Author: BBC Radio 4

It is fifty years since the last manned-flight to the moon. While the Apollo missions have long been superseded by explorations further afield, the science journalist Oliver Morton insists the moon landings remain strong in our cultural imagination. In his 2019 book, The Moon, he explained how a spherical piece of rock had captured the world’s attention, but then been largely ignored. He tells Tom Sutcliffe how scientists and politicians are now once again turning their focus to our nearest neighbour.

Throughout history the moon has inspired artists, poets, scientists, writers and musicians the world over. The artist Luke Jerram has created an extraordinary replica of the Moon measuring seven metres in diameter, fusing NASA imagery of the lunar surface, moonlight, and sound composition. The Museum of the Moon has been exhibited hundreds of times – both indoors and outdoors – across the world, and Jerram explains how each installation has stimulated different events.

While NASA’s Artemis mission explores sending astronauts back to the Moon as a stepping stone to human exploration to Mars, and celebrity billionaires sell visions of private space travel, Mary-Jane Rubenstein sounds a warning. In Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race she sees comparisons with the destructive effects of the centuries-long history of European colonialism. As problems multiply on Earth she dismisses the offer by wealthy messiahs of an other-worldly salvation for a chosen few.

Producer: Katy Hickman

Image: Museum of the Moon by Luke Jerram, Cork Midsummer Festival, UK, 2017

Real faith ‘passes first through the body/ like an arrow’ so writes the American-Iranian poet Kaveh Akbar. In his collection Pilgrim Bell he plays with the physical and divine, the human capacity for cruelty and grace, and the reality of living as a Muslim in an Islamophobic nation.

The Anglican priest and biblical scholar John Barton turns his attention to the word of God as it has travelled across the world. The Bible have been translated thousands of times into more than 700 languages. In The Word he traces the challenges of crossing linguistic borders from antiquity to the present, while remaining faithful to the original.

Faith, fanaticism and fame combine in Emma Donoghue’s novel, The Wonder, now made into a film, starring Florence Pugh. It follows the story of a young girl in 1860s Ireland who stops eating, but miraculously stays alive, and the nurse sent to discover the truth.

Producer: Katy Hickman

Image: From the film, 'The Wonder'. (L to R) Florence Pugh as Lib Wright, Josie Walker as Sister Michael in The Wonder. Cr. Aidan Monaghan/Netflix © 2022

The Nobel peace prize-winner Maria Ressa is a journalist who has spent decades speaking truth to power in the country of her birth, the Philippines. She looks back at her life, and her ongoing battle against disinformation and political lies in How To Stand Up To A Dictator. She tells Kirsty Wark that although she is hounded by the state and faces threats of imprisonment, she is determined to continue fighting for the truth.

Zsuzsanna Szelényi was once one of the leading politicians in Hungary’s ruling party, Fidesz, but now sits in opposition. In Tainted Democracy she charts what she calls her country’s descent into autocracy. She explores how the populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has consolidated his grip on power, reining in the media and making sweeping changes to legal and economic frameworks.

In his latest three part series for BBC television, History of Now, Simon Schama looks back at the dramatic history that has played out in the decades of his own life from 1945. He explores the vital role of artists, writers and musicians in fighting for democracy and equality post-war. The series reveals the extraordinary power of art to shape the world, and the immense personal cost of creating work that dares to take a stand.

Producer: Katy Hickman

Image: Simon Schama in front of Picasso’s 'Guernica'. From Simon Schama's 'History of Now', Episode 1, BBC 2 (Credit: BBC/Oxford Films/Eddie Knox)

In art the Greek and Roman body is often portrayed as one of perfection – flawlessly cast in bronze and white marble. But the classicist Caroline Vout tells Adam Rutherford that the reality was very different. In her new book, Exposed: The Greek and Roman Body, she reveals all the imperfections and anxieties, and makes visible those who were regarded at the time as far from perfect – women and servants.

The curator and art historian Katy Hessel is also challenging the accepted history in her work, The Story of Art Without Men. She shines a light on women artists, from Sofonisba Anguissola of the Renaissance, to the radical Harriet Power in 19th century America, and the women artists working all over the world in the 21st century.

Throughout history the human skin has also been a canvas: permanent markings were discovered on bodies from as early as 5000 BCE. In Painted People: Humanity in 21 Tattoos, Matt Lodder reveals the often hidden artworks – and the people who wore them – to explore a changing world.

Producer: Katy Hickman