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19 Jul 2024: Is diaspora community just a posh phrase for immigrant community? Diasporas are often born of misfortune, the experience of homelands left willingly because of lack of opportunity, or fled because of war. In the age after Empire, many subject

19 Jul 2024: A light- hearted discussion about positive thinking in bad times. Can positive thinking create its own momentum, or to put it another way, does negativity reap its own bad harvest? Esther-Miriam Wagner and Robert Tombs read the runes. Woolf

19 Jul 2024: Many families in the UK open their homes to provide refuge for fleeing Ukrainians. What is the history and the future of sanctuary? The idea of sanctuary for the oppressed individual or for groups of people fleeing persecution or war is an ancient

19 Jul 2024: Immortality is a fantasy so we better get real about death and dying. How should we prepare for death? How can we cope when those we love die? Medical advances mean life can be prolonged as never before but is this the right way to go? Joining Ed

19 Jul 2024: Whose genes are they anyway?

19 Jul 2024: Are we reaching a tipping point in our attitudes towards racial inequality? When George Floyd’s brutal killing was captured on video, Black Lives Matter protests quickly spread across the world. In England, the statue of the 17th century slave

18 Jul 2024: Genocides, and why we as a species are capable of such things. The twentieth century was littered with genocides. Those in Armenia, Nazi Germany, Rwanda and Bosnia are the most notorious … Meryem Kalayci and James Smith discuss this most

19 Jul 2024: Could space be where the next arms race plays out? The night sky has been a source of wonder for humanity. We may still look at the stars with awe but we also think of space as a potential military asset. And we are filling it with junk. Gerry

19 Jul 2024: Is there a science of forgiveness? "Without forgiveness there is no future." So said the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa. But do we have it in us to forgive the most egregious sins? Some think that is in God's realm. Kitty O'Lone and

19 Jul 2024: There’s a disturbing amount of antisemitic material on social media, and hate postings in general are rife. Following an increase in antisemitic postings on social media, the Antisemitism Policy Trust looked into it and asked the Woolf Institute

19 Jul 2024: Magic Thinking

19 Jul 2024: Modern Slavery

18 Jul 2024: What makes for good collaborative thinking? "Group think" implies lazy, complacent decision making. But what about group thinking? That could imply collaboration, people getting together and coming up with a collective idea that’s better than the

19 Jul 2024: Reconciliation

19 Jul 2024: Can we really forgive and forget? What benefits are there to forgiving others? Forgiving others is a serious matter but can it come from nowhere? Or is an apology needed first from the perpetrator of the misdeed in question? And when does an apology

19 Jul 2024: Living Together

19 Jul 2024: What is it that makes us feel lonely? Most of us feel lonely some of the time, but some of us feel lonely most of the time. To be alone, however, is not to be lonely, and sometimes being part of a crowd can feel very lonely indeed. Kitty O’Lone

18 Jul 2024: What does it mean to be free? When the Berlin Wall came down in 1991, the writer Alan Bennet quipped mordantly about ‘the freedom to shop’. Of course there was much more to it than that. Esther-Miriam Wagner and Alexander Massmann join Ed

19 Jul 2024: Musical Networks

19 Jul 2024: Religious Relics