The 3 Best The Essay Podcast Episodes
1) William Styron
The 1960s are celebrated for the paradigm shift in American society. This shift was reflected in art and culture as well as politics. But these great changes were not accomplished without controversy...Show More
2) Naomi Alderman on Mary Wollstonecraft
Five more writers go on five reflective, restorative and often playful journeys in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes. Today in the first essay of a new series, Naomi Alderma...Show More
3) Afua Hirsch on 'Wide Sargasso Sea'
Journalist and writer Afua Hirsch discusses "Wide Sargasso Sea" by Jean Rhys, the story of the forgotten first wife of Mr Rochester in Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre. Encountering Rhys's novel age...Show More
mm recommended:
A beautiful short tribute that made me look at the book in a new light.
AUDIO REMOVED: The podcast creator has removed the audio for this episode.4) Digging for Words
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? He...Show More
5) Workplace performance
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...Show More
6) The crime of creation
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 take...Show More
7) Mothers on trial
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 198...Show More
8) Land Cinema
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 f...Show More
9) The intimacy of radio
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...Show More
10) Birth Stories
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 t...Show More