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Yes, yes, yes, writing up takes its toll. Post in a fully public podium like this one need a bit more though than a quick comment in other semi-public spheres.

Anyway, been enjoying this particular podcast a lot and it kind of relates to earlier discussions here about the relationship between images and piety, icons and iconoclasm. There are several that you should be able to access via the website of the Royal Academy of Arts – I for one really enjoyed the Archbishop of Canterbury’s lecture on Icons and the Practice of Prayer, a transcript of which you can find on his blog - but I really wanted to draw your attention to the panel discussion Icons and Iconoclasm: Religious Imagery in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The panellists are Professor Judith Herrin (King's College London), Dr Sabiha Al Khemir (Museum of Islamic Art, Doha), and Professor Philip Alexander, University of Manchester Centre for Jewish Studies. The session was shared by Bettany Hughes. They discussed the status of images in the three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam as well as different occasions and forms of iconoclasm associated with the three religions. I’d love to hint you towards a transcript of this really interesting discussion but fear you will have to make do with the podcast (if you use Quicktime you should actually be able to download it - 30.3 MB – and listen to it at your own convenience offline).

On a completely different note – for a discussion of the latest interest in Africa including Nigeria among UK broadcasters let me point you to Nii’s review of BBC’s African journey with Jonathan Dimbleby (Part 1) on MyWeku (its unfortunately not on YouTube except for short tasters) and a brief discussion of the corporation’s The New Kings of Nigeria on Naijablog (Jeremy Weate also briefly discusses Dimbleby’s African Journey).

Anyway, let me return to the dungeons of my PhD and leave you with Iris 9JA's beautiful photographs of various locations in Nigeria.

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