The EssayNew Generation Thinkers 2021Episodes Episode guide

Back up to: The Essay

1. Pause for Thought

   Florence Hazrat looks at the history of punctuation marks (such as brackets) and emojis.
2. Opium Tales

   Fariha Shaikh reads accounts from Thomas de Quincey (1821) to Timothy Mo and Amitav Ghosh.
3. Alexander and the Persians

   Julia Hartley asks why we call Alexander the Great.
4. The Paradox of Ecological Art

   Vid Simoniti considers eco-art from Olafur Eliasson to videos by Bo Zheng.
5. A Brazilian Soprano in Jazz-Age Paris

   Adjoa Osei celebrates Elsie Houston, who mixed Afro-Brazilian folk with European opera.
6. John Baptist Dasalu and Fighting for Freedom

   Jake Subryan Richards reads the letter sent by a captured man who arrived in Cuba in 1854.
7. Ruffs in Jamestown

   Lauren Working on what fashion reveals about life for C16 English settlers in America.
8. African cinema, nationhood, and liberation

   Sarah Jilani on the lessons about power in films by Ousmane Sembene and Souleymane Cissé.
9. Contesting an Alphabet

   Mirela Ivanova on the countries claiming to be the birthplace of the Cyrillic script.
10. Walking with the Ghosts of the Durham Coalfield

    Jake Morris-Campbell carries the ashes of poet Bill Martin from Sunderland to Durham.