Start the Week - Art and Civilisations

What is art - and why do we need it?

Fifty years ago the landmark BBC Two series Civilisation set out to answer this question. Now historians Mary Beard, Simon Schama and David Olusoga take on this challenge of defining human civilisation through art, in a bold update renamed Civilisations. Mary Beard tells Andrew Marr how humans have chosen to depict themselves, from enormous pre-historic heads in Mexico to lustful paintings meant for male eyes. She unpicks the bloody battle between religion and art, and declares that "one man's art is another's barbarity".

But should art make us recoil? Simon Schama explores our urge to destroy the images we dislike, and finds that hatred and destruction have followed art through the centuries.

This clash of religions and cultures has enriched art, argues David Olusoga. He sees culture on the frontline as empires expanded and a battle took place to define what art could be.

This spring the artist Tacita Dean offers her own account of art's value and meaning as she unveils three exhibitions at once: exploring landscapes at the Royal Academy, portraits at the National Portrait Gallery and still life at the National Gallery. Moving between film and painted images, she challenges our idea of what art looks like.

Producer: Hannah Sander.

The NewsWorthy - Oscars 2018, Israeli PM & Royal Wedding – Monday, March 5th, 2018

All the news you need to know for Monday, March 5th, 2018!

Today, we're talking about the highlights and history made at the Academy Awards.

Plus, what to know about the steel tariffs, the teacher strike and who will be visiting the White House today.

 

 All that and much more in less than 10 minutes!

Award-winning broadcast journalist and former TV news reporter Erica Mandy breaks it all down for you. 

For links to all the stories referenced in today's episode, visit https://www.theNewsWorthy.com and click Episodes.

African Tech Roundup - Andela’s Wambui Kinya unpacks Andela’s gig economy strategy and addresses common misconceptions

Wambui Kinya is the Chief Strategy Officer at Andela-- a startup helping companies overcome tech talent shortages by delivering high performing distributed engineering teams that leverage some of Africa's finest coding talent. Wambui joined Andela after spending over eighteen years working within the professional services space (spanning digital, mobile marketing and technology consulting) in North America, Europe and Africa for companies such as ThoughtWorks (where she notably served as Group Managing Director, Pan-Africa and South America), Praekelt Consulting and IBM Global Business Services. In her current role, Wambui has been tasked with developing partnerships with top tech organizations across the continent and with spearheading Andela's tech leadership recruitment efforts. In this candid chat with Andile Masuku, taped at African Tech Summit Kigali 2018 (https://www.africatechsummit.com/kigali/) she unpacks Andela's distinctive approach to capitalising on the global gig economy trend and addresses some misconceptions that outsiders tend to have about how things work at one of Africa's most-publicised startups.

Serious Inquiries Only - SIO125: Are We Headed for Another Depression? with Dr. Robert S. McElvaine

A few months back in the midst of the Republican tax reform bill, Dr. Robert S. McElvaine wrote an article for the Washington Post about the parallels between our current situation and the Great Depression. Being a historian of the depression, he might know a thing or two about it. I interviewed him on this and surrounding issues! Leave Thomas a voicemail! (916) 750-4746, remember short and to the point! Support the show at seriouspod.com/support! Follow us on Twitter: @seriouspod Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/seriouspod For comments, email thomas@seriouspod.com  

Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts - When Did Corporations Become People?

On this week’s show, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by UCLA Law Professor Adam Winkler to talk about his new book We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights. Together, they also examine what the constitutionalizing of corporate rights can tell us about the current gun debate.

And Dahlia steps inside the chamber for oral arguments in the hugely significant public sector union case we previewed last show. She is joined by the Solicitor General of Illinois, David Franklin, who argued the case. There were explosive contributions from the justices on the bench, but notable silence from the court’s newest member, Justice Neil M Gorsuch.

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Podcast production by Sara Burningham

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The Gist - Rejecting Jared

Well, what do you know? In 2016, Trump tweeted that he wasn’t trying to get a top security clearance for his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. A year later, he’s finally right.

On The Gist, what’s so special about an octopus? Slate’s Daniel Engber has a takedown of the many-armed beast of the deep: The research on cephalopod intelligence is flimsy, he says, and the octopus is hardly the first animal to have fascinated us with its methods of escape.

In the Spiel, it’s time to name another Lobstar.

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