ZEITGEIST

I swear I did not arrange it this way, but it happens that this morning's weekly edition of In Our Time on Radio Four is about Emile Zola and the Dreyfus case - which is the year two topic for HCJ today. I just heard a trailer on the Today programme.

In Our Time is a sort of weekly seminar about PPE type subjects, plus related literary and scientific concepts. It is the BBC's flagship intellectual discussion programme. There are implications for all three years of the course.

YEAR THREE: The Dreyfus case was the original and massive miscarriage of justice case (re: The Innocence Project). The Dreyfus case and Zola's 'J'Accuse' should form at least part of the background to the relevant section of your Innocence Project FYP (the bit which is about the legal/historic background).

YEAR TWO: The Dreyfus case and its ramifications is the first topic in HCJ3, and you be will be examined on it, so listening to this show is a good way to get it all on board.

YEAR ONE: The format of In Our Time is exactly the same as the type of seminar we are starting you out on. Melvyn Bragg is in the role of the tutor (chairing the discussion) and the others present (generally the top academics in the country on whatever topic it is) chat in an informed way directed by him. This is thus a perfect example, a veritable Platonic ideal, of what our seminars should be like. Also if you you search the In Our Time site you can find seminars on all the topics on the entire HCJ curriculum. There was a good one fairly recently, for example, on Jonathan Swift who is coming up soon. And here is one in the 'listen again' archive about John Locke's political theories.