Arts

The Essay

by BBC Radio 3

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Latest episodes

Digging for Words

March 31, 2025 · 14 min

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 and asks what do we categorise as nature writing? Her essay considers the idea of "coining"…
Workplace performance

March 31, 2025 · 11 min

What connects actors with baristas? In 1983, the American sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild published a book called The Managed Heart which studied the working world of airline stewards. Jaswinder Blackwell-Pal’s essay considers what it…
The crime of creation

March 31, 2025 · 13 min

The Japanese philosopher Yujin Nagasawa says the majority of people are what he calls ‘existential optimists’. What does this mean for ideas about evil and the creation of life? Jack Symes’ essay takes us through the views of thinkers…
Mothers on trial

March 31, 2025 · 14 min

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 for committing a crime. Her essay considers the 1989 Children Act and what she sees as…
Land Cinema

March 31, 2025 · 14 min

If cinema is often associated with Hollywood or the European New Wave, since the 1970s activist-filmmakers around the world have been involving local people in telling their own stories. Co-creating films about land rights, food security…

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The intimacy of radio

March 31, 2025 · 14 min

The would-be composer and philosopher Theodor Adorno played classical piano and came up with influential studies of authoritarianism, antisemitism and propaganda. He also wrote about the experience of listening to a radio voice. Jacob…
Birth Stories

March 31, 2025 · 14 min

How have the first hours and days after childbirth changed in the NHS? Before the NHS, a 1932 publication describing mothers resting after labour, referred to lying-in as ranging from two weeks to two months, but attitudes have altered…
Losing Yourself in Books

March 31, 2025 · 14 min

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 arguments which are made in favour of reading as a way of encouraging empathy and…
A Philosophical Forgery?

March 31, 2025 · 14 min

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 inspirational? Debates over its authorship rage and Jonathan Egid’s essay asks what…
Technicolor Wars

March 31, 2025 · 13 min

From The Wizard of Oz to Madame Mao, Kirsty Sinclair Dootson’s essay explores the politics of making films in colour - specifically Technicolor - a process synonymous with American cinema that was the envy of political powers across…
Poems of Love and Ageing

February 13, 2025 · 13 min

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 and wonders.' He devoted a lifetime to the art of poetry and won numerous poetry…
Poems of Mayo

February 13, 2025 · 13 min

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 griefs and wonders.' He devoted a lifetime to the art of poetry and won numerous poetry…