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Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world. History fans can learn about pivotal wars and societal upheavals, such as the rise and fall of Napoleon, the Sack of Rome in 1527, and the political intrigue of the Russian Revolution. Those fascinated by the lives of kings and queens can journey to Versailles to meet Marie Antoinette and Louis XIV the Sun King, or to Ancient Egypt to meet Cleopatra and Nefertiti. Or perhaps you're looking to explore the history of religion, from Buddhism's early teachings to the Protestant Reformation. If you're interested in the stories behind iconic works of art, music and literature, dive in to discussions on the artistic genius of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel and Van Gogh's famous Sunflowers. From Gothic architecture to the works of Shakespeare, each episode of In Our Time offers new insight into humanity's cultural achievements. Those looking to enrich their scientific knowledge can hear episodes on black holes, the Periodic Table, and classical theories of gravity, motion, evolution and relativity. Learn how the discovery of penicillin revolutionised medicine, and how the death of stars can lead to the formation of new planets. Lovers of philosophy will find episodes on the big issues that define existence, from free will and ethics, to liberty and justice. In what ways did celebrated philosophers such as Mary Wollstonecraft and Karl Marx push forward radical new ideas? How has the concept of karma evolved from the ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism to today? What was Plato's concept of an ideal republic, and how did he explore this through the legend of the lost city of Atlantis? In Our Time celebrates the pursuit of knowledge and the enduring power of ideas.
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Folge vom 07.08.2026Pockets (from Here For The History)To the frustration of many, a lot of women’s clothes don’t have pockets. But why on Earth is that the case? Especially when men’s clothing seems to be full of pockets.On Here For The History, Alice Loxton and Ben Henderson track the tumultuous and muddy history of women’s pockets. From capacious beginnings, through many fashion changes, to suffragette campaigning and societal expectations.Alice and Ben unpick the surprising moments of pocket history that have contributed to the inconsistency of these sewn-in marvels today.If you enjoy this episode, you can find more episodes of Here For The History on BBC Sounds. If you’re outside the UK, you can listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your BBC podcasts.KEY SOURCES: Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close by Hannah Carlson The Pocket: A Hidden History of Women's Lives by Arianne Fennetaux and Barbara Burman
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Folge vom 06.08.2026Archive: Aphra BehnWidely regarded as the first professional woman writer in English literature, Aphra Behn (1640-1689) is best known for her plays and her novel Oroonoko, she's been an inspiration to countless writers across the ages.This archive episode, first released in October 2017, was selected as part of a ten-episode series by Misha Glenny. In the episode, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and times of Behn, who made her name and her living as a playwright, poet and writer of fiction during the Restoration. Virginia Woolf wrote of her: 'All women together, ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn... for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds'. Behn may well have spent some of her early life in Surinam, the setting for her novel Oroonoko, and there are records of her working in the Netherlands as a spy for Charles II. She was loyal to the Stuart kings and refused to write a poem on the coronation of William of Orange. She was regarded as an important writer in her lifetime and inspired others to write but fell out of favour for two centuries after her death when her work was seen as too bawdy, the product of a disreputable age.With Janet ToddFormer President of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge UniversityRos BallasterProfessor of 18th Century Literature at Mansfield College, University of OxfordandClaire Bowditch Post-doctoral Research Associate in English and Drama at Loughborough University Producer: Simon Tillotson. Reading list: Kate Aughterson, Aphra Behn: The Comedies (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) Ros Ballaster, Seductive Forms: Women’s Amatory Fiction 1684-1740 (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1991) Aphra Behn (ed. Joanna Lipking), Oroonoko (Norton and Co, 1997) Aphra Behn (ed. Paul Salzman), Oroonoko and Other Writings (Oxford University Press, 2009) Aphra Behn (ed. Jane Spencer), The Rover and Other Plays (Oxford University Press, 2008) Aphra Behn (ed. Janet Todd), Oroonoko (Penguin Classics, 2003) Aphra Behn (ed. Janet Todd), Oroonoko, the Rover and Other Works (Penguin Classics, 1999) Aphra Behn (ed. Janet Todd), The Complete Works of Aphra Behn:7 vols. (Pickering and Chatto, 1992-6) Claire Bowditch, The Works of Aphra Behn (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming) W. J. Cameron, New Light on Aphra Behn (University of Auckland Press, 1961) Maureen Duffy, The Passionate Shepherdess: Aphra Behn, 1640-89 (Jonathan Cape, 1977) Derek Hughes, The Theatre of Aphra Behn (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001) Derek Hughes (ed.), Versions of Blackness: Oroonoko, Race and Slavery (Cambridge University Press, 2007) Jane Spencer, Aphra Behn’s Afterlife (Oxford University Press, 2000) Janet Todd (ed.), Aphra Behn Studies (Cambridge University Press, 1996) Janet Todd, Aphra Behn: A Secret Life (Fentum Press, 2017) Janet Todd and Derek Hughes (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Aphra Behn (Cambridge University Press, 2004) S. J. Wiseman, Aphra Behn (Northcote House, 1996) In Our Time is a BBC Studios production Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.
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Folge vom 30.07.2026SeashellsMisha Glenny and guests discuss a familiar feature of our beaches: seashells, from their astonishing shapes and patterns that teach us about Earth’s oceans, to the ways that humans have treasured shells throughout history. Seashells appear in the mythologies of countless cultures across the world - think of Botticelli’s Venus emerging from a giant scallop shell, Vishnu's sacred horn panchajanya, or the Aztec god Quetzalcōātl’s talisman cut from a conch shell. The urge to collect shells seems to be as old as our species. We’ve used them as decoration, currency, and musical instruments. But shells aren’t just beautiful objects washed up on our beaches. Many belong to one of the most diverse groups of the animal kingdom, Mollusca, and the remarkable morphology of forms and structures they grow in offer insight into the past, present, and future of the marine world.With Suzanne Williams Merit Researcher at the Natural History Museum Liz Harper Professor of Evolutionary Malacology in the Department of Earth Sciences and Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge Helen Scales Marine biologist and Author. Producer: Martha OwenReading list:S. Peter Dance, Shells (DK, 2022)A.R. Irwin, S.T. Williams, D.I. Speiser and N.W. Roberts, ‘The marine gastropod Conomurex luhuanus (Strombidae) has high-resolution spatial vision and eyes with complex retinas’ (Journal of Experimental Biology 225:16, 2022)Michael F. Land and Dan-Eric Nilsson, Animal Eyes (Oxford University Press, 2012) Andreia Salvador, Interesting Shells (The Natural History Museum, 2022)Helen Scales, Shell Day: A Story of 24 Hours and 24 Molluscan Lives (University of Chicago Press, 2026)Helen Scales, The Shell Spotter's Guide (National Trust Books, 2024)Helen Scales, What a Shell Can Tell: Where They Live, What They Eat, How They Move, and More (Phaidon Press, 2022)Helen Scales, Spirals in Time: The Secret Life and Curious Afterlife of Seashells (Bloomsbury Sigma, 2015)Paul D. Taylor, Fossils: The Essential Guide (University of Chicago Press, 2025)Suzanne Williams, ‘Molluscan shell colour’ (Biological Reviews, 2017) In Our Time is a BBC Studios productionSpanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.
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Folge vom 23.07.2026Vigée Le BrunMisha Glenny and guests discuss the French portrait painter Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755 - 1842). From her teens she delighted her high society subjects in and around Paris, notably Marie Antoinette who she painted around 30 times, and she invariably found ways to show her sitters at their best. Some critics were affronted that she, a young woman, dared paint at all and, when they saw how good her portraits were, some spread a rumour that surely this could not really be her work and she must have had a secret male lover finishing her portraits in a studio. The French Revolution forced Vigée Le Brun out of France and so she set off from one European court to another to find more success from Naples to Vienna to St Petersburg and to London, eventually settling back in France. Today her works are on show in major galleries around the world.WithRosalind Polly Blakesley Master of Pembroke College and Professor of Russian and European Art at the University of CambridgeRobert Wenley Deputy Director of Collections and Research at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of BirminghamAnd Francesca Whitlum-Cooper Curator of Later Italian, Spanish and French Paintings at The National Gallery, London.Producer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Joseph Baillio, Katharine Baetjer and Paul Lang (eds), Vigée Le Brun (exhibition catalogue in English, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016)Joseph Baillio et al., Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun: 1755-1842 (exhibition catalogue in French, Grand Palais, Paris, 2015/16)Rosalind P. Blakesley, Women Artists in the Reign of Catherine the Great (Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd, 2023), especially chapter 8 ‘The Triumphant Refugee’Lucy Davies, Vigée Le Brun: Self Portrait in a Straw Hat (National Gallery Global, 2025)Angelica Goodden, The Sweetness of Life: A Biography of Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (Andre Deutsch Ltd, 1997)Franny Moyle, Mrs Kauffman and Madame Le Brun: The Entwined Lives of Two Great Eighteenth-Century Women Artists (Apollo, 2025)Jordana Pomeroy, Daring: The Life and Art of Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun (Getty Publications, 2025)Mary D. Sheriff, The Exceptional Woman: Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun and the Cultural Politics of Art (University of Chicago Press, 1997)Paris Spies-Gans, A Revolution on Canvas: The Rise of Women Artists in Britain and France, 1760-1830 (Paul Mellon Centre, Yale University Press London, 2022)Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun (trans. Sian Evans), The Memoirs of Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun (Camden Press, 1989)Louise-Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Souvenirs de Madame Louise-Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (first published 1869; Tredition Classics, 2012)In Our Time is a BBC Studios productionSpanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.