Matthew Sweet talks to Will Self, one of the leading proponents of psychogeography, a theory of how people interact with their surroundings. In contemporary Britain, this relates to the wave of writing which follows authors as they explore the fascinating nooks and crannies of urban life, usually on foot, and describe the shifting layers of people, history and buildings.
Playlist
Will Self
Matthew Sweet talks to the novelist Will Self about his new non-fiction book, Psychogeography. Its centrepiece is Self's account of a walk from his London home to the centre of New York. But why, Matthew asks, is he attracted to the idea of "psychogeography", and what can it really tell us about a city that ordinary observation can't?
Psychogeography is published by Bloomsbury
Art and Sex
The lawyer and author Anthony Julius and the classicist Mary Beard review a new exhibition exploring 'Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now'. They discuss what this tells us, if anything, about the different ways sexuality operates across the world and through history. And Matthew asks them if there is something peculiarly Western about an exhibition of sexual imagery being held in a prestigious gallery like London's Barbican.
Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now is at the London Barbican from October 12th to January 27th 2008
Peter York
Matthew speaks to Britain's self-proclaimed original style guru, Peter York, whose latest book investigates the fate of that very 1980s social phenomenon, The Sloane Ranger. Peter York explains how Sloane culture has adapated itself to the twenty-first century and why, for him, examining the sociology of the rich continues to be relevant.
Cooler, Faster, More Expensive: The Return of the Sloane Ranger by Peter York and Olivia Stewart-Liberty is published by Atlantic Books
Nobel Prize for Literature
With the announcement today that Doris Lessing has won the Nobel Prize for Literature, Matthew talks to the novelist Lisa Appignanesi and the critic Elaine Showalter about Lessing's long and varied career, from The Grass is Singing in 1950 to The Cleft earlier this year.
