Reflecting on the toppling of some statues and the protecting of others, Charles Adrian shares what he remembers of three books given to him at the beginning of the second season of the podcast.
Books discussed in this episode were previously discussed in Page One 52 (http://www.pageonepodcast.com/season-2#/52-vera-chok/), Page One 53 (http://www.pageonepodcast.com/season-2#/53-paula-varjack/) and Page One 54 (http://www.pageonepodcast.com/season-2#/54-catherine-payton/).
Correction: Edward Colston’s Royal African Company was active in the 17th century and not the 18th. You can read Gurminder K Bhambra on Edward Colston and the glorification of the British Empire in the New York Times here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/edward-colston-statue-racism.html?smid=tw-share and Priyamvada Gopal on the relationship between statues and our idea of history in The Huffinton Post here: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/statues_uk_5ee33c50c5b609f241c952b7?sl9. You can watch Afua Hirsch talking to PoliticsJOE about Black Lives Matter and British history, including some reflection on the theatrical boarding-up of the Churchill statue in Westminster, on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXY5BfpcAlQ&feature=youtu.be.
Between recording and releasing this episode, the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol was briefly replaced by a statue of Jen Reid by Marc Quinn. You can read about it in the Guardian here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/15/the-day-bristol-woke-up-to-a-new-statue and you can read thoughts on it by Thomas J. Price in The Art Newspaper here: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/comment/a-votive-statue-to-appropriation-the-problem-with-marc-quinn-s-black-lives-matter-sculpture
You can read more about the Rhodes Must Fall movement, meanwhile, in The New Statesman here: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2020/06/rhodes-must-fall-oxford-slavery-statue-oxford-university-oriel-black-lives-matter
For some reflection on racism and anti-racism in Europe and the UK, you can read Musa Okwonga in Byline Times here: https://bylinetimes.com/2020/06/05/white-complicity-matters-the-nazis-by-the-lake/ and Gary Younge in The New York Review Of Books here: https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2020/06/06/what-black-america-means-to-europe/
You can read June Tuesday writing about J.K. Rowling and the so-called reasonable concerns in Medium here: https://medium.com/@june.tuesday/jk-rowling-and-the-reasonable-bigotry-43bc2c6d3c2b, you can read Evan Urquhart on J.K. Rowling and her obsession with trans men in Slate here: https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/06/jk-rowling-trans-men-terf.html and you can read an open letter from the charity Mermaids to J.K. Rowling here: https://mermaidsuk.org.uk/news/dear-jk-rowling/
And, in case you are worried about how the kids are doing, you can read Katelyn Burns’ profile of New York’s Gender And Family Project in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/15/trans-transgender-children-gender-family-project
The Page One podcast began as a project recorded at the Wilton Way Cafe for London Fields Radio, which is now called Fields Radio (https://fields.radio/). From the second season onwards, however, the podcast was produced independently by Charles Adrian.
Correction: The film adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley Charles Adrian talks about seeing came out in 1999.
You can read about the theatre adaptation of The Master And Margarita made by Théâtre de Complicité here: http://www.complicite.org/productions/TheMasterandMargarita
Episode image is a detail of a photo by Charles Adrian
Episode recorded 13th June, 2020
More information and a transcript of this episode is at http://www.pageonepodcast.com/
Book listing:
Shopgirl by Steve Martin (Page One 52)
The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (Page One 53)
The Master And Margarita by Mikail Bulgakov (trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky) (Page One 54)
