In Our Time With Melvyn Bragg Folgen

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the ancient Greek historian Thucydides. In the fifth century BC Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, an account of a conflict in which he had himself taken part. This work is now seen as one of the first great masterpieces of history writing, a book which influenced writers for centuries afterwards. Thucydides was arguably the first historian to make a conscious attempt to be objective, bringing a rational and impartial approach to his scholarship. Today his work is still widely studied at military colleges and in the field of international relations for the insight it brings to bear on complex political situations.With:Paul Cartledge Emeritus Professor of Greek Culture and AG Leventis Senior Research Fellow at Clare College, CambridgeKatherine Harloe Associate Professor in Classics and Intellectual History at the University of ReadingNeville Morley Professor of Ancient History at the University of BristolProducer: Thomas Morris.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss phenomenology, a style of philosophy developed by the German thinker Edmund Husserl in the first decades of the 20th century. Husserl's initial insights underwent a radical transformation in the work of his student Martin Heidegger, and played a key role in the development of French philosophy at the hands of writers like Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.Phenomenology has been a remarkably adaptable approach to philosophy. It has given its proponents a platform to expose and critique the basic assumptions of past philosophy, and to talk about everything from the foundations of geometry to the difference between fear and anxiety. It has also been instrumental in getting philosophy out of the seminar room and making it relevant to the lives people actually lead. GUESTSSimon Glendinning, Professor of European Philosophy in the European Institute at the London School of Economics Joanna Hodge, Professor of Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University Stephen Mulhall, Professor of Philosophy and Tutor at New College at the University of Oxford Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Pieter Bruegel the Elder's painting of 1559, 'The Fight Between Carnival And Lent'. Created in Antwerp at a time of religious tension between Catholics and Protestants, the painting is rich in detail and seems ripe for interpretation. But Bruegel is notoriously difficult to interpret. His art seems to reject the preoccupations of the Italian Renaissance, drawing instead on techniques associated with the new technology of the 16th century, print. Was Bruegel using his art to comment on the controversies of his day? If so, what comment was he making? CONTRIBUTORSLouise Milne, Lecturer in Visual Culture in the School of Art at the University of Edinburgh and Edinburgh Napier UniversityJeanne Nuechterlein, Senior Lecturer in the Department of History of Art, University of YorkMiri Rubin, Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History and Head of the School of History at Queen Mary, University of LondonProducer: Luke Mulhall.