The Essay
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The Essay
Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.
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1128 Episoden
Digging for Words
In 1773, Phillis Wheatley became the first African American to publish a collection of poems. Jade Cuttle looks at the way her poems were described an...
Workplace performance
What connects actors with baristas? In 1983, the American sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild published a book called The Managed Heart which studied...
The crime of creation
The Japanese philosopher Yujin Nagasawa says the majority of people are what he calls ‘existential optimists’. What does this mean for ideas about evi...
Mothers on trial
Having worked as a criminal and family barrister, Shona Minson has seen the effect on women and their children when a mother is sentenced to prison fo...
Land Cinema
If cinema is often associated with Hollywood or the European New Wave, since the 1970s activist-filmmakers around the world have been involving local...
The intimacy of radio
The would-be composer and philosopher Theodor Adorno played classical piano and came up with influential studies of authoritarianism, antisemitism and...
Birth Stories
How have the first hours and days after childbirth changed in the NHS?
Before the NHS, a 1932 publication describing mothers resting after lab...
Losing Yourself in Books
What do we get from a good book? With a greater diversity of stories on offer from publishers and as exam set texts, Janine Bradbury looks at the argu...
A Philosophical Forgery?
In 1852, a book of philosophical enquiry was discovered in Ethiopia. But what if the Hatata Zera Yacob is a forgery? Does it matter, if the message is...
Technicolor Wars
From The Wizard of Oz to Madame Mao, Kirsty Sinclair Dootson’s essay explores the politics of making films in colour - specifically Technicolor - a pr...
Poems of Love and Ageing
Irish poet Michael Longley, who died on 22nd January 2025, was described by Seamus Heaney as 'a keeper of the artistic estate, a custodian of griefs a...
Poems of Mayo
The Irish poet Michael Longley, who died on 22nd January 2025, was described by Seamus Heaney as 'a keeper of the artistic estate, a custodian of grie...
Poems of the Troubles
The Irish poet Michael Longley, who died on 22nd January 2025, was described by Seamus Heaney as 'a keeper of the artistic estate, a custodian of grie...
Poems of World War 1
The Irish poet Michael Longley, who died on 22nd January 2025, was described by Seamus Heaney as 'a keeper of the artistic estate, a custodian of grie...
The Early Years
The poet Michael Longley, who died on 22nd January 2025 at the age of 85, was described by Seamus Heaney as 'a keeper of the artistic estate, a custod...
Indonesia's Tin Pan Alley - Tihingan in Bali
'Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instrum...
Spain's Tin Pan Alley - Centro, Madrid
The journalist Guy Hedgecoe, who covers Spain for the BBC, visits Felipe Conde's shop and workshop in Centro, Madrid. Conde is the fourth generation o...
Japan's Tin Pan Alley - Ochanomizu in Tokyo
Ochanomizu means 'tea water' because of its proximity to the Kanda River, which in the Edo period provided water for the Shogun's tea. Now it is a uni...
Türkiye's Tin Pan Alley - Galip Dede Street in Istanbul
Galip Dede Street in Istanbul used to be famous for its antique, philatelic and book shops. But over the past 30 years more and more music shops have...
China's Tin Pan Alley - Xinjiekou Street in Beijing
The original Tin Pan Alley was in Fifth and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, New York, where music publishers set up shop in the late 19th century, attracti...
Amber
Scotland has been blessed with some of the most exciting of gemstones, but knowing where to find them is the secret.
Kenneth Steven was given a...
Serpentine
The first stone Kenneth Steven began collecting in childhood was serpentine from the beaches of the island of Iona. Here he tells the story of the sea...
Aquamarine
The great Victorian collector of minerals Matthew Heddle mentions two places in particular for the finding of aquamarine in Scotland, one the island o...
Agate
Scotland has been blessed with some of the most exciting of gemstones, but knowing where to find them is the secret. A rare edition of 'Scottish Gem S...
Gold
Scotland has been blessed with some of the most exciting of gemstones, but knowing where to find them is the secret. A rare edition of 'Scottish Gem S...
Mamoru Samuragochi
Phil Hebblethwaite examines five classical musical hoaxes and controversies, from the early twentieth century to the modern day. These are origin stor...
Joyce Hatto
Phil Hebblethwaite examines five classical musical hoaxes and controversies, from the early twentieth century to the modern day. These are origin stor...
The Lost Haydn Sonatas
Phil Hebblethwaite examines five classical musical hoaxes and controversies, from the early twentieth century to the modern day. These are origin stor...
Albinoni's Adagio
Phil Hebblethwaite examines five classical musical hoaxes and controversies, from the early twentieth century to the modern day. These are origin stor...
Fritz Kreisler
Phil Hebblethwaite examines five classical musical hoaxes and controversies, from the early twentieth century to the modern day. These are origin stor...
5. Rebecca Toal and Hattie Butterworth
Kate Kennedy meets musicians who, like her, had to stop playing after injury and reconsider their relationship with their instruments.
We all k...
4. Ludwig Quandt
Kate Kennedy meets musicians who, like her, had to stop playing after injury and rethink their lives.
As principal cellist of the Berlin Philha...
3. Robin Graham
Kate Kennedy meets musicians who, like her, had to stop playing after injury and rethink their lives. What does being forced to fall silent mean for...
2. Stephen Marquiss
Kate Kennedy meets musicians who, like her, had to stop playing after injury and rethink their lives. What does this mean for a musician's relationsh...
1. Julian Lloyd Webber
Kate Kennedy meets musicians who, like her, had to stop playing after injury and reshape their lives. What does being forced to fall silent mean for...
Chorus girls in Paris
"Les petites girls Anglaises" was the nickname given by a French journalist to the elaborately costumed and rhythmic Tiller Girls troupe. Adjoa Osei i...
Esther Inglis's musical self portraits
1574, and a baby girl on board a ship fleeing from France, arrives in London. Esther Inglis went on to become a successful Tudor bookmaker and artist...
The Star-Spangled Banner, Jacobins and Abolitionists
"Millons be Free" is a Jacobin song which originally celebrated the idea of the French Revolution, whose tune became the American national anthem. Osk...
Tudor music and politics
How musician Robert Hales and a witty song helped Robert Cecil, Elizabeth I's counsellor, win back the Queen's favour. Documents show us that Cecil su...
Teresa del Riego's suffrage anthem
Teresa del Riego's work was a staple of early Prom seasons but the anthem she premiered for the suffrage movement in 1911, at the Criterion restaurant...