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Chameleon

Brett Westwood spots a chameleon and investigates how this master of disguise has led us to ask big questions about how we adapt to the environments we find ourselves in. From 2016

Brett Westwood spots a chameleon and investigates how this master of disguise has led us to ask big questions about how we adapt to the environments we find ourselves in. John Keats coined the term "the camelion poet" to describe a curiosity to explore situations and settings outside of usual experience, which may be at odds with expected morals and personality. He argued that to be chameleon was to take on poetic guises separate from the self. Meanwhile Shakespeare was said to embody his characters to the extent that it was hard to know his own personality. David Bowie was described as a "musical chameleon" but was frustrated at the description, while the poet Jack Mapanje embraced the chameleon's ability to camouflage itself and used it as a way of voicing his political views under a cloak of ambiguity in his collection 'Of Chameleons and Gods'. Brett talks to reptile expert Rob Pilley, poet Jack Mapanje, English lecturer Stacey McDowell, sociologist Eoin Devereux and folklore expert Marty Crump.

First broadcast in a longer form : 11th October 2016
Original Producer: Tom Bonnett
Archive Producer : Andrew Dawes for Â鶹ԼÅÄ Audio in Bristol

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28 minutes

Last on

New Year's Day 2023 06:35
Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 4

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  • Here are some incredible things you might not know about the masters of disguise.

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Professor Marty Crump

Professor Marty Crump
Marty Crump is Adjunct Professor in the Biology Departments at Utah State University and Northern Arizona University. As a tropical ecologist, she has studied behavior and ecology of amphibians for the past 48 years andÌýshe has been fascinated with how amphibians and reptiles have been perceived worldwide and throughout time and how our perceptions of the animals might influence conservation efforts to protect them.

From creation myths to trickster tales, Marty reveals both our respect and fear of amphibians and reptiles in her book:Ìý.

Professor Eoin Devereux

Professor Eoin Devereux
Professor Eoin Devereux is Assistant Dean for Research in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Limerick, Ireland. His book Understanding The Media is used in classrooms all over the world, Eoin is the co-editor with Aileen Dillane and Martin Power ofÌý.

He is also the co-editor ofÌý.ÌýHe co-organised the first ever symposium on David Bowie in October 2012. In what remains of his spare time, he gardens, plays bass guitar, DJ's and writes short fiction.

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Dr Jack Mapanje

Dr Jack Mapanje
Malawian poetÌýÌýpublished his first collection of poems, Of Chameleons and Gods, in the UK in 1981 and withdrawn from bookshops, libraries and all instutitions of learning in Malawi in June 1985.

He was imprisoned without trial or charge by the Malawian government in 1987, and although many writers, linguists and human rights activists, including Harold Pinter and Wole Soyinka, Susan Sontag, Noam Chomsky and others campaigned for his release, he was not freed until 1991.

Dr Stacey McDowell

Dr Stacey McDowell
Dr Stacey McDowell is a Lecturer in English at St John’s College,ÌýCambridge. She wrote her doctoral thesis on John Keats’s notion of theÌý‘Chameleon Poet’ and has a wider interest in myths about metamorphosis.

Part of her current research considers how writers use metaphors related to imitation and mimicry to think about literary forms such as allusion,Ìýpastiche, and parody.

Rob Pilley

Rob Pilley
Rob Pilley is a wildlife filmmaker at John Downer Productions and was producer on the two-part series , which featured animatronic animals called 'spy creatures'Ìýthat carried cameras into the animal’s world to capture never-before-seen footage.

He has studied chameleons in the mountains of Kenya and is one of the UK's leading experts on chameleons and reptiles.

Dr Devi Stuart-Fox

Dr Devi Stuart-Fox
Ìýis an evolutionary biologist with a passion for colour. She has travelled widely to find out how and why nature’s diversity of colour evolved – and for this quest, she has chosen to focus on lizards - from colour changing chameleons in South Africa to Bornean gliding lizards and dragon lizards in Australia’s deserts.

After completing a PhD at the University of Queensland in 2002, she spent four years in South Africa studying chameleons and colour change before moving to Melbourne in 2007. She is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Biosciences at the University of Melbourne and won the 2013 L’Oreal-UNESCO ‘In the footsteps of Marie Curie’ prize for women in science.

Broadcasts

  • Tue 11 Oct 2016 11:00
    Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 4
  • Mon 17 Oct 2016 21:00
    Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 4
  • New Year's Day 2023 06:35
    Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 4

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