Pete Seeger's link to Medieval Poetry

With the sad passing of Pete Seeger on Tuesday, the lament for a lost generation – Where Have All the Flowers Gone – will have been played more often than usual in homes across the world this week. What listeners may not realize is that Seeger's famous protest song belongs to an extremely ancient literary tradition known as the 'ubi sunt theme'. Dr Chris Jones, from the School of English, discusses the use of this rhetorical device in Pete Seeger's song, in Anglo-Saxon and Latin medieval poetry, and in the work of the rapper Nas, on Radio 3's, The Verb, Friday, 31 January 2014, at 10pm. Tune in to find out more!

New Generation Thinkers Essay: The Entrepreneur

Philip Roscoe of the School of Management, a winner of the BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Thinkers, was sole contributor on BBC Radio 3 speaking about the myth of the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur is a cultural figure and policy fix, the trope of the lone hero who conquers the world and saves the economy. Steve Jobs epitomised this figure. But how much can one person do, and does the myth of the entrepreneur have dangerous repercussions for the rest of us? Philip examined the changing role of the entrepreneur, arguing that the myths surrounding these men and women are too simplistic, that thinkers from Tolstoy to Schumpeter to Hayek have long debated the role of the entrepreneur and what society can expect them to achieve. [listen to the 15 minute iPlayer broadcast]