Main content

Beauty - Ugliness

Beauty and ugliness. Laurie Taylor explores the way in which our ideas of physical perfection have shifted over time and culture.

Beauty and ugliness - to what extent are our ideas about physical perfection culturally and socially constructed? Laurie Taylor talks to Gretchen Henderson, Lecturer in English at Georgetown University & author of a study of perceptions of ugliness throughout history and to Heather Widdows, Professor of Global Ethics at the University of Birmingham, whose latest book explores the radical transformation of the status of beauty and the increasing emergence of a global ideal.

Producer: Jayne Egerton.

Available now

28 minutes

Last on

Mon 23 Jul 2018 00:15
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4

More episodes

Previous

Suburbia Revisited

Next

Smart Cities

See all episodes from Thinking Allowed

  • Explore further content from The Open University academic experts and host Laurie Taylor.

RELATED LINKS

READING LIST

Gretchen E. Henderson, Ugliness - A Cultural History, (Reaktion Books Ltd., 2015)

Heather Widdows, Perfect Me - Beauty as an Ethical Ideal, (Princeton University Press, 2018)

Broadcasts

  • Wed 18 Jul 2018 16:00
    Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
  • Mon 23 Jul 2018 00:15
    Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4

Explore further with The Open University

Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Thinking Allowed is produced in partnership with The Open University

Download this programme

Subscribe to this programme or download individual episodes.

Podcast