Akihito, who abdicated in April, was a paradoxical figure: a hereditary monarch, the son of the wartime emperor, Hirohito, strictly barred from political utterance, who even so stood out against the historical revisionism of the nationalist right. Richard Lloyd Parry considers the former emperor’s part in the intellectual and political debate over Japan’s wartime record, and its history of apology – or non-apology – for its conduct in East Asia. Find more from Richard Lloyd Parry in the LRB here: lrb.me/richardlloydparrypod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Richard Lloyd Parry: Akihito and the Sorrows of Japan

The LRB Podcast brings you weekly conversations from Europe’s leading magazine of culture and ideas. Hosted by Thomas Jones and Malin Hay, with guest episodes from the LRB's US editor Adam Shatz, Meehan Crist, Rosemary Hill and more. Find the LRB's new Close Readings podcast in on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or search 'LRB Close Readings' wherever you get your podcasts. 
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In her recent LRB Winter Lecture, Hazel V. Carby discussed ways contemporary Indigenous artists are rendering the ordinarily invisible repercussions of ecocide and genocide visible. She joins Adam Shatz to expand on the artists discussed in her lecture, and how they disrupt the ways we’re accustomed to seeing borders, landmasses, and landscapes empty – or emptied – of people.
Find the lecture and further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/carbypod Watch the lecture on YouTube: lrb.me/carbyyt Find out more about Bluets at the Royal Court theatre here: https://royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/bluets/ Listen to the We Society Podcast here: https://acss.org.uk/we-society-podcast/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Remembering the Future

Since the 2010 earthquake, ordinary life in Haiti has become increasingly untenable: in January this year, armed gangs controlled around 80 per cent of the capital. Pooja Bhatia joins Tom to discuss Haitian immigration to Chile and the US, the self-defeating nature of US immigration policy and the double binds Haitian refugees find themselves in. Should you pay a bribe if it marks you out as a candidate for kidnapping? Can you be deported to a country without an operating airport? And if asylum laws protect people who are being persecuted, what happens when that covers an entire nation?
Find Pooja's Haiti coverage on the episode page: lrb.me/haitipod Find out more about Bluets at the Royal Court theatre here: https://royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/bluets/ Listen to the We Society Podcast here: https://acss.org.uk/we-society-podcast/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Leaving Haiti

Modern English speakers struggle to find sexual terms that aren’t either obscene or scientific, but that wasn’t always the case. In a recent review of Jenni Nuttall’s Mother Tongue, Mary Wellesley connects our linguistic squeamishness to changing ideas about women and sexuality. She joins Tom to discuss the changing language of women’s anatomy, work and lives.
Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/gurletalk Listen to Mary Wellesley and Irina Dumitrescu on medieval humour: lrb.me/millerstale 
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Gurle Talk

When Argentina invades the Falkland Islands, Margaret Thatcher sends a huge flotilla on an 8000-mile rescue mission – to save a forgotten remnant of the empire, and her premiership. Onboard the nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror, Lieutenant Narendra Sethia starts to keep a diary.
This is an extract from the first episode. To listen to the rest of it, and the full series, find 'The Belgrano Diary' in: Apple Podcasts Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Archive: ‘Good Morning Britain’/ITV/TV-Am, ‘Newsnight’/BBC/BBC News, ‘Falkands War – The Untold Story’/ITV/Yorkshire Television, ‘Leach, Henry Conyers (Oral history)’/Imperial War Museum, ‘President Regan’s Press Briefing in the Oval Office on April 5, 1982’/White House Television Office, ‘Diary’/James M. Rentschler, TV Publica/Radio y Televisión Argentina S.E, The Falklands War: Recordings from the Archive/BBC Worldwide, Parliamentary Recording Unit Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Belgrano Diary: Half a Million Sheep Can't Be Wrong

Rosemary Hill, reviewing Steven Brindle’s Architecture in Britain and Ireland, 1530-1830, celebrates his approach to architecture as a social, collaborative endeavour, where human need (and human greed) stymies starchitectural vision. Rosemary takes Tom on a tour of British and Irish architecture, from the Reformation through industrialisation, featuring big egos, unexpected outcomes and at least one architect she thinks it’s ‘completely fair’ to call a villain. 
Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/brindlepod Listen to Rosemary on the design of Bath: lrb.me/stonehengepod And on Salisbury Cathedral: lrb.me/salisburypod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Richard Lloyd Parry: Akihito and the Sorrows of Japan

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