Cultural Lifespans

What is the purpose of the Arts? Can music, literature and visual art change our lives physically and socially, as well as personally? Adam Rutherford explores the power of the arts and how it might be defined and explained.Engaging with the arts is one of our most powerful tools ...  Show more

What do animals mean to us? Naomi Alderman explores how animals shape human understanding, from ancient burial rites to modern science.The psychologist Justin Gregg specialises in dolphin social cognition. He introduces his new book, Humanish, a witty and provocative look at anth ...  Show more

This week, Ben Hutchinson on the making of Franz Kafka, a century after the writer's death; and an interview with Roz Dineen about her vision of climate catastrophe and societal collapse.'Kafka: Making of an icon', Weston Library, Bodleian, Oxford, until October 27Accompanying bo ...  Show more

Rosemary Hill begins a new four-part series looking at what people have thought about Stonehenge over the past few hundred years, and why it’s come to matter so much in the story of Britain. In the first episode she talks to architectural historian Vaughan Hart about how Inigo Jo ...  Show more

An infinite number of things happen; we bring structure and meaning to the world by making art and telling stories about it. Every work of literature created by human beings comes out of an historical and cultural context, and drawing connections between art and its context ca ...

The Fault In Our Stars, starring Shailene Woodley, is the screen adaptation of John Green's best selling young adult novel of the same name about a pair of love struck teenagers both of whom are terminally ill with cancer. Brought together at a cancer support group the pair embar ...  Show more