Michael Sandel - Reith Lectures - A New Citizenship

The 2009 Reith Lectures
The 2009 Reith Lecture series from the BBC has just finished. All four lectures are available online at both the BBC, here, and more locally, on the Big Ideas, ABC, Australia.

A New Citizenship, Professor Michael Sander
This years contribution comes from Professor Michael Sandel. His series discusses a topic dear to my heart, 'A New Citizenship - the prospects of a new politics of the common good.'

• Markets and Morals
  Lecture 1 - considers the expansion and moral limits of markets.
  Listen
  
• Morality in Politics
  Lecture 2 - what role, if any, there is for moral argument in politics.
  Listen
• Genetics and Morality
  Lecture 3 -how we should use our ever-increasing scientific knowledge.
  Listen
  
• A new politics of the common good
  Lecture 4 - the case for a moral and civic renewal in democratic politics.
  Listen
  

Recorded at George Washington University in Washington DC, 'he calls for a new politics of the common good and says that we need to think of ourselves as citizens, not just consumers'

The UK Open University
The Open University is running a series of parallel discussion points on the series. There are also links to other sources, here.

The Archive
The BBC are putting together an online archive of the Reith Lecture series, here. They have a full list of all the speakers. Some have audio links so that we can re-listen - including some classics.
The first of these is 1948 Bertrand Russell, Authority and the Individual . Others include:

1958 Bernard Lovell, The Individual and The Universe
1966 John K. Galbraith, The New Industrial State
1977 A. H. Halsey, Change In British Society
1990 Jonathan Sacks, The Persistence of Faith
1991 Steve Jones, The Language of the Genes
1999 Anthony Giddens, Runaway World

2000's
The whole of the 2000 onwards series is available:

2000 Chris Patten, Sir John Browne, Thomas Lovejoy, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Vandana Shiva, Charles, Prince of Wales, Respect For The Earth



2001 Tom Kirkwood, The End Of Age

2002 Onora O'Neill, A Question of Trust

2003 Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, The Emerging Mind



2004 Wole Soyinka, Climate of Fear

2005 Lord Broers, The Triumph of Technology

2006 Daniel Barenboim, In the Beginning was Sound



2007 Jeffrey Sachs, Bursting at the Seams

2008 Professor Jonathan Spence, Chinese Vistas

2009 Michael Sandel, A New Citizenship

The Te Papa blog; postscript on Dr Seddon Bennington
I was a little unsure about Te Papa using their blog as the place to offer condolences on the death of Dr Bennington, and his companion, Marcella Jackson. Some might find this a little old fashioned, especially for someone who lives and breathes online, but it didn't feel the right forum.

I was wrong. The blog has proven to be a brilliant way for ex colleagues from around the world to share their thoughts and experiences. Many are very moving. all of them a vindication of the Te Papa initiative, here.