What’s in a shoe - apart from a foot? Shoes can be so much more than a protection and ‘dressing’ of our feet: from Egyptian pharaohs to European paupers, footwear has been linked not just with the wearer’s social and economic standing but also cultural identity, personality and even moral values.

Rajan Datar follows the history of footwear with the help of Elizabeth Semmelhack, Senior Curator of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto; Giorgio Riello, Professor of Global History and Culture at the University of Warwick; sports shoe historian Thomas Turner; and footwear researcher at the KASK School of Arts in Gent, Catherine Willems.

Photo: A fancy high-heeled shoe. (Getty Images)

The 18th Century Spanish artist Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes has been called the “most radical artist that ever lived”. He was not afraid to shock with his depictions of the darkest sides of human nature, and his work still shocks us today. Goya rose from humble beginnings to become the official court painter to the kings of Spain. But while he created dazzling portraits of royals and aristocrats, his personal vision was filled with madmen, witches, beggars, and fantastical creatures of the night. His years in the Spanish court coincided with one of the most turbulent times in the country’s history, and his graphic images of war and suffering reveal a compulsion to make art that changed the way we think about the world.

Bridget Kendall discusses Goya’s life and works with Mark Roglán, Director of the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, in the US; Janis Tomlinson, Director of Special Collections and Museums at the University of Delaware in the US; And Xavier Bray, Director of the Wallace Collection in London, UK.

(Photo: The Third of May by Francisco Goya. Credit: UIG/Getty Images)

The play Antigone by the Greek playwright Sophocles was written almost 2,500 years ago, but to this day it is believed to be the most performed play- anywhere in the world. It tells the story of Antigone, a girl who ends up challenging the power of the ruler of Thebes, in a devastating battle of wills that pits family duty against the law of the state. So why does this story of civil disobedience still speak to people, and how was it originally received by its very first audience in Ancient Athens in the 5th century BCE? Joining Rajan Datar to discuss Antigone and its later modern interpretations are the acclaimed actor, director and former Greek Culture Minister Lydia Koniordou, the theatre director Olivier Py who staged Antigone with male prisoners at this year’s Avignon Theatre Festival in France, the Syrian playwright Mohammad Al Attar who’s the author of a new adaptation of Antigone about Syrian women refugees, and Dr Rosie Wyles, Lecturer in Classical History at the University of Kent, and author of “Costume in Greek Tragedy”.

Image: Antiogne and the body of Polynices (Artist: Lachmann. Credit: Print Collector/Getty Images)

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, which tells the fantastical story of a visit of the devil to the Soviet Union, is considered to be one of the most successful Russian novels of the 20th Century. Written in secret in the 1930s when Stalinist repression of the arts was at its height, the novel was only published more than 25 years later, when its blend of biting satire and magic realism created a sensation, not just in Russia but also in the West, inspiring rock bands like The Rolling Stones.

This programme explores the novel and its cultural influence, and also asks how it reflects Bulgakov’s often traumatic experience as a writer in Stalinist Russia. Joining Bridget Kendall are Julie Curtis, the biographer of Mikhail Bulgakov, and professor of Russian literature at Oxford University, Peter Mansilla-Cruz, the director of the Bulgakov museum in Moscow, Edythe Haber, associate of the Davis Centre at Harvard University and professor emerita at University of Massachusetts, Boston, and Dr Olga Voronina from SSEES, University College, London, who have both published widely on Bulgakov’s writings.

(Photo: Improvisation 33 (Orient 1) by Wassily Kandinsky. Credit: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

Whether it’s kimchi, kombucha, kefir or kraut, fermented foods are today all the rage. And yet people have been fermenting food and beverages for thousands of years – to preserve food stuffs, to break down toxins, to mark rituals and to enhance flavour.

Without knowledge of the science, local communities practised fermentation instinctively, through trial and error and by careful observation. In the 18th and 19th centuries, scientists argued over why foods fermented as they did. Many believed in the theory of ‘spontaneous generation’. But it was not until the discoveries of Louis Pasteur that the micro-organisms at work in food which bring about fermentation began to be understood. Ironically, Pasteur’s research led to a widespread preoccupation with killing the very bacteria that aid fermentation – combined with the growth of food production on an industrial scale.

More recently, fermented food and drink has been marketed for its health benefits, with claims it can enhance the bacteria in our intestinal tracts, boost our immune systems and even lower the risk of contracting some serious diseases.

Rajan Datar attempts to separate fact from fiction, with the help of three experts: the American fermentation revivalist Sandor Katz, Danish microbiologist Dennis Sandris Nielsen and the chef and food writer Olia Hercules, who’ll be demonstrating how to make a simple fermented recipe.

Photo: Sauerkraut being made in a jar (Lane Turner/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

100 years ago, Turkish defeat in World War One signalled the end of the once great Ottoman Empire. What emerged was a European orientated secular republic led by a man who used social engineering to shape Turkey in his own image – Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Bridget Kendall examines this key period of Turkish history and asks whether modernisation could have been brought in less forcefully, and why the women who were helping bring about similarly progressive ideas were eventually side-lined. And what impact did Ataturk’s social revolution have on the arts and literature? Joining Bridget is Recep Boztemur, Professor of History at the Middle Eastern Technical University in Ankara, Dr Hülya Adak from Sabanci university in Istanbul, who specialises in gender and nationalism, and the actor, theatre director and playwright Yeşim Özsoy, whose latest play examines Turkish identity from 1918 onwards.

Photo: A statue of Ataturk located in Marmaris harbor, Turkey. (Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a towering literary figure whose novels, chronicles and essays have lifted the lid on the horrors of the Soviet gulag network, which over several decades incarcerated millions of often innocent prisoners. Born a hundred years ago, Solzhenitsyn survived the brutal conditions of a gulag in Kazakhstan and it was this harrowing experience that provided the impetus for his best-known works, starting with his novella, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and culminating in The Gulag Archipelago, a multi-volume history of the Soviet forced labour camps from 1918 to 1956.

Bridget Kendall is joined by two Solzhenitsyn scholars: Professor Daniel Mahoney from Assumption College in the United States and Dr. Elisa Kriza from Bamberg University; and by Professor Leona Toker of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, an expert on labour camp literature.

Photo: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in Gulag clothing. (Apic/Getty Images)

In 1953 Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq was overthrown in a coup. It was billed as a popular uprising in support of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, yet behind the scenes were the British and American intelligence services. Mossadeq had swept to power only two years earlier promising to nationalise Iran’s vast oil reserves, but this, along with an apparent Communist threat, worried the two western governments whose post-war economies relied heavily on access to Iranian oil. Rajan Datar discusses the coup with Iran scholar Ervand Abrahamian, professor of modern Iranian history at St Andrews University Ali Ansari and journalist and author Azadeh Moaveni.

(Photo: Rioters armed with staves shout slogans, during riots in Tehran, August 1953. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

The Russian dance impresario Sergei Diaghilev transformed not only ballet, but all the arts in the 20th century. His ground-breaking Ballets Russes burst onto the scene in Paris in 1909 and replaced stuffy set pieces with shockingly vibrant performances that brought together scenery by artists Picasso and Matisse, costumes by Coco Chanel, avant-garde music by Stravinsky and Prokofiev, and a new style of movement from innovative dancers such as Nijinsky. The Ballet Russes became the world’s leading dance company for nearly quarter of a century, and its creative impulse still influences dance, music and art today.

Bridget Kendall explores Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes with Lynn Garafola, Professor of Dance at Barnard College, Columbia University in the US; Jane Pritchard, Curator of Dance at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; and the French dance writer Laura Cappelle.

Photo: Portrait Of Sergei Dyagilev (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

For many people, Charlie Chaplin and the Tramp, a character he created at the start of his film career, are synonymous. This funny little man with a black moustache and a waddling gait, dressed in baggy trousers and a tight jacket, with oversized shoes and a small bowler hat, made millions of people laugh, turned Chaplin into a household name and - in his day - the highest paid entertainer in the world.

Photo: Charlie Chaplin in the comedy film The Gold Rush (Bettmann/Getty Images)