The Forum

The images, sensations and emotions we experience during sleep were once seen as the gateway to the gods and had the power to alter lives and even whole societies. Rajan Datar explores the way dreams, and their interpretation, have shaped beliefs and actions for thousands of years – from their role as a connection to the dead and the spirit world, to their ability to predict the future. We hear how these seemingly involuntary visions inspired key historical figures, changed the course of major events, and were used by many rulers as a propaganda tool. Plus, we discuss what’s really happening in our brains when we have dreams and ask whether 21st-century life is placing them under threat.Contributors: Sidarta Ribeiro, professor of neuroscience and founder of the Brain Institute at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, in Brazil, and also the author of ‘The Oracle of Night: The History and Science of Dreams’; Scott Noegel, professor of biblical and ancient near eastern languages and literatures at the University of Washington, in the United States; Özgen Felek, lector of Ottoman and modern Turkish in the department of near eastern languages and civilizations at Yale University, in the US.Producer: Simon Tulett(Picture: Dreamlike scene of a woman standing at fork in a stone pathway in a calm lake with clouds reflecting in the water. Credit: Thomas Barwick/Getty Images)

Since his death in 2008, the impact of designer Yves Saint Laurent on women’s fashion remains undimmed. The pea coat, the trench, the trouser suit – many of his designs are now staples of the modern Western woman’s wardrobe. So how did this famously shy and retiring man achieve global success? And did his fashion innovations for women shape social change in the 1960s, or were they a response to his times?Bridget Kendall looks back at Saint Laurent’s life and legacy with former director of the Yves Saint Laurent Museum, Olivier Flaviano, fashion historian Emilie Hammen and one of Saint Laurent’s last assistants, designer Charles Sébline. First broadcast in 2018.(Photo: Yves Saint Laurent, French designer, with two fashion models, Betty Catroux [left] and Loulou de la Falaise, outside his 'Rive Gauche' shop. Credit: John Minihan, Getty Images)

As Brazil celebrates 200 years of independence from Portugal, we look at the 17th-century community of people seeking freedom from slavery in the north-east of the country known as Palmares. It lasted longer and was larger than other settlements of this type and it withstood repeated attempts by European colonialists to destroy it. So how did Palmares keep going for over a century when so many other communities like it in Latin America vanished after a few years? Who were the inhabitants? And what do we really know about them when there is no reliable history of the settlements: almost all the surviving documents are from people intent on destroying Palmares.To help us sift through what we do know about Palmares, Bridget Kendall is joined by archaeologist Professor Pedro Paulo Funari from the University of Campinas in Brazil; Dr. José Lingna Nafafé, Senior Lecturer in Portuguese and Lusophone Studies at Bristol University; and Dr. Maria Fernanda Escallon, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oregon. The reader is Natan Barreto.(Photo: The monument to Zumbi, leader of Palmares, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Credit: Yasuyoshi Chiba/Getty Images)

It is rare in music history that scholars can point to the beginning of a particular style, but bluegrass would appear to be the exception to the rule. Mandolin player Bill Monroe from rural Kentucky had so much clout in the music business that some scholars have suggested that it was he who defined the sound which came to be known as bluegrass. He was certainly protective; Monroe is quoted as saying “the biggest job of bluegrass is to keep out what don’t belong in it.”Played initially in America's rural south, bluegrass was later adopted by the counter-cultural college kid scene in the 1950s and '60s. And today the music is flourishing all over the world in the most unlikely places.Rajan Datar is joined by Dan Boner, director of the Bluegrass, Old-Time, and Roots Music Studies programme at East Tennessee State University, who demonstrates how bluegrass works; writer and historian Tony Russell, whose publications on music include Rural Rhythm: The Story of Old-Time Country Music in 78 Records; and Dr Lydia Hamessley, professor of music at Hamilton College whose research concentrates on old-time and bluegrass music. She is the author of Unlikely Angel: The Songs of Dolly Parton.Producer: Fiona Clampin(Photo: Lester Flatt (right) and Earl Scruggs (left) perform with The Foggy Mountain Boys at the Grand Ole Opry circa 1960. Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

The Art of War is one of the most important military strategy texts ever written, and it has become just as influential, perhaps even more so, in the worlds of business, sport, and politics. Bridget Kendall learns what the 2,000-year-old treatise has to say about deception, spying, and ruthlessness, and asks why it has come to be viewed as a guide to success in life in general. But has it been misunderstood? We discuss whether it’s better viewed as a guide to avoiding war and conflict, rather than a manual for how to fight. Plus, we try to get to the bottom of who really wrote it and learn about the blood-soaked period of Chinese history in which it’s believed to have been created.Producer: Simon TulettCredit: Excerpts from the text were based on translations from Michael Nylan's book (see below), published by W. W. Norton & Company, 2020. Contributors:Michael Nylan, professor of early Chinese history at the University of California, Berkeley, in the United States, and author of 'The Art of War: A New Translation by Michael Nylan'; Derek Yuen, a scholar of strategy and international relations from Hong Kong, and author of ‘Deciphering Sun Tzu: How to Read the Art of War’; Peter Lorge, associate professor of pre-modern Chinese and military history at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, in the United States, and author of ‘Sun Tzu in the West’.(Picture: Terracotta warriors - sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China who unified the country after the Warring States period. Credit: Getty Images)

Mohandas K Gandhi’s decades-long campaign against British rule was the driving force behind Indian independence in August 1947.The way he did it - through ‘satyagraha’, or non-violent resistance - made him one of the most famous and revered thinkers of the 20th century, and has inspired protest movements around the world.Rajan Datar explores the experiences, ideas and people that turned Gandhi from a timid schoolboy and failed lawyer into a man bold enough to take on the might of the British Empire.Plus, we ask whether he achieved the kind of Indian independence he really wanted, and find out why his legacy is the subject of intense debate in India to this day.Producer: Simon TulettContributors:Tridip Suhrud, a professor at CEPT university, in Ahmedabad, India, and a Gandhi scholar who has translated many of his works into English, including the first critical edition of Gandhi’s autobiography, ‘My Experiments with Truth’; Karuna Mantena, a professor of political science at Columbia University in the US, currently working on a book about Gandhi’s political thought; Anil Nauriya, a writer on freedom struggles in India and Africa and a lawyer based at the Supreme Court in New Delhi.Image: Gandhi photographed in London in 1931 (Credit: Rühe/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

Throughout history, fragrance has been used to scent both the body and our surroundings. With just one drop, perfume has the potential to stir memories, awaken the senses and even influence how we feel about ourselves. But what’s the story behind this liquid luxury in a bottle, now found on the shelves of bathrooms and department stores worldwide?In this programme, Bridget Kendall and guests explore the modern history of perfume, including its flowering in France and the explosive chemical discoveries that helped to make fine fragrance what it is today. They also explore perfume’s ancient roots and ask: what’s in a name?Bridget is joined by scientist and critic Luca Turin, writer and curator Lizzie Ostrom and the perfumer Thomas Fontaine. Also featuring William Tullett and James McHugh.(Photo: Perfume bottle and flowers. Credit: Brian Hagiwara/Getty Images)

Eleonora Duse was an actress ahead of her time. As a performer in the late 19th century when elaborate gestures, exotic costumes and lavish decors were the norm, Eleonora Duse stunned audiences with her truthfulness and intense absorption in the characters she played. She wore no make-up, you could see her blush or turn pale, she was a master of subtle body language and vocal modulation, and her aim was to eliminate the self and become her characters. Today she is often credited with having inspired modern acting, and the Russian theatre director Stanislavsky saw her as the perfect actress, and was greatly influenced by her when he created his acting method. Born in 1858 in what is now northern Italy, Eleonora Duse started acting at the age of four years old with her family’s touring theatre troupe. By her twenties, working as both a theatre manager and a performer, she began to achieve worldwide popularity, travelling all over the world, from South America to Russia to Egypt. She was soon acknowledged as one of the greatest actresses of her generation and her independent lifestyle turned her into an early feminist icon. So what was the secret of her genius and why is she largely forgotten today? And with no recordings of her voice, how do we know she was such a great performer?Joining Bridget Kendall is Dr Anna Sica, Professor of Theatre at the University of Palermo in Italy, author of The Murray Edwards Duse Collection, and D’Amore e D’Arte, the letters written to Duse from her Russian lover Alexander Wolkoff, soon to be published in English. Professor Paul Fryer, the co-editor of an essay collection on Eleonora Duse and Cenere (Cenere is the Italian word for Ashes, the title of the silent film Duse made in 1916, and the only record of Duse actually performing). Paul Fryer also directs the Stanislavsky research centre at the University of Leeds. And Dr Enza de Francisci, lecturer in Translation studies at the University of Glasgow, who specialises in the critical reception of Duse’s plays, and is the author of A 'New' Woman in Verga and Pirandello: From Page to Stage.The reader is Cecilia Gragnani.Produced by Anne Khazam for the BBC World Service.(Photo: Eleonora Duse in “Lady of the Camelias” by Alexandre Dumas Fils. Credit: ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

In Mexico the name La Malinche has become synonymous with treachery and betrayal - it even forms one of the country’s most vicious insults. Some have described its owner, an indigenous slave who became the interpreter and mistress of conquistador Hernán Cortés, as the most hated woman in Mexico’s history.But by helping the Spanish topple the Aztecs in the early sixteenth century was she really guilty of selling out her own people, or simply doing everything she could to survive? Might we credit her with limiting the lives lost in the bloody conflict – one she knew her people could not hope to win?Bridget Kendall explores the little-known life, and hotly-contested legacy of one of the most controversial figures in Latin American history, and the role she played in the meeting of the Old World and the New.We hear how La Malinche’s story, and motives, have been re-interpreted over the last 500 years, and learn why she remains important in discussions of national identity, gender, culture and politics in Mexico to this day.Producer: Simon TulettContributors: Camilla Townsend, distinguished professor of history at Rutgers University, USA, and author of ‘Malintzin’s Choices: An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico’; Dr Fernando Cervantes, a historian of early modern Spain and Spanish America at the University of Bristol, UK, and author of ‘Conquistadores: A New History’; Sandra Messinger Cypess, professor emerita of Latin American literature at the University of Maryland, USA, and author of ‘La Malinche in Mexican Literature: From History to Myth’.(Picture: La Malinche – a Mexican engraving, 1885, from the library of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain. Credit: Prisma/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

There are hundreds of monuments to the poet and painter Taras Shevchenko not just in Ukraine but all over the world. It is hard to overstate the importance of Shevchenko for most Ukrainians. For them he is not just the national poet who breathed new life into the Ukrainian language but a symbol of their country’s independence. His words kept the national spirit alive during the decades of forced Russification in the 19th Century and they found renewed resonance during the 2014 Maidan uprising. But Shevchenko's work is less well known beyond eastern Europe. To remedy this Bridget Kendall is joined by Ukrainian writers and literary scholars Olha Poliukhovych from the National University of Kyiv - Mohyla Academy and Mykhailo Nazarenko from Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University, and by professor of Slavonic studies at Vienna University Michael Moser. The reader is Ivantiy Novak.(Photo: A monument to Taras Shevchenko by Igor Grechanyk in Kyiv, Ukraine. Credit: Sergii Kharchenko/NurPhoto/Corbis/Getty Images)