In her recent LRB Winter Lecture, Hazel V. Carby discussed ways contemporary Indigenous artists are rendering the ordinarily invisible repercussions of ecocide and genocide visible. She joins Adam Shatz to expand on the artists discussed in her lecture, and how they disrupt the ways we’re accustomed to seeing borders, landmasses, and landscapes empty – or emptied – of people. Find the lecture and further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/carbypod Find out more about Bluets at the Royal Court theatre here: https://royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/bluets/ Listen to the We Society ..read more

Since the 2010 earthquake, ordinary life in Haiti has become increasingly untenable: in January this year, armed gangs controlled around 80 per cent of the capital. Pooja Bhatia joins Tom to discuss Haitian immigration to Chile and the US, the self-defeating nature of US immigration policy and the double binds Haitian refugees find themselves in. Should you pay a bribe if it marks you out as a candidate for kidnapping? Can you be deported to a country without an operating airport? And if asylum laws protect people who are being persecuted, what happens when that covers an entire nation ..read more

Modern English speakers struggle to find sexual terms that aren’t either obscene or scientific, but that wasn’t always the case. In a recent review of Jenni Nuttall’s Mother Tongue, Mary Wellesley connects our linguistic squeamishness to changing ideas about women and sexuality. She joins Tom to discuss the changing language of women’s anatomy, work and lives. Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/gurletalk Listen to Mary Wellesley and Irina Dumitrescu on medieval humour: lrb.me/millerstale Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information ..read more

When Argentina invades the Falkland Islands, Margaret Thatcher sends a huge flotilla on an 8000-mile rescue mission – to save a forgotten remnant of the empire, and her premiership. Onboard the nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror, Lieutenant Narendra Sethia starts to keep a diary. This is an extract from the first episode. To listen to the rest of it, and the full series, find 'The Belgrano Diary' in: Apple Podcasts Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Archive: ‘Good Morning Britain’/ITV/TV-Am, ‘Newsnight’/BBC/BBC News, ‘Falkands War – The Untold Story’/ITV/Yorkshire Television, ‘Leach, He ..read more

Rosemary Hill, reviewing Steven Brindle’s Architecture in Britain and Ireland, 1530-1830, celebrates his approach to architecture as a social, collaborative endeavour, where human need (and human greed) stymies starchitectural vision. Rosemary takes Tom on a tour of British and Irish architecture, from the Reformation through industrialisation, featuring big egos, unexpected outcomes and at least one architect she thinks it’s ‘completely fair’ to call a villain.  Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/brindlepod Listen to Rosemary on the design of Bath: lrb.me/stonehengepod And ..read more

On 2 May 1982, the British submarine HMS Conqueror sank the Argentinian warship, the General Belgrano, killing 323 men. It was the bloodiest event of the Falklands War – and the most controversial. The account of the sinking given by Thatcher's government was inaccurate in every crucial detail – and the truth would only emerge from the pages of a private diary, written by an officer onboard the submarine. The Belgrano Diary is a story of war in the South Atlantic, iron leadership, cover-ups and conspiracies, crusading politicians and competing journalists, and an unlikely whist ..read more

Pankaj Mishra joins Adam Shatz to discuss his recent LRB Winter Lecture, in which he explores Israel’s instrumentalisation of the Holocaust. He expands on his readings of Jean Améry and Primo Levi, the crisis as understood by the Global South and Zionism’s appeal for Hindu nationalists. Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/aftergazapod Watch the lecture on YouTube: lrb.me/mishrayt Subscribe to Close Readings: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information ..read more

Between 1988 and 1994, the UK scrambled to make sense of acid house, with its radical new sounds, new drugs and new ways of partying. In a recent piece for the paper, Chal Ravens considers a reappraisal of the origins and political ramifications of the Second Summer of Love. She joins Tom to unpack the social currents channelled through the free party scene and the long history of countercultural ‘collective festivity’ in England. Read more, and listen ad free, on the LRB website: lrb.me/acidhousepod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information ..read more

When is giving up not failure, but a way of succeeding at something else? In his new book, which began as a piece for the LRB, the psychoanalyst and critic Adam Phillips explores the ways in which knowing our limitations can be an act of heroism. This episode was recorded at the London Review Bookshop, where Phillips was joined by the biographer and critic Hermione Lee in a conversation about giving up and On Giving Up, his approach to writing and the purpose of psychoanalysis. Find Phillips’s 2022 piece On Giving Up and further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/ongivingup Find fu ..read more

When Deborah Friedell and Adam Thirlwell met twenty years ago, they started a discussion about Jewish identity they are still puzzling over today. Revisiting Philip Roth’s The Counterlife (1986), an American take on British antisemitism and the escapist allure of aliyah, Adam and Deborah discuss the nuances of Jewish experience and novel-writing across the Atlantic. Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/jewishnovelpod Watch Judith Butler’s 2011 Winter Lecture: ‘Who owns Kafka?’ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information ..read more