Arts & Ideas Folgen

The impact of light bulbs on cities like New York and Paris at the turn of the twentieth century and the way modernist poets like Mina Loy and Lola Ridge depicted this, is at the heart of research being done by Dr Nicoletta Asciuto. For this New Thinking conversation hosted by Dr Sophie Coulombeau, she joins Dr Jaqueline Yallop, whose book Into the Dark looks at living in dark places and at experiences including "sundowning" - experienced by some people diagnosed with dementia, this is a change in behaviour that occurs in the evening, around dusk as darkness grows, causing agitation and anxiety. When Jacqueline Yallop’s father was diagnosed with dementia, he began experiencing exactly that, which prompted Jacqueline’s profound self-reflection on the world’s relationship to the dark. Dr Jacqueline Yallop is an award-winning author of fiction and creative non-fiction, and her book Into the Dark explores darkness in science, literature, art, philosophy and history. She teaches creative writing at Aberystwyth University. Dr Nicoletta Asciuto is a Senior Lecturer in Modern Literature at the University of York. She is currently working on her first monograph, Brilliant Modernism: Cultures of Light and Modernist Poetry, 1909-1930 which discusses the impact of new lighting technologies on the birth of new avant-garde and modernist poetics. Dr Sophie Coulombeau is an author and academic based at the University of York, and was chosen as a 2014 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and AHRC to put research on the radio.This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find more on BBC Sounds and in a collection on BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme website under the title New Research including conversations about music and disability, language learning, sign language, green thinking and neglected women artists.Producer in Salford: Lola Grieve

Viking burials, preserving archaeology in Uganda, the morgues of Paris and New York and the medieval attitude to dying are our topics as Chris Harding hears about new research from archaeologists Marianne Hem Eriksen and Pauline Harding, and historians Cat Byers and Harriet Soper.Catriona Byers is completing a PhD at King’s College London on the nineteenth-century morgues of Paris and New York Dr Marianne Hem Eriksen is Associate Professor of Archaeology at the University of Leicester and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. You can find an Essay she has written for BBC Radio 3 drawing on her research available now on BBC Sounds Dr Harriet Soper is Lecturer in Medieval Literature at the University of Bristol Pauline Harding is working on a PhD at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology, about spirits and approaches to cultural heritage in UgandaProducer: Robyn Read

The Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens produced around 1,500 artworks, and a new research project explores the Islamic themes in his art. Dr Adam Sammut discusses why the Ottoman Empire’s influence on Rubens has been at the periphery of research, and what it reveals about the early modern understanding of cultural identity. Dr Nil Palabiyik has been researching the artist, musician and linguist Ali Bey who was taken as a war captive from Poland and placed at the palace school in Constantinople. He became a key figure at court, bridging cultural differences between east and west through his collections of Ottoman music and translation of the bible. Dr Adam Sammut is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in History of Art at the University of York. His current project is called ‘Rubens and Islam: Global exchange and European identity in early modern Antwerp. Dr Nil Palabiyik is Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern Studies at Queen Mary University of London. In 2023 she was awarded the Philip Leverhulme prize and is the author of ‘Silent Teachers: Turkish Books and Oriental Learning in Renaissance Europe, 1544-1680’. Dr Sarah Jilani is a Lecturer in English at City, University of London, looking at post-colonial world literatures and film and was a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and Arts and Humanities Research Council to put research on the radio. This New Thinking episode of the Arts & Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find more on BBC Sounds and in a collection on Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme website called New Research with discussions on topics ranging from disability in music and theatre to why we talk Producer: Martha Owen