In Our Time

• The Gracchi

  Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus whose names are entwined with the end of Rome's Republic and the rise of the Roman Emperors. As tribunes, they brought popular reforms to the Roman Republic at the end of the 2nd century BC. Tiberius (c163-133BC) brought in land reform so every soldier could have his farm, while Gaius (c154-121BC) offered cheap grain for Romans and targeted corruption among the elites. Those elites saw the reforms as such a threat that they had the brothers killed: Tiberius in a shocking murder led by the Pontifex Maximus, the high priest, in 133BC and Gaius 12 years later with the senate's approval. This increase in political violence was to destabilise the Republic, forever tying the Gracchi to the question of why Rome’s Republic gave way to the Rome of Emperors.WithCatherine Steel Professor of Classics at the University of GlasgowFederico Santangelo Professor of Ancient History at Newcastle UniversityAndKathryn Tempest Lecturer in Roman History at the University of LeicesterProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Appian (trans. John Carter), The Civil Wars (Penguin Classics, 2005)Valentina Arena, Jonathan R. W. Prag and Andrew Stiles, A Companion to the Political Culture of the Roman Republic (Wiley-Blackwell, 2022), especially the chapter by Lea Beness and Tom HillardR. Cristofoli, A. Galimberti and F. Rohr Vio (eds.), Costruire la Memoria: Uso e abuso della storia fra tarda repubblica e primo principato (L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2017), especially ‘The 'Tyranny' of the Gracchi and the Concordia of the Optimates: An Ideological Construct.’ by Francisco Pina PoloSuzanne Dixon, Cornelia: Mother of the Gracchi, (Routledge, 2007)Peter Garnsey and Dominic Rathbone, ‘The Background to the Grain Law of Gaius Gracchus’ (Journal of Roman Studies 75, 1985)O. Hekster, G. de Kleijn and D. Slootjes (eds.), Crises and the Roman Empire (Brill, 2007), especially ‘Tiberius Gracchus, Land and Manpower’ by John W. RichJosiah Osgood, Rome and the Making of a World State, 150 BCE-20 CE (Cambridge University Press, 2018)Plutarch (trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert and Christopher Pelling), Rome in Crisis (Penguin Classics, 2010) Plutarch (trans. Robin Waterfield, ed. Philip A. Stadter), Roman Lives (Oxford University Press, 2008)Nathan Rosenstein, ‘Aristocrats and Agriculture in the Middle and Late Republic’ (Journal of Roman Studies 98, 2008)A. N. Sherwin-White, ‘The Lex Repetundarum and the Political Ideas of Gaius Gracchus’ (Journal of Roman Studies 72, 1982) Catherine Steel, The End of the Roman Republic, 146 to 44 BC: Conquest and Crisis (Edinburgh University Press, 2013)David Stockton, The Gracchi (Oxford University Press, 1979)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

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• Maurice Merleau-Ponty

  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 SheffieldThomas Baldwin Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of YorkAnd Timothy Mooney Associate Professor of Philosophy at University College, DublinProduced by Eliane GlaserReading 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

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  59:02
• Thomas Middleton

  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.WithEmma Smith Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, University of OxfordLucy Munro Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Literature at Kings College LondonAnd Michelle O’Callaghan Professor of Early Modern Literature at the University of ReadingProducer: Simon TillotsonReading 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 StachniewskiMark 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

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  56:29
• Cyrus the Great

  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.WithMateen 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,AndLynette Mitchell, Professor Emerita in Classics and Ancient History at Exeter University.Producer: Eliane GlaserReading 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 SpekLynette 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. PottsMatt Waters, King of the World: The Life of Cyrus the Great (Oxford University Press, 2022)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production

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  50:59
• Pollination

  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 GardenJane Memmott, Professor of Ecology at the University of BristolAndLars Chittka, Professor of Sensory and Behavioural Ecology at Queen Mary, University of London.Producer: Eliane GlaserReading 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

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