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Thinking Allowed

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Thinking Allowed: HG Wells, Utopias, Paraphernalia

15/06/2011

HG Wells, Utopias, Paraphernalia

BBC Radio 4 - Thinking Allowed, HG Wells, Utopias, Paraphernalia

Combs, keys, glasses - how everyday objects can have special powers. Also, Utopia.

Some everyday things - keys, combs, glasses - have special powers. Steven Connor talks about how paraphernalia can have an almost magical power. Also, Utopia and sociology.

HG Wells was so involved in establishing sociology in this country that he wrote to Prime Minister Balfour to ask for a special endowment so he could give up on his novels. His emphasis was on utopias, he felt that social science could only progress if an ideal version of society was created with which to compare our own. He lost his battle but the sociologist Ruth Levitas tells Laurie that sociology has become boring and that Wells was right!
Also, some everyday things - keys, combs, glasses - have the ability to enchant or absorb. Laurie Taylor talks to Steven Connor and Michael Bywater about how paraphernalia can have an almost magical power. 
Producer: Charlie Taylor.

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