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?

It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.

Listen to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds.

Hello, I'm Philip Dodd and welcome to the Arts and Ideas Discussion Program from BBC Radio 3,

which brings together leading artists, writers and thinkers.

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and wherever you get your podcast from, do rate and reviewers.

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Camille Pallia, cultural critic and intellectual provocateur, who outrages American liberals.

Slavogizek, the most dangerous philosopher in the West, according to one judgment,

and Fleming Rose, the publisher of the Danish cartoons of the Prophet

Muhammad, which set off explosions across the world. Three interviews with three incendiary figures

on the uses of offence, of which they are masters and mistresses. Now, for some, these three guests may seem to be simply going with the grain of a world,

where social media is saturated with trolls, where the political centre does not hold,

and where charismatic politicians gain followers by building walls between people.

Is this fair? Well, we'll find out.

First, Camille Pallia, who came to fame in the early 90s with her book, Sexual Personi,

one of David Bowie's favourite 100 books.

Since then, often through the essay form,

she's been a razor-sharp defender of free speech

and has managed to offend her fellow feminists when arguing for the complexities of date-rape

amongst much else, her academic fellows whose post-structurism she simply can't stomach

...