Paul Rekret discusses his new book on BBC Radio 4
Paul Rekret appeared on BBC Radio 4’s ‘The World This Weekend‘ programme to discuss a book he has recently published on representations of childhood in popular culture. The interview can be found around 22 minutes into the programme
About the book:
Sometimes popular music registers our concerns and anxieties more lucidly than we realize. This is evident in the case of an ideal of childhood innocence in rapid decay in recent decades.
So claims Down with Childhood, as it takes in psychedelia’s preoccupation with rebirth and inner-children, the fascination with juvenilia amidst an ebbing UK rave scene and dozens of nursery rhyme hip-hop choruses spawned by a hit Jay-Z tune.
In the process, a novel argument begins to emerge relating the often remarked crisis of childhood to changing experiences of work and play and ultimately, to an ongoing capitalist crisis that underlies them.
Further information can be found here:
About the Author:
Paul Rekret is Associate Professor in Politics at Richmond American International University. He is the author of Down with Childhood (Repeater 2017) Philosophy, Politics, Polemics: Derrida and Foucault (Rowan & Littlefield) and he has published widely on contemporary cultural and political theory as well as writing on popular culture for The Quietus and Cesura//Acceso, among others. He is producer and host of ‘Beholder Halfway’, a series of radio essays airing regularly on Resonance.Extra.
