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In 1971, the region that is now Bangladesh fought for independence from Pakistan. At the time, Peter Singer was a philosophy lecturer at the University of Oxford.

Horrified by the suffering in Bangladesh, Singer wrote an essay in which he put forward his Drowning Child thought experiment, one of the most influential ideas in modern philosophy.

The thought experiment, published in 1972, inspired the Effective Altruism movement, which has led donors to commit billions of dollars to charities. Peter Singer speaks to Ben Henderson.

This programme contains views on disability that some people may find offensive.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there.

For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from how the Excel spreadsheet was developed, the creation of cartoon rabbit Miffy and how the sound barrier was broken.

We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: the moment Reagan and Gorbachev met in Geneva, Haitian singer Emerante de Pradines’ life and Omar Sharif’s legendary movie entrance in Lawrence of Arabia.

You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, like the invention of a stent which has saved lives around the world; the birth of the G7; and the meeting of Maldives’ ministers underwater. We cover everything from World War Two and Cold War stories to Black History Month and our journeys into space.

(Photo: Peter Singer in 2001. Credit: Najlah Feanny/Getty Images)

Frank gets excited about the brilliant 17th Century poet, George Herbert. The poems referenced are “The Collar” and “The Pulley”, both by George Herbert.

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Danielle McLaughlin tells Ruth McKee which books she would save if her house was on fire. 

Danielle McLaughlin's debut collection of short stories Dinosaurs on Other Planets was published in Ireland by The Stinging Fly Press in 2015 and her first novel The Art of Falling (John Murray) was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award in 2022. In 2023 she was a recipient of a Markievicz Award. Her latest novel Rituals is out now with The Stinging Fly Pres

On Denis Diderot's Rameau's Nephew, a dialogue written in the 1760s. Is virtue necessary for happiness, or in the real world, is vice necessary to get by? Diderot's character Rameau argues the latter: that philosophical morality is problematic, and our imperative is prudence, which in Rameau's case involves a lot of clownish deception and (ironically) truth-telling.

Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and tons of bonus discussion.

Sponsors: Don't get caught running yesterday's security on today's web: visit nordlayer.com/browser. Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel. Get three months free of online payroll and benefits software for small businesses at gusto.com/pel.

Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff, authors of Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed, on Elon’s world and what he wants to do to ours.

Behind the News, hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global.

Sean talks with psychologist Alison Gopnik about how children think, learn, experience the world, and why their minds may be more powerful than ours in some crucial ways. They explore the idea that kids are the “research and development” wing of the human species, built for exploration, curiosity, and discovery, while adults are optimized for focus, efficiency, and getting things done. Along the way, they discuss why children notice things we’ve stopped seeing, what we lose when we grow up, and what parenting reveals about love, care, and the nature of intelligence itself.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) 

Guest: Alison Gopnik (@AlisonGopnik)

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Even though it’s absurd to say, there are features of everyday life that do seem oddly anachronistic.

Resources & links related to this episode:

Get in touch: [email protected]

Visit Gretchen's website to learn more about Gretchen's best-selling books, products from The Happiness Project Collection, and the Happier app.

Find the transcript for this episode on the episode details page in the Apple Podcasts app. 

Sarah Perry discussed her extraordinary new memoir with Amy Key.

Read this essay (and view the poems) on Substack!

Topics discussed include:

The Monumentalist Manifesto

The Iron Lyre

Bright Soft Things (Crashaw Essay)

The Penguin Book of Greek and Latin Lyric Verse trans. Christopher Childers

Asclepiades 6

Zonas 9

Argentarius 26

Martial 5.73, 1.73, 3.65

"Prayer" by George Herbert

"Cold Turkey" by Joshua Mehigan

"Upon the Body of Our Blessed Lord, Naked and Bloody" by Richard Crashaw

"To Our Lord, Upon the Water Made Wine," by Richard Crashaw

"God is my Final End" by Angelus Silesius

"The Rosebud Has No Why" by Angelus Silesius

"Why Do I Exist?" by Daniel Brown

"On My First Son" by Ben Jonson

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My favorite poetry podcasts for:
Sharp thoughts and cutting truths (Matthew): Sleerickets 
Lovely introspection and sensitive reflection (Alice): Poetry Says
The landscape of Ohioan poetry (Jeremy): Poetry Spotlight 

Supported in part by The Ohio Poetry Association
Art by David Anthony Klug

List of the most common metrical feet: 
Iamb: weak-STRONG (u /)
Trochee: STRONG-weak (/ u)
Anapest: weak-weak-STRONG (u u /)
Amphibrach: weak-STRONG-weak (u / u)
Dactyl: STRONG-weak-weak (/ u u)
Cretic: STRONG-weak-STRONG (/ u /)
Pyrrhic: weak-weak (u u)
Spondee: STRONG-STRONG (/ /)

Saïd Sayrafiezadeh reads his story “Process of Elimination,” from the May 4, 2026, issue of the magazine. Sayrafiezadeh is the author of several plays, a memoir, and the story collections “Brief Encounters with the Enemy” and “American Estrangement,” which was a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize.