023)

Steven Falk, Field Guide to the Bees of Britain and Ireland (British Wildlife Publishing, 2015)

Francis S. Gilbert (illustrated by Steven J. Falk), Hoverflies: Naturalists' Handbooks vol. 5 (Pelagic Publishing, 2015)

Dave Goulson, A Sting in the Tale: My Adventures with Bumblebees (Vintage, 2014)

Edwige Moyroud and Beverley J. Glover, ‘The evolution of diverse floral morphologies’ (Current Biology vol 11, 2017)

Jeff Ollerton, Birds and Flowers: An Intimate 50 Million Year Relationship (Pelagic Publishing, 2024) Alan E. Stubbs and Steven J. Falk, British Hoverflies (‎British Entomological & Natural History Society, 2002)

Timothy Walker, Pollination: The Enduring Relationship Between Plant and Pollinator (Princeton University Press, 2020)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Hindu goddess Kali, often depicted as dark blue, fierce, defiant, revelling in her power, and holding in her four or more arms a curved sword and a severed head with a cup underneath to catch the blood. She may have her tongue out, to catch more blood spurting from her enemies, be wearing a garland of more severed heads and a skirt of severed hands and yet she is also a nurturing mother figure, known in West Bengal as ‘Maa Kali’ and she can be fiercely protective. Sometimes she is shown as young and conventionally beautiful and at other times as old, emaciated and hungry, so defying any narrow definition.

With

Bihani Sarkar Senior Lecturer in Comparative Non-Western Thought at Lancaster University

Julius Lipner Professor Emeritus of Hinduism and the Comparative Study of Religion at the University of Cambridge

And

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

During this discussion, Julius Lipner reads a translation of a poem by Kamalakanta (c.1769–1821) "Is my black Mother Syama really black?" This translation is by Rachel Fell McDermott and can be found in her book Singing to the Goddess, Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal (Oxford University Press, 2001)

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Mandakranta Bose (ed.), The Goddess (Oxford University Press, 2018)

John S. Hawley and Donna M. Wulff (eds.), Devi: Goddesses of India (University of California Press, 1996)

Knut A. Jacobsen (ed.), Brill's Encyclopedia of Hinduism, vol 1 (Brill, 2025)

David Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition (University of California Press, 1986), especially chapter 8

Rachel Fell McDermott and Jeffrey J. Kripal (eds.), Encountering Kālī in the margins, at the center, in the west (University of California Press, 2003)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production