Transforming Society podcast

History is a key battleground in our increasingly bitter contemporary culture wars. In the polarized debates over who we are, the cry of ‘You can’t rewrite history’ regularly goes up. And is regularly met with the counterclaim that history needs to be rewritten. Virtually the only thing both sides can agree on is that

Racial justice is never far from the headlines, but, although the ideals of the legal system such as fairness and equality seem allied to the struggle, campaigners have been all too often let down by the system.  In this episode Jess Miles and Bharat Malkani, author of ‘Racial Justice and the Limits of the Law’, talk t

In this episode, George Miller talks to the author of What are Prisons for?, prison inspector and visiting professor of law at Oxford Hindpal Singh Bhui, about why we lock so many people up. Prison populations have increased hugely in the past fifty years and vast sums of money are spent to keep over 11.5 million peopl

Jessie Abrahams' new book reveals the extent of class inequality in schools in the UK. By telling Jessie's story and that of one of the young people in her research, this episode untangles the role aspiration plays for young people in school and the significance of the different choices that are available to different

In this episode, Richard Kemp speaks with Anna Durnova, one of the guest editors for the Emotions and Society special issue on 'Emotions and the ‘Truths’ of Contentious Politics: Advances in Research on Emotions, Knowledge, and Contemporary Contentious Politics'. They discuss the weaponisation of truth, the important d

In this episode, Richard Kemp speaks with Nigel Thrift, author of The Pursuit of Possibility: Redesigning Research Universities, about research universities and what makes them different. They discuss the importance of free speech at universities, the many threats research universities face and what can be done about t