Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk ,or fchmediaservices@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*
Saturday 16th
More 4 - When The Moors Ruled Europe - "Bettany Hughes traces the story of the mysterious and misunderstood Moors, the Islamic society that ruled in Spain for 700 years, but whose legacy was virtually erased from Western history.
In 711 AD, a tribe of newly converted Muslims from North Africa crossed the straits of Gibraltar and invaded Spain. Known as The Moors, they went on to build a rich and powerful society.
Its capital, Cordoba, was the largest and most civilised city in Europe, with hospitals, libraries and a public infrastructure light years ahead of anything in England at the time.
Amongst the many things that were introduced to Europe by Muslims at this time were: a huge body of classical Greek texts that had been lost to the rest of Europe for centuries (kick-starting the Renaissance); mathematics and the numbers we use today; advanced astronomy and medical practices; fine dining; the concept of romantic love; paper; deodorant; and even erection creams.
This wasn't the rigid, fundamentalist Islam of some people's imaginations, but a progressive, sensuous and intellectually curious culture. But when the society collapsed, Spain was fanatically re-Christianised; almost every trace of seven centuries of Islamic rule was ruthlessly removed.
It is only now, six centuries later, that The Moors' influences on European life and culture are finally beginning to be fully understood.
Sunday 17th
BBC1 - Does Christianity Have A Future? - "According to some, Christianity in the UK has no future. Closure of churches and falling attendances in the last few decades appear to show that the Christian faith is in terminal decline.
Ann Widdecombe examines the evidence, and discovers at least three areas of Christian growth which are bucking the trend - immigration into the Catholic Church, the Alpha course and the Black Pentecostalist Churches.
But even if these do arrest the decline, what about the very long term? Can Christianity survive in a world in which the young seem even less interested in Christianity than their parents? And in such a world, how is it possible to justify an established Church of England and all its privileges?
Monday 18th
BBC4 - The Gene Code - 2 part series - "SynopsisDr Adam Rutherford takes the viewer on a rollercoaster ride as he explores the consequences of one of the biggest scientific projects of all time - the decoding of the entire human genome in 2000. Adam discovers that every human carries the entire story of life on earth hidden in his or her DNA and sees how we are all linked directly to the origins of life and to the first creatures with backbones. He also investigates the implications of the fact that for much of its existence, the human race was an endangered species."
Tuesday 19th
BBC1 - The Baby Born In A Concentration Camp - "Anka Bergman gave birth to her baby daughter Eva in a Nazi concentration camp.
During her pregnancy, Anka witnessed the horrors of Auschwitz and endured six months of forced labour. If the Nazis found a woman was pregnant, she could be sent straight to the gas chambers. Amazingly, Anka's pregnancy went unnoticed for months.
Anka eventually gave birth - on the day she arrived at an extermination camp. Anka weighed just five stone and was on the brink of starvation; baby Eva weighed just three pounds.
Remarkably, both mother and daughter survived, and are living in Cambridge. Now they tell their story.
Thursday 21st
BBC1 - Jon Venables: What Went Wrong? - "The man who brought Jon Venables and Robert Thompson to justice for the murder of two-year-old Jamie Bulger goes on a journey to find out what happened to Jon, the system that was designed to rehabilitate him, and what led to him being returned to jail. Featuring experts, practitioners, and people who knew Venables, this thought-provoking documentary lifts the lid on the system of secure children's homes, and asks if more should be done for the next generation of serious child criminals."
Friday 22nd
BBC4 - Secrets Of The Arabian Nights - "The Arabian Nights arrived in the West 300 years ago and its stories have entranced generations of children and seduced adults with a vision of an exotic, magical Middle East. Richard E Grant wants to know why the book he loved as a child still has such a hold on our imagination. He travels to Paris to discover how the stories of Sinbad, Ali Baba and Aladdin were first brought to the West by the pioneering Arabist Antoine Galland in the early 18th century. The Nights became an overnight literary sensation and were translated into all the major European languages. In Cairo, Richard explores the medieval Islamic world which first created them and finds that some of the stories are still controversial because of their sexually-explicit content. Richard meets the Egyptian writer Gamal al Ghitani, who received death threats when he published a new edition of the book, and finds that the ribald and riotous stories in the Nights represent a very different view of Islam than fundamentalism."
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*This applies to staff members and students at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence.
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