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BBC Radio in the 78 Era (1920–1948)

In 1920, Nellie Melba’s singing was transmitted to Europe and Newfoundland via the wireless. In 1922 the BBC began broadcasting, and from the outset sponsored new music and relayed outside broadcasts to the nation (and from 1932, to the world).

The Mayflower: A London – Leiden Adventure

The story of the Mayflower is usually presented as a tale of persecuted Pilgrims crossing the Atlantic in circumstances of grave adversity to inhabit a desolate wilderness.

Diaghilev and Prokofiev: Return to Emotion

In this final lecture, we will focus on one of the best-preserved Diaghilev productions, The Prodigal Son, a strikingly beautiful ballet by Prokofiev/Balanchine/Rouault.

Artificial Intelligence and Religion

This lecture addresses the potential links between AI and religious belief, which include the question of whether an artificial “superintelligence”, were one to arise, would be well-disposed towards us.

Forgotten Victims from the Age of Atrocity

This final lecture will ask why it suits each age to select, reinvent and suppress different parts of the history of religious atrocity, and why some victims, such as Anabaptist radicals, remain neglected down to the present.

The Ballets Russes: Turning French

Modernity kept seeping into ballet, a genre that had traditionally looked to a distant, mythical or magical past.

Musical Endings

In short, is the object of a musical ending to bring an audience to its feet? And what about false endings? Do they excite or belittle the audience?

Choosing Religious Atrocities in Ireland

Nowhere in Europe have the wars of religion lasted longer than in Ireland. At the heart of this are two rival sets of memories of atrocities: above all, Protestants recall the massacres of the 1641 rebellion, and Catholics recall the massacres perpetrated by Oliver Cromwell in 1649.

The Japanese Martyrs

In the age of exploration, Catholic missionaries fanned out across the world, meeting with extraordinary success but also extraordinary opposition: nowhere more so than in Japan, where the fast-growing Catholic community was brutally suppressed in the early seventeenth century.

The Ballets Russes: Playing with the Past

Diaghilev seemed to be the nemesis of traditional ballet, but he was ready to draw on the rigorous classical schooling of his dancers whenever it suited him.

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