Revolutionary free speech
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 598 Ratings
🗓️ 7 April 2023
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
"Cancel culture" is used to describe debates which touch on freedom of expression today but what can we learn if we look back at events after the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen? Clare Siviter, who lectures on the French Revolution and theatre at the University of Bristol, takes us through the experiences of playwrights and authors, Marie-Joseph Chénier, Olympe de Gouges, Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Suard and Destutt de Tracy, who wrote about how ideas spread.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
You can find a collection of essays, discussions and features which showcase the research of New Generation Thinkers on the Free Thinking programme website. The Arts and Humanities Research Council has worked with BBC Radio 3 on the scheme since 2012.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Can I just say? |
| 0:01.5 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast. |
| 0:04.0 | It's such a wonderful listen. |
| 0:05.6 | So nice. |
| 0:06.5 | There are loads more like it on BBC sounds. |
| 0:08.8 | Different paces, different heights. |
| 0:10.6 | The roof is buckling. |
| 0:11.9 | Where you can also listen to live sports commentary. |
| 0:14.2 | It's right foot goes for goal. |
| 0:16.7 | And then enjoy even more podcasts full of analysis and reaction to the big stories. |
| 0:21.7 | The stat that is astonishing is they ended with the lowest amount of possession. |
| 0:25.2 | And she's had to live with that. |
| 0:26.8 | So if you love sport, a passion, it's almost like a religion. |
| 0:29.7 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:31.7 | Sort of expecting that every week now. |
| 0:34.6 | Hello, I'm Claire Siveter, a new generation thinker working with Radio 3 and the Arts and |
| 0:40.2 | Humanities Research Council to share my academic work. In this episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast, |
| 0:46.8 | I've written about the battles over free speech during the French Revolution. |
| 0:55.4 | The latest debates around the rewriting of books. revolution. BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 1:00.5 | The latest debates around the rewriting of books by Roald Dahl or about James Bond show that freedom of speech is potentially under threat, even in established democracies. |
| 1:06.6 | Eight years ago, I was in Paris digging around in the archives, looking at how plays had been |
| 1:11.6 | censored, rewritten, or cancelled at the end of the 18th century. Then, the terrorist attacks |
... |
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