Wordsworth was not unusual among Romantic poets for his enthusiastic support of the French Revolution, but he stands apart from his contemporaries for actually being there to see it for himself (‘Thou wert there,’ Coleridge wrote). This episode looks at Wordsworth’s retrospective account of his 1791 visit to France, described in books 9 and 10 of The Pr ... Show More
Today
Amia Srinivasan: The Impossible Patient
Not for the first time, theorists of politics are turning to the unconscious and its strange workings – repression and fantasy, libido and death drive, disavowal and displacement – to understand the present conjuncture: a conjuncture of authoritarian strongmen, anti-democratic po ... Show More
1h 2m
Aug 5
Adam Tooze: Electrostates, Petrostates and the New Cold War
China is racing ahead in electrification, while the US turns its back on green energy in favour of a new era of fossil fuel machismo. An alignment between the three major petrostates – the US, Saudi Arabia and Russia – no longer looks implausible. The outlines of a new Cold War a ... Show More
1h 15m
Jun 2024
Metamorphosis and Myth
This week, Ben Hutchinson on the making of Franz Kafka, a century after the writer's death; and an interview with Roz Dineen about her vision of climate catastrophe and societal collapse.'Kafka: Making of an icon', Weston Library, Bodleian, Oxford, until October 27Accompanying bo ... Show More
52m 8s