Contagion and Viruses

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 598 Ratings

🗓️ 19 March 2020

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Matthew Sweet investigates viruses and how they could disrupt our understanding of the nature of organisms, and looks at what history can teach us about the current pandemic. With philosopher John Dupré, historian Mark Honigsbaum, New Generation Thinker Lisa Mullen and artist Matt Adams who works with Blast Theory.

Mark Honigsbaum is the author of The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria and Hubris. Lisa Mullen has written Mid-Century Gothic: The Uncanny Objects of Modernity in British Literature and Culture after the Second World War. Professor John Dupré is director of the Centre for the Study of Life Sciences, and professor of philosophy at the University of Exeter. You can find about Matt Adams' work at https://www.blasttheory.co.uk/

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Check out our podcast episode New Thinking: Science Fiction Hetta Howes discusses how science fiction extends beyond literature with Caroline Edwards and Amy Butt https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p086zq4g

You might also like this Sunday feature looking at the idea of the grid https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08v8qn4 and this Sunday Feature about the idea of Apocalypse How https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b088j46v from the Radio 3 programme archives.

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
0:21.2	it. It's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream
0:26.1	van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.
0:33.3	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Matthew Sweet and this is the Arts and Ideas podcast.
0:41.3	Our remit is to explore the ideas shaping the world today.
0:45.3	And at the moment, that process is happening fast.
0:48.5	The discussion that follows is about contagion, and you'll hear it after these messages.
0:54.8	Hello, I'm Jessica Curry, host of the Sound of Gaming podcast.
0:59.3	If you love video game music or chatting over a cupboard with some amazing composers as much as I do,
1:05.1	then you really must come on over and join us.
1:08.4	I'll be meeting a different composer each week to talk about their work in games,
1:13.4	chatting about the music in some of my favourite scores and lifting the lid on just what us composers
1:19.0	are getting up to behind the curtain while you're playing. Search BBC Sounds for Sound of
1:24.8	Gaming and hit subscribe to listen now.
1:37.8	Hello, how long have we been together, you and I? It's 15 years from where I'm sitting,
1:43.2	and I'm sitting in Studio 50E at Broadcasting House. We've had all kinds of conversations on all kinds of subjects over the
1:45.1	years, but we've never had them in circumstances like this, with the streets outside, very empty,
1:51.2	the theatres, galleries, museums, libraries, universities and archives all dark. Culture has moved
1:58.2	out of the public sphere and into the private sphere, the one where you meet us.
2:03.8	So what's our role in these circumstances?
2:06.5	Well, you wouldn't come to free thinking for advice on hand washing or for infection statistics,
2:11.8	but this could be a space where we can explore the ideas that are shaping the circumstances in which we find ourselves,
	...

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