Life and Language
Episodes
Distant Viewing
23 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I chat to Lauren Tilton about digital humanitiesand the ways we can teach AI to view the world. Distant viewing is a theory and metho...
Dickensland
19 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Don’t we all love it when we visit places that we know from stories in books and films? In the first episode of Season 5, my guest is the wonderful ...
Lyndsey Stonebridge - Changing the World
16 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s world is in much need of change. But what can we do as individuals and as a society? And how can we bring a humanities perspectives to the c...
Essie Fox - The Fascination
15 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Have you given Victorian gothic fiction a try? The Fascination by Essie Fox will certainly be a good one to get you started. It is a novel that takes ...
Pete Orford - Dickens the Author
20 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Charles Dickens has captured the public imagination like no other. What always fascinates me about him and his work is how fiction and reality interse...
Chris Laoutaris – Shakespeare’s First Folio
01 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What makes the First Folio so important and unique? 2023 marks the 400th anniversary of the first published collection of Shakespeare’s plays. In th...
Hannah Gold - Writing Bear
25 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How do you become a successful children’s author? I invited the brilliant Hannah Gold so I could learn her secret. What I really liked was Hannah’...
Karen McAuliffe - Multilingual Law
13 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Can the law be the same if the language is different? I invited Karen McAuliffe, an expert in multilingual law, to shed some light on this question. D...
Jack Grieve - Fake News
29 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Are you be able to spot fake news? Can you even define what fake news is? According to Jack Grieve, ‘fake news’ is deceptive, it is intentionally ...
Paul Baker - The Story of Camp
14 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What is the link between Oscar Wilde, Judy Garland and Arnold Schwarzenegger? Find out in this episode, where I talk to Paul Baker about his new book...
David Hannah: Water - The Climate Connector
22 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Water is fundamental to life. Water affects us all. But do we talk about water enough to raise awareness of its value? What do we do to accelerate cha...
Paterson Joseph - Historical Fiction
06 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What can historical fiction do for today’s society? Paterson Joseph’s first novel tells the story of Charles Ignatius Sancho, the first known Blac...
Sean Grass - Dickens, Identity & Commodity Culture
01 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What makes Dickens enduringly popular and relevant to modern life? Who’d be better to talk to about this question than Sean Grass, the President of ...
James Tauber – Digital Tolkien
17 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What is the connection between software development and Tolkien? In this episode, I talk to James Tauber. He is the founder and CEO of Eldarion, a com...
Peter Stockwell - Science Fiction
29 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What are the ingredients of science fiction? To find out, I talk to Peter Stockwell, the author of “The Poetics of Science Fiction”. Starting with...
Fiona de Londras - Human Rights
08 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why is human rights discourse so difficult? In this episode, I talk to Fiona de Londras about what it means to translate human rights into practical i...
Deryn Rees-Jones - Poetry and the Unsayable
01 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What if there is no language to describe what the body experiences? In this episode, I talk to Deryn Rees-Jones about poetry and illness. Deryn shares...
Alice Roberts - Stories of Humanity
11 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Starting from Ancestors, the latest book by Alice Roberts, we chat about storytelling and the excitement of embarking on science projects. We hear abo...
Mary Ann Sieghart - The Authority Gap
26 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Mary Ann Sieghart’s book “The Authority Gap” raises awareness of unseen bias and suggests ways to tackle systemic sexism. In this episode, we ta...
Sita Brahmachari - Water Stories
05 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I want to find out about ‘water’ in stories – and especially in stories for children and young adults. Who better to chat to ab...
Steffen Kuehr - Talking Sustainability
29 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Steffen is the Founder and CEO of the California-based TekTailor – a green business! Learn what it means to run a benefit corporation, make real cha...
Ryan Heuser - Distant Reading
22 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ryan explains how computers can help us overcome the human constraints on reading time. The distance of distant reading brings out the scale of histor...
Deborah Cameron – On Being a Feminist and a Linguist
15 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Deborah Cameron explains how feminism and linguistics work together and we learn about her experience as a stand-up comedian, too. We chat about the i...
Stephen Mumford - Talking is Real Work
08 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Stephen explains the basic structure of reality in simple terms. We chat about how knowledge is created collectively and how talking and debate are pa...
Julie Sanders – On Shakespeare and University Leadership
01 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Julie talks about Shakespeare and adaptation, how he gets used by different times and cultures and what we can learn from his plays about everyday pra...
Ganna Pogrebna – Data Science and Decision Making
24 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ganna explains how data science can help us understand human behaviour. She talks about different types of biases that affect human behaviour (like wh...
Philip Davis - Reading for Life
16 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Phil shares his thoughts on reading as an aid to living. He talks about the vitality of reading aloud and together in a group. We learn about his work...