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ON NOW : Six O'Clock News
23/05/2013

Six O'Clock News National and international news from BBC Radio 4.

ON NEXT : 18:30 Heresy

Thinking Allowed

Image for Cemetery Taboo - The City

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Cemetery Taboo - The City

Duration:
30 minutes
First broadcast:
Wednesday 18 May 2011

Cities are growing at an enormous rate all over the world. As they wrestle with overcrowding, pollution, resource vulnerability and an increasing gulf between the rich and poor what will be the dominant factor to define them? Which forces will shape the experience of urban life for the individual and will our imagination and creativity enable cities to survive into the future? The sociologist Sophie Watson and the geographer Matthew Gandy join Laurie Taylor to discuss the future of the city.
Also, the taboo of the body in the cemetery. Kate Woodthorpe reveals her research into what remains unmentionable at the graveside.
Producer: Charlie Taylor.

  • Dr Kate Woodthorpe

    Lecturer in Sociology at he Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath

    Buried Bodies in an East London Cemetery: Revisiting Taboo
    Chapter by Kate Woodthorpe
    In Deathscapes; Spaces for Death, Dying, Mourning and Remembrance
    edited by Avril Maddrell and James D Sidaway.
    Publisher: Ashgate
    ISBN-10: 0754679756
    ISBN-13: 978-0754679752

    Find out more about Kate Woodthorpe

  • Sophie Watson

    Professor of Sociology at the Open University and Director of the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-cultural Change

    The New Blackwell Companion to the City
    Edited by Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson
    Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
    ISBN-10: 1405189819
    ISBN-13: 978-1405189811

    A Companion to the City
    Edited by Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson
    Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
    ISBN-10: 9780631235781
    ISBN-13: 978-0631235781

    Find out more about Sophie Watson

  • Matthew Gandy

    Professor of Geography at University College, London

    Landscape and infrastructure in the post-industrial metropolis
    Chapter by Matthew Gandy
    in A Companion to the City
    Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
    ISBN-10: 9780631235781
    ISBN-13: 978-0631235781

    Find out more about Matthew Gandy

  • Thinking Allowed recording at the Wellcome Collection on Thursday 2nd June 20011

    BBC Radio Four's social science programme at the Wellcome Collection will explore the social meaning of dirt, filth, rubbish and hygiene.

    Laurie Taylor and a panel of special guests examine Mary Douglas's famous claim that dirt is "matter out of place".

    Speakers:
    Adam Kuper, anthropologist
    Martin Rowson, writer and cartoonist
    Amanda Vickery, historian

    This event is FREE

    Additional tickets will be released at 14.00 on Thursday 26 May.

    Book now to receive an e-ticket

Broadcasts

The Open University

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Analysis and insights related to Thinking Allowed programmes.

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    Thinking Allowed

    Laurie Taylor explores the latest research into how society works and discusses current ideas on how...

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