The Documentary (BBC) Ukraine: The Men Who Don’t Want to Fight I can remember reading and hearing reports of Russian men who were leaving Russia because they didn’t want to fight, but I wasn’t aware so much of reports of Ukrainian men doing the same. I’ve always had sympathy for men who didn’t want to fight in foreign wars in other people’s countries, but is it different if men are being asked to fight for their own country? I think that it is, although I’d be hard pressed to answer why. This episode looks
Emperors of Rome Episode LXXIX – Epicureanism Here’s something different. Matt Smith is nowhere in sight, and it’s Dr Rhiannon Evans who interviews Dr Sonya Wurster about Epicurianism, a Greek philosophy based on the idea that the greatest good is to seek modest pleasures- quite different from the high-status, elite idea that Epicurianism suggests today. It had four principles: 1. Don’t fear the gods 2. Don’t fear death 3. What is good is easy to get 4. What is bad is only of short duration. Many writers we
History Extra Having listened to the podcast about Ukrainian men avoiding fighting, I thought that I’d listen to Fight Like a Man? Masculinity in WW2 There was little relation between the two. This episode features Luke Turner, the author of Men at War: Loving, Lusting, Fighting, Remembering 1939-1945 . As you might guess from the title, this book and podcast takes a gender/masculinities lens to look at WW2 and homosexuality, cross-dressing and gender-crossing during a time of such disruption, and when so m