Symbols, Signs and Secrets. What symbols tell us about ourselves.
Exploring the importance of symbols, how their history relates to us today and how we might use them in the future.
Art Historian Dr Janina Ramirez explores symbols in our past and present- how we use them in our everyday lives, their place in distant history and how they are evolving. Ranging from hieroglyphics in the ancient World through symbols in art to the increasing use of the emoji, Dr Ramirez examines the power of the symbol and its importance.
With her to discuss symbols and signs, Professor Martin Kemp, Emeritus Research Professor of the History of Art at Oxford University whose special interest is Leonardo Da Vinci, Professor Mimi Ito, a cultural anthropologist who studies new media use, particularly among young people in Japan and the US, from the University of California, Irvine and Professor Joann Fletcher, an Egyptologist and honorary visiting Professor at the University of York in the UK who explores the link between ancient symbols and how we communicate today.
Photo: Hieroglyphics from the Giza Pyramids in Cairo (Getty Images).
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Toilets of the World Unite?
Duration: 00:52
Martin Kemp
Martin Kemp is Emeritus Research Professor in the History of
Art at Oxford University. He has written and broadcast extensively on imagery
in art and science from the Renaissance to the present day. He speaks on issues
of visualisation and lateral thinking to a wide range of audiences.
He has curated a series of exhibitions on Leonardo da Vinci
and many other themes. In the programme, Martin explores symbols in art and
what they meant when they were painted.
Joann Fletcher
Joann Fletcher is an Egyptologist and Honorary Visiting
Professor in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York in the
UK.Β Her main interests centre around
body adornment throughout the ancient world, long-term research into the use of
wigs, perfumes, cosmetics, tattoos and amulets by the living and the dead led
to a fascination with mummification and burial practices.
In the programme, Jo explores the meaning of ancient symbols
and what they tell us about the past and the present.
Mimi Ito
Mimi Ito is a cultural anthropologist who studies new media
use, particularly among young people in Japan and the US. She is Professor in
Residence and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Chair in Digital
Media and Learning at the University of California, Irvine. She has led a
three-year collaborative ethnographic study, funded by the MacArthur
Foundation, examining youth new media practices in the US, and focusing on
gaming, digital media production, and Internet use.
Mimi is interested in how we use symbols today and how this
might evolve.
Broadcasts
- Mon 14 Dec 2015 02:06GMTΒι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World Service except Americas and the Caribbean, Australasia & News Internet
- Mon 14 Dec 2015 05:06GMTΒι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World Service Americas and the Caribbean
- Tue 15 Dec 2015 09:06GMTΒι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World Service except News Internet
- Tue 15 Dec 2015 13:06GMTΒι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World Service Australasia
- Tue 15 Dec 2015 23:06GMTΒι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World Service except News Internet
- Wed 16 Dec 2015 02:06GMTΒι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World Service Australasia
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Podcast
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The Forum
The programme that explains the present by exploring the past