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

2016-06-10T15:46:04+00:00

Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah and Dame Hilary Mantel

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.

Inside the mind of Professor Stephen Hawking

2016-01-21T07:26:52+00:00

Editor: Hear Professor Hawking's Reith Lectures on black holes on 26 January and 2 February or listen online. You can also get downloads of this and previous Reith Lectures.

It’s always exciting to find out who’s giving the Reith Lectures for Radio 4. When we heard it was going to be Professor Stephen Hawking it was clear the world renowned scientist was going to be a hit with the Radio 4 audience. Across the country people would be leaning towards their radios desperate to finally understand the theory of black holes, Hawking Radiation and thermodynamics.

But not everyone is drawn towards listening to such a huge intellect talk about quantum physics. For some it feels way too difficult. Where do they even make a start? It’s a bit like reading War & Peace or exercising 3 times a week. We know it’d be good for us but…

So we thought we'd turn our attention to making this year’s Reith Lectures as enticing as possible by collaborating with one of the UK’s most popular providers of animation, Aardman Studios. Together we wanted to make a very short video that travels inside the Professor’s head to see what made stars and space appeal to him in the first place. It would act as an introduction to the great man himself.

We were after a multi-layered, graphic animation that stressed the child-like wonder which first drew Stephen Hawking towards his subject, hoping it would draw others in the same way, and all in three and a half minutes.

If you like the first we’ve also made a second animation with Aardrman Studios that promises to explain Black Holes in less than 2 minutes. Let us know if we managed it!

The director was Will Studd and the audio is a mix of original music by Max Halstead with words from Professor Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan, Andrew Strominger and Brian Cox. We should also thank The European Space Agency and NASA who helped with our search for suitable magical space images.

Rhian Roberts, Digital Editor for Radio 4 and Radio 3

Watch the animation Inside of the mind of Stephen Hawking
Download the Reith Lectures - inc Professor Hawking, Robert Oppenheimer, Martin Rees and Bernard Lovell
More clips and programmes about Professor Stephen Hawking

Grayson Perry to deliver Reith Lectures

2013-07-08T15:03:28+00:00

Artist, Grayson Perry.

Award-winning visual artist Grayson Perry is this year’s Reith Lecturer. In a series of four lectures, entitled ‘Grayson Perry: Playing to the Gallery’, Perry will look at the role and place of art in the global, digital landscape of the 21st Century. The lectures will be broadcast in October and November as part of Radio 4’s celebration of arts and culture in 2013.

Perry, who won the Turner Prize in 2003, is known for his ceramics, print-making, tapestry and his cross-dressing alter-ego, Claire. He also won a BAFTA in 2013 for his documentary All in the Best Possible Taste, about social and cultural taste in the UK. He is the first visual artist to deliver the Reith Lectures and joins political and cultural figures on the Reith roster, including Bertrand Russell, Aung San Suu Kyi and Daniel Barenboim.

At a time when, in the art world, seemingly anything goes, Perry will consider what 21st century art really looks like, its role in our society and the idea of how we judge quality.

Perry says: “I want to celebrate an emotional relationship with visual art, the innocent drive to make it, to look at it, feast on it, to love it. I feel now is a good time to reflect on the idea of quality and how we might, in an age where we are told anything can be art, appreciate which art is any good."

Perry will begin the series by reflecting on his own experiences as an artist and examining whether artistic integrity can be maintained alongside acclaim. He will explore how contemporary art is perceived by the artists, public and press in Britain. And will also look at the development of art critique language and what he sees as people’s increasing need to over-intellectualise their responses to art.

Perry says: "The words and the money associated with contemporary art also need examining. I want to talk about my ambivalent relationship with the art world, how I am profoundly grateful to it, yet struggle not to be a curmudgeon or a cynic.

"In short, I want to talk about what it is like to be an artist, here, now.”

Gwyneth Williams, Controller of Radio 4 and 4 Extra, said of Perry’s appointment: “I was inspired by his insight into the creative process and the deep humanity evident in his work. Radio 4 should be a home for artists and a place of creativity, and who better to make this happen than Grayson Perry?"

Perry will deliver his Reith lectures in front of live audiences across the UK this autumn. The first lecture will be recorded at Tate Modern in London, followed by lectures at St George’s Hall in Liverpool, The Guildhall in Derry-Londonderry and Central Saint Martins in London.

Tickets are not available yet, but will be made public in advance of the lectures via the BBC tickets page.

Listen to more Reith Lectures

Radio 4

Radio 4 Extra

The Public Philosopher: Sharing The American Dream

2012-10-30T08:50:08+00:00

Editors note: You can hear The Public Philosopher on Radio 4 at 9am on 23 and 30 Oct 2012. Here, Mukul Devichand who worked on the programme with Professor Sandel talks about the issues raised in the second programme. PMcD

"If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help," President Obama proclaimed to a crowd in Virginia back in July.

"There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive."

"If you've got a business - you didn't build that," he continued. "Somebody else made that happen."

For many Republicans, including Governor Mitt Romney who goes head to head with President Obama in the polls next week, this remark became symbolic.

They took it to be proof of President Obama's pro-redistribution, anti-business - indeed, un-American values.

"The President supports redistribution. I don't," Romney said. "It's never been a characteristic of America."

These remarks came after Romney made a gaffe of his own. Secretly filmed, he was heard to attack 47% of the US population he said were living without paying federal income taxes.

For this week's edition of The Public Philosopher with political philosopher Prof Michael Sandel, we challenged a public audience at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government to look on these statements by Romney and Obama not as gaffes - but as moral positions.

"Who built It?" we asked them. "Is the American Dream of individual success a myth?"

This turns out to be a sharply divisive issue - even in the liberal confines of Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Harvard is located.

And because it was in America, this was decisively not the usual Radio 4 fare on the question of welfare.

Our audience looked at healthcare reform and redistributive taxes through the prism of moral arguments.

From a British perspective, the arguments presented were strangely unfamiliar. From the very beginning, everyone in the room talked not about the common good, or shared responsibility - but about freedom.

Libertarians questioned the morality of taking people's incomes, through coercive taxation, for purposes like universal healthcare.

The opening gambit came from a man who questioned why someone else should ever have to pay for anyone's services and products - like healthcare.

"I am one of the someone elses," he said.

But strikingly, those who supported taxation for healthcare also raised the issue of freedom. Without basic healthcare for survival, they argued, is anyone truly free?

Prof Sandel noted that in the US debate, liberals as well as conservatives talk about freedom and coercion as the main rationale for their approaches.

Libertarians and conservatives argue that governments are wrong to take away people's incomes for redistribution - which they say contradicts American values as set out in the Constitution.

But liberals counter by quoting the Constitution themselves: without certain basic access to healthcare, education and so on, they ask, is an equal democracy truly possible?

Prof Sandel pointed out that this split goes way back in American history.

Even Franklin D. Roosevelt argued for his "new deal" reforms using the freedom argument, rather than the "common good" arguments used by British and other European social reformers.

"Necessitous men," said FDR, "are not free men."

But what do you think?
Does a welfare state limit everyone's freedom - or enhance it?
Is it morally right to tax the successful?

Mukul Devichand is a Senior Broadcast Journalist in News and Current Affairs, Radio

In the Beginning was Sound

2012-07-25T13:35:27+00:00

I was privileged to edit the 2006 Reith Lectures with Daniel Barenboim; working with him on that series altered forever the way I listen to music.

Last night, inspired again by the Beethoven symphonies being performed at the Proms by his pioneering West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, I re-listened to the first lecture and the electric exchanges that took place in the discussion that followed.

On Friday, the Ninth Symphony will be broadcast just before the Olympic Games in a brilliant Proms season from Roger Wright, my colleague and Controller of Radio 3 and Director of the Proms.

So, after the concert and the opening ceremony, in a schedule change late night on Radio 4, I invite you to listen once again to Daniel Barenboim's first 2006 Reith Lecture, In the Beginning was Sound.

His theme is music and society. Music, he argues, is a way to make sense of the world: our politics, our history, our future and our very essence.

He seeks to draw, through the whole series, some connection, as he puts it "between the inexpressible content of music and the inexpressible content of life".

Don't miss it.

Gwyneth Williams is the Controller of Radio 4. Listen to In the Beginning was Sound on Friday 27 July at 23:00.

Niall Ferguson: Reith Lecture pt.4 - Civil and Uncivil Societies

2012-07-10T07:36:27+00:00

Editor's note: In the Reith Lecture this week, Niall Ferguson talked about Civil and Uncivil Societies . The programme is available to listen to online or to download and keep - PMcD

""Over the past 50 years governments have encroached too far on the realm of civil society," says Niall Ferguson in his fourth and final Reith Lecture, titled Civil and Uncivil Societies .

Society, he says, would benefit from more private initiative and less dependence on the state. Basically, we can do better by doing it for ourselves.

Education, in particular, is one field Prof Ferguson believes could benefit from a more hands-off approach from the state.

"If there is one educational policy I should like to see adopted in the UK, it would be a policy that aimed to increase significantly the number of private schools," he declares.

It doesn't escape Prof Ferguson that this is the kind of statement which the Left reflexively denounce as elitist - especially, he says, privately educated liberals. There are conservatives, too, who see private schools as the cause of inequality, not a solution.

Well, says Niall Ferguson, they are utterly wrong.

For about a hundred years, he says, there's no doubt the expansion of state education was a good thing, because there was insufficient provision - but we need to recognise the limits of public monopolies like this.

The current state education system, says Ferguson, is a typical monopoly. Its quality has declined over the years because of a lack of competition and the creeping power of vested producer interests - in this case, the government and teaching unions.

And that's where the state education system could benefit by emulating the private school sector - namely with increased independence and competition.

The growth of the Academy system in England and Wales - introduced by the previous Labour government and expanded with zeal by the current coalition - as well as the advent of Free Schools, says Ferguson, are a step in the right direction. These are schools autonomous from the state, in the hands of teachers and parents who understand the needs of their students better than a Whitehall bureaucrat.

Critics argue this is fine if you're in a middle-class neighbourhood, where the local parents have the time and social capital to make a Free School work, but what about those in poorer neighbourhoods?

What these critics seem to forget, says Prof Ferguson, is that children from deprived areas have already been failed. State education standards have suffered greatly as a result of rampant grade inflation to exaggerate performance and conceal decline.

"Are we really helping the poor by trapping them in rubbish schools?" Ferguson asks.

He points to the success of schools such as Mossbourne Academy in Hackney, one of London's most deprived boroughs. Previously condemned as a failing school, this year, ten Mossbourne students were offered places at Cambridge University.

Prof Ferguson makes it clear that he is not arguing for private schools over state schools, but a greater mix which will force all schools to raise their game.

"The biggest threat," he says "is complacency... thinking we're fine... that our schools are great."

If the education revolution of the 20th Century was that basic education became available for most people in democracies - the education revolution of the 21st Century, says Ferguson, should be that good education will become available for an increasing proportion of children.

Listen to all Niall Ferguson's Reith Lectures

Download Niall Ferguson's 2012 Reith Lectures

Download The Reith Lectures Archive 1976 - 2011

Download The Reith Lectures Archive 1948 - 1975

Niall Ferguson: Reith Lecture pt.3 - The Landscape of the Law

2012-07-03T08:03:06+00:00

Editor's note: In the Reith Lecture this week, Niall Ferguson talked about The Landscape of the Law. The programme is available to listen to online or to download and keep - PMcD

"Some score members of the... bar... are mistily engaged in one of ten thousand stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on slippery precedents, groping knee-deep in technicalities, running their goat-hair and horsehair warded heads against walls of words and making a pretence of equity with serious faces, as players might..."
- Charles Dickens, Bleak House

Lawyers were something of a fascination for Charles Dickens, appearing in around a dozen of his novels.

From the sharp-dealing Dodson and Fogg featured in The Pickwick Papers to the down-right lazy Mortimer Lightwood in Our Mutual Friend - The Old Curiosity Shop's Sampson Brass was "one of the greatest scoundrels unhung". Dickens, it seemed, was not particularly enamoured with the legal profession.

Still, the evolutionary, organic nature of the English common law system, we are led to believe, is one to be envied - emulated even, especially for its economic effectiveness.

After evolving over centuries, it's still working, so must be good, right?

But how justified this claim to superiority over other systems really is, is the key theme of Niall Ferguson's third Reith Lecture.

"Like the human hive of politics, or the hunting grounds of the market economy, the legal landscape is an integral part of the institutional setting in which we live our lives," says Prof Ferguson.

But as the American economist and social scientist Mancur Olson argued, over time, all political systems are likely to succumb to sclerosis - mainly because of rent-seeking activities by organised interest groups.

Prof Ferguson says, in the case of the law, the biggest self-interest group is arguably the legal profession - especially in the USA, once the benchmark for justice, where the rule of law has become the rule of lawyers.

But there other signs indicating the decline of the English common law system, says Niall Ferguson:

The erosion of civil liberties by the national security state - something which is not exclusive to the post 9/11 world.
The intrusion of European law, in particular the incorporation of the 1953 Convention on Human Rights - "Napoleon's revenge," says Ferguson.
The increased complexity and sloppiness of statute law, as a result of a mania for elaborate regulation among the political class.
The increasing cost - to both citizens and the business world.

Reform to a system which Prof Ferguson says is on the decline is hard to imagine when, as he claims, there is so much other rot - among the legislature, the regulators, as well as the legal system.

"Ultimately, the change must come from outside the realm of public institutions," he says - "It must come from the associations of civil society. It must come from us: the citizens."

And that is the subject of Niall Ferguson's fourth and final Reith Lecture, Civil and Uncivil Societies, which you can hear on Radio 4 next Tuesday at 0900.

Listen to Niall Ferguson's Reith Lectures

Download Niall Ferguson's 2012 Reith Lectures

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Niall Ferguson's third lecture, The Landscape of the Law, will be repeated on Radio 4 on Saturday, 7 July at 22:15 BST.

In his fourth and final lecture, titled Civil and Uncivil Societies, Niall Ferguson asks asks what constitutes a vibrant and independent civil society. This will broadcast on Radio 4 on Tuesday, 10 July at 09:00 BST.

Niall Ferguson: Reith Lecture pt.2 - The Dawinian Economy

2012-06-26T07:30:00+00:00

Editor's note: In the Reith Lecture this week, Niall Ferguson talked about The Darwinian Economy. The programme is available to listen to online or to download and keep - PMcD

There will always be greedy people around banks," says Niall Ferguson "after all they are where the money is - or should be."

"But greedy people will only commit fraud or negligence if they feel their misdemeanour is unlikely to be noticed or severely punished."

In the second Reith Lecture in his series The Rule Of Law And Its Enemies economic historian Prof Niall Ferguson tackles the subject of financial regulation - and the need to drastically prune it.

Prof Ferguson argues that the financial crisis that began in 2007 had its origins in over-complex regulation.

Many economists - and members of the public - disagree and believe lax regulation was a major cause of the financial crisis. They blame President Clinton's repeal of the restrictive Glass-Steagall Act in particular.

But they have misunderstood the problem, says Ferguson. He says the major events of the crisis would still have happened even with Glass-Steagall in place. Instead, he says, misconceived regulation was a large part of problem.

Because de-regulation is not bad. It is bad regulation that is bad. Banks were key to the financial crisis - and banks were regulated, he observes.

The more serious failing, Ferguson continues, is the feeling of impunity within the banking industry. This is not an issue of deregulation, but non-punishment. There was a failure to apply the law. The list of people jailed for their role in the USA's sub-prime crisis is "laughably short," says Prof Ferguson.

Extra compliance is not the solution, he says, because adding rules upon rules upon rules removes the need for banks to simply ask themselves "are we doing the right thing?"

Plus, the principal beneficiary of tighter regulation will not be the economy - but the legal profession. Lawyers, he says, will gain lucrative business explaining to financial institutions what the increasingly dense rules mean.

Simplicity is the best defence for taxpayers and citizens, says Niall Ferguson, as it is the only way to ensure a complex financial industry becomes less fragile. Discretion should replace compliance. Combined with this should be strong central banks, run by people of wisdom and experience - and proper punishment for those who break the rules.

Do you believe we should have more - or less - financial regulation?
Is enforcement of regulation a problem?
How do you prove an investment bank was knowingly irresponsible - versus making a bad investment decision?
Is it just too late to simplify the banking sector?

Listen to Niall Ferguson's Reith Lectures

Download Niall Ferguson's 2012 Reith Lectures

Follow Radio 4 on Twitter and Facebook

Niall Ferguson's second lecture, The Darwinian Economy, will be repeated on Radio 4 on Saturday, 30 June at 22:15 BST.

The third lecture in the series, titled The Landscape of the Law, will explore the rule of law in comparative terms - and its role in the development of countries such as China. This will broadcast on Radio 4 on Tuesday, 3 July at 09:00 BST.

Niall Ferguson: Reith Lecture pt.1 - The Human Hive

2012-06-19T08:00:00+00:00

"Society is a contract… the state is a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are yet to be born."

This quote from the 18th Century political theorist and philosopher Edmund Burke summarises much of the argument put forward in the first of the 2012 Reith Lectures given by the economic historian Niall Ferguson, which broadcast on Radio 4 this morning.

Professor Ferguson says we are currently witnessing an unparalleled breach of this partnership because of the huge debts being racked up by governments, which are set to be passed on to younger - and unborn - generations.

Furthermore, says Professor Ferguson, many governments are dishonest about their true level of debt. The present system, he says, is "fraudulent" and "huge government liabilities are hidden from view."

"No legitimate business could carry on in this manner and the last corporation to publish financial statements this misleading was Enron."

In the lecture, Professor Ferguson listed a series of proposals for reform of government finances:

Public sector balance sheets should be drawn-up so that government liabilities can be compared to assets.
Governments should adopt the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, which corporations abide by.
Above all, governments should be prepared, on a regular basis, to make absolutely clear the inter-generational implications of current fiscal policy.

In the current climate, austerity is something young voters in particular should welcome, he argues - but concedes that winning support for this is a mountainous task.

But, says Professor Ferguson, if we do not embark on wholesale reform of government finance, we will end up with the scenario where Western democracies are going to carry on until one after another they follow Greece and other Mediterranean economies into "the fiscal spiral of death".

Alternatively, we all become like Japan and face decades of low to zero growth.

What do you think of the issues raised in the lecture?

Are Western democracies in denial about their debt levels?
Are the alternatives to austerity more effective?
Do you agree the baby boomers have benefited at the expense of younger generations?

Listen to the full lecture on the Radio 4 website

Download Niall Ferguson's 2012 Reith Lectures

Richard Fenton Smith is a Senior Broadcast Journalist for News and Current Affairs Radio.

Niall Ferguson's first Reith Lecture, titled The Human Hive, will be repeated on Radio 4 on Saturday, 23 June at 22:15 BST.

The second lecture in the series, titled The Darwinian Economy, will examine the issue of financial regulation. This will broadcast on Radio 4 on Tuesday, 26 June at 09:00 BST

Eliza Manningham-Buller's second Reith Lecture: Security

2011-09-12T16:30:00+00:00

Editor's note: This Tuesday morning Radio 4 broadcasts Eliza Manningham-Buller's second Reith Lecture, Security, at 09.00 BST. It will be repeated on Saturday 17 September at 22.15 BST - PM.

In Security, recorded last week in Leeds, Baroness Manningham-Buller argues that the security and intelligence services in a democracy have a good record of protecting and preserving freedom.

During the lecture, she strongly condemns torture, and touches on the recent allegations about MI6's alleged activities in Libya. Her comments have already attracted a lot of attention, featuring on BBC news, in the Guardian and The Telegraph. Tony Blair told the Today programme on Saturday that he "profoundly" disagreed with her arguments about the post 9/11 world.

After the Tuesday transmission, you will be able to download the programme as a podcast and read a transcript on the Radio 4 website.

Again, as last week, during the broadcast we will be tweeting links to useful relevant content from the @BBC_Reith Twitter account, and will share some highlights via the @BBCRadio4 Twitter account. Thanks to those who have been using the hashtag #Reith to join the debate. You can also share your thoughts and reaction to the lecture here on the Radio 4 blog.

In the meantime, we are still offering a number of "Reith Extra" programmes for download via Radio 4's Documentary of the Week podcast. This week's programmes include a history of GCHQ,a two-part series tracing the Hunt for Bin Laden, and a File on 4 programme from 2007 about the challenges of trying to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

Radio 4 has also recently published the Reith archive, and you can explore more than 60 years of lectures on the Radio 4 website, where you can listen to the programmes and read the transcripts. You can download the previous Reith Lectures via the two archive podcasts 1948 to 1976 and 1977 to 2010.

The most popular downloads so far are Edward Said's 1993 lectures on the Representation of the Intellectual, which you can listen to or download, and the 1986 Reith Lectures by Scottish Judge Lord John McCluskey, Law, Justice and Democracy.

Jennifer Clarke is senior multiplatform producer, Radio Current Affairs

Eliza Manningham-Buller's first Reith Lecture: Terror

2011-09-05T15:50:00+00:00

Editor's update: The first of Eliza Manningham-Buller's first Reith Lecture is now available as a transcript and as a podcast to download - PM.

Tomorrow Radio 4 broadcasts Eliza Manningham-Buller's first Reith Lecture, Terror, at 09.00 BST. It will be repeated on Saturday 10 September at 22.15 BST.

On the tenth anniversary of the attacks on the United States on 11 September, the former director-general of MI5 reflects on the lasting significance of that day. Was it a "terrorist" crime, an act of war or something different? She offers a unique perspective on the event, its impact on the world and the repercussions which are still being felt today.

After the Tuesday transmission, you will be able to download the programme as a podcast and read a transcript on the Radio 4 website.

During the broadcast we will be tweeting links to useful relevant content from the @BBC_Reith twitter account, and will share some highlights via the @BBCRadio4 twitter account. Please include the hashtag #Reith if you would like to join the debate. You can also share your thoughts and reaction to the lecture here on the blog.

In the meantime, you may enjoy the range of "Reith Extra" programmes which we have been podcasting via Radio 4's Documentary of the Week podcast. These include histories of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, and a special programme from 2005, How Islam got Political, in which Frank Gardner traces the rise of political Islam in Britain and around the world.

You can also listen to many of these and other programmes from Radio 4's 9/11 coverage here. Radio 4's controller Gwyneth Williams has also written about the station's coverage on the Radio 4 blog.

Jennifer Clarke is senior multiplatform producer, Radio Current Affairs

Radio 4 and 9/11 Ten Years on

2011-09-03T17:00:00+00:00

Last night we recorded the first of Eliza Manningham-Buller's Reith Lecture series. I need not tell you that security was high for the former Director General of MI5 and the Radio Theatre was littered with senior members of the secret world.

The former Director General of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller giving the first of her BBC Reith Lectures to be broadcast on 6 September 2011.

I am glad to be broadcasting these lectures which invite us to consider the decade that has just passed through the prism she offers: how democracies confront the challenges that terrorism brings and how we balance our freedoms with necessary security.

She was at the heart of events that day ten years ago and she speaks frankly about her views, answering questions with an alarming precision.

The theme of the 2011 Reith Lectures is freedom - never more relevant as the Arab Spring continues to unfold around us.

Baroness Manningham-Buller's lectures make up the second part of this specially extended series following those of the distinguished Burmese campaigner for democracy, Aung Sang Suu Kyi, who gave a moving account of the struggle for freedom from tyranny in lectures that were secretly recorded and smuggled out of Burma.

The tenth anniversary of 9/11 offers a chance for Radio 4 to bring together many sides of the network for those who want to explore a truth beyond News and Current Affairs programming.

We tell the story of The Day Before painting a portrait of New York, America and the wider world as it was 24 hours before the attacks. We have adapted The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Moshin Hamid who talks to Jim Naughtie about the chilling encounter in that story in Bookclub. He takes listeners to Pakistan and brings to life a new mood in the meeting of strangers there - one tainted now perhaps for ever.

We have asked five internationally-acclaimed writers to write an open letter for Radio 4 listeners in the 9/11 Letters, in which they consider the consequences of 9/11: Joseph O'Neill, Michael Morpurgo, Lionel Shriver, Caryl Phillips and Naomi Alderman. We will run these letters across the Book of the Week slot in the morning.

Washington, 9/11 is our drama. Reconstructed from a welter of documents we tell the story of how George Bush and Dick Cheney responded in the first few hours after the attacks and how their responses set in train the events that were to follow in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I hope the balance of the planned News and Current Affairs coverage - with a special extended version of Americana, a documentary about British Muslims and some special editions of our daily sequence programmes, as well as select contributions from Woman's Hour and other programmes - will give listeners as much and as little as they want to hear about that transforming day now, a decade on.

And last night at the lecture the splendid historian, Peter Hennessey, reminded me again that ten years is not really very much time at all. Do listen to his recent Radio 4 documentary, One Hundred Years of Secrecy.

Gwyneth Williams is Controller of BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 4 Extra

Find details of this year's Reith Lectures and 9/11 related programming on the 9/11 Ten Years on page on the Radio 4 website.
Jenni Murray interviewed Eliza Manningham-Buller on Woman's Hour on Thursday 1 September. You can listen online via the Radio 4 website.

Securing Freedom: The 2011 Reith Lectures continue

2011-08-30T16:30:00+00:00

The first part of the 2011 Reith Lectures entitled Securing Freedom were presented by Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. In the second part of this year's lectures marking the 10th anniversary of 9/11 the former Director-General of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller will discuss how, once secured, a country maintains its freedom.

The series of three lectures starts on 6 September. A number of related archive programmes are being made available online in the meantime.

You can access these programmes via the Radio 4 Documentary of the week podcast page. You can listen online or download the programmes to listen to later. Each programme is available on the website for seven days.

Here's the list of programmes - the first two are already available, others are being added daily and will continue thoughout the duration of Eliza Manningham-Buller's lecture series. There's more detail on the 9/11 - Ten Years On page on the Radio 4 website.

(MI5) The Real Spooks from December 2007, available now
BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera looks into the shadowy world of Britain's security services, forced into radical change after 9/11. He gains amazing access to serving undercover officers who talk frankly about their role.

With us or Against Us - 4 programmes from 2002, available Wednesday 31 August; Thursday 1 September; Saturday 3 September and Sunday 4 September
The inside story behind the coalition set up in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11th. The series charts the behind-the-scenes negotiations which radically altered international relations, creating unlikely alliances and unexpected diplomatic concessions. Ed Stourton talks to the major players (including US National Security Adviser Dr Condoleezza Rice, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres), as well as the fixers and negotiators who worked to bring about a major realignment in global diplomatic relations.

From Monday 5 September the following programmes will also be released on a daily basis: The Hunt for Bin Laden (2011); GCHQ: Cracking the code (April 2010); MI6: A Century in the Shadows (August 2009); How Islam Got Political - a one hour Analysis special (November 2005); File on 4: How to Close Guantanamo? (November 2007)

Paul Murphy is the Editor of the Radio 4 blog

Jenni Murray interviewed Eliza Manningham-Buller on Woman's Hour on Thursday 2 September. You can listen online via the Radio 4 website. You can also hear Suzi Quatro and Sue Johnston on the programme.
Eliza Manningham-Buller was Director General of MI5, the British Security Service, from October 2002 until her retirement in April 2007. She led the organisation through the changes in the wake of 9/11.
Eliza Manningham-Buller's Reith Lectures will be broadcast at 9am on September 6th, 13th, and 20th and chaired by Sue Lawley.
Details of all of Radio 4's programmes around 9/11 visit the 9/11 - Ten Years On page on the website.
To subscribe to the Reith podcasts go to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/reith
Follow @BBC_Reith on Twitter and share your thoughts by using the hastag #Reith.
The Reith archive: More than 60 years of lectures and transcripts

Reith lectures 2011, lecture two - Aung San Suu Kyi: Dissent

2011-07-04T13:20:00+00:00

This morning we held a live chat during Aung San Suu Kyi's second Reith Lecture, Dissent. Lots of people joined in, by typing comments directly into the live chat, by emailing the programme via the Reith pages on the Radio 4 website and by tweeting using the hashtag #reith.

You can replay the resulting conversation below (it might make sense to listen to the lecture while you're doing so) and subscribe to the Reith 2011 podcast.

Listen to or download the podcasts of the first two 2011 Reith lectures from the Reith podcast page.

You can also watch a video of Aung San Suu Kyi's second 2011 Reith lecture. A transcript of Aung San Suu Kyi's second lecture is available as a PDF.

Jennifer Clarke is senior multiplatform producer, Radio Current Affairs

You can listen to the first lecture on the Radio 4 website, where you can also read the transcript, and watch the video of the first lecture.
Don't forget you can also now explore the Reith archive. You can listen to previous lectures, and read the transcripts on the Radio 4 website. You can download the previous lectures via two new podcasts: one covering 1948 to 1975 and another covering 1976 - 2010.

Reith lectures 2011, lecture one - Aung San Suu Kyi: Liberty

2011-06-27T14:13:00+00:00

This morning, during the broadcast of Aung San Suu Kyi's first Reith Lecture, Liberty, we hosted a live chat about the lecture and the topics discussed here on the blog. Lots of you joined in, by typing comments directly into the live chat, by emailing the programme via the Reith pages on the Radio 4 website and by tweeting using the hashtag #reith.

You can replay the resulting conversation below (it might make sense to listen to the lecture while you're doing so) and subscribe to the Reith 2011 podcast.

We'll be running another live event on the blog for the second of Aung San Suu Kyi's Reith Lectures on Tuesday 5th July from 8.30am. Details of how you'll be able to take part are above. Do join us.

Jennifer Clarke is senior multiplatform producer, Radio Current Affairs