Podcast
Culture
Death & life
Podcasts
Re-enchanting
1 min read

Dame Sue Black: re-enchanting death

The leading forensic scientist talks with Justin and Belle about her work and our reluctance to look death in the eye.

Nick is the senior editor of Seen & Unseen.

A woman guest on a podcast sits at a table with a mic in front, gesturing to the side with both hands.

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Professor Lady Sue Black is one of the world’s leading forensic scientists. Police forces, the Foreign Office and the UN have called upon her evidence in countless high-profile investigations. She is currently President of St. John’s College, Oxford, and in 2021 entered the House of Lords as a cross-bench peer. 

She has penned numerous books, including the Saltire Prize winning All That Remains: A Life in Death and her latest book, Written in Bone: hidden stories in what we leave behind. In 2024, Professor Lady Black was also appointed to the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle – the highest honour in Scotland. 

In this episode of Re-Enchanting, Justin and Belle speak to Sue about her first time working on a dead body, the stories that our bodies tell after death, her work in the wake of the Kosovo war and the 2004 tsunami, and - ultimately - how our reluctance to look death in the eye is profoundly hurting us. 

There’s more to life than the world we can see. Re-Enchanting is a podcast from Seen & Unseen recorded at Lambeth Palace Library, the home of the Centre for Cultural Witness. Justin Brierley and Belle Tindall engage faith and spirituality with leading figures in science, history, politics, art and education. Can our culture be re-enchanted by the vision of Christianity?

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Podcast
Creed
Easter
Podcasts
Seen & Unseen Aloud
1 min read

The Easter series, on Seen & Unseen Aloud

Listen to eight daily articles on what Easter means, especially selected for Holy Week.

Natalie produces and narrates The Seen & Unseen Aloud podcast. She's an Anglican minister and a trained actor.

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James Kovin on Unsplash.

Listen or read

Each day from Palm Sunday (13 April), we're releasing an Easter-related article on the Seen & Unseen Aloud podcast.

Use the links below to listen on your preferred podcast platform.

New episodes will appear each day.

Listen on Acast

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Amazon Music

Or read now

Can't wait? You can also read the articles using the links in the title.

Palm Sunday: When creation and justice converge

In a world of climate catastrophe, what does the message of Easter have to offer? N.T. Wright contemplates the hope of a new heaven and a new earth.

Monday. Beyond pancakes and chocolate: a sensory guide to Lent and Easter

It’s a time to discover the whole range of human experience and emotion at Easter, writes Lianne Howard-Dace.

Tuesday. Pilate: a lord of misrule

Agents of chaos still inhabit our world today, says George Pitcher.

Wednesday. Life before death

Embracing death, parading it down streets, and even downplaying their egos, Julie Canlis contemplates why Christians do death.

Thursday. Pesellino: making the vital visible

Andrew Davison recalls learning deep wisdom from a child when he visited an exhibition at the National Gallery, London.

Good Friday. Cinematic passions

Directors Gibson, Darbont, Pasolini, Eastwood and Scorsese all feature in priest Yaroslav Walker’s top five Good Friday movies to watch.

Saturday. Identifying as human has deadly implications

Barnabas Aspray explores how the incarnation and an execution impacts humanity.

Easter Sunday. Why the anthropologists miss the point of Easter

Graham Tomlin unpacks why Easter is more than an illustration of new life.

Find out more about Seen & Unseen Aloud

Seen & Unseen Aloud podcasts features a weekly editor's pick of the best new articles on the magazine site.

Episodes usually consist of three or four articles and go live on Mondays. 

We also release themed boxsets from time to time.

Support this podcast

Since March 2023, our readers have enjoyed over hundreds of episodes of our three podcasts. All for free.
This is made possible through the generosity of our amazing community of supporters.
If you enjoy Seen & Unseen Aloud, would you consider making a gift towards our work?
Do so by joining Behind The Seen. Alongside other benefits, you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing my reading and reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.
Graham Tomlin
Editor-in-Chief