Free Thinking: Canada 150: Identity Robbie Richardson, Alison MacLeod, Deborah Pearson + Rupi Kaur and Kevan Funk.
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 29 June 2017
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Shahidha Bari and Laurence Scott look at images of Canada from First Nations art through Anne of Green Gables on TV to poems and art posted on Instagram and Twitter by Rupi Kaur. Their studio guests are author Alison MacLeod, Robbie Richardson and Deborah Pearson. Plus film maker Kevan Funk.
Rupi Kaur has published a book called Milk and Honey and you can find images of her art via her website https://www.rupikaur.com/
Robbie Richardson from the University of Kent is writing a book about the connections between representations of First Nations people in 18th-century British literature and the rise of modern British identity.
Kevan Funk's film Hello Destroyer is on a tour of UK cinemas along with other films from the Canada Now Festival and it is also available from Curzon Home Cinema.
Alison MacLeod has published a short story collection all the beloved ghosts.
Deborah Pearson's documentary History History History is screening as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from August 5th to 10th.
Anne of Green Gables, the 1908 novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery, has recently been remade for TV in a CBC-Netflix adaptation
Part of Canada 150: a week of programmes marking the 150th anniversary of the founding of the nation. You can find links to concerts and other broadcasts on the Radio 3 website.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
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 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:37.2 | Hello, I'm Shahid Abari. |
| 0:39.3 | And I'm Lauren Scott. |
| 0:40.6 | Thanks for downloading this podcast from Radio 3's Arts and Ideas discussion program, free thinking. |
| 0:46.6 | Hello. |
| 0:47.1 | And hello. |
| 0:48.0 | Today we've set ourselves the modest task of pinning down the identity of a country |
| 0:52.0 | that spans from the Atlantic to the Pacific, |
| 0:59.2 | crossing the Arctic Circle along the way. Can we gather this country under a single banner of Canadianness? Shad, I remember you being a bit surprised when I told you I was Canadian. |
| 1:04.1 | Well, mainly because the only Canadians I know are over-imaginative orphans called Anne |
| 1:08.7 | and pugnacious Olympic ice skaters from the 90s called Elvis. |
| 1:12.8 | I'm joking. |
| 1:13.9 | Should I be able to pick out a Canadian from a crowd? |
| 1:16.4 | Ah, you might be able to pick out a Canadian if you play them this clip. |
| 1:20.2 | It's part of a collection of Canadian Heritage Minutes |
| 1:22.8 | broadcast over and over in the 1990s. |
| 1:26.3 | Every time she has a seizure, she smells something burning. |
| 1:30.3 | Now if we can provoke that smell by probing the surface of the brain, |
| 1:33.3 | we'll find the source of the seizures. |
... |
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