The Essay Podcast
Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.
Episodes to download
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The Lives of Others—Moments of Being
Thu 23 Jun 2022
Joanna Robertson celebrates the minutiae of daily life by imagining the lives of others.
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Going for a Walk—Moments of Being
Wed 22 Jun 2022
Joanna Robertson celebrates the minutiae of life, showing they are not small but infinite.
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Windows—Moments of Being
Tue 21 Jun 2022
Joanna Robertson celebrates the impact the views from her windows have on her life.
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Moments of Being—Moments of Being
Mon 20 Jun 2022
Unlike Virginia Woolf, Joanna Robertson celebrates the minutiae of daily life.
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Paterson Joseph on Ignatius Sancho—Journeys to the Grave
Fri 17 Jun 2022
Five writers go in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes.
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Anita Sethi on Anne BrontΓ«—Journeys to the Grave
Thu 16 Jun 2022
Five writers go in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes.
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Diana Souhami on Radclyffe Hall—Journeys to the Grave
Wed 15 Jun 2022
Five writers go in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes.
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Paul Muldoon on WB Yeats—Journeys to the Grave
Tue 14 Jun 2022
Five writers go in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes.
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Lauren Elkin on Oscar Wilde—Journeys to the Grave
Mon 13 Jun 2022
Five writers go in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes.
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Pause for Thought—New Generation Thinkers 2021
Fri 6 May 2022
Florence Hazrat looks at the history of punctuation marks (such as brackets) and emojis.
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Opium Tales—New Generation Thinkers 2021
Thu 5 May 2022
Fariha Shaikh reads accounts from Thomas de Quincey (1821) to Timothy Mo and Amitav Ghosh.
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Alexander and the Persians—New Generation Thinkers 2021
Wed 4 May 2022
Julia Hartley asks why we call Alexander the Great.
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The Paradox of Ecological Art—New Generation Thinkers 2021
Tue 3 May 2022
Vid Simoniti considers eco-art from Olafur Eliasson to videos by Bo Zheng.
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A Brazilian Soprano in Jazz-Age Paris—New Generation Thinkers 2021
Mon 2 May 2022
Adjoa Osei celebrates Elsie Houston, who mixed Afro-Brazilian folk with European opera.
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John Baptist Dasalu and Fighting for Freedom—New Generation Thinkers 2021
Fri 29 Apr 2022
Jake Subryan Richards reads the letter sent by a captured man who arrived in Cuba in 1854.
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Ruffs in Jamestown—New Generation Thinkers 2021
Thu 28 Apr 2022
Lauren Working on what fashion reveals about life for C16 English settlers in America.
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African cinema, nationhood, and liberation—New Generation Thinkers 2021
Wed 27 Apr 2022
Sarah Jilani on the lessons about power in films by Ousmane Sembene and Souleymane CissΓ©.
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Contesting an Alphabet—New Generation Thinkers 2021
Tue 26 Apr 2022
Mirela Ivanova on the countries claiming to be the birthplace of the Cyrillic script.
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Walking with the Ghosts of the Durham Coalfield—New Generation Thinkers 2021
Mon 25 Apr 2022
Jake Morris-Campbell carries the ashes of poet Bill Martin from Sunderland to Durham.
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Boy with a Pearl Earring—Fashion Stories
Fri 11 Mar 2022
5/5 Lauren Working explores the cavalier look from Charles I to Harry Styles.
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Uniforms - An Alternative History—Fashion Stories
Thu 10 Mar 2022
4/5 Tom Smith links school blazers and clothes worn by East German soldiers to clubbing.
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Drama, Dressing-up and Droopy & Browns—Fashion Stories
Wed 9 Mar 2022
3/5 Jade Halbert looks at the designs inspired by English history created by Angela Holmes.
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In a Handbag—Fashion Stories
Tue 8 Mar 2022
2/5 Shahidha Bari looks at what the contents of a handbag can tell us.
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Body Armour—Fashion Stories
Mon 7 Mar 2022
1/5 Sophie Oliver looks at a Mina Loy corselet and the history of reshaping bodies.
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Nuala O'Connor on Penelope—Reading Ulysses
Fri 4 Feb 2022
Nuala O'Connor explores a passage from the novel's final episode, Molly Bloom's soliloquy.
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Mary Costello on Ithaca—Reading Ulysses
Thu 3 Feb 2022
Mary Costello chooses a passage from an episode towards the end of Ulysses: Ithaca.
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Colm TΓ³ibΓn on Sirens—Reading Ulysses
Wed 2 Feb 2022
Colm TΓ³ibΓn explains singing in Ulysses, exploring a passage from the Sirens episode.
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John Patrick McHugh on Calypso—Reading Ulysses
Tue 1 Feb 2022
Short story writer John Patrick McHugh chooses the fourth episode of Ulysses: Calypso.
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Anne Enright on Telemachus—Reading Ulysses
Mon 31 Jan 2022
Anne Enright gives us a close reading of the opening pages of James Joyce's Ulysses.
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Euphoria—Another Northern Ireland
Fri 10 Dec 2021
5/10 Novelist Glenn Patterson on Belfast's hairdressers and clothes shops during the Troubles.
Death in Trieste
A 1760s murder still informs ideas about aesthetics, a certain sort of sex, and death.
Watch: My Deaf World
Five compelling experiences of what it is like to be deaf in 21st-century Britain.
The Book that Changed Me
Five figures from the arts and science introduce books that changed their lives and work.
Download The Essay
Download all the episodes from the series and listen at your leisure.
