Intelligence Squared

This is an episode of Sotheby's Talks, the podcast that celebrates art, culture, and collecting.

Edvard Munch pioneered Expressionism and embraced life’s most painful experiences to create art: his pursuit of emotional truth changed art forever. Tracey Emin, who has been a major figure in contemporary art for more than 25 years, has always been fascinated by the Norwegian master and, in 2021, she exhibited 25 of her own works alongside Munch’s oils and watercolours at the Royal Academy. In this episode originally recorded at Sotheby’s in London, Emin sat down with Sotheby’s Simon Shaw to talk about the role of women in Munch’s work and to explore why his paintings still have such a compelling hold on us today.

To see the works discussed in this episode, or to watch an extended version of this talk, visit https://sothebys.com/en/series/sothebys-talks/breathe-and-feel-suffer-and-love

To listen to all twelve episodes of Sotheby’s Talks, featuring guests including Marina Abramović, Mary McCartney, Tracey Emin, Paloma Picasso, Julianne Moore, Mary Beard, Celeste, and Helen Fielding, search Sotheby’s Talks wherever you get your podcasts.

And, to step further into the world of Sotheby’s, you can visit any of their galleries around the world; they’re open to the public. For more information, visit sothebys.com.

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Cat Bohannon is a researcher and author with a PhD from Columbia University in the evolution of narrative and cognition. Her essays and poems have appeared in Scientific American, Mind and Science Magazine. Her recent book is Eve: How The Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, which explores how humans evolved, offering a paradigm shift in our thinking about the vital role that the female body as played over the course of millions of years. Joining Bohannon to discuss the book is Lucy Cooke, zoologist, presenter and author of Bitch: A Revolutionary Guide to Sex, Evolution and the Female Animal.

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David Runciman is Professor of Politics at Cambridge University and the author of books including The Politics of Good Intentions, Political Hypocrisy and The Confidence Trap. He also hosts the popular Past Present Future podcast. His latest book is The Handover: How We Gave Control of Our Lives to Corporations, States and AIs. The book argues that states and corporations are the immensely powerful artificial entities that now rule our world, with AI a third frontier about to join an already well established model. Joining Runciman in conversation for this episode is Adam McCauley, Senior Policy Advisor at the Department of National Defence in Canada and a writer on issues such as politics, technology, and the future. McCauley was previously based at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford.

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Rob Drummond is Professor of Sociolinguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University. His recent book You’re All Talk explores the enormous diversity in our spoken language across the UK to reveal extraordinary insights into how humans operate: how we perceive (and judge) other people and how we would like ourselves to be perceived. Joining Drummond in conversation for this episode is Intelligence Squared’s Executive Producer, Hannah Kaye.

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Nabila Ramdani is a French-Algerian writer, broadcaster and academic, whose recent book is Fixing France: How to Repair a Broken Republic. Historically, France is a country with ideals that strive for liberty, equality and fraternity but the reality in recent years is something different. Its leader President Macron has cultivated a political landscape with no clear successor ready to carry liberal or centre-ground politics forward. Instead, the next president might come from the far right and inherit a country consumed by polarised politics, institutionalised rioting, economic injustice and paramilitary policing. Can France be fixed? Joining Ramdani in conversation for this episode is Mehreen Khan, former Brussels-based EU Correspondent for the Financial Times and currently Economics Editor for The Times. This interview was recorded in late December, 2023.

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Born near Colchester, England in 1623, Margaret Cavendish was a writer blazing a trail for women during a time when the world was dominated by men. Her writing ranges from philosophy to poetry, plays and also includes what is now considered to be a proto-science fiction novel, The Blazing World. So why do we rarely hear her name today? Looking to put that right is journalist and now author Francesca Peacock. Her recent book, Pure Wit: The Revolutionary Life of Margaret Cavendish, aims to tell the world more about the life and history of one of the UK’s boldest writers. Joining Peacock to talk about the book is the historian, writer and podcaster, Helen Carr, who specialises in medieval history and is the author of the best-selling book, The Red Prince. 

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We’re all making life choices at this time of year – perhaps a few new years' resolutions are in the mix – either way, you’ll have a stake in a tussle of big ideas as we debate the motion: Free Will is an Illusion. Our host for this episode is the writer, philosopher and podcaster Nigel Warburton, who is co-host of the popular Philosophy Bites podcast and author of books including A Little History of Philosophy, The Art Question, and Free Speech: A Very Short Introduction. Joining Warburton to debate the motion is psychologist, author and lecturer Susan Blackmore, who is Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth, and Kevin Mitchell, Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin.

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In the fourth and final part of our staff picks episodes the Intelligence Squared team continue their look back across 2023 to pick their favourite moments from all of the podcasts we've produced over the past 12 months. Intelligence Squared CEO Matt McAllester joins Executive Producer Hannah Kaye for this instalment to select their highlights. Matt is going for James Comey and Armando Iannucci, who appeared live onstage together at London's Union Chapel in summer 2023. Hannah selects Bach vs Beethoven: The Battle of the Great Composers, in which celebrated cellist Steven Isserlis was joined onstage at Cadogan Hall in London alongside music writer and critic Norman Lebrecht to debate two giants of classical music.

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In the second part of our special Christmas episode in association Tortoise, Intelligence Squared welcomes Robert Peston to the Tabernacle Theatre in London to speak with Tortoise editor and co-founder James Harding about the new book from Peston and journalist Kishan Koria, Bust?: Saving the Economy, Democracy and Our Sanity. The book not only analyses how the UK has found itself in a position of having to put up with broken politics, divisive rhetoric and a shaky economic outlook, but also looks to point the way out of this current era defined by turbulence and populism.

To listen to more episodes of The News Meeting and other Tortoise news podcasts just click here.

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The Intelligence Squared team look back across 2023 in the third of our staff picks episodes. Senior Producer Tom Hall joins Associate Producer Layla Ishmail to select their highlights. Layla's pick is comedian and writer David Baddiel, who appeared onstage earlier in 2023 to discuss his book The God Desire along with religious scholar Ben Quash and fellow comedian, actor and broadcaster Richard Ayoade. Tom's choice is the VS podcast from Intelligence Squared, which put the TV shows Succession and the White Lotus against each other backed by the opinions of guests comedian Ania Magliano and journalist, crime podcaster and screenwriter Poppy Damon.

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