The tortured poet. The rebellious scientist. The monstrous artist. The tech disruptor.

You can tell what a society values by who it labels as a genius. You can also tell who it excludes, who it enables, and what it is prepared to tolerate. Taking us from the Renaissance Florence of Leonardo da Vinci to the Florida rocket launches of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Helen Lewis joins us to unravel a word that we all use — without really questioning what it means. 

In conversation with acclaimed satirist and screenwriter Armando Iannucci she will draw from her new book The Genius Myth to uncover the secret of the Beatles’ success, discuss how biographers should solve the ‘Austen Problem’ and reveal why Stephen Hawking thought IQ tests were for losers. 

Join us on June 19 as Lewis and Iannucci ask if the modern idea of genius — a class of special people — is distorting our view of the world.