Physiognomy and Teenage music

Synopsis

The study of facial features and assumptions about their relationship to character informs the judgements we make about people to this day. For centuries, in literature, in art, in images and cartoons the descriptions of the way people look has served to indicate how they might behave and there is even a kind of science - physiognomy - dedicated to cataloguing the complex relationship between the two.

Laurie Taylor discusses the impact on culture of this strange science of instinct and prejudice with the literature scholar John Mullan and Sharrona Pearl author of About Faces; Physiognomy in Nineteenth-Century Britain.

Also, should we grow out of the music of our youth? Laurie discusses teen passions with Jon Savage and whether musical appreciation means a development away from the sounds we first loved.

Producer: Charlie Taylor.