Can There Be Multiple Versions of Me?
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 26 March 2018
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Anne McElvoy enlists the help of Diversify author June Sarpong, doctor and medical historian Gavin Francis, performer and transgender activist Emma Frankland and philosopher Julian Baggini to tackle contemporary ideas about the ever changing notions of the self. Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead.
June Sarpong is the author of Diversify, a celebration of those who are often marginalised in our society including women, those living with disabilities, and the LGBTQ community. A successful TV presenter and an ambassador for the Prince’s Trust, June is also the co-founder of the Women: Inspiration and Enterprise Network.
Emma Frankland is an international performance and theatre artist. She is the director of None of Us is Yet a Robot, a contemporary performance company that creates work based on 'transgender identities & the politics of transition'.
Gavin Francis is a GP, explorer and author whose Adventures in Being Human considered the landscapes, history and myths of the body. His new book, Shapeshifters: On Medicine & Human Change examines the impact of constant change on our minds and bodies.
Julian Baggini is a philosopher. His books include his latest A Short History of Truth: Consolations for a Post-Truth World, plus The Edge of Reason: A Rational Skeptic in an Irrational World and Freedom Regained: The Possibility of Free Will.
Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival.
Producer: Fiona McLean
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right? |
| 0:23.3 | It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream. |
| 0:28.8 | Listen to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:32.1 | Hello, I'm Anne McHawoy. |
| 0:34.1 | Welcome to BBC Radio 3's Arts and Ideas discussion programme, |
| 0:39.0 | bringing together leading artists, writers and thinkers in conversation and debate. |
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| 0:56.2 | This is the BBC. |
| 1:09.5 | Hello, all the world's a stage, says the melancholy jacres in Shakespeare's as you like it. |
| 1:15.6 | He goes on to tell of the seven ages of man, from the mulling and puking infant through the school years, the years of love, until our lives come to an end in a second childhood. |
| 1:26.6 | Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. |
| 1:32.2 | A dismal account of our lives, perhaps, |
| 1:34.3 | but what would you say if you were asked to describe yourself? |
| 1:38.3 | Would it be the same yourself as the answer was at 18 or maybe at 80? |
| 1:42.6 | Who is me, the essence of myself? We go through changes in our |
| 1:46.8 | lives, which are inevitable. Some we might not like so much, growing from child to adult, wrinkles, |
| 1:53.2 | lines, memory failing, hair turning grey. But we might welcome others, bringing our children into |
| 1:59.3 | the world, diseases cured, rights being |
| 2:01.9 | granted, votes given, even our gender being changed. |
| 2:05.9 | My guests today are the TV presenter and author of Diversify, June Sarpong, the GP |
... |
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