The Essay

Even perfect eyesight is nothing of the sort- it just looks the part. As the world changed and darkened around him, Rupert Goodwins found that not only did the real nature of sight became clearer, the revelations led to realisations about philosophy and reality that are too easily lost in the dazzle of daylight.

When journalist Rupert Goodwins started losing his sight, he wasn't expecting a journey to the back of his eyeballs that would take him 500 million years through time with stops for the evolution of modern philosophy, the nature of experience and the curious nature of sight itself. The surprise began in the night sky when the stars started going out...

In a major series for Radio 3, we rediscover some of the key thinkers and achievements from the Islamic Golden Age. The period ranges from 750 to 1258 CE and over twenty episodes, we'll hear about architecture, invention, medicine, innovation and philosophy. In the final essay in this first set of ten essays, Professor Peter Adamson reflects on the magnitude of Al-Farabi's contribution to philosop...

In a major series for Radio 3, we continue our journey through the Islamic Golden Age. The period ranges from 750 to 1258 CE and over the twenty episodes, we'll hear about architecture, religious scholarship, medicine, innovation and philosophy. In this evening's essay, Professor Hugh Kennedy explores the life of al-Tabari, the chronicler and historian of the early Islamic World. Producer: Mohini...

In a major series for Radio 3, we rediscover some of the key thinkers and achievements from the Islamic Golden Age. The period ranges from 750 to 1258 CE and over twenty episodes, we'll hear about architecture, invention, medicine, innovation and philosophy. Professor James Montgomery explores the life and work of the Arab philosopher al-Kindi, widely regarded today as one of the greatest scholars...

In a major series for Radio 3, we rediscover some of the key thinkers and achievements from the Islamic Golden Age. The period ranges from 750 to 1258 CE and over twenty episodes, we'll hear about architecture, invention, medicine, mathematics, innovation and philosophy. In today's essay, Iraqi-born scientist, writer and broadcaster Jim Al-Khalili tells us about the legacy of al-Khwarizmi. Muhamma...

In a major series for Radio 3, we rediscover some of the key thinkers and achievements from the Islamic Golden Age. The period ranges from 750 to 1258 CE and in these twenty essays, we'll hear about architecture, invention, medicine, mathematics, innovation and philosophy. In today's essay, Narguess Farzad, senior fellow in Persian at SOAS (School of African and Oriental Studies), recounts the tal...

The Islamic Golden Age rediscovered through portraits of key achivements and figures. The period ranges from 750 to 1258 CE and we'll hear about architecture, invention, medicine, innovation and philosophy. Professor Julia Bray explores the figure of Harun al-Rashid known to many from the Thousand and One Night tales. Julia separates fact from fiction and sheds light on Harun's life. What was his...

In a major series for Radio 3, we rediscover some of the key thinkers and achievements from the Islamic Golden Age. The period ranges from 750 to 1258 CE and we'll hear about architecture, invention, medicine, innovation and philosophy. Professor Jonathan Bloom on how the Islamic scholars and thinkers were the early adopters of paper - far ahead of their European contemporaries. Producer: Sarah Ta...

In a major series for Radio 3, we rediscover some of the key thinkers and achievements from the Islamic Golden Age. The period ranges from 750 to 1258 CE and over twenty episodes, we'll hear about architecture, invention, medicine, innovation and philosophy. Baroness Warsi, the first Muslim member of the British Cabinet, gives her personal take on Persian scholar Imam Bukhari. Producer: Sarah Tayl...

In a major series for Radio 3, we rediscover some of the key thinkers and achievements from the Islamic Golden Age. The period ranges from 750 to 1258 CE and we'll hear about architecture, invention, medicine, innovation and philosophy. Professor Robert Gleave continues the series with an essay featuring Ali ibn Abi Talib and the origins of Shi'ism. Producer: Sarah Taylor.

In a major series for Radio 3, we rediscover some of the key thinkers and achievements from the Islamic Golden Age. The period ranges from 750 to 1258 CE and we'll hear about architecture, invention, medicine, innovation and philosophy. Professor Hugh Kennedy begins the series with an introductory essay explaining how the Islamic state established itself. Producer: Sarah Taylor.

Writer Adam Gopnik sees Cubism, far from being a premonition of abstraction, as a new form of poetic modern realism, a way of capturing the syncopated, quick paced, ecletic mix of high and low that marks our civilization. Its tragedy, he argues, is that it captured that spirit just as the civilization it celebrated was about to commit suicide. Producer: Sara Davies.

Among the memorable publishing highlights of 1913 Paris, Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes has become one of France's best-loved and most revered novels. Writer Michele Roberts looks at why it occupies such a privileged place in French hearts, and assesses the cultural and literary landscape from which it emerged. Producer: Sara Davies.

Guillaume Apollinaire's volume of poetry, Alcools, met with astonishment, admiration and a good deal of outrage when it was published in Paris in 1913. In its experiments with subject, structure and style it blazed a bold trail for the modernist poetry of the 1920s, claims Martin Sorrell of Exeter University. Producer: Sara Davies.

1913 marks an extraordinary year in Paris. Momentous events occurred in literature, music and the visual arts. In the first of four essays looking at this annus mirabilis for French and European culture, Professor Michael G Wood of Princeton University explores the publication of Marcel Proust's Swann's Way, a novel that marked a turning point in the relationship between a writer and his character...

In this final essay, psychotherapist Emmy Van Deurzen reflects on how existentialist philosophy has shaped her life and work. She grew up in the Netherlands, but went as a student to France, where she read philosophy and later studied psychotherapy. Her work in the two fields led her to want to follow an existentialist path- to pursue a form of therapy which was rooted in philosophy. She now lives...

Here, film-maker Gary Walkow reflects on how existential thinking has influenced his work, from his adaptation of Dostoevsky's "Notes From Underground" to his film on the Beat writers. Producer: Emma Kingsley The Existential Me was first broadcast in November 2013 to mark the centenary of the birth of Albert Camus.

The novelist and poet Michèle Roberts, half French, has been considerably influenced by existentialist literature. Her essay begins with an examination of Raymond beating up his nameless girlfriend in Camus's 'L'Etranger' - and getting let off by the police - then moves on to the works of Simone de Beauvoir and a discussion of feminism as a politics. She considers, too, existentialism as it appear...

Paul Hart is a young theatre director who last year directed Jean Paul Sartre's existentialist play 'Huis Clos' in London's West End. In the play three people are locked in a room with each other for eternity. This is damnation, for Hell, famously, is other people. This year Hart was staff director of 'The Captain of Köpenick' at the National Theatre. In Carl Zuckmayer's play petty criminal Wilhel...

'The Existential Me' is a series marking the centenary of the birth of Albert Camus and complementing Radio 3's documentary about him. Five people working in different disciplines write essays about existentialism its impact on their work and their lives. As well as writing novels and short stories Naomi Alderman is a writer of computer games. The world of computers is, she believes essentially ex...

Novelist Glenn Patterson is proudly Belfast, and admits to being baffled by Derry in his childhood - it seemed far off in the distant West, and not quite in Northern Ireland, and not quite in Donegal, on whose border the city lies. Belfast has had a tendency to feel superior culturally, so why then has Derry's unique cultural tale had such a lasting impact and influence on Glenn? The city's Punk r...

Dublin born Nuala Hayes first came to Derry in the 1970s to act in Brian Friel's early Field Day productions, including the first staging of Translations at the height of the 'troubles'. Since then she has become fascinated with the city's many stories, and in particular those of the famous shirt factories. Nuala ponders the common threads of the city's shirt factory and story-telling traditions,...

Novelist Brian McGilloway was born and brought up in Derry, a city from which his imagination has never quite escaped. He explores how the urban landscape shaped him creatively, from the river Foyle which divides the city, to its dark, tangled streets and alleyways, and the strange hinterland of the nearby Donegal border. As his writing progressed, the city began to take shape as a character in it...

Composer, jazz musician and session pianist Neil Cowley revisits his year as musician in residence for Derry / Londonderry, the inaugural UK City of Culture in 2013. Neil arrived in a city he knew little about, full of trepidation thanks to years of headlines about terrorism and violence in Northern Ireland. What he found among the city's young musicians challenged and changed not only his long-he...