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Autism, The Financial Crisis, The Fallen Woman

Presented by Anne McElvoy. With Steve Silberman on rethinking autism, Gillian Tett on the the financial crisis and Lynda Nead on Fallen Women at the Foundling Museum.

Professor Lynda Nead has curated an exhibition at the Foundling Museum in London which looks at depictions of "the Fallen Woman" in Victorian England by artists including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Richard Redgrave, George Frederic Watts and Thomas Faed. The display includes a specially-commissioned sound installation by musician and composer Steve Lewinson. Lynda Nead joins Anne McElvoy along with James Bartholomew, an historian of the Welfare State who has studied Victorian responses to poverty.

Gillian Tett is managing editor of the New York office of The Financial Times. She reported on the financial crisis of 2007-8 in close detail, but before she became a journalist Tett trained as an anthropologist. Her latest book, The Silo Effect, combines reportage with anthropology to identify the deep structure in our thinking that contributed to the crisis: the tendency to organize things into discrete silos.

Steve Silberman is a Wired reporter and author of an article on "The Geek Syndrome" which went viral. He talks to Anne McElvoy about why we need to think about autism in a new way, along with Matthew Smith, an historian of psychiatry at the University of Strathclyde and former Radio 3 New Generation Thinker.

The Fallen Woman runs at the Foundling Museum from 25 Sep 2015 - 03 Jan 2016.
Gillian Tett's book is The Silo Effect
Steve Silberman's book is Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity

Main Image:
G F Watts (1817-1904), Found Drowned, c 1848-1850, oil on canvas -Β® Watts Gallery.

Presenter: Anne McElvoy
Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Available now

45 minutes

Last on

Tue 22 Sep 2015 22:00

The Foundling Restored to its Mother

The Foundling Restored to its Mother
Emma Brownlow, the Foundling Restored to its Mother, 1858 (c) Coram in the care of the Foundling Museum

A Mother Depositing Her Child at the Foundling Hospital in Paris

A Mother Depositing Her Child at the Foundling Hospital in Paris
Henry Nelson ONeil, A Mother Depositing Her Child at the Foundling Hospital in Paris, 1855 (c) The Foundling Museum

Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Anne McElvoy
Interviewed Guest Lynda Nead
Interviewed Guest James Bartholomew
Interviewed Guest Steve Silberman
Interviewed Guest Gillian Tett
Interviewed Guest Steve Silberman
Interviewed Guest Matthew Smith
Producer Luke Mulhall

Broadcast

  • Tue 22 Sep 2015 22:00

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