The Way We Used To Feel

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 10 April 2019

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Can we ever really know the feelings of byegone generations? Author and TV historian Tracy Borman shares the clues we have to the emotional lives of Tudor royalty and archaeologist Penny Spikins explains what million year old human remains tell us about how prehistoric people felt. Paul Pickering explores what we know about the emotions of the Manchester Chartists and the way songs have carried political feelings. New Generation Thinker Elsa Richardson teaches a course on the history of emotions. Rana Mitter hosts with an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead

Tracy Borman is joint Chief Curator for Historic Royal Palaces, Chief Executive of the Heritage Education Trust. Her books include Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him, The Private Life of the Tudors, Thomas Cromwell: The Hidden Story Of Henry VIII's Most Faithful Servant

Penny Spikins is Senior Lecturer in the Archaeology of Human Origins at the University of York. Her books include How Compassion Made Us Human looking at archaeological evidence for the earliest examples of healthcare, and Neanderthal social lives.

Paul Pickering is a Professor and Director of the Research School of Humanities and the Arts at the Australian National University. The author of books on subjects ranging from C19 radical politics in the British world, monuments and public memory, re-enactment history - his most recent, Sounds of Liberty, is about music and politics. He is currently a Visiting Professor at Durham University working in a team studying the question: 'Who are the People?'

Elsa Richardson became a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker in 2018. She teaches on the history of the emotions and is a Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

Producer: Craig Smith

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

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.
0:33.3	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:37.1	I'm Matthew Sweet, and in a moment we'll be bringing you one of the discussions recorded at our Freethinking Festival.
0:43.5	For this year's theme, we set out to explore the emotions, so be ready with your happy or sad or enraged face just after this short message.
0:53.0	Why does music move us? How does it do it?
0:56.7	Well, if these are questions that have been firing you up, I've got the very podcast for you.
1:02.2	I'm Tom Service from BBC Radio 3 and from Schubert's symphonies to video game music,
1:07.0	from how to start a piece of music and when to end it.
1:10.3	From background music to Birdsong, from Beethoven to start a piece of music and when to end it. From background music to
1:11.9	bird song, from Beethoven to Beyonce, from Bach to the future. Thank you very much indeed.
1:18.1	The Listing Service podcast is your guide to how music works. Add all kinds of music to
1:24.1	the mastery and mechanics behind the magic.
1:33.6	Just search for the listening service on BBC Sounds and learn more about the music we all love.
1:46.9	Hello, back in the 17th century, Robert Burton published The Anatomy of Melancholy. And how did he show that he was melancholy? Simple. He wore a hat with a very large brim that covered his eyes. Make sense?
1:54.4	Nope, me neither. But it's a reminder that the past is a different country, and they felt things
1:59.9	differently there. I'm Ron Amitter,
2:02.1	and with me at Sage Gateshead to explore how we used to experience everything from melancholy
2:07.0	to bliss with a little bit of ecstasy along the way, are three guests with plenty of history
2:12.6	when it comes to emotion. Tracy Borman is Joint Chief Curator for for historic royal palaces, and her latest book is
2:18.8	Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him. Penny Spikins is senior lecturer in the archaeology of human origins
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.