Oscar Nominations, Steve McQueen, Slavery Narratives
Matthew Sweet is joined by film director Steve McQueen, critic Ian Christie, poet Fred D'Aguiar, anthropologist Kit Davis and historian Madge Dresser to discuss slave narratives.
On tonight's Freethinking, the opposite of freedom - and how to describe it. We're going to listen to the voices of slaves. We'll hear the recorded testimony of people who were once regarded as property. And we'll examine the slave autobiographies that became a vigorous literary genre in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. How reliable are they - and what are we relying upon them for?
Matthew Sweet talks to director Steve McQueen about his new film '12 Years A Slave' and assesses this year's Oscar nominations, among them Gravity starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, and The Wolf of Wall Street starring Leonardo Di Caprio and directed by Martin Scorsese.
The text from which 12 Years a Slave was created was a narrative of the same name written by Solomon Northup in 1853. There are hundreds of such narratives but who really wrote them, who were they for and what can we tell from the surviving copies? The poet and writer Fred D'Aguiar, the historian Dr Madge Dresser and the anthropologist Dr Kit Davis discuss the ghosts that rise up amongst us when studying such texts.
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Chapters
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Oscar Nominations
Ian Christie assesses this year's Oscar nominations.
Duration: 09:07
Steve McQueen
Interview with Steve McQueen about his film 12 Years A Slave.
Duration: 09:20
Slavery Narratives
Fred D'Aguiar, Madge Dresser and Kit Davis discuss slave narratives.
Duration: 25:30
Oscar Nominations
The Oscar Nominations were announced for earlier today, for a full list of the year鈥檚 nominees .
The winners will be announced on Sunday 2 March. 聽
12 Years a Slave
, directed by Steve McQueen, is in cinemas nationwide now, certificate 15.
Slave Narratives
Some of the texts mentioned in the discussion:聽
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by Ellen Craft and William Craft
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by himself
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano by himself.
(The image above is of Olaudah Equiano from the inside cover of this book).
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Nothup
The History of Mary Prince related by herself
Poems by Phillis Wheatley
Credits
Role Contributor Presenter Matthew Sweet Interviewed Guest Steve McQueen Interviewed Guest Ian Christie Interviewed Guest Fred D'Aguiar Interviewed Guest Kit Davis Interviewed Guest Madge Dresser Broadcast
- Thu 16 Jan 2014 22:00成人快手 Radio 3
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