Roger Bacon

In Our Time: History

04/20/17

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50m

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The 13th-century English philosopher Roger Bacon is perhaps best known for his major work the Opus Maius. Commissioned by Pope Clement IV, this extensive text covered a multitude of topics from mathematics and optics to religion and moral philosophy. He is also regarded by some as an early pioneer of the modern scientific method. Bacon's erudition was so highly regarded that he came to be known as 'Doctor Mirabilis' or 'wonderful doctor'. However, he is a man shrouded in mystery. Little is known about much of his life and he became the subject of a number of strange legends, including one in which he allegedly constructed a mechanical brazen head that would predict the future.

With:

Jack Cunningham Academic Coordinator for Theology at Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln

Amanda Power Associate Professor of Medieval History at the University of Oxford

Elly Truitt Associate Professor of Medieval History at Bryn Mawr College

Producer: Victoria Brignell.

Previous Episode

Rosa Luxemburg

April 13, 2017

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50m

Melvyn Bragg discusses the life and times of Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), 'Red Rosa', who was born in Poland under the Russian Empire and became one of the leading revolutionaries in an age of revolution. She was jailed for agitation and for her campaign against the Great War which, she argued, pitted workers against each other for the sake of capitalism. With Karl Liebknecht and other radicals, she founded the Spartacus League in the hope of ending the war through revolution. She founded the German Communist Party with Liebknecht; with the violence that followed the German Revolution of 1918, her opponents condemned her as Bloody Rosa. She and Liebknecht were seen as ringleaders in the Spartacus Revolt of 1919 and, on 15th January 1919, the Freikorps militia arrested and murdered them. While Luxemburg has faced opposition for her actions and ideas from many quarters, she went on to become an iconic figure in East Germany under the Cold War and a focal point for opposition to the Soviet-backed leadership. With Jacqueline Rose Co-Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck, University of London Mark Jones Irish Research Council fellow at the Centre for War Studies, University College Dublin and Nadine Rossol Senior lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Essex Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Next Episode

The Egyptian Book of the Dead

April 27, 2017

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46m

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the text and context of The Book of the Dead, also known as the Book of Coming Forth by Day, the ancient Egyptian collections of spells which were intended to help the recently deceased navigate the underworld. They flourished under the New Kingdom from C16th BC until the end of the Ptolemaic era in C1st BC, and drew on much earlier traditions from the walls of pyramids and on coffin cases. Almost 200 spells survive, though no one collection contains all of them, and one of the best known surrounds the weighing of the heart, the gods' final judgement of the deceased's life. With John Taylor Curator at the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum Kate Spence Senior Lecturer in Egyptian Archaeology at Cambridge University and Fellow of Emmanuel College and Richard Parkinson Professor of Egyptology at the University of Oxford and Fellow of the Queen's College Producer: Simon Tillotson.

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