Wednesday 16:00-16:30 Laurie Taylor discusses the latest social science research.
07 November 2007 repeat 11 November
THE DAY OF THE DEAD Last week, Mexicans celebrated the Day of the Dead. Anthropologist and world expert in this ritual, Stanley Brandes, is the author of a new book entitled Skulls to the Living, Bread to the Dead. Back from the city of Zamora in the Mexican state of Michoacán Professor Brandes describes the experience and discusses the conventional way of understanding its significance.
USES OF NATURE Some environmental scientists claim that if the evolution of mankind was mapped out over the course of a week, we would have lived apart from nature for only the last three seconds of Sunday night. But what is nature? And what does it mean to be out of it?
Patients in hospitals are said to recover more quickly if they are played tapes of birdsong; joggers on treadmills have lower heart rates if they are looking at a picture of a country scene; So do we need the real thing if representations of nature are so effective?
Laurie Taylor is joined by Professor Jules Pretty, Head of Department of Biological Sciences, University of Essex; Dr Bronislaw Szerszynski, Senior Lecturer in Environment and Culture at Lancaster University and the writer Richard Mabey to debate the uses of nature and asks if it really is so good for us.
This week’s guests:
Professor Stanley H. Brandes Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley Skulls to the Living, Bread to the Dead: The Day of the Dead in Mexico and Beyond Publisher: Blackwell Publishing ISBN-10: 1405152486 ISBN-13: 978-1405152488
Professor Jules Pretty Head of Department of Biological Sciences, University of Essex The Earth Only Endures: On Reconnecting with Nature and Our Place in It Publisher: Earthscan Publications Ltd ISBN-10: 1844074323 ISBN-13: 978-1844074327
