Showing results by narrator "Edith Hall" in All Categories

The roots of today's environmental catastrophe run deep into humanity's past. Through this unprecedented reading of Homer's Iliad, the award-winning classicist Edith Hall examines how this foundational text both documents the environmental practices of the ancient Greeks and betrays an awareness of the dangers posed by the destruction of the natural landscape. Underlying Homer's account of brutal military operations, alliances, and cataclysmic struggle is a palpable understanding that the direction in which humanity was headed could create a world that was uninhabitable.

The BBC Radio 3 series exploring the meaning of the male nude in the visual arts. When we think of the nude we usually think of the female nude, and in Western art in particular, we're often contemplating an image where the artist is primarily concerned with sensuality and desire. If we spare a thought for the male nude at all, he tends to appear as a figure symbolising courage and endurance. Both perspectives are, of course, a simplification or distortion.

In Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus the Tyrant, a messenger arrives to report that Jocasta, queen of Thebes, has killed herself. To prepare listeners for this terrible news, he announces, “The tragedies that hurt the most are those that sufferers have chosen for themselves.” Edith Hall, whose own life and psyche have been shaped by such loss—her mother’s grandfather, mother, and first cousin all took their own lives—traces the philosophical arguments on suicide, from Plato and Aristotle to David Hume and Albert Camus.