In a world where communication is only as effective as its ‘truthiness’, numbers are vital to political success. But, as John Lanchester explains on this week’s episode, some of the most influential stats in UK politics are ‘pants’. John joins Tom to discuss why GDP, immigration numbers and English Premier League odds are so frequently misleading, and how we can be better attuned to the misuse of data.
Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/thinkofanumber Subscribe to Close Readings: In Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Think of a Number

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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Society & Culture

Personal Journals

History

Philosophy

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James Pratt and John Smith were the last men hanged in England for the crime of sodomy, reported to the authorities by nosy landlords who later petitioned for clemency. Tom Crewe joins Thomas Jones to explain how exceptional – and unexceptional – the case was, the historical forces that led to the death sentence and the surprising ambivalence many Londoners felt about ‘unnatural crimes’ in the 1830s.
Find out more about Bluets at the Royal Court theatre here: https://royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/bluets/ Find Tom Crewe’s piece and further reading at the episode page: https://lrb.me/prattsmithpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Unspeakable Acts

The word ‘culture’ now drags the term ‘wars’ in its wake, but this is too narrow an approach to a concept with a much more capacious history. In the closing LRB Winter Lecture for 2024, Terry Eagleton examines various aspects of that history – culture and power, culture and ethics, culture and critique, culture and ideology – in an attempt to broaden the argument and understand where we are now.
Terry Eagleton delivered this lecture as part of the LRB's Winter Lecture series at St James's Church, Clerkenwell, London on 27 March 2024.
Read Terry Eagleton’s lecture in the LRB: https://lrb.me/eagletonwl Watch the lecture on YouTube: https://lrb.me/eagletonwlyt Find out more about Bluets here: https://royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/bluets/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Where does culture come from?

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 
 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Think of a Number

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