Free Thinking - Queer Icons: Plato's Symposium. Part of Gay Britannia.
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 11 July 2017
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Shahidha Bari discusses LGBTQ in the history of philosophy.As part of the BBC's Queer Icons series Philosopher Sophie-Grace Chappell discusses Plato's Symposium, and novelist Adam Mars-Jones talks about Bruce Bagemihl's book Biological Exuberance which explored homosexuality in the animal kingdom.
Plus, we hear from the winner of this year's Caine Prize for African Writing.
Queer Icons is a project to mark the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in which 50 leading figures choose an LGBTQ artwork that is special to them. You can find more details on the Front Row website on BBC Radio 4.
You can find the BBC's Gay Britannia season of programmes on radio and tv collected on the website. They include documentaries, Drama on 3 from Joe Orton and exploring Victim the 1961 film starring Dirk Bogarde, episodes of Words and Music and more editions of Free Thinking including Philip Hoare on Cecil Beaton, Jake Arnott on Joe Orton and Peggy Reynolds on Sappho.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
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. |
| 0:32.1 | This is the BBC. Thanks for downloading this Arts and Ideas podcast from BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking. |
| 0:41.1 | I'm Shahid Abari. |
| 0:42.8 | In Greek, the word philosophy translates rather loftily as the love of wisdom. |
| 0:48.6 | But have philosophers ever really been wise about love? |
| 0:52.7 | In today's programme, we'll be tearing off the togas and the tweed |
| 0:55.5 | to talk frankly about how the greatest minds have grappled or not with the subject of sex. |
| 1:02.1 | As part of the BBC's Queer icon series, Sophie Grace Chapel of the Open University takes us through |
| 1:08.2 | Greek love and the symposium, Plato's portrait of Socrates |
| 1:11.7 | and his pals who tussle over the idea of Eros at a drunken dinner party nearly 2,400 years ago. |
| 1:19.4 | We'll also be talking to the winner of this year's Kane Prize for African Writing, |
| 1:23.4 | Sudanese author Bushra El Fadil, his story, the girl whose birds flew away. |
| 1:29.9 | But first, I'm talking of birds. |
| 1:32.0 | Birds do it. |
| 1:36.0 | Bees do it. |
| 1:39.0 | Even educated fleas. |
| 1:43.0 | Do it. |
| 1:44.0 | Let's do it. Let's fall in love. |
| 1:53.0 | 17 years ago, the biologist Bruce Bajamil challenged the idea that same-sex love is somehow unnatural in his book, Biological Exuberance, Animal, Homosexuality and Natural Diversity. |
| 2:05.2 | Writer and critic Adam, Marse Jones, is here to tell us more. |
... |
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