Hello, Stranger by Will Buckingham

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Hello, Stranger by Will Buckingham: Episode 1

Episode 1

BBC Radio 4 - Hello, Stranger by Will Buckingham, Episode 1

Philosopher and traveller Will Buckingham explores our complex relationship with strangers

Philosopher Will Buckingham explores the history of our complex relationship with strangers. Today, a chance encounter with a stranger brings comfort after the death of his partner

When Will Buckingham's partner died, he coped with his grief by throwing his doors open to new people, and travelling alone to far-flung places among strangers. 'Strangers are unentangled in our worlds and lives,' he writes, 'and this lack can lighten our own burdens.' Starting from that experience of personal grief, he draws on his knowledge as a philosopher and anthropologist, as well as a keen and wide-roaming traveller, to explore the tensions, anxieties, joys and rewards of our relationship with strangers. Taking in stories of loneliness, exile, travel and hospitality from early history, classical Greece and Rome to the present day, he holds out the possibility of an antidote to the fears and isolation of an increasingly fragmented world.

Reader: Mark Jeary-Fairbairn
Abridged and produced by Sara Davies

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