The Forum

The popular view of an Epicurean is that of somebody who focuses on pleasure as our guiding principle, indulging in the finer things of life to achieve happiness. And yet what the Ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus understood by pleasure was far more nuanced. In fact, Epicurus and his followers advocated a simple lifestyle, withdrawn from society, where we are content with little. What is perhaps less known is how Epicurean writings on physics foreshadowed some of the most significant developments in early modern science – including Darwin’s theory of evolution and even Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Joining Bridget Kendall is Catherine Wilson, visiting Professor at the Graduate Centre of the City University of New York, and the author of various works on Epicureanism, including How to Be an Epicurean: The Ancient Art of Living Well; Dr Sonya Wurster, Honorary Fellow at La Trobe University in Australia who’s working on a book about the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus; and philosopher and historian Dav

One of the most celebrated female painters of the 17th century, Artemisia Gentileschi was the first woman to become a member of the Academy of the Arts of Drawing in Florence. Through her talent and determination - and despite massive obstacles - she forged a 40-year career, and was collected by the likes of Charles I of England and Philip IV of Spain. But after her death, it wasn’t until the 20th century that people began to reinterpret her work in the light of her remarkable life story, including the well-documented fact that she was raped at the age of 17 by fellow painter, Agostino Tassi.Joining Bridget Kendall to discuss the life and work of Italian Baroque artist, Artemisia Gentileschi are four experts: Letizia Treves is curator of the 2020 Artemisia exhibition at London’s National Gallery; Mary Garrard is Professor Emerita of Art History at American University in Washington DC; Jesse Locker is Assistant Professor of Italian Renaissance & Baroque Art at Portland State University; and Patrizia Cavazz

We are now familiar with dogs helping people with sight loss but where did the idea come from? And how have the ways of selecting, training and using guide dogs changed over time? Bridget Kendall explores the history of guide dogs with Pieter van Niekerk, Head of Public Relations for the South African Guide-Dogs Association and with Karin Floesser, one of the guide dog leaders of the German Federation for the Blind and Partially Sighted. Bridget is also joined by journalist and educator Miriam Ascarelli, biographer of Dorothy Harrison Eustis, the philanthropist who in the 1920s co-founded the American Seeing Eye school, and she hears from Michael Hingson, a blind survivor of the 9/11 attacks.(Image: A guide dog in Shanghai, China. Credit: Wang He/Getty Images)

Best known for his curvaceous buildings and his design of Brasilia, Oscar Niemeyer was one of Brazil’s greatest architects and a leading pioneer of modernism. During his seven- decade career, Niemeyer designed hundreds of remarkable buildings not just in his native Brazil but also in Europe and as far afield as Algeria. His experimentation with reinforced concrete produced organic curved shapes that were a significant departure from the austere style of European modernism. An ardent communist, Niemeyer hoped his beautiful buildings would be for all sections of society to enjoy, but how does his vision and influence endure today, and are his striking creations still functional and sustainable?Joining Rajan Datar to discuss Oscar Niemeyer and his work are Professor Richard Williams from the University of Edinburgh and the author of “Brazil: Modern Architectures in History”; the Brazilian architect and lecturer at the University of Bath, Dr Juliana Calabria Holley, and Maria Paz Gutierrez, Associate Professor o

Emperor Haile Selassie was the last in the line of Ethiopia’s ancient monarchy. During his long rule he was revered as an international statesman and reformer, demonised as a dictator, and even worshipped as a God incarnate by the Rastafarians of Jamaica. He was without doubt a controversial figure, but achieved a status in the global arena previously unheard of for an African ruler.Bridget Kendall discusses Haile Selassie’s life and legacy with Prince Asfa-Wossen Asserate, political analyst and author of ‘King of Kings: The Triumph and Tragedy of Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia’, who is also the great-nephew of Haile Selassie; Gerard Prunier, Independent Consultant on Eastern and Central African affairs, and former Director of the French Centre for Ethiopian Studies in Addis -Ababa; and Laura Hammond, an anthropologist specialising in Ethiopia at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.Image: Haile Selassie Credit: Henry Guttmann/Getty Images

Emilie du Chatelet was esteemed in 18th-century France as a brilliant physicist, mathematician, thinker and linguist whose pioneering ideas and formidable translations were known all across Europe. And yet, after her death in childbirth in her mid-40s she was nearly forgotten, and if she was remembered at all, then as a companion and collaborator of the famous writer Voltaire. Du Chatelet’s insights into kinetic energy foreshadowed Einstein’s famous equation and her suggestions for experiments with the different colours of light would only be carried out half-a-century after she’d written about them. Plus she was a remarkable personality, determined to live a life of an independent woman, often pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable even in the liberal social circles of her day.Bridget Kendall discusses du Chatelet’s life and work with history professor Judith Zinsser, Chatelet’s biographer David Bodanis and philosophy professor Ruth Hagengruber.Painting: Gabrielle Emilie de Breteuil (1706 -1749), mar

Mosquitos are a fast-adapting, elusive enemy which humans have been trying to combat for thousands of years. As vectors of dangerous diseases, these tiny insects have killed more people in human history than any other animal. So what impact has the mosquito had on our lives? How have humans tried to halt its spread? And who is winning the battle?Joining Bridget Kendall to discuss the history of man and the mosquito are Dr. Erica McAlister, Senior Curator of Diptera - Flies - at the Natural History Museum in London; Dr. Timothy Winegard, historian and author of The Mosquito: A Human History of our Deadliest Predator; and Dr. Clifford Mutero of the International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Nairobi, Kenya, and author of Mosquito Hunter: Chronicles of an African Insect Scientist.Image: Health workers tackling the spread of the Zika virus in Brazil, 2016 Credit: Mario Tama / Getty Images

From Cellini's magnificent Perseus statue to the humblest of tools, people have been using bronze for at least five thousand years. So what makes bronze such a versatile material, how did we first discover it and why have so many precious bronze art works failed to survive? Bridget Kendall is joined by Carol Mattusch, Professor Emerita of Art History at George Mason University; Professor Jianjun Mei, from the University of Science and Technology, Beijing and Director of the Needham Institute in Cambridge who specialises in ancient metallurgy; and David Ekserdjian, Professor of Art and Film History at Leicester University. Also in the programme: Dutch sound artist Floris van Manen follows the key stages of making a bronze bell at Eijsbouts, one of Europe's leading foundries. Photo: Cellini's statue of Perseus holding the head of Medusa (Getty Images)

A nomadic wanderer and free-spirited romantic, Li Bai 李白, also known as Li Po, lived some 1300 years ago and yet his poems are still cherished for their wild imagination and effortless artistry. There are many colourful stories about his life but how much can we really know about someone who not only lived so long ago but was also very good at projecting an image of himself as a rebel? And how much of Li Bai's intricate, allusion-rich poetry can be translated successfully into other languages? These are some of the issues that Bridget Kendall discusses with Li Bai scholars Paula Varsano and Wilt Idema, and writer and Li Bai biographer Ha Jin.(Picture: Li Bai sitting on a tree branch. Detail of the decoration on a large ceramic plate from China, 17th-18th century. Credit: DeAgostini/Getty Images)

A mysterious Egyptian Queen who lived more than 3,000 years ago, Nefertiti still dazzles the modern imagination. Once the wife of a Pharaoh, she might have faded into obscurity, but for the 1912 discovery of an extraordinary bust of her wearing a distinctive flat-topped crown, which captured her very modern beauty and made her into a global celebrity.Joining Bridget Kendall to discuss the story of Queen Nefertiti are Tarek Tawfik, Associate Professor of Egyptology at Cairo University and former Director General of the Grand Egyptian Museum Project; Christian Loeben, curator of the Egyptian and Islamic Collections at the Museum August Kestner in Hannover, Germany; And Joyce Tyldesley, Reader in Egyptology at the University of Manchester, and author of Nefertiti’s Face: The Creation of an Icon.Produced by Jo Impey for BBC World Service(Image Credit: Oliver Lang / DDP / AFP / Getty Images)

Erasmus Darwin was a man of many talents; not only was he a successful physician, a popular poet, an ardent abolitionist and a pioneering botanist, he also worked out how organisms evolve, some 70 years before his grandson Charles’s theories about this revolutionised science. He is credited with many inventions and discoveries including the steering mechanism used in modern cars, the gas laws of clouds and a document copying machine. And he knew how to live life to the full; he fathered at least 14 children and his love of food meant that his dining table had to have a chunk sawn out of it to accommodate his considerable waistline.Joining Rajan Datar to explore the life and work of this remarkable man are Dr Patricia Fara, Emeritus Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and biographer of Erasmus Darwin; Dr Malcolm Dick, director of the Centre for West Midlands History at the University of Birmingham; and Maurizio Valsania, professor at the University of Turin in Italy who specialises in 18th Century intellectual

It takes twelve honey bees their entire lifetimes to make one spoonful of honey. From sweetening and preserving food, to treating wounds and sore throats, this sweet, viscous substance has played an important role in nearly every society around the world. In the ancient world, it held religious significance while in the 21st century, scientists are researching how honey could combat lethal diseases and finding ways to identify so-called fake honey.Joining Rajan Datar to discuss the history of honey are Dr Lucy Long - author of Honey: A Global History and director of the nonprofit Center for Food and Culture in Ohio, USA; Sarah Wyndham-Lewis - writer, Honey Sommelier and co-founder of Bermondsey Street Bees in London, UK; and the Australian microbiologist Dr Shona Blair from Imperial College London who has conducted detailed research into the antimicrobial activity and wound healing properties of honey.Photo: A Yemeni beekeeper checks a honeycomb from a beehive at his apiary in the country's northern Hajjah pr

The name Highlife is thought to have been coined in the early 20th Century when people on the streets outside clubs reserved for the Gold Coast elite observed the elegant clothes and dancing of the customers inside. Dance band Highlife is just one element of the music which has soaked up all manner of cultural traffic that has marked this part of West Africa. Military bands, gospel, calypso, folk music, ragtime, jazz, reggae, hip hop have all left their imprint on Highlife in a dizzying back-and-forth between Africa and the New World. When the Gold Coast became the independent state of Ghana in 1957, the music became associated with the search for a national identity. Ghana's first president, Kwame Nkrumah, made Highlife the national dance music, a move that was copied by other emerging nations of West Africa. But from its heyday in the 1960s and '70s, Highlife fell on hard times when a military regime came to power and imposed a curfew. Many musicians left the country to pursue their careers elsewhere. But

At its height, Yiddish, the language of the European Jews, was spoken by more than ten million people, from Russia in the east to the Netherlands in the West. But by the mid -20th century, these numbers were severely depleted following the Holocaust, and then the creation of the modern-day state of Israel where the speaking of Yiddish was discouraged. So what does the future hold for this endangered culture with its great tradition of writers and thinkers? Joining Rajan Datar are Aaron Lansky, the director of the Yiddish book centre in the US, who helped save more than a million Yiddish books from destruction; the Jewish-Russian composer and singer Polina Skovoroda Shepherd who writes new songs that still remain within the Yiddish tradition, and Dr Lily Kahn from the Hebrew and Jewish studies department at University College, London, who’s also the author of “Colloquial Yiddish”. Image: A portrait of the Russian-Yiddish performer Polina Skovoroda Shepherd. Photo "All Snow" by Adela Nurullina.

The practice of having your food prepared by strangers in a public place goes back millennia but what makes a restaurant different from the many other dining options is that you can choose from a list of dishes, you can eat at a time of your rather than the cook’s choosing and are usually served by a professional waiter in pleasant surroundings. There were fully-fledged restaurants in 12th-century China catering to a wide range of tastes and budgets. Six centuries later, the first European restaurants in Paris advertised themselves as places that offered good health, rather than just good food. The fashion for French-style dining quickly spread to other countries but it took over a century for the waiters, waitresses and kitchen staff – the very people who are crucial to the success of any restaurant - to be given half-decent working conditions and a modicum of recognition. Bridget Kendall discusses the development of the restaurant with historians Rebecca L. Spang, Patricia Van den Eeckhout, Luke Barr, Nawal

A First Lady who broke the mould: Eleanor Roosevelt was not just a hostess at her husband’s side, but a spokeswoman for the disadvantaged, a journalist, and an early civil rights campaigner, who placed herself at the heart of American politics, acting as a prominent adviser and representative for her husband, Franklin Roosevelt, the longest-serving president of the United States. But she was also in office in ‘no ordinary time’ as she put it – a period which encompassed the challenges of the Great Depression and World War Two. So who was Eleanor Roosevelt? What shaped her? How transformative was she? And how should we assess her legacy?Joining Bridget Kendall to discuss how Eleanor Roosevelt transformed the office of First Lady are Blanche Wiesen Cook, Professor of History at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York and author of a seminal three-volume biography of Eleanor Roosevelt; Maurine Beasley, former Professor of Journalism History at the University of Maryland; and Amy Bloom, Professor o

There were many sides to Ibn Khaldun - a top scholar, a scheming political mastermind, a peripatetic political guru to many a dynasty in North Africa, an inventor of a social science or two. He also spent a month talking to one of the world’s most dangerous conquerors and was imprisoned several times. At a time when the Black Death was raging through the area he suffered terrible personal tragedies. One of his books, the Muqaddimah, is now regarded as a classic text. And how many historians from the Middle Ages have come up with theories that are invoked by modern-day economists and American presidents? Rajan Datar follows Ibn Khaldun's life and work with the help of historians Syed Farid Alatas, Josephine van den Bent and Robert Irwin.(Image: Drawing of Ibn Khaldun on a 10 Dinar Tunisian banknote. Credit Georgios Art/Getty Images)

Although the name conjures up the image of a swashbuckling poet with an enormous nose, little is known about the life of the maverick 17th-century writer and philosopher Cyrano de Bergerac. Born four centuries ago, he left behind a play, love letters and a handful of strange travelogues that imagine a journey to the moon.The sketchy details of his past were a blank canvas for the late 19th-century French playwright Edmond Rostand, who mythologised aspects of Cyrano’s life for his own ends. Immortalising Cyrano on stage, Rostand created a character whose heroism and generosity have resonated with audiences since the play’s premiere in 1897. Cyrano believes himself to be ugly and ridiculous on account of his large nose, and fears that in spite of his talent for romantic poetry he will never be able to win the heart of the woman he loves. Enter the good-looking but inarticulate Christian de Neuvillette, and together they devise the perfect hero whose identity is only revealed at the end of the play.Bridget Ke

They were the ancient horse lords of the Eurasian steppe, nomadic warriors whose influence extended over thousands of kilometres from Mongolia to the Ukraine. The spectacular gold jewellery and mummified remains preserved in their ancient burial mounds, some the size of a football pitch, tell us they loved colour and precious metal. But what else do we know about the enigmatic Scythians? They left us no written records so we have to rely on testimonies of their neighbours and new archaeological and genetic techniques. One thing seems sure, they knew how to party. Not only do Greek sources repeatedly mention ‘drunken Scythians’ but archaeological evidence confirms feast remnants with hundreds of wine amphorae and ‘purification tents’ filled with hemp smoke.Bridget Kendall is joined by leading experts on the Scythians: Professor Hermann Parzinger, president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Dr Margarita Gleba from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and Sir Barry Cunliffe emeritus professor f

The Russian Civil war was a struggle for power at every level – from the villages to the imperial centre, with more than 11 foreign powers involved as well as nationalists, from Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states, fighting for independence. This conflict, which took place a hundred years ago, between a small group of revolutionaries known as the Bolsheviks and their enemies was one of the most brutal and tragic periods in Russian history, but it was also to shape the new Soviet state that was founded in 1922, and still characterises Russia today. But why did events of the Russian Civil war end up crushing hopes for democracy after the idealism of the October revolution? And how did a small extremist group like the Bolsheviks manage to take control, despite resistance - not just from the upper and middle classes- but also from peasants and workers? Joining Bridget Kendall to explore these themes further is Laura Engelstein, Professor Emerita of Russian history and author of “Russia in Flames”; Steve Smith,