麻豆社

Pornography is a topic that invites controversy from every angle. But some 30% of all internet bandwidth is estimated to carry pornography, and much of it seemingly increasingly violent. As online pornography grows, it's becoming difficult to turn a blind eye to the industry and its effects on human interaction thereof.聽 Two academics at Middlesex University are setting up a peer-reviewed journal to look at pornography as an academic subject 鈥� but they've been criticised heavily for 鈥榮upporting the porn industry鈥�.聽 Is it possible to talk about pornography and assess the effects without being criticised for being 鈥減ro-porn鈥�?聽 Dr Clarissa Smith is co-editor of the Porn Studies Journal and Reader in Sexual Cultures at the University of Sunderland, and Jenny Kemp works with Zero Tolerance - a charity working to tackle the causes of men鈥檚 violence against women.

Sonia Boyce, MBE is a British Afro-Caribbean multi-media artist. Her work often explores issues of identity, gender and ethnicity in Britain today using aspects of both contemporary urban lives and the historical events in which those experiences are rooted. Her current exhibition 鈥楽cat: Sound and Collaboration鈥� at INIVA (Institute of International Visual Arts) explores the significance of sound in art, playing with history and social identity through the re-appropriation of archive. The exhibition also features aspects of 鈥楾he Devotional Collection鈥�, a multi-media archive which charts the history of black women in the music industry. Sonia joins Jane Garvey to talk about her current projects and reflect on how her work, and the industry, has changed since she burst on to the British Art scene in the eighties.

One of Britain鈥檚 best-known poets, Fleur Adcock, discusses her latest collection of poems, Glass Wings. She received an OBE in 1996, and the Queen鈥檚 Gold Medal for Poetry in 2006 for Poems 1960-2000. Her new book with her trademark wry humour is full of poems that look at the trials of old age, marriage, family wills and encounters with insects in her native New Zealand.

Research by the Dfe shows that a quarter of British nurseries make a loss and the average salary of child minders is around 拢7,600, yet parents in the UK pay more for childcare than most of their European counterparts.聽 The cost of childcare is rising faster than household incomes and now accounts for more than 25% of the average family鈥檚 net income.聽 As part of our series of programmes this week on the economics of childcare, we look at just why childcare is so expensive in the UK and what government plans are to ease the burden on parents.聽 Jane is joined by Anand Shukla of the Daycare Trust which campaigns for affordable, accessible childcare, and Purnima Tanuku from the National Day Nurseries Association.