Month: October 2018

On The Gist, unpacking CNN’s list of top Democratic challengers ahead of 2020.

Katmai National Park and Preserve’s publicity stunt worked: For one week (that’s Fat Bear Week), the internet delighted in the tournament bracket that would crown the plumpest predator of them all. Carnivore ecologist Rae Wynn-Grant tells us about the brown bear’s diet, the unknown mechanics of hibernation, and why fattest really means fittest for the competition’s chunky winner (Beadnose!).

In the Spiel, what to make of Elizabeth Warren’s DNA-testing gambit.

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Francis Fukuyama once famously announced ‘the end of history’. He now turns his attention to what he sees as the great challenge to liberal democracy: identity politics. He tells Andrew Marr that today’s descent into identities narrowly focused on nation, religion, race or gender have resulted in an increasingly polarised and factional society.

Birkbeck Professor of Politics, Eric Kaufmann, is looking at populism, immigration and the future of white majorities. He argues that the concerns of white people should be listened to and questions whether it's possible to transform and redefine the debate about ethnic diversity.

But the black student activist Roseanne Chantiluke argues that for too long issues of race have been side-lined to maintain the status quo. She was involved in the campaign to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes in Oxford and to challenge imperialist attitudes within the University.

Sexual politics, power and identity are at the heart of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. The director Josie Rourke explores what happens when the actors playing the powerful male Deputy and the powerless female Novice alternate from one act to the next.

Producer: Katy Hickman