In Our Time With Melvyn Bragg Folgen

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the science of Oceanography. In 1870 Jules Verne described the deep ocean in 2,000 Leagues Under the Sea. He wrote: “The sea is an immense desert where man is never alone for he feels life, quivering around him on every side.” This was actually closer to the truth than the science of the time, when ‘Azoic Theory’ held sway and it was believed that nothing could exist below 600 metres. Now we estimate that there are more species in the deep ocean than in the rest of the planet put together, somewhere between 2 million and 100 million different species of organism are living on the ocean floor.Science has dispelled the idea that huge underground tunnels join our oceans together and the notion that giant Kraken lurk in the deep, but our seas still retain much of their mystery and there have been more men on the surface of the moon than at the bottom of the ocean. How should we understand the sea? With Margaret Deacon, visiting Research Fellow at Southampton Oceanography Centre and author of Scientists and the Sea, Tony Rice, Biological Oceanographer and author of Deep Ocean, Simon Schaffer, Reader in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, and a fellow of Darwin College.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss surrealism. ‘Si vous aimez L’amour, vous aimerez Surrealisme!’. If you like Love, you’ll love Surrealism! Thus was the launch of the surrealist manifesto publicised in Paris in 1924. In that document the formerly Dadaist poet André Breton defined his new movement, “Surrealism is pure psychic automatism, by which it is intended to express…the real process of thought. It is the dictation of thought, free from any control by reason and of any aesthetic or moral preoccupation”.Surrealism is about sex, the unconscious, repression and desire and seems to carry more than a distant echo of the Doctor from Vienna. How much was their notion of ‘pure thought’ influenced by the writings of Sigmund Freud and the new technique of psychoanalysis being developed at the time? Did the surrealists manage to release the secrets and wonders of the human psyche, or was their wild foray into melting clocks, floating euphoniums and automatic writing simply a wasted journey into nonsense?With Dawn Adiss, Professor of Art History and Theory at the University of Essex; Malcolm Bowie, Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature at Oxford University and a fellow of All Souls College; the psychoanalyst Darian Leader

Melvyn Bragg examines the British Empire. It was officially created on 1st January 1877 when Disraeli had Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India, and it formally dissolved into the ‘Commonwealth’ in 1958. But imperial passions stirred in Britain long before Victoria’s investiture and the ethos of Imperialism lives on.At its height in 1919 the British Empire stretched from East to West, incorporating one quarter of the globe and included such diverse colonies as Canada, Australia, parts of South America, the Persian Gulf, the Middle East and China, New Zealand, much of Africa and of course India. By 1960 it had all but vanished off the face of the earth. What drove Britain to build such an immense Empire, why did it all disappear so quickly and what kind of legacy was left behind? With Maria Misra, Lecturer in Modern History and Fellow of Keble College, Oxford, Peter Cain, Research Professor in History at Sheffield Hallam University and Catherine Hall, Professor of Modern Social and Cultural History at University College London.