Life and Language

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 about this topic than the wonderful Sita Brahmachari. Sita is an award-winning author of children's books, young adult novels, and short stories. As you will find out, water plays a special part in Sita’s stories. She tells us about and reads from her books, including 'Where the River Runs Gold', and you will be treated to poetry, too! Fiction is never just fiction though. We talk about storytelling, science, politics and activism. Water is a profound reflection of what it means to be human - diving, surfacing, living rivers, water pollution & climate chaos. In the climate crisis we need creativity more than ever.

Sita Brahmachari’s first book, 'Artichoke Hearts' won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize in 2011. 'The River Whale' was one of the best-selling World Book Day stories in 2021. 'Where The River Runs Gold' and 'When Secrets Set Sail' were Waterstones and Blackwell’s Books of the Month. 'Tender Earth' won an Honour from the International Board of Books for Young People. Her latest book 'When Shadows Fall' is out in November 2021. Sita is an Amnesty Ambassador for children's rights.

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 change, and turn things like decommissioned fire hose into products with a truly heroic past. Steffen is a sustainability advocate. It is absolutely amazing to hear about his experience working in the textile manufacturing sector and supporting the maker movement. He talks about his vision for rethinking waste, his work in education, teaching new concepts like repurposing and upcycling, and the need to create new stories. Be inspired! You’ll get some tips for saving waste this Christmas, too. And if you are wondering, yes, Steffen and I went to school together.

Ryan explains how computers can help us overcome the human constraints on reading time. The distance of distant reading brings out the scale of history. We chat about the computational study of culture and literary history, and what computers have got to do with creativity. Ryan gives plenty of exciting examples from his research. He talks about telling the history of words like ‘culture’, capturing a geography of emotions of London, and the question of what Jane Austen really tells us about what Mr Darcy looks like. We also hear about Prosodic, a tool Ryan developed for metrical-phonological annotation (give it a try on one of Shakespeare’s sonnets – or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!).

Dr Ryan Heuser is a research fellow at King’s College at the University of Cambridge.

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 importance of stories and narratives as a powerful way of human thinking. Deborah reminds us to critically look at how repeated narratives get normalised, as in the influence of folklore on crime reporting. 

We talk about equality, training targeted at women, and systemic challenges for feminism. Deborah shares advice on public engagement, the impact of linguistics, and the value of writing textbooks. She describes linguistics as an eye opener of culture and social relations. It is a way to think about lived experience – which sometimes can include a man in a potato suit.

Deborah Cameron is Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language and Communication at the University of Oxford. Her books include The Myth of Mars and Venus.

Stephen explains the basic structure of reality in simple terms. We chat about how knowledge is created collectively and how talking and debate are part of the process. Words and actions are closely related, which becomes very clear when Stephen likens certain forms of debate to a blood sport! He shares fascinating examples of the relevance of philosophy to many areas of life, from public health to football. It’s clearly always useful to have a philosopher as a critical friend! Stephen also tells us about his experience as a novelist and his views on systemic historical injustices. When we talk about equality and diversity, I test some very tough questions on him!

You don’t want to miss this!

Stephen Mumford is Professor of Metaphysics at Durham University and author of the novel "Glimpse of Light". 

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 practices. She shares her experience of teaching Shakespeare in the pandemic, where the closure of theatres was not only a historical moment but had become “now”. We chat about the need for languages of the humanities to talk about the climate crisis. We discuss challenges of equality and diversity, and the need to demystify how institutions work. Julie powerfully talks about stories of grief and love, languages of hope, and how theatre is about making things new. She shares with us her own story of getting into Shakespeare, what she learned from travelling the world, and why it’s important to find the longer horizon. She encourages us to use the tools that language offers and to take the opportunity of literature as “a way of thinking it through”. Tune in and give it a try!

Julie Sanders is Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost at Newcastle University, and Professor of early modern literature and drama.

Ganna explains how data science can help us understand human behaviour. She talks about different types of biases that affect human behaviour (like when we tend to think we are better drivers than we actually are), how data is biased, too, and how building algorithms needs insights from qualitative research. Ganna gives us lots of examples, including from her work on movies and supporting scriptwriters. She shares her thoughts on diversity in tech, positive change, and powerful story telling. As a behavioural data scientist, Ganna combines economics, psychology and computer science. She is co-author of The Big Bad Bias Book and has just written her first children’s book The Smartest Animal of them All.

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 in Liverpool and activities of the Reader. Phil is Emeritus Professor of Literature and Psychology at the University of Liverpool. His most recent books are Reading for Life (OUP, 2020) and with Fiona Magee, Arts for Health: Reading (Emerald, 2020).