Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah and Dame Hilary Mantel to deliver BBC Reith Lectures in 2016 and 2017

BBC Radio 4 is delighted to announce philosopher and cultural theorist Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah as the BBC Reith Lecturer for 2016. He will be followed by author Dame Hilary Mantel who will deliver the prestigious Reith Lectures in spring 2017.

Kwame Anthony Appiah is a British-born, Ghanaian-American philosopher, cultural theorist and novelist who specialises in moral and political philosophy, as well as issues of personal and political identity, cosmopolitanism and nationalism.

His four lectures entitled ‘Mistaken Identity’ will each have a different focus – Colour, Country, Creed and Culture. They will be recorded in London, Glasgow, Washington DC, and in Appiah’s adopted hometown of New York and will broadcast in November.

Kwame Anthony Appiah says: “We live in a world where the language of identity pervades both our public and our private lives. We are Muslim and Christian, so we have religious identities. We are English and Scottish, so we have national identities. We are men and women, and so we have gender identities. And we are black and white, and so we have racial identities. There is much contention about the boundaries of all of these identities. Not everyone accepts that you have to be a man or a woman; or that you can’t be both an Englishman and a Scot. You can claim to be of no religion or gender or race or nation. Perhaps, in each case, someone will believe you. And that is one reason why the way we often talk about these identities can be misleading.”

Appiah believes there are profound sources of confusion in our thinking about identities. Indeed, almost every identity grows out of conflict and contradiction, and their borders can be drawn in blood. And yet they can also seem to fade in the blink of an historical eye. The demands of identity can seem irresistible at one moment, absurd at the next. Most of us swim easily in the swirling waters of our multiple affiliations most of the time, but we can be brought up short in moments when the currents of identity tug us excruciatingly in opposite directions.

He adds: “In these lectures I want to explore some of these confusions through an examination of four central kinds of identity: creed, country, colour and culture. Through the lives of particular people in particular places and times, we’ll see how the confusions play out, but also how they can be cleared up. We’ll learn how those identities play both positive and negative roles in their lives and in ours, and how we might escape some of the negatives if we understood some of the many mistakes we make about identity.”

Hillary Mantel’s five lectures ‘Resurrection: The Art and Craft’ will focus on the nature of writing about history and history’s hold on the imagination, and will be recorded and broadcast on Radio 4 next spring.

Hillary Mantel’s lectures start with the words of the poet George MacBeth: “Readers crave bodies…. All crib from skulls and bones who push the pen.” She goes on to argue that in historical fiction and drama the dead take on a fresh, simulated life. “My Reith Lectures will explore whether that simulation is worthwhile - is it an open door to confusion, a dishonest and manipulative exercise for lazy minds? Or can it be a pathway to light, allowing us to discriminate between information and knowledge?”

Mantel has spent most of her writing life trying to feel her way into the experience of the past, as well as come to grips with history and ways of reading it. In her five lectures she will chart her perception of the shifting demands of her discipline, and ask why as a genre historical fiction is so seductive, and so reviled. She will explore questions such as: how should we police our imaginations, when they go out by night and stray into the hazy border zone of myth and collective memory? How can facts feed the imagination, and imagination make the facts count? And, if we want to dig up the past, what are the right tools for the job?

Gwyneth Williams, Controller, Radio 4 says: “The celebrated musician Daniel Barenboim, who delivered our Reith lectures in 2006, gave me a copy of Kwame Anthony Appiah’s brilliant book Cosmopolitanism. Back then I knew that one day Anthony himself would deliver our lectures. And now, a decade later, I’m delighted to announce his 2016 Reith series on identity. His timing is impeccable as we live through the backlash to globalisation, for never have we seemed less confident about who we are and where we belong. Few are better placed to consider this complex theme of identity, both from an academic perspective and from his own personal, multi-faceted, diverse experience and cultural background.

At the same time it is an honour to announce that in 2017 Hilary Mantel has joined the ranks of our Reith Lecturers. Our listeners will be utterly seduced by her proposed exploration, through her Reith Lecture series, of the role of imagination and the interpretation of facts from the past. The great writer of Wolf Hall will give Radio 4 listeners a unique insight into the way she approaches history through fiction. I can’t wait.”

The Reith Lectures are presented by Sue Lawley and the recordings will be open to the public. Details about their locations and how to apply for tickets will be announced in due course. They will broadcast on Radio 4 and the World Service in November 2016 and spring 2017.