Arts & Ideas: Recent Episodes
BBC Radio 3
Leading artists, writers, thinkers discuss the ideas shaping our lives & links between past & present and new academic research.
Do we have a responsibility to inform ourselves about the state of the world? Is the experience of some people valued more highly than that of others? Matthew Sweet investigates the ethics of knowledge in Radio 4's round table discussion programme. With: Quassim Cassam, philosopher and author of Intellectual VicesHavi Carel, a philosopher who's worked extensively on imbalances of knowledge in healthcare and other areas Ian Kidd, philosopher specializing in the ethics of knowledgeEbony Reid, author of Trapped Lives Marianna Spring, the BBC's misinformation correspondentProducer: Luke Mulhall
Part of a series of programmes across Radio 4 looking at what drives us apart and how to bring us together – look for Common Ground.
What does trade set in motion beyond the exchange of goods? Anne McElvoy explores the movement of commerce across time as a carrier of habits, ideas, ambitions and influence, as well as of material things. From the early modern world, where trade was entangled with colonial expansion and shaped by unequal, sometimes unexpected encounters, to the supply chains and diplomatic negotiations of the present, this discussion asks how economic exchange has also mediated cultural contact. Alongside rivalry and wealth, how has trade given rise to its own languages of civility, reciprocity and trust?
Guests include:
Nandini Das is Professor of Early Modern Literature and Culture at Oxford University and author of This Little World: A New History of Tudor and Stuart England
Jeremy Hunt is a former Chancellor of the Exchequer and the author of Can We Be Rich Again?
Soumaya Keynes is an economist and columnist at the Financial Times and the author of How to Win a Trade War
Professor Rana Mitter is ST Lee Chair in US-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School
Dr Lauren Working is a Lecturer in Early Modern Literature at York University and author of A Golden World: How the Americas Transformed Renaissance England
Producer: Ruth Watts
Shahidha Bari investigates the child’s-eye view of the world. From navigating AI to living through war and the joys of reading, what makes children’s perspectives so distinctive? With writer Katherine Rundell, psychotherapist Josh Cohen, nature writer and novelist Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, historian Emma Butcher and psychologist Nomisha Kurian.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
How has the figure of the outsider or eccentric been used to explore English culture, history, politics, and our relationship with nature and the countryside? Matthew Sweet discusses, including a re-reading of Sylvia Townsend Warner's 1926 novel Lolly Willowes, in which a middle aged woman leaves her suburban life behind to become a witch. With philosopher Charles Foster, literary historian Jade Munslow Ong, political philosopher Sophie Scott Brown, and psychotherapist Mark Vernon. Producer: Luke Mulhall
300 years after the publication of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Matthew Sweet looks at satire, past and present. How can satirists reflect critically and humorously on political events in an age of social media saturation and at a time when reality can seem stranger than fiction?
He is joined by:
Andrew Hunter Murray, comedian, writer and host of Radio 4's The Naked Week. His new book is Bad Deeds.
Jan Ravens, actor and impressionist, known for her work on Spitting Image and Radio 4's Dead Ringers
Rosie Holt, actor and comedian. Rosie's shows Churchill's Urinal and Rosie Holt: The Illegal Aliens have landed! will both be at Edinburgh Festival.
Tom Peck, Parliamentary sketch writer for The Times
and
Siôn Parkinson, artist, Research Associate at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and 2026 AHRC/BBC New Generation Thinker.
Producer: Eliane Glaser
Anne McElvoy and guests discuss the concentration, distribution and morality of wealth now and look back at An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published by the Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith in 1776, which gives an early account of what builds nations' wealth and introduced concepts such as free markets, the division of labour, and productivity.
Our guests for this episode of BBC Radio 4's Friday night ideas discussion programme are:
Vicky Pryce, economist and business consultant and co-author of Mismanaged Decline What Politicians Won’t Tell You About the Economy
Maha Rafi Atal, Adam Smith Senior Lecturer in Political Economy at the University of Glasgow and author of the forthcoming book When Companies Rule: Corporate Power from the East India Company to Silicon Valley. The University is holding a series of events to mark the 250th anniversary of the publication of The Wealth of Nations.
Dafydd Daniel, Lecturer in Divinity at the University of St Andrews
Allister Heath, business journalist
Hettie O'Brien, Guardian writer and author of The Asset Class: How Private Equity Turned Capitalism Against Itself
Producer: Eliane Glaser
You can hear another discussion about searching for economic solutions in the most recent episode of Start the Week, Radio 4's Monday morning discussion programme where Tom Sutcliffe was joined by Mariana Mazzucato, Jeremy Hunt and Patrick Foulis.
Freedom is one of the leading values of our society. But with freedom comes responsibility, which is a much more contested principle. Deciding where responsibility lies, and what it means to take it, is the job of the courts. It is also debated in Parliament and in the media. It is often at issue on the psychotherapist’s couch. For Radio 4’s arts and ideas discussion programme, Shahidha Bari gathers a panel of experts who deal with the concept of responsibility in very different contexts. Recorded in front of an audience at the Hay Festival, Shahidha's guests are:
Baroness Hale served as the most senior judge in the UK. Her books include Spider Woman, and With the Law on Our SidePsychotherapist and artist Philippa Perry. Her books include The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read, How to Stay Sane and now a crime novel Shrink Solves Murder Philosopher Simon Critchley. His books include On Mysticism, Tragedy: The Greeks and Us, and What We Think About When We Think About FootballFormer Downing Street Director of Communications Guto Harri
Producer: Luke Mulhall
The links between food and philosophy, ideas about experimentation, taste and how food and traditions become part of our identity are explored by Matthew Sweet in Radio 4's round-table discussion programme. His guests are: Author John Lanchester, who writes restaurant reviews and whose latest novel is called Look What You Made Me Do
Food writer Felicity Cloake, who writes a Cook the Perfect column for The Guardian newspaper and has published books called Red Sauce, Brown Sauce: A British Breakfast Odyssey, Peach Street to Lobster Lane: Coast to Coast in Search of Real American Cuisine and now her debut novel The Underdog.
Professor Barry Smith, director of the Institute of Philosophy at the University of London's School of Advanced Study
Philosopher Suki Finn, whose book What's in a Donut Hole? uses food to explore classic philosophical puzzles
Author Samantha Ellis, whose book Chopping Onions on My Heart is a memoir about Iraqi Jewish food, language and culture
Producer: Eliane Glaser
‘Technologies of the self’ is a phrase from the French philosopher Michel Foucault to describe things people might do to shape the people they are, like dieting, exercise, journaling, or in an earlier age perhaps like prayer, or confession. Shahidha Bari hosts Radio 4's roundtable discussion programming discussing how this idea might help us make sense of the age of social media influencers and lifestyle trends.Her guests are:
Elizabeth Oldfield, host of The Sacred podcast, author of Fully Alive: Tending The Soul In Turbulent TimesAnouchka Grose, psychotherapist and author of The Revolution Will Be InternalisedTiffany Watt Smith, historian of emotions whose most recent book is Bad Friend: On Joyous Imperfect loveHeather Widows, philosopher and author of Perfect Me: Beauty As An Ethical Idealand Daniele Lorenzini, philosopher and Foucault scholar
Producer: Luke Mulhall
From taking the middle ground to the mid-life crisis, Middle England to middle managers, to being a middle child - is occupying a position in the middle out of fashion? Anne McElvoy hosts Radio 4's ideas discussion programme and her guests this week for a middling conversation are:
Journalist Catherine Carr. Her new book Who's the Favourite?: The Loving, Messy Realities of Sibling Relationships explores being a middle child and the relevance of birth order.
Writer and broadcaster Mark Lawson, who has written novels set in Middle England.
Symeon Brown, home affairs correspondent at Channel 4 news, whose forthcoming book is The Good, the Black and the Boujee: The Story of Britain's New Black Middle Class.
Adrian Wooldridge, journalist, author and global business columnist at Bloomberg Opinion. His recent book is Centrists of the World Unite! The Lost Genius of Liberalism.
Claire Ainsley, former adviser to Keir Starmer, now at the Progressive Policy Institute.
Producer: Eliane Glaser
How do weapons exert real and symbolic power, both now and in history?
Joining Matthew Sweet for Radio 4's roundtable discussion programme about ideas are:
The former soldier and politician Tobias Ellwood
The sculptor Hew Locke, whose artworks exploring colonial power have featured weaponry
The Renaissance historian Catherine Fletcher, whose latest book is The Firearm Revolution: From Renaissance Italy to the European Empires
The historian and broadcaster Mark Urban, whose books include Tank and Rifles
and
Hailey Austin, Lecturer in Visual Media and Culture at Abertay University who researches comics and videogames.
Producer: Eliane Glaser
From spiritual cleanliness to purity spirals: Matthew Sweet is joined by guests including David Aaronovitch; Catherine Coldstream, author of Cloistered – My Years as a Nun; Linda Woodhead, Professor of the Sociology of Religion at King's College, University of London; Izabella Scott, author of The Bed Trick; and Louise Brangan, author of The Fallen: The Magdalene Laundries and Ireland’s Legacy of Silence. They’ll be discussing ideas of purity in political ideology, religion, anthropology and the experiences of teenage girls.
Producer Luke Mulhall
From Spinoza's thinking and the approach of different religions to the Dickens' character Uriah Heep and the "humble brag" - in Radio 4's late night ideas discussion programme Matthew Sweet and guests explore humility.
Lamorna Ash is a writer and journalist and the author of Don't Forget We're Here Forever, which explores what it means to be a Christian for young people throughout the UK today and reflected on her own journey into faith.
Sir Robert Buckland is the former Conservative MP for South Swindon, a former Lord Chancellor and Solicitor General. He is a practicing barrister with Foundry Chambers, a visiting law professor at the LSE and the Third Church Estates Commissioner.
Aaron Reeves is Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and co author of Born to Rule: The Making and Remaking of the British Elite with Sam Friedman.
Ceri Sullivan is a Professor of English Literature at Cardiff University. Her research has encompassed the managerial techniques presented in Shakespeare's history plays, pragmatism in literary texts and devotional poetry.
Dr Dan Taylor is Senior Lecturer in Social and Political Thought at the Open University. He is the author of Spinoza and the Politics of Freedom and is involved in long term projects with long-term projects examining inclusion and housing in Barking and Dagenham; unpaid care in Gateshead; and community in the Fens.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Oracy - the ability to express oneself fluently - has been included in plans to modernise the national curriculum, with a new focus on equipping young people with the skills they need for life and work. In Radio 4's round-table discussion programme, Anne McElvoy and guests look at how you teach oracy and explore the value of passing on traditional knowledge using methods like songs and poems. Joining Anne are
Reetika Subramanian is based at the University of East Anglia and is currently a researcher in residence with BBC Radio 4. She hosts the Climate Brides podcast and studies women’s work songs as records of environmental change
Edith Hall, Professor of Classics at Durham University who champions the use of Classical rhetoric to foster oracy in schools
Philip Collins, former speechwriter to Tony Blair
Edith and Philip have taken part in Our Public House, a theatre performance staged by Dash Arts that builds on workshops with over 700 people nationwide who shared their visions for our nation's future. Our Public House opens at Leeds Playhouse and tours the UK from May.
Stephen Batchelor, secular Buddhist teacher and writer and author of Buddha, Socrates and Us: Ethical Living in Uncertain Times, published by Yale University Press (2025).
Tom F. Wright, historian of rhetoric at the University of Sussex
Producer: Eliane Glaser
'It's all in the best possible taste'. But what does it mean to have good taste? And does pursuing good taste lead to favouring style over substance? Who are the thinkers who have considered a philosophy of aesthetics?Matthew Sweet hosts Radio 4's late night ideas discussion programme. His guests are:
Film historian and New Generation Thinker Sarah Smyth, who lectures in film and TV at the University of Essex Philosopher Dr John Callanan, who lectures on Kant at King's College LondonWriter and management consultant Peter York, whose books include Style War, co-author of The Official Sloane Ranger handbook Broadcaster and writer Emma Dabiri who co-presented Britain's Lost Masterpieces for BBC 4 and whose latest book is Disobedient Bodies: Reclaim Your Unruly BeautyOpera singer Le Gateau Chocolat
Producer Luke Mulhall
In a special programme looking ahead to International Women’s Day on March 8th, Shahidha Bari looks at how women express themselves in language, argument, poetry and art. Her guests include:
Sara Ahmed is the author of No is Not a Lonely UtteranceKaren McCarthy Woolf's latest poetry collection is called Unsafe Lauren Elkin's books include Art Monsters: Unruly Bodies in Feminist Art, she translated Simone de Beauvoir's previously-unpublished novel The Inseparables and has a new book coming out in May Vocal Break: On Women, Music, and Power. She has been reading the new translation by Sophie Lewis of Angst by the French feminist thinker Hélène Cixous Mary Wellesley is a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and Their MakersAsh Percival-Borley, military historian and former soldier
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Is authority a justly unfashionable quality that we should consign to the past? Or does it still have a place in political and business leadership, schools, medical settings and in the home? What is the difference between authority and power, how have historical shifts such as the advent of the internet affected public perceptions of authority, and how much should authority feature in the raising of children?
In Radio 4's roundtable discussion programme about ideas past and present, Anne McElvoy and guests explore these questions and more.
Justine Greening is a former Conservative Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and EqualitiesMartin Gurri is a former CIA analyst who writes about the relationship between politics and media who published a book called The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New MillenniumSophie Scott-Brown is a philosopher and historian of anarchismPeter Hyman is a former headteacher and adviser to Tony Blair and Keir Starmer who writes a Substack, Changing the StoryTom Simpson is the Alfred Landecker Professor of Values and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford
Producer: Eliane Glaser
How have attitudes to punishment changed over time, and what ideas about the rationale for punishment are circulating today? In Radio 4's roundtable discussion programme, Matthew Sweet and guests explore the criminal justice system through history.
With:
Stephanie Brown, Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Hull and BBC / AHRC New Generation Thinker on the scheme which puts research on radio Scout Tzofiya Bolton, poet and broadcaster who presents on National Prison Radio, and for Radio 4 the Illuminated episode called The Ballad of Scout and the Alcohol Tag. Her poetry collection is called The Mad Art of Doing Time Joanna Hardy-Susskind, criminal barrister and presenter for Radio 4 of a series called You Do Not Have To Say Anything Stephen Shapiro, Professor of American Literature at the University of Warwick Jonathan Sumption, former Supreme Court judge and now Moral Maze panellist for BBC Radio 4 and author of a five-volume account of The Hundred Years War
Producer: Eliane Glaser
From an impoverished neighbourhood in South London, Charlie Chaplin became one of the most significant figures in the development of cinema. More recently, TV writers like Sophie Willan and Michaela Coel have transformed the way working class lives are depicted on TV, from the concerned paternalism of the 1960s to a more celebratory view from the inside in the 2020s. In this week's edition of Radio 4's arts and ideas discussion programme, Matthew Sweet charts these changes, and considers what they mean for our understanding of class categories in wider society. With TV historian Laura Minor, art historian Jacqueline Riding, novelist Adelle Stripe, and historian Samuel Johnson-Schlee. Plus, an interview with Ian La Frenais, co-creator of such comedy classics as The Likely Lads and Porridge. The paperback of Adelle Stripe's memoir Base Notes, and Jacqueline Riding's book Hard Street: Working Class Lives in Charlie Chaplin's London, are both published in February.Producer: Luke Mulhall
'The strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must'. So claimed the powerful Athenians, according to the Ancient Greek historian Thucydides. Plato tried to demonstrate that might does not make right, and thinkers ever since, from Hobbes and Rousseau to Kant and Carl Schmitt, have placed the idea that might is right at the centre of their political philosophies, for better or worse. Matthew Sweet traces the intellectual history of the idea, with Angie Hobbs, Margaret MacMillan, Lea Ypi, and Hugo Drochon. Angie Hobbs' book Why Plato Matters Now, and Lea Ypi's book Indignity, are both out now, Hugo Drochon's book Elites And Democracy is published in MarchProducer: Luke Mulhall
What do we mean when we talk about productivity?
Anne McElvoy and guests discuss labour in the context of both work and motherhood: what the language of childbirth tells us about how mothers and their bodies are viewed today; how the language of production and reproduction is used in the public and private contexts of the workplace, in macroeconomics, in the labour ward and at home; and the current public debates about parental and domestic labour, the maternal pay gap and the 'productivity puzzle'.
With: John Callanan, Reader in Philosophy at King's College LondonBeth Malory, Lecturer in English Linguistics at University College LondonPatrick Foulis, author and journalistCorinne Low, Associate Professor of Economics at the Wharton School and author of FemonomicsHelen Charman, Fellow in English at Clare College, Cambridge and author of Mother State: A Political History of Motherhood
Producer: Eliane Glaser
From undercover field operatives to online anonymity, via lives led in the closet and large scale infidelity, Matthew Sweet discusses the what can prompt people to lead double lives. With: Ashleigh Percival-Borleigh, Radio 4 New Generation Thinker, former soldier and historian, researching the lives of under-cover agents during WW2Lawrence Scott, literary critic and commentator on social media and the double lives people lead onlinePeter Parker, historian of gay life in Britain before homosexuality was decriminalized, has documented decades of lives lived in the closetClare Carlisle, philosopher and biographer of Soren Kierkegaard, who thought there’s always a difference between our inner selves and the face we present to the worldPlus the actress Ruth Wilson, whose 2018 drama Mrs Wilson unraveled the story of her own grandfather's multiple lives
Producer: Luke Mulhall
What does the phrase 'Victorian values' conjure today? In Radio 4's round-table ideas discussion programme, Matthew Sweet and guests explore what we have inherited from that formative era in relation to political ideas, civic culture, aesthetics, and social and sexual mores. How does our view of the Victorian age match the historical reality? And can we move beyond stereotypes of repression and the stiff upper lip?
AN Wilson, writer, biographer and historian Gisela Stuart, Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston, crossbench peer in the House of Lords
Sarah Williams, Research Professor in the History of Christianity at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada and author of When Courage Calls: Josephine Butler and the Radical Pursuit of Justice for Women
Fern Riddell, historian and writer. Her latest book is Victoria’s Secret: The Private Passion of a Queen (2025) And Matthew Stallard, Research Associate from the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery at University College London.
Producer: Eliane Glaser
Are we addicted to novelty? What are the cultural settings that allow innovation to flourish? And are novelty and innovation things we've always valued? Matthew Sweet is joined by:
Professor of Innovation Tim Minshall is the author of Your Life is Manufactured.Writer and entrepreneur Margaret Heffernan's most recent book is Embracing Uncertainty Agnes Arnold-Foster has written Nostalgia: A History of a Dangerous Emotion Christina Faraday is the author of The Story of Tudor Art Nick Hilton is presenter of The Ned Ludd Radio Hour podcast
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Are you planning your summer holiday? The first Saturday in January is called Sunshine Saturday because typically more holidays are booked on that day than on any other in the year. Today, planning a trip might involve consulting AI rather than reading a travel guide or visiting a travel agent. And the trip itself is more likely to involve an airplane than a stagecoach. But it's not just the practicalities of travel that have altered over the years. Reasons for travelling have changed, so have the meanings assigned to it. Was it ever a good vehicle for self discovery?Shahidha Bari is joined by award-winning travel journalist Mary Novakovich, TV globe trotter Bettany Hughes, historian Alun Withey, literary historian Lucy Powell and philosopher Julian Baggini.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Is idleness ever a virtue? In a world that seems to privilege utility and productivity above all else, Matthew Sweet considers whether we can rethink the importance of doing nothing. His guests for Radio 4's late night ideas discussion programme are:
Tom Hodgkinson, editor of The Idler and author of books including Idle Thoughts: Letters on Good Living, How to Live Like a Stoic: A Handbook for HappinessPolly Dickson, a literary scholar at the University of Durham, who’s researching the art of doodlingKatrien Devolder, Professor of Applied Ethics at the University of OxfordGavin Francis, doctor and author of many books including The Bridge Between Worlds and coming in Feb 2026 The Unfragile Mind, Making Sense of Mental HealthSteve Connor, cultural historian, Director of Research of the Digital Futures Institute, King’s College, London.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Do individuals or broader forces shape history? In the 2025 Reith lectures on BBC Radio 4, Rutger Bregman argues that small groups of individuals can have an outsize influence and he looks to examples in history from suffragism to the ending of slavery. In the Free Thinking studio for Radio 4's round-table discussion about the history of ideas, Matthew Sweet is joined by:
Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer prize winning historian and author of Autocracy Inc, which looks at the networks linking powerful people in our worldJake Subryan Richards, New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and AHRC which puts research on radio. His new book is The Bonds of Freedom: Liberated Africans and the End of the Slave TradeSelina Todd, historian and author of The People: The Rise and Fall of the Working ClassClare Jackson, historian of seventeenth century Britain, whose latest book is Mirror of Great Britain: A Life of James VI & IRupert Read, philosopher, climate advocate and co author of Transformative Adaptation and The Climate Majority Project
Producer: Eliane Glaser
Why marry? Jane Austen began her novel Pride and Prejudice with the observation "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife". Recent figures from the Office of National Statistics show less than half the adult UK population are married or in a legal partnership and predictions are that by 2050, only 3 in 10 people in the UK will marry.
Shahidha Bari hosts Radio 4's round-table discussion programme Free Thinking, which brings together philosophical and historical insights in a conversation about issues resonating in the present day. Her guests this week are:columnist Zoe Strimpel, who has been considering the history and current state of the family in a 5 part series running on Radio 4 this weekProfessor Diarmaid MacCulloch, biographer of Thomas Cromwell and author of Lower than Angels: A history of Sex and ChristianityDr Reetika Subramanian from the University of East Anglia, who hosts a podcast called Climate Brides. Reetika is one of Radio 4's current researchers in residence on the New Generation Thinkers scheme run in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council.Psychoanalyst and literary scholar Josh CohenPhilosopher and film scholar Catherine Wheatley
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Rocks have shaped the fates of civilizations and the study of geology has transformed our intellectual landscape. In the 19th century developments in earth sciences led to the scientific rejection of Biblical timescales in favour of the far greater spans of geological time, which opened the way for Darwin's development of the theory of evolution by natural selection. More recently, historians have been keen to incorporate factors like access to natural resources and major events like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions into their accounts of the past and analyses of the present. Matthew Sweet asks how disciplines in the humanities, like history and political theory, might be transformed by incorporating insights and data from the earth sciences, and also how the earth sciences might be transformed if they become more historically and culturally aware. With historians Peter Frankopan and Rosemary Hill, geologist Anjana Khatwa, philosopher Graham Harman, and poet Sarah Jackson.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
What function do ceremonies like Armistice Day perform? How do we balance desires for reconciliation with feelings about revenge? How we remember wars and what commemoration means is much less settled than we might think. And that throws up questions, in times when conflicts are spreading close to us in western Europe, of how wars end and how we balance our concern for justice and peace with darker impulses?
Joining presenter Anne McElvoy for BBC Radio 4's roundtable discussion about the ideas shaping our world are:classicist Natalie Haynes whose most recent novel No End to this House re-imagines the story of Medea,former solider Ashleigh Percival-Borley, who is now an academic and on the New Generation Thinkers scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research CouncilDuncan Wheeler, author of Following Franco and an academic studying contemporary Spain.neuro-scientist Nicholas Wright who advises the Pentagon and has written Warhead: How the Brain Shapes War and War Shapes the Brainand, Andy West, prison philosophy teacher and author of The Life Inside
Producer: Ruth Watts
"Doom-prepping" tech billionaires have been in the headlines recently and whether it’s ecological crisis or a breakdown in law and order, fear of societal collapse seems to lurk in the background of a lot of discussion in politics and wider society. But what does it mean? When has it happened in the past? Can we avoid it – or survive it – in the future? Joining presenter Shahidha Bari for Radio 4's roundtable discussion about the ideas shaping our world are:Luke Kemp from the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, the writer and commentator Peter Hitchens, classical historian Neville Morley, historian of modern politics Phil Tinline and Rhiannon Firth, sociologist at University College London.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
From economics to dreams: Anne McElvoy and guests consider the value of irrationality. How often is emotion, instinct and unsound thinking behind the decisions taken by governments, financial markets and citizens? And does it matter if long term strategic thinking relying on calm assessments of the trade offs, conventional wisdom and the lessons of experience take a back seat. Is there a value in irrationality? Guests include: Bronwen Maddox, Director and CEO of Chatham House, the international think tank; Lionel Barber, author of Gambling Man: The Wild Ride of Japan's Masayoshi Son; Salma Shah, who sits on the boards of Policy Exchange and the Centre for Science and Policy at the University of Cambridge; Patrick Foulis, the foreign editor at the Economist and, Jonathan Egid, philosopher and BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker.
Producer: Ruth Watts
From military ceremonies to folk customs - can traditions really provide an answer to nationalism and boost local pride? Former MP Penny Mordaunt is publishing a book called Pomp and Circumstance: Why Britain's Traditions Matter written with Chris Lewis. She's one of Matthew Sweet's guests in the Free Thinking studio alongsideSunder Katwala, author of How to be a patriot: Why love of country can end our very British culture war. He is the director of British Future which conducted the biggest-ever public consultation on immigration.Muriel Zagha is a journalist and co-host of the podcast Garlic & Pearls which compares French and British culture and attitudes.Ceri Houlbrook is one of the academics involved in a National Folklore Survey for England and the co-author with Owen Davies of Folklore: A Journey Through the Past and Present.Dr Uran Ferizi has a background in scientific and financial research and since January 2024 he has been the Albanian Ambassador to the UK and to Ireland.
Producer: Robyn Read
Science is one of the major sources of authority in society today. Scientists develop technologies to make our lives easier and more comfortable. They fight diseases, they have identified and are helping to combat climate change. Yet developments like AI, and some areas of genetic science, seem to raise ethical dilemmas that scientists on their own can't address. And at a time when the authority of 'experts' has been challenged, where does that leave the authority of scientists? Shahidha Bari discusses science in society with theologian Dr Dafydd Mills Daniel, who's been working on Samuel Clarke, known as Newton's Bulldog, as a case study in the status of science in 17th century England, and Dr Sandra Knapp, researcher at the Natural History Museum and chair of the judges of this year's Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize. Also Hannah Devlin, science correspondent for The Guardian, Nick Spencer, Senior Fellow at Theos, and geneticist, author and broadcaster Adam Rutherford.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
What does living a good life involve? Michael Rosen's new book is called Good Days and offers suggestions to brighten our daily lives. Dr Sophie Scott-Brown is a research fellow at St Andrews' Institute of Intellectual History. The Rev'd Fergus Butler-Gallie has spent time working in the Czech republic and South Africa and ministering in parishes in Liverpool and London. His most recent book is Twelve Churches: An Unlikely History of the Buildings that made Christianity. Dr Rachel Wiseman lectures on philosophy at the University of Liverpool and explored the impact of the relative absence of women philosophers. Sudhir Hazareesingh is a Fellow and Tutor in Politics at Balliol, Oxford and author of "Daring to be Free: Rebellion and Resistance of the Enslaved in the Atlantic World, which raises questions about the Enlightenment's exclusion of enslaved people from the universal vision of a good society.Matthew Sweet hosts the discussion about what it means to be good.
The six books shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize 2025 which will be announced on December 2nd are:
•Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age by Eleanor Barraclough (Profile Books)•The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV by Helen Castor (Allen Lane)•Multicultural Britain: A People’s History by Kieran Connell (Hurst Publishing)•Survivors: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the Atlantic Slave Trade by Hannah Durkin (William Collins)•The Gravity of Feathers: Fame, Fortune and the Story of St Kilda by Andrew Fleming (Birlinn)•The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective by Sara Lodge (Yale University Press)
The judges for the Wolfson History Prize 2025 are Mary Beard, Sudhir Hazareesingh, Helen King and Diarmaid MacCulloch, with the panel chaired by David Cannadine.
Producer: Jayne Egerton
In party conference season, we look at what bonds party members and what it means to create a new network with its own shared beliefs and rituals. What light can the big thinkers from the worlds of anthropology and sociology shed? From political tribes to criminal gangs, from social media to social class - how do shared beliefs, rituals, rules and values bond us together - and pull us apart?
Anne McElvoy is joined by Kit Davis, emeritus professor of anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London; Lynsey Hanley writer and author of Estates and Respectable: The Experience of Class; Adele Walton, Journalist and author of Logging Off; Alistair Fraser, professor of criminology at Glasgow University; assistant editor of The Spectator and political journalist and Isabel Hardman; and, Rebecca Earle, Professor of History and Chair of the British Academy Book Prize
Shortlist for the British Academy Book Prize announced on October 22nd:The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years by Sunil AmrithThe Baton and The Cross: Russia’s Church from Pagans to Putin by Lucy AshThe Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World by William DalrympleAfriconomics: A History of Western Ignorance by Bronwen EverillSick of It: The Global Fight for Women's Health by Sophie HarmanSound Tracks: Uncovering Our Musical Past by Graham Lawson
Producer: Ruth Watts
The French philosopher Michel Foucault though friendship could be one of the most subversive relationships around. Our friends can be the most important people in our lives. But managing friendships can be hard work too. Matthew Sweet is joined by a psychotherapist, a historian, a philosopher, a literary historian, and a film critic to discuss the history, politics, and psychology of friendship.
Tiffany Watt Smith is the author of Bad Friend: A Century of Revolutionary FriendshipsSusie Orbach's books include Between Women: Love, Envy and Competition in Women's Friendships, co-written with Luise EichenbaumStephen Shapiro is Professor of American Literature at the University of WarwickAlexander Douglas is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of St Andrews and author of Against Identity: The Wisdom of Escaping the SelfPhuong Le is a film critic whose writing appears in Sight & Sound, The Guardian and elsewhere
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Shahidha Bari looks at censorship, editing and self-censorship with guests including historian of China, Rana Mitter, Jemimah Steinfeld of Index on Censorship and Nigel Warburton, host of the Philosophy Bites podcast. Amelia Fairney discusses her research on sensitivity readers and the conversations that take place in publishing houses. And, Nicola Wilson, who’s been studying reading recommendations from The Book Society which operated in the UK between 1929 and 1968. The book selectors sometimes suggested changes to the published texts so we hear about this history and look at publishing now.
Nicola Wilson's book Recommended! The influencers who changed how we read is out nowNigel Warburton has written many books on philosophy including A Little History of Philosophy
Producer: Ruth Watts
Anne McElvoy and guests explore the intersections between Christian faith and political decision-making and look at some recent dramas which explore the impact of belief.
Chine McDonald is director of the Christian Think Tank Theos, Mark Lawson is a writer, broadcaster and theatre critic of Catholic journal The Tablet, Prof Anna Rowlands is St Hilda Professor of Catholic Social Thought & Practice at the University of Durham, Dafydd Mills Daniel is a Lecturer in Divinity at the University of St Andrews and Sam Tanenhaus, has published a biography of influential American conservative thinker and Catholic, William F Buckley Jnr. called Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America.
Producer: Debbie Kilbride
Journalists Peter Hitchens and Oliver Kamm, radio presenter and comedian Ellis James, languages expert Ross Perlin, Diana Sutton director of The Bell Foundation and podcaster and academic Reetika Revathy Subramanian join Matthew Sweet for a conversation about how language unites and divides us.
Ross Perlin's book Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues was the winner of the British Academy Book prize and he is in London for the British Academy Summer showcase.Reetika Revathy Subramanian has been chosen as one of six researchers in residence at BBC Radio 4 in the coming year on the New Generation Thinkers scheme run in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council. She is a Senior Research Associate, School of Global Development at the University of East Anglia and hosts the Climate Brides podcast. You can also find a recent episode of Free Thinking exploring peace which features another of the researchers in residence Ashleigh Percival-Borley, a former soldier who is now a military historian based at the University of Durham.
Producer: Debbie Kilbride
"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." The words of Samuel Beckett from a 1983 short story Worstward Ho inspire a Free Thinking conversation about failure chaired by Matthew Sweet. His guests are:Cath Bishop rowed for Britain in the Olympics, winning a silver medal and worked as a diplomat and business coach. She has written a book called The Long Win and co-hosts the Inside Out Culture Podcast with Colin Ellis which explores what can go wrong from business to sport, the Met police to the music industry.David Stevenson is Dean and Professor of Cultural Policy and Arts Management at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh. He has researched the failure of arts organisations and co-authored with Leila Jancovich Failures in Cultural ParticipationKatarina Skoberne started an advertising agency, has worked as an interpreter in conflict zones and presented a TV show showcasing her experience in coaching. She now runs training in speech-making BeYourBestRemoteSelf.Dr Michelle Clement's research focuses on British government and public service reform. She's based at King's College, London. She has written a book The Art of Delivery: The Inside Story of How the Blair Government Transformed Britain’s Public ServicesDr Joseph Anderton is an Associate Professor of Literature at Birmingham City University researching authors including Samuel Beckett and he is the author of Beckett's Creatures: Art of Failure after the Holocaust
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Personal Identity is at the heart of contemporary culture. Political philosophies are built around it and family history is a hobby undertaken by hundreds of thousands. Understanding where you came from is seen as central to understanding who you are. But what if the things that are uncovered are uncomfortable, upsetting or even life-changing?
Matthew Sweet is joined at the Hay Festival by three writers who have hosted podcasts which raise these questions – Joe Dunthorne, whose memoir Children of Radium and BBC Radio 4 series Half Life explore his great-grandfather's work with chemical weapons; Kavita Puri, whose series Three Million told the story of the Bengal Famine, and of British culpability in it; and Jenny Kleeman, whose BBC Radio 4 podcast The Gift tells the stories of lives upended by DNA testing kits. How does the format of the podcast help them explore these complicated subjects?
The Gift, Three Million and The History Podcast, Half Life are all available now on BBC Sounds
Producer: Luke Mulhall
What do we mean by 'common sense'?In 1925 the philosopher GE Moore wrote a Defence of Common Sense which argued against philosophical idealism, on the grounds that it seemed to deny a set of propositions that he claimed were indisputably true. His colleague Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote a detailed response to Moore's paper, and its influence extended into the work of contemporaries like Susan Stebbing. How do we understand common sense now? What role does common sense play in politics? Matthew Sweet's guests are the philosopher Dr Rachael Wiseman, the politician Ann Widdecombe, the historian of emotion Dr Tiffany Watt Smith and the journalist and scholar of post colonial culture Dr Sarah Jilani.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Political power can take many forms, from the top-down model of the Roman Empire, to operating in the democratic politics of today, to the possibilities offered by new technologies for more horizontal power structures in the future.
Matthew Sweet is joined on a stage at the Hay Festival by historian Tom Holland, whose new translation of Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars examines Roman power politics from the inside; Guto Harri, who saw the inside workings of power as Downing Street Director of Communications; Adam Greenfield, whose book Lifehouse looks at local networks of mutual aid that have emerged in response to climate crisis; and political philosopher Sophie Scott-Brown - whose book The Radical Fifties: Activist Politics in Cold War Britain is out in July.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Wolves were once hunted and persecuted to the point of near extinction but are now enjoying a come back across Europe, if not the UK. What can explain the way they've been targeted, and even demonised, given the low risk they pose to human beings? Shahidha Bari talks to Adam Weymouth, author of Lone Wolf, which describes his journey tracking a wolf called Slavc across the Alps, folklore experts Zoe Gilbert and Daisy Black, the environmentalist, Ben Goldsmith and Brian Zimmerman, the Director of Conservation and Science at Bristol Zoological Society. Are we seeing a change in wolves' troubled fortunes in the context of debates about rewilding?
Producer: Jayne Egerton
What is the role of vision in politics? Must politicians have a vision of what kind of society they’re working towards, ultimately? What kind of role does this vision play in the day-to-day practice of working politicians? Or is this a misunderstanding of the nature of politics?We mark the anniversary of the landmark text of modern libertarianism, Anarchy, State & Utopia, by Robert Nozick.Anne McElvoy is joined by the politician Gisela Stuart, General Secretary of the Fabian Society Joe Dromey, and political philosophers Thomas Simpson and Jeffrey Howard. Plus, writer and lecturer Sarah Jilani on the case for revolution.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
On the 8th May 1945, the Allies declared victory over Nazi Germany. How has war and the threat of war shaped society in the intervening years? Do 'war' and 'peace' mean the same things, 80 years on?Matthew Sweet is joined by political scientist David Runciman, peace negotiator Gabrielle Rifkind, historian Ashleigh Percival-Borley
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Post local elections and pre VE day anniversary events across the UK, Shahidha Bari explores ideas about community. Mike Savage, Professor of Sociology at the LSE, explains how social capital enables networks and bonds among people. Selina Todd, Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford, discusses the fracturing of working class community, community theatre and the role of women in forging connections. Phillip Blond, the Director of ResPublica and creator of the term, Red Toryism, argues for a post liberal Conservatism with community at its heart. Kirsten Stevens-Wood talks about intentional communities, including the spiritual community at the Findhorn Ecovillage, one of the largest in Britain. Kieran Yates, journalist and author, considers the ways in which communities are undermined by insecure housing.
Some people think we live in an age of decline. Matthew Sweet investigates, with guests including political journalist Tim Stanley, art critic Louisa Buck, Professor Jane Desmarais who is head of the decadence research centre at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Neville Morley, Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter.Plus, Matthew will talk to satirical artist Cold War Steve about his depictions of decadence in contemporary Britain.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Matthew Sweet and guests discuss the impact of the shifting geo political and economic trends on the British class system with specialist guests.Muriel Zagha is a writer and critic and Author of Finding Monsieur Right and co-host of the podcast Garlic and Pearls.Lisa Holdsworth is a Leeds based TV script writer who has worked on amongst others Emmerdale, Midsomer Murders, Robin Hood, New Tricks and Waterloo Road. Her latest series Dreamers premiers on Channel 4 this weekend.Professor Sam Friedman is a sociologist of class and inequality. His latest book with Aaron Reeves is Born To Rule exploring how the British elite has changed over the last 120 years.Lord Willetts is the President of the Resolution Foundation’s Advisory Council and of the Intergenerational Commission and Chair of the UK Space Agency. He is a visiting Professor at King’s College London and Chair of the Foundation for Science and Technology. Earlier this month he was appointed as Chair of the Regulatory Innovation Office.Professor Melinda Mills is a demographer based at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, who will talk about new research which suggests that socio-economic status ia social construct with heritable component and genetic consequences.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
As Radio 4 marks the 5th anniversary of the first COVID lockdown, Free Thinking investigates one of the defining experiences of that period for many people: isolation. It's a word that entered the English language in the 18th century, and arguably its emergence as a concept marked a change in the way people saw their relationships with other people and the wider community, towards a more individualistic society. And yet there's a long history of religious mystics seeking solitude. From Robinson Crusoe to the crew of the International Space Station, via monasticism and Romanticism, Matthew Sweet investigates the histories of isolation and solitude.
With:Mark Vernon, psychotherapist with a deep interest in the role of solitude in the Western spiritual tradition. His book Awake! William Blake and the Power of the Imagination will be published in June.Lucy Powell, Lecturer in English Literature at the University of OxfordKathleen Burk, Professor Emerita of Modern and Contemporary History at University College London, who will talk about isolationism as an aspect of the American political psycheJim Hoare, diplomat who opened the first British embassy in North Korea in the 1990s.Catherine Coldstream, writer and former Carmelite nun, her memoir is Cloistered: My Years As A Nun
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Matthew Sweet and his guests discuss our shifting relationship with evidence from the law, to science, academic study and the paranormal. He's joined by Uncanny TV presenter Danny Robins, the former Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption and author of The Challenges of Democracy and the Rule of Law, Dr Sarah Dillon from the faculty of English at the University of Cambridge. Dr Jonathan Egid philosopher at SOAS in London and Dr Anthony Milligan a philosopher at Kings College London.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
Anne McElvoy and guests discuss the issue of uncertainty from scientific discovery and the space race to the shifting geopolitical landscape and how it can act as a catalyst for creativity. She's joined by the entrepreneur and author of Embracing Uncertainty, Margaret Heffernan, journalist and economist Liam Halligan, Astrophysicist Chris Lintott who also presents The Sky at Night, historian Timothy Garton Ash and Professor Victoria Donovan and author of Life in Spite of Everything: Tales from the Ukrainian East.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
Free Thinking looks at today's world with "a pinch of salt" tonight. From stories in the bible to desalination plants, preserving food to salt taxes: how does salt help us think about the past and present? We use phrases like "being worth your salt" or "dropping salt" meaning to spread rumours. With food writer Bee Wilson, materials scientist Mark Miodownik, the novelist and writer on folklore Zoe Gilbert and artist David Soin Tappeser. Plus, especially salty guest Baga Chipz.Matthew Sweet hosts.
David Soin Tappeser, along with Himali Singh Soin, is one half of Hylozoic/Desires, whose exhibition Salt Cosmologies is at Somerset House in London until the 27th April.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Matthew Sweet and guests discuss changing course in life, flexible thinking and keeping an open mind with writer and curator Ekow Eshun, philosopher Sophie Grace Chappell, journalist Stephen Bush, author Timandra Harkness & philosopher Richard Bett
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
From classical thinking to the romcom films in cinema today: Why do we yearn to find our "other half" but struggle with the reality of long term relationships? To discuss Rana Mitter is joined by:Dr Susie Orbach: a psychotherapist and author of Fat is a Feminist Issue as well as many other booksClassicist Prof Armand D'Angour: he has just published a book about Plato's thinking on love - How to Talk about Love: An Ancient Guide for Modern LoversDr Vittoria Fallanca: She has new research on the opposite figure to Eros - Anteros - the god of requited love, and the avenger of unrequited love, and his place in the history of philosophyCatherine Wheatley: She is Professor of Film and Visual Culture at Kings College LondonMary Harrod: She is Professor of French and Screen Studies at the University of Warwick.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
Matthew Sweet with art critic TJ Clark, who has written about the importance of repeated viewing for appreciating a work of art; philosopher and film historian Lucy Bolton, who's seen a re-issue of Chantel Akerman's film Jeanne Dielman, which documents the crushing routine of a Belgian housewife; philosopher and theologian Clare Carlisle, who has written on the philosopher Kierkegaard, who discussed repetition as a major feature structuring human life, and historian and educationalist Anthony Seldon. Plus composer, dramatist and regular silent film accompanist Neil Brand will be at the piano.
TJ Clark's new collection of Essays is called Those Passions: On Art and Politics.The BFI is hosting a season of films by Chantal Akerman which runs for 2 months in London with further screenings at selected cinemas - and the 2k restoration of the film Jeanne Dielmann is in cinemas across the UKAnthony Seldon's books include Truss At 10: 49 Days That Changed Britain; Johnson at 10: The Inside Story and The Fourth Education RevolutionBook by Anthony SeldonClare Carlisle's book is called Philosopher of the Heart: The Restless Life of Soren Kierkegaard
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Matthew Sweet and guests talk about about the tools and processes of decision making today and through history.Justine Greening is a former Secretary of State for Education who is now working on social mobility and levelling up. Professor Bill Sherman heads the Warburg Institute, which has just opened an exhibition about tarot which the filmmaker and magik scholar K A Laity has visited. Gary Stevenson is a former financial trader and the author of The Trading Game, and the philosopher Constantine Sandis is the author of The Things We Do and Why We Do Them.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
“A diary is not only a text: it is a behaviour, a way of life, of which the text is a by-product", says the French theorist Philipe Lejeune. From ancient Babylon to journalling today, politicians' jottings and the notes made by eighteenth century writers like Mary Hamilton and Fanny Burney. Matthew Sweet discusses diaries with curator Irving Finkel, literary historian Sophie Coulombeau, political commentator Michael Crick and writer Oliver Burkeman, whose latest book is Meditation For Mortals, plus the philosopher Maximillian De Gaynesford.And, as Radio 4 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Russell Hoban with a reading of his novel Turtle Diary as Book At Bedtime, writer Sonia Overall discusses his work.Producer: Luke Mulhall
What tactics are justified in political campaigning from suffragettes to climate action? When is an art work finished? Do the moderation of Aristotle and Epicurus offer us a way of navigating life? Christmas - a time for panto, over-eating and gaudy decorations - was your festive season overwhelming or excessive? The writer and broadcaster Andrew Doyle, the classicist Edith Hall, comedian Rob Newman, environmentalist Rupert Read, and performer and suffrage historian Naomi Paxton join Shahidha Bari to discuss when enough is enough, knowing when to stop and how far should free speech go.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
What makes the life, character and imagery of the British pub? Anne McElvoy talks to Wetherspoons boss Tim Martin, author Natalie Whittle whose book "Crunch: An Ode to Crisps" was published in October, Professor Philip Howell who has written about the history of the pub, Dr Marianne Hem Eriksen from theSchool of Archaeology & Ancient History at the University of Leicester who specialises in Viking history and BBC journalist Ben Wright who has written about the history of drinking in British politics.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
Shahidha Bari and guests discuss luck, fortune and superstition. How much truth is there in the idea of making your own luck and why does supersition still play such an important part in many peoples' lives. To discuss this and more are: Dr Christian Busch author of the Serendipity Mindset, Bobby Seagull the maths wizard who shot to fame on University Challenge, Timandra Harkness the author and journalist who writes about the intersection of tech and society, Dr Kate Tomas a philosopher and spritiual mentor and the Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies who shares her thoughts on the role luck plays in sport.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
Matthew Sweet is joined by guests including Dr Jack Symes, philosopher at Durham University; Professor Lyndsey Stonebridge, Interdisciplinary Chair of Humanities & Human Rights at the University of Birmingham; novelist Ruth Ware; Dr Oliver Scott Curry, Chief Science Officer at Kindness.org and Research Affiliate in the Anthropology Department at the University of Oxford; and campaigner Zrinka Bralo, Director of Migrants Organize.
Topics include the classical philosophical problem of evil, the psychology of evil, Hannah Arendt's concept of the banality of evil, and the question of why the Devil gets the best lines in literature.Plus, we look at t6he work and legacy of social psychologist Philip Zimbardo, who devised the controversial Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971, and who died in October 2024.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
When you give a gift, do you expect anything in return? And if so, does that mean it was really about you all along? Could reciprocity form the basis of society? Or are we under no obligation to share what is essentially ours? Shahidha Bari investigates gifts and philanthropy, gratitude and greediness, with Elizabeth Oldfield – Former director of Theos, the thinktank of religion and culture, and the host of The Sacred podcast. Rhodri Davies – founder and Director of the thinktank Why Philanthropy Matters and researcher at the Centre for Philanthropy at the University of Kent. Gerald Moore - Professor at Durham UniversityAnd political philosopher Sophie Scott Brown
Plus, New Generation Thinker Lauren Working on how Thanksgiving looks for an American historian in the UK and a history of turkeys as symbols.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Anne McElvoy and guests discuss the art of diplomacy from Ancient Greece to the Tudors and today's shifting international security as well as how its portrayed on screen in dramas like the BBC's Wolf Hall and the Netflix series The Diplomat. Her guests include:Former EU and US Ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald .Bronwen Maddox from the think tank Chatham House.Historian Dr Clare Jackson who is the author of Devil Land England Under Seige 1588-1688.Dr Holly Furneaux, Professor at Cardiff University talks about her research into "enemy intimacy" which is part of a new exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London called War and the Mind.
A cosy cottage with warming fireplaces, comfort food, crime dramas on tv: Matthew Sweet and guests discuss art, literature and drama that are comfortable to engage with and how difficulty, a dedication to campaigning or the reading of Nietzsche might disrupt this. Does a theatre critic tell audiences they are in for a thought provoking show? And what role does it play in social and politial thinking today? Our guests include:Deborah Sugg Ryan, writer and broadcaster and Professor Emerita of Design History at the University of Portsmouth.Sir Alexander McCall Smith prolific author of the best selling Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency series.Bioethicist and Fellow of the British Academy Tom ShakespeareTheatre Critic Susannah Clapp.Philosopher and Nietzsche expert Hugo Drochon.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
Political upheaval, the role of the press and free speech, attitudes towards divorce: the poet John Milton thought and wrote about all of these issues which also concern us today. Milton (9th Dec 1608-8th Nov 1674) might be best known to us today as the man behind the epic poem Paradise Lost, dictated after he had become blind, and published in 1674, but he was also the author of The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates and Eikonoklastes (1649) which examined the right of the people to hold authority to account and provided a defence of regicide. He also attacked pre-printing censorship in Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc'd Printing, to the Parlament of England (1644). Matthew Sweet and his guests look at the resonances of Milton's writing now.
Andrew Doyle writes plays, performs stand-up, hosts a show on GB news and has written articles for Spiked. He is the co-author with Tom Walker of Jonathan Pie: Off the Record and has published a book called The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World. He has a doctorate in early Renaissance poetry from the University of Oxford.Professor Alice Hunt is based at the University of Southampton and is working on a book titled England’s Republic: The Lost Decade, 1649–1660 supported by a Leverhulme Research FellowshipDr Kate Maltby is a lead columnist for The i newspaper and a theatre critic. She is also a Senior Research Associate at Jesus College, Cambridge working on Renaissance literature.Professor Islam Issa is based at Birmingham City University. His books include Alexandria, the City that Changed the World, Milton in the Arab-Muslim World and Milton in Translation, ed. with Angelica Duran and Jonathan Olson
Producer: Luke Mulhall
With Day of the Dead, Halloween and All Souls Day being marked in different countries around the world - Shahidha Bari's guests discuss the belief in ghosts and the search for meaning in mysticism. They are:
Dr Chris Harding is a cultural historian of Japan, India and East-West connections and is based at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of The Japanese and Japan Story.
Dr Hetta Howes is a Senior Lecturer in English Literature at City, University of London and Deputy Programme Director for the BA in English. She is a BBC Radio 3 and 4 New Generation Thinker and the author of a new book “Poet Mystic Widow Wife: The Extraordinary Lives of Medieval Women.”
Simon Critchley is a philosopher and the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York, USA. His latest book is On Mysticism: The Experience of Ecstasy.
Dr Iriving Finkel is Assistant Keeper of Ancient Mesopotamian script, languages and cultures in the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum and has published The First Ghosts: A rich history of ancient ghosts and ghost stories
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
Does the reach of the USA and its cultural influence mean "we're all American now?" Anne McElvoy and her guests discuss the similarities and differences across the Anglosphere and think about the changing dynamics on the international stage. They are:Freddy Gray, Deputy Editor of the Spectator Magazine and host of the Americano podcast.Dr Katie McGettigan, Senior Lecturer in American Literature and co-editor of the Journal of American Studies.Amanda Taub writes The Interpreter, an explanatory column and newsletter about world events for The New York Times.Kit Davis, an American living in London, an anthropologist and Emeritus Professor at SOAS.Rana Mitter ST Lee Chair in US-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
The philosopher Leo Strauss claimed that many of the great texts of Western philosophy can be read in two ways. There's the message intended for everybody, but also a deeper level, accessible only to those who can see it. Taking this as a starting point, Matthew Sweet grapples with the closed world of social media tribes, the challenges posed by conspiracy theory, and the history of thinking in allegorical symbols.With:Marianna Spring, the BBC's Disinformation CorrespondentLisa Bortolotti, Professor of Philosophy at the University of BirminghamDaniel Herskowitz, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Theology & Religion, University of OxfordHugh Cullimore, PhD student at the Warburg Institute
And Constantine Sandis, Director of Lex Academic discusses the shortlist for the 2024 Nayef Al-Rodhan Book Prize in Transdisciplinary Philosophy. The shortlisted books are:Chris Armstrong, Global Justice and the Biodiversity Crisis (Oxford University Press).Mazviita Chirimuuta, The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience (The MIT Press).Shannon Vallor, The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking (Oxford University Press).
https://royalinstitutephilosophy.org/book-prize/
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Can we still be idealistic about childhood? How do we square the impact of war, stories of sexual abuse, the impact of time spent on screens with the idea of children's experiences being about play, learning to be social, listening and creating stories ? Anne McElvoy's guests include:Katherine Rundell, author of the Waterstones book of 2023 Impossible Creatures, her series about children's literature is on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds next week. It's called The Lion, the Witch and the Wonder.Emily Baughan, Senior Lecturer in 19th/20th Century British History at the University of Sheffield and author of Saving the Children: Humanitarianism, Internationalism and Empire. She is a New Generation Thinker working with BBC Radio 4 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to share her research on radio.Miriam Cates former Conservative MP who is now Senior Fellow at the Centre for Social Justice.Andrew Cooper, Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Warwick who teaches courses on philosophy of nature, philosophy of mind, and existentialism.Grace Lockrobin who is Co-Director of SAPERE - a UK charity that works to realise the benefits of a philosophical education as widely and equitably as possible.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
"I never read novels" is something you hear people say. What is the point of reading - be it histories or fiction? Does it help us empathize with the situation of other people or shed insights into our historical moment? With the news story that university students these days are, apparently, unaccustomed to reading entire books, cover to cover, favouring excerpts, abridgements, and introductions and ahead of the biggest date in the publishing calendar (Super Thursday on Oct 10th)Shahidha Bari is joined bynovelist Elif Shafak - winner of the British Academy's President's Medal, her latest novel is called There Are Rivers in the Sky;journalist Gabriel Gatehouse - host of the podcast and Radio 4 series The Coming Storm;New Generation Thinkers Janine Bradbury - a poet, and Jonathan Egid - a philosopher;Tiffany Watt Smith - a historian of emotions and author of a book on schadenfreudeand by the historian of China Professor Rana Mitter - chair of the judges for this year's Cundill History Prize. The winner will be announced on October 30th and the books in contention are:Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia by Gary J. BassNative Nations: A Millennium in North America by Kathleen DuValBefore the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights by Dylan C. Penningroth
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Sibling rifts, leadership battles in politics and history, philosophical schools of thoughts and their key players all come into our discussion of the way rivalry shapes the world. Roger Luckhurst reflects on the legacy of the American literary critic and philosopher Fredric Jameson who died earlier this week. Plus a report from the Warburg Institute Library which holds over 360,000 volumes available to scholars studying the afterlife of antiquity and the survival and transmission of culture.Matthew Sweet is joined by the journalist Michael Crick, historian Helen Castor, Philosopher David Edmonds and the writer and academic Kate Maltby.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
Climate, trust, politics, communication. Some would say we live in a period of crisis several areas of society and life. How can we make sense of the present moment, and where do we go from here?
Plus, we hear about the short list for this year's Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize and ask what that tells us about scientific publishing.
Matthew Sweet is joined by
Timothy Morton, whose most recent book is Hell: In Search of a Christian EcologyJessica Frazier, Lecturer in the Study of Religion at the University of OxfordClare Chambers, Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of CambridgeJessica Wade, Royal Society University Research Fellow and Lecturer in Functional Materials at Imperial College London and one of the judges forThey are all appearing at the How the Light Gets in Festival of Ideas this weekend in London - more information at howthelightsgetsin.orgPlusMark Solms, neuroscientist and editor of the newly published Revised Standard Edition of the Complete Works of Sigmund Freud
The Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize 2024 which will be announced on October 24th. The books shortlisted are:
Eve: How The Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat BohannonYour Face Belongs to Us: The Secretive Startup Dismantling Your Privacy by Kashmir HillThe Last of Its Kind: The Search for the Great Auk and the Discovery of Extinction by Gísli PálssonWhy We Die: The New Science of Ageing and the Quest for Immortality by Venki RamakrishnanA City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? by Kelly and Zach WeinersmithEverything Is Predictable: How Bayes’ Remarkable Theorem Explains the World by Tom Chivers
Producer: Luke Mulhall
With the success of the far right Alternative for Deutschland party in the German elections, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris making their pitches to American voters to be their leader and the Conservatives in this country voting for their: we look at Carl Schmitt, the German political theorist of democracy, crisis and dictatorship, to see if he can help us make sense of the present moment.
Anne McElvoy's guests are:Gisela Stuart, Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston, is a British German politician. A former Labour politician she now sits as a crossbencher in the House of LordsDavid Runciman is former Professor of Politics at the University of Cambridge and now hosts Past Present Future: The History of Ideas Podcast. His most recent book is called The History of Ideas : Equality, Justice and RevolutionTom Simpson is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of OxfordKatya Adler is the BBC's Europe Editor
Plus Charles Tripp, emeritus Professor of Middle Eastern politics at SOAS is chair of the judges for the 2024 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural UnderstandingBooks on the shortlist announced this week are:Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues by Ross PerlinMaterial World: A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future by Ed ConwayThe Tame and the Wild: People and Animals after 1492 by Marcy NortonDivided, Racism, Medicine and why we Need to DeColonise Healthcare by Annabel SowemimoSmoke and Ashes: Opium’s Hidden Histories by Amitav GhoshThe Secret Lives of Numbers: A Global History of Mathematics and its Unsung Trailblazers by Kate Kitagawa and Timothy Revell
The winner of the prize of £25,000 will be announced on October 22nd 2024. And Free Thinking will be looking at some of the other non fiction book prize shortlists over episodes this Autumn
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can find past episodes of Free Thinking available on BBC Sounds and as the BBC Arts & Ideas podcast
With the success of the far right Alternative for Deutschland party in the German elections, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris making their pitches to American voters to be their leader and the Conservatives in this country voting for their: we look at Carl Schmitt, the German political theorist of democracy, crisis and dictatorship, to see if he can help us make sense of the present moment.
Anne McElvoy's guests are:Gisela Stuart, Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston, is a British German politician. A former Labour politician she now sits as a crossbencher in the House of LordsDavid Runciman is former Professor of Politics at the University of Cambridge and now hosts Past Present Future: The History of Ideas Podcast. His most recent book is called The History of Ideas : Equality, Justice and RevolutionTom Simpson is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of OxfordKatya Adler is the BBC's Europe Editor
Plus Charles Tripp, emeritus Professor of Middle Eastern politics at SOAS is chair of the judges for the 2024 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural UnderstandingBooks on the shortlist announced this week are:Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues by Ross PerlinMaterial World: A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future by Ed ConwayThe Tame and the Wild: People and Animals after 1492 by Marcy NortonDivided, Racism, Medicine and why we Need to DeColonise Healthcare by Annabel SowemimoSmoke and Ashes: Opium’s Hidden Histories by Amitav GhoshThe Secret Lives of Numbers: A Global History of Mathematics and its Unsung Trailblazers by Kate Kitagawa and Timothy Revell
The winner of the prize of £25,000 will be announced on October 22nd 2024. And Free Thinking will be looking at some of the other non fiction book prize shortlists over episodes this Autumn
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can find past episodes of Free Thinking available on BBC Sounds and as the BBC Arts & Ideas podcast
Travel, reading, cinema and psychedelic drugs are all means people have used to try to escape. But do they ever really lead us where we want them to? With the election looming, Glastonbury in full swing and lists of beach read suggestions starting to appear -
Matthew Sweet discusses, with
Noreen Masud, Lecturer in Twentieth Century Literature at the University of Bristol
Kirsty Sinclair Dootson, Lecturer in Film and Media at University College London
Jonathan White, Professor of Politics and Deputy Head of the European Institute at the London School of Economics
Jules Evans, writer, historian of ideas and practical philosopher
Plus, Maximillian de Gaynesford, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading, on the philosophical significance of dreams and dreaming.
Jules, Noreen and Kirsty are all New Generation Thinkers on a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to share academic research on radio.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
As the sun sets on the longest day of the year, Matthew Sweet talks to an eclectic group of guests about the illusion of time, the summer solstice and the philosophy of comedy. They are:Materials scientist & engineer; Director of the UCL Institute of Making; Author of Stuff Matters and other book Mark Miodownik.Philosopher Emily Herring who is about to publish the first English biography of the french philosopher Henri Bergson who was famous for his theory of time as well as his views on the meaning of comedy. Emily's book Herald of a Restless World: How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People is out in October.Comedian Rob Newman who made his name with the Mary Whitehouse Experience in the 90s and has presented two series on BBC Radio 4 including Rob Newman's Half-full Philosophy Hour.Also Professor of theoretical physics at Imperial College London Fay Dowker who is an expert in Causal Set Theory and Quantum Relativity.And Author K A Laity will talk about the Women in Magick Conference being held in Birmingham this weekend.Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
Histories spanning the Big Bang to the present, and the story of an entire continent have been written by two of the Free Thinking guests tonight. What insights do big histories bring and what is the value of focusing on a single family or object ? And how do these approaches apply when looking at policy and government. Matthew Sweet's guests are:
Professor Peter Frankopan has written New Silk Roads and The Earth Transformed: An Untold HistoryAlison Light's most recent book of essays is called – Inside History: From Popular Fiction to Life-Writing, previous titles include Common People: The History of an English FamilyZeinab Badawi is author of An African History of Africa. The first presenter of the ITV Morning News and co-presenter of Channel 4 News, she is president of SOAS University of London.Bronwen Maddox is CEO of Chatham House and a Visiting Professor in the Policy Institute at King's College London. She's been Director of the Institute for Government and editor and chief executive of the magazine Prospect.BBC Moscow Correspondent Steve Rosenberg
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson.
With D-day commemorations giving us images of "the finest generation" and discussion about how parties are targeting different age groups in the UK election, Anne McElvoy hosts a discussion looking at what divides and unites us in a fracturing world.Dr Eliza Filby - a historian of generational evolution and contemporary values and author of Inheritocracy and Generation Shift gives us the low down on boomers to Gen Alpha.Professor Rana Mitter is ST Lee Chair in US-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School and author of books including China's Good War: How World War II is Shaping A New Nationalism and China's War with Japan, 1937-1945: The Struggle for Survival. A presenter of Free Thinking on BBC Radio 3 before he joined Harvard, you can find him hosting plenty of Free Thinking discussions.Jo Hamya's debut novel was called Three Rooms. The Hypocrite explores what happens when we become frightened of the generations below usTom Simpson is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford and a Senior Research Fellow at Wadham College.And joining the conversation to talk about how the political parties are trying to woo voters of different ages is Gaby Hinsliff, columnist for The Guardian
Producer: Luke Mulhall
The Insurrectionists' Guide to the Movies looking at some of the latest releases at the cinema and what they say about our culture society and democracy today.Matthew Sweet speaks to Financial Times columnist Stephen Bush, Critic and historian Kate Maltby, film curator Keith Shiri who has advised on a new Pan-African season at the British Film Institute called Tigritudes and Dr Sarah Jilani - an expert in Anglophone postcolonial literature and world film.
Producer: Lisa JenkinsonStudio Manager: Tim Heffer
The Insurrectionists' Guide to the Movies looking at some of the latest releases at the cinema and what they say about our culture society and democracy today.Matthew Sweet speaks to Financial Times columnist Stephen Bush, Critic and historian Kate Maltby, film curator Keith Shiri who has advised on a new Pan-African season at the British Film Institute called Tigritudes and Dr Sarah Jilani - an expert in Anglophone postcolonial literature and world film.
Producer: Lisa JenkinsonStudio Manager: Tim Heffer
British politics has long been defined by the labels of left and right but the terms are now often seen as defunct with research showing voters increasingly struggle to identify policies as being from one wing or another.We look at the historical origins of the terms and whether it is parties, voters, or both who have shifted in recent years. Our guests, the cross bench peer Gisela Stuart who heads the Foreign Office Executive Agency Wilton Park, Author and broadcaster David Aaronovitch, right wing thinker Phillip Blond from the ResPublica Think Tank and Margaret MacMillan, Emeritus Professor of International History at Oxford University, will talk about their own political journeys as well as discussing the wider geo political environment and the future of liberal democracy.
Producer: Lisa JenkinsonStudio Manager: Andrew Garratt.
Sir Richard Evans, Margaret Heffernan, Isabel Oakeshott, Quassim Cassam join Anne McElvoy to look at the ideas shaping our lives today. Are they optimists or pessimists ? How negative should we be in political campaigning, doomscrolling, parenting, writing reviews or giving academic feedback. What are intellectual vices and how might they help us think about truth and conspiracy theories? And "Have a nice day" - we look at the demand to perform a role in the workplace.
Professor Sir Richard J Evans is an historian of modern Germany and modern Europe, and has published over 20 books in the field, most recently The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815-1915 and Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History. In August his new book comes out called Hitler’s People: The Faces of the Third ReichMargaret Heffernan is an entrepreneur, CEO and author of books including Uncharted: How to Map the Future Together and Beyond Measure: The Impact of Small ChangesQuassim Cassam is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick. His books include Ekstremisme, The Epistemology of Democracy andVice Epistemology.Isabel Oakeshott is an award winning British political journalist. Her books include The Pandemic Diaries written with Matt Hancock, Life Support: Farmaggedon written with Michael Ashcroft.Dr Jaswinder Blackwell-Pal is a Lecturer in Theatre and Performance Studies at Queen Mary University of London. She's been announced this week as one of 10 early career academics who’ve been chosen as the 2024 New Generation Thinkers – that’s a scheme to share academic research on the radio which the BBC runs with the Arts and Humanities Research Council. You can hear from all ten in a special New Thinking episode of our Arts & Ideas podcast where you will also find episodes of Free Thinking.
Producer: Lisa JenkinsonStudio Manager: Steve Greenwood
Does reading really encourage empathy? Are we asked to perform a role when we walk into the workplace? How was early film and technicolour embraced for political ends? Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough finds out about the latest research being undertaken by ten academics chosen to work with the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council as the 2024 New Generation Thinkers. They'll be sharing their research on a series of BBC Radio 4 programmes across the coming year and here's a taster from the 2024 New Generation Thinkers.
Dr Emily Baughan, a historian at the University of Sheffield, is researching childcare. She is the author of Saving the Children: Humanitarianism, Internationalism, and Empire.Dr Jaswinder Blackwell-Pal, lectures in drama at Queen Mary, University of London. Her research looks at the way workplaces, from serving coffee to providing care, ask people to perform a role.Dr Janine Bradbury is an award-winning poet and critic who is interested in exploring reading, empathy and sentimentality. A lecturer at the University of York, she has recently published a poetry pamphlet “Sometimes Real Love Comes Quick & Easy”.Jade Cuttle is writing a book called Silthood and studying for a PhD at the University of Cambridge, looking at the language used by British nature poets of colour and their new word coinings. She has released an album of songs and written poems and articles including for The Times, The TLS, The Guardian, Poetry Review, Ledbury Poetry Festival and the BBC Proms. Dr Jacob Downs is departmental lecturer in music at the University of Oxford. He has written on AI-generated music, Beyoncé, how people use headphones for listening and is also an active musician and arranger, and recently worked on Erland Cooper’s Folded Landscapes. Jonathan Egid has spent the past few years digging through the archives on the trail of a brilliant and neglected thinker from 17th century Ethiopia, and the question of whether or not Zera Jacob existed. Based at King’s College, London, he also hosts the podcast and interview series ‘Philosophising In…’ on philosophy in lesser-studied languages.Dr Shona Minson is a criminologist at the University of Oxford. Originally from Belfast, her work on mothers in prison has helped changed legal professional practice in the UK and overseas. Dr Kirsty Sinclair Dootson is interested in the politics of making images in colour. Based at University College London, she has published a book exploring this called The Rainbow’s Gravity.Dr Jack Symes is a public philosopher and researcher at Durham University. He hosts The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast, and edits Bloomsbury’s Talking about Philosophy book series. His most recent book was called Defeating the Evil-God Challenge: In Defence of God’s GoodnessDr Becca Voelcker's research explores artistic and filmic responses to the environmental crisis. Based at Goldsmiths, University of London, she writes for Sight & Sound and Frieze magazines, introduces films at the BFI, and serves on film festival juries.
Dr Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough has made a series of programmes for the BBC about Norse sagas, forest bathing, the history of runes, the far north, Roman bathing since being chosen as a New Generation Thinker in 2013. This New Thinking podcast and the New Generation Thinkers scheme are run as a partnership between the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI.
You can hear more insights from academics based at a host of UK universities in a New Research playlist on BBC Radio 4's Free Thinking programme website.
Can we still expect a meaningful job, stable income, a chance of owning property? How have expectations changed and what is the place of protest? Matthew Sweet's guests this week are:David Willetts is a former Universities Minister and now a life peer. The Rt Hon Lord Willetts FRS is also current President of the Resolution Foundation, Chair of the UK Space Agency and a visiting Professor at King’s College London. His books include The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Took Their Children's Future – And Why They Should Give It BackDr Tiffany Watt Smith is Director for the Centre for the History of Emotions at Queen Mary, London. Her books include Schadenfreude: The Joy of Another’s Misfortune, and The Book of Human Emotions. She was chosen as a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker in 2014 and you can hear her in Free Thinking discussions about happiness, schadenfreude and she presented a short feature about the science of baby laughs.Professor Will Davies is a sociologist and political economist teaching at Goldsmiths University of London. His books include Nervous States: How feeling took over the world, The Happiness Industry: How the government and big business sold us wellbeing and This is Not Normal: The collapse of liberal Britain.Elizabeth Oldfield's latest book is called Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times. She hosts The Sacred podcast and is a former director of Theos, a religion and society think tank.
Plus a report from an event this week in which the Royal Institute of Philosophy was paying tribute to its outgoing president, the political philosopher and ethicist Onora O’Neill, and welcoming her successor, the political philosopher Jonathan Wolff. We hear from Angie Hobbs, Paul, Tom Shakespeare, Grace Lockrobin, Onora O’Neill and Jo Wolff.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Matthew Sweet talks about the philosophy of winning and losing with Professor Lea Ypi a political scientist at the London School of Economics and the journalist and author Peter Hitchens. They'll be joined by the lawyer Michael Mansfield KC who has headed some of the biggest legal cases in recent history - including the Birmingham Six, the Bloody Sunday massacre and the Hillsborough disaster and also by Cath Bishop a triple Olympian, former British diplomat, leadership and culture coach. Cath is the author 'The Long Win' which examines how we define success in sport, business, education and life.Professor Graziano Ranocchia, of the University of Pisa will talk about the discovery of an ancient scroll which contains a previously unknown narrative detailing how the Greek philosopher Plato spent his last evening, describing how he listened to music played on a flute by a Thracian slave girl. The team discuss how our understanding of history is altered as new artefacts or evidence emerge.And they consider the cultural role of nightlife against a backdrop of record closures of music venues, nightclubs and pubs.
Presenter: Matthew SweetProducer: Lisa JenkinsonStudio Manager: Tim Heffer
Marshmallows and Kant, ideas about girl power from Mary Wollstonecraft (born April 27th 1759) to the Spice girls; and galloping horses, sea-gull sounds and life as a goat. On today's Free Thinking Shahidha Bari is joined by literary historian Alexandra Reza, philosophers Angela Breitenbach, John Callanan and journalist Tim Stanley to look back at the week and discuss ideas about our relationship with birds and beasts; and how the philosophy of Immanuel Kant (born 22nd April 1724) outlined ideas about peace, reason and finding ways to have rational discussion. Plus we hear from Thomas Thwaites, author of Goatman: How I Took a Holiday from Being Human.
Tim Stanley is a journalist. You can hear him discussing rationality and tradition with Steven Pinker, the argument against democracy, and the ideas of John Henry Newman on Free Thinking episodes available on the programme website and BBC Sounds Alexandra Reza teaches comparative literature at the University of Bristol. You can hear her in Free Thinking episodes discussing the ideas of Aimee Cesaire, Frantz Fanon and the film-making of Susan MaldororDr John Callanan teaches philosophy at Kings College LondonAngela Breitenbach is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Women made up 10-15% of the workforce in the early days of the post office. Looking at a series of different records from the 17th century onwards, Sarah Ward Clavier has discovered stories about spying, how pubs, the links between pubs and post offices.
Research suggests that communities with a local newspaper are more likely to vote in local elections. Rachel Matthews, who worked as a journalist in local news before turning to academia, explores the relationship between newspapers, readers, and advertisers across time and asks how the role of the local press is changing in the digital age.
Anna Muggeridge has been looking into the hidden history of women politicians in local politics, in the first half of the twentieth century. This was an age when many important decisions on education and welfare were made at a local level – and where the story of women in local politics became intertwined with arguments around female suffrage.
Producer in Cardiff: Fay Lomas
Presenter Dr Joan Passey teaches English at Bristol University and is a New Generation Thinker working with the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to share research on radio.
Dr Sarah Ward Clavier, from the University of the West of England, researches the expansion and travails of the early Post Office, early modern news and communications, and Wales in the seventeenth century. Her most recent book is Royalism, Religion and Revolution: Wales, 1640-1688.
Dr Rachel Matthews, from Coventry University, researches the impact of local journalism on the people and places to which it relates, both across history and in a contemporary context. She is the author of The History of the Provincial Press in England.
Dr Anna Muggeridge is Lecturer in History at the University of Worcester and is currently researching a history of women in local government in interwar England and Wales. She also researches women’s political activism in the 20th century.
This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the AHRC, part of UKRI. You can find more conversations about new research available on the website of Radio 4’s Free Thinking programme and on BBC Sounds
Classicist Mary Beard picks Tacitus as a figure who still has relevance if we're thinking about satire, power and celebrity. Shahidha Bari is joined by Mary, historian Helen Carr, who co-edited What is History Now? political sketch-writer from The Times newspaper Tom Peck and Konnie Huq, writer and former presenter of the children's TV show Blue Peter. On April 21st 1964, the tv channel BBC 2 launched with an episode for children of Play School and programmes like Bluey and Peppa Pig, have been making headlines so what do we want from kids TV? Plus - poet Lord Byron died 200 years ago this week - scholar Dr Corin Throsby has been reading the fan mail he received.
Listen out for Mary Beard and the new series of Being Roman coming to BBC Radio 4 in May - and the first series is available on BBC Sounds.And if you're a fan of Oliver Postgate - The Clangers, Bagpuss and Noggin you can find a Free Thinking episode exploring those programmes.
Producer: Lisa JenkinsonStudio Manager: Tim Heffer
"The times they are a changin" or are they? In politics people are talking about an appetite for change, or being a candidate for change but how radical can you be? With climate change, seasonal change and a change of broadcast time for this programme, Matthew Sweet and his guests discuss change, play a new collaborative version of scrabble, and after Richard Dawkins gave an interview talking about "cultural Christianity" - what do we understand by that phrase?
Kate Maltby is a critic, columnist and cultural historian who holds a PhD in Elizabethan literatureSophie Grace Chappell is a Professor of Philosophy at the Open University, whose books include Epiphanies: An Ethics of Experience and Trans FiguredTakeshi Morisato teaches philosophy at the University of EdinburghDorian Lynskey is a journalist, author and one of the hosts of the politics podcast Oh God, What Now? His books include The Ministry of Truth: A Biography of George Orwell's 1984 and Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World
Gemma Tidman is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Queen Mary University London researching A History of French Literary Play, 1635–1789. You can hear more from her in a Free Thinking episode called Game Playing
Producer: Luke Mulhall
What do you owe the state and what does it provide for us? Writing during the English civil war, Thomas Hobbes came up with an outline for the social contract between individuals and the sovereign – on Free Thinking, Matthew Sweet and guests unpick his ideas and come up with a version for now. They also explore the politics of butter, margarine and scones and seek guidance about history from Abba lyrics.
Barry Smith is Director of the Institute of Philosophy at the University of London’s School of Advanced Study and founding director of the Centre for the Study of the Senses. For BBC Radio 4 he presented a 10 part series called The Uncommon Senses. You can find him on previous Free Thinking conversations about Pleasure, and Futurism.Joanne Paul is the author of The House of Dudley: A New History of Tudor England. She's Honorary Senior Lecturer in Intellectual History at the University of Sussex and was a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker and presented her research in a Radio 3 Essay exploring Speaking truth to powerJames Kirkup is a Senior Fellow at the Social Market Foundation think tank and he writes for publications including The TimesSophie Scott-Brown is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, where she teaches intellectual history. She is the author of The Histories of Raphael Samuel - A Portrait of A People’s Historian. You can find her in the Free Thinking programme archive discussing anarchism and David Graeber, and Happiness
Dr Stu Eve is Archaeological Director of the Waterloo Uncovered project.
Previous episodes of Free Thinking are available on the programme website and BBC Sounds and as the BBC Arts & Ideas podcast.
Producer: Robyn Read
Gold sequins, silk and vibrant colour threads might not be what you expect to find in a sampler stitched by a Quaker girl in the seventeenth century. New Generation Thinker Isabella Rosner has studied examples of embroidered nutmegs and decorated shell shadow boxes found in London and Philadelphia which present a more complicated picture of Quaker attitudes and the decorated objects they created as part of a girl's education.
Dr Isabella Rosner is a textile historian and curator at the Royal School of Needlework on the New Generation Thinker scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to highlight new research. You can hear more from her in Free Thinking episodes called Stitching stories and A lively Tudor world
Producer: Ruth Watts
In 1910 Virginia Woolf and a group of friends caused a stir when they were welcomed on board the HMS Dreadnought, disguised as a delegation of Abyssinian royalty. At the 2017 Conservative Party conference, Theresa May was handed a P45 in the middle of giving her speech. Both these events made the headlines, but what was the intention behind them and did they have any impact beyond provoking either amusement or outrage? Matthew Sweet is joined by Danell Jones who has looked in detail at the Dreadnought Hoax, Simon Brodkin who has staged various high profile stunts including delivering Theresa May's P45 and Kerry Shale whose father was an inveterate prankster who sold practical jokes for a living.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The Girl Prince: Virginia Woolf, Race and the Dreadnought Hoax by Danell Jones is out now.Simon Brodkin's 'Screwed Up' tour continues throughout the UK from May onwards.
Who's Holding the Baby? was the title of an exhibition organised to highlight a lack of childcare provision in East London in the 1970s. Was this feminist art? Bobby Baker, Sonia Boyce, Rita Keegan and members of the photography collective Hackney Flashers are some of the artists who've been taking part in an oral history project with New Generation Thinker Ana Baeza Ruiz. Her essay presents some of their reflections on what it means to make art and call yourself a feminist.
Dr Ana Baeza Ruiz is the Research Associate for the project Feminist Art Making Histories (FAMH) at Loughborough University and a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to showcase new research into the humanities. You can hear her in Free Thinking episodes on Portraits and Women, art and activism available as an Arts & Ideas podcast
Producer: Ruth Watts
The impact of light bulbs on cities like New York and Paris at the turn of the twentieth century and the way modernist poets like Mina Loy and Lola Ridge depicted this, is at the heart of research being done by Dr Nicoletta Asciuto. For this New Thinking conversation hosted by Dr Sophie Coulombeau, she joins Dr Jaqueline Yallop, whose book Into the Dark looks at living in dark places and at experiences including "sundowning" - experienced by some people diagnosed with dementia, this is a change in behaviour that occurs in the evening, around dusk as darkness grows, causing agitation and anxiety. When Jacqueline Yallop’s father was diagnosed with dementia, he began experiencing exactly that, which prompted Jacqueline’s profound self-reflection on the world’s relationship to the dark.
Dr Jacqueline Yallop is an award-winning author of fiction and creative non-fiction, and her book Into the Dark explores darkness in science, literature, art, philosophy and history. She teaches creative writing at Aberystwyth University.Dr Nicoletta Asciuto is a Senior Lecturer in Modern Literature at the University of York. She is currently working on her first monograph, Brilliant Modernism: Cultures of Light and Modernist Poetry, 1909-1930 which discusses the impact of new lighting technologies on the birth of new avant-garde and modernist poetics.Dr Sophie Coulombeau is an author and academic based at the University of York, and was chosen as a 2014 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and AHRC to put research on the radio.
This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find more on BBC Sounds and in a collection on BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme website under the title New Research including conversations about music and disability, language learning, sign language, green thinking and neglected women artists.
Producer in Salford: Lola Grieve
Viking burials, preserving archaeology in Uganda, the morgues of Paris and New York and the medieval attitude to dying are our topics as Chris Harding hears about new research from archaeologists Marianne Hem Eriksen and Pauline Harding, and historians Cat Byers and Harriet Soper.
Catriona Byers is completing a PhD at King’s College London on the nineteenth-century morgues of Paris and New YorkDr Marianne Hem Eriksen is Associate Professor of Archaeology at the University of Leicester and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. You can find an Essay she has written for BBC Radio 3 drawing on her research available now on BBC SoundsDr Harriet Soper is Lecturer in Medieval Literature at the University of BristolPauline Harding is working on a PhD at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology, about spirits and approaches to cultural heritage in Uganda
Producer: Robyn Read
The Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens produced around 1,500 artworks, and a new research project explores the Islamic themes in his art. Dr Adam Sammut discusses why the Ottoman Empire’s influence on Rubens has been at the periphery of research, and what it reveals about the early modern understanding of cultural identity. Dr Nil Palabiyik has been researching the artist, musician and linguist Ali Bey who was taken as a war captive from Poland and placed at the palace school in Constantinople. He became a key figure at court, bridging cultural differences between east and west through his collections of Ottoman music and translation of the bible. Dr Adam Sammut is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in History of Art at the University of York. His current project is called ‘Rubens and Islam: Global exchange and European identity in early modern Antwerp. Dr Nil Palabiyik is Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern Studies at Queen Mary University of London. In 2023 she was awarded the Philip Leverhulme prize and is the author of ‘Silent Teachers: Turkish Books and Oriental Learning in Renaissance Europe, 1544-1680’. Dr Sarah Jilani is a Lecturer in English at City, University of London, looking at post-colonial world literatures and film and was a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and Arts and Humanities Research Council to put research on the radio. This New Thinking episode of the Arts & Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find more on BBC Sounds and in a collection on Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme website called New Research with discussions on topics ranging from disability in music and theatre to why we talk
Producer: Martha Owen
A 1660s board game made by a Jesuit missionary sent to the Mohawk Valley in North America is the subject of New Generation Thinker Gemma Tidman's essay. This race game, a little like Snakes and Ladders, depicts the path of a Christian life and afterlife. Gemma explores what the game tells us about how powerful people have long turned to play, images, and other persuasive means to secure converts and colonial subjects.
Dr Gemma Tidman is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Queen Mary University London and a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put research on radio. You can hear more from her in Free Thinking discussions about Game-playing, and Sneezing, smells and noses.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
An ancient Sussex church - home to a medieval anchorite and the cottage where William Blake received the poetic spirit of Milton are two of the places explored in the new book from Alexandra Harris, as she returns to her home country Sussex and consults sources ranging from parish maps, paintings by Constable to records of the fish caught on the River Arun. In her new book Harriet Baker explores the impact of a move away from city life on three twentieth century writers - Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Rosamond Lehmann. Julien Clin talks about his research into place in contemporary London writing and ideas of heimat in the work of Heidegger. Shahidha Bari hosts the conversation.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Rural Hours: The Country Lives of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Rosamond Lehmann by Harriet Baker is published April 2024The Rising Down: Lives in a Sussex Landscape by Alexandra Harris is out now. You can hear her in other Free Thinking discussions exploring trees in art and twilightavailable as Arts & Ideas podcasts. She has also written Essays for Radio 3 exploring A Taste for the Baroque, Dark Arcadias, and a series of walks for Radio 4 in the footsteps of Virginia Woolf.Julien Clin is a researcher based at Kingston University London working on a project about the poetics of place in contemporary London writing.
The A13 runs from the City of London past Tilbury Docks and the site of the Dagenham Ford factory to Benfleet and the Wat Tyler Country Park. As he travels along it, talking to residents about their ideas of community and change, New Generation Thinker Dan Taylor reflects on the history of the area and different versions of hopes for the future.
Dr Dan Taylor lectures in social and political thought at the Open University and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to share insights from academic research on radio. You can hear him in Free Thinking discussions about Essex, and discussing medieval bestiaries in Beast and Animals. He is also the author of a book Island Story: Journeys Through Unfamiliar Britain.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Whilst water is the most important substance on earth, we take it for granted in our modern lives.
As an archaeologist, Jay Ingate looks at water in the development of urban centres in early Roman Britain. Whilst the Romans sought to channel water for human purposes they also had a respectful relationship to it because of its believed connection to spirits and deities. Their largest sewer was even blessed with the name of a Goddess. Sam Grinsell explores how that connection to nature was lost as European colonialism led to the grand history of dam making and British engineers sought to ensure a pipeline to Egyptian cotton. He explains how this mastery over water continues with the artificially constructed landscapes of the 19th and 20th century North Sea coasts.
How does out detachment from waters’ source diminish our ability to connect what comes out of our taps to the intensifying dangers of droughts and floods resulting from climate change? Might an understanding of its history illuminate and offer solutions to our current dilemmas?
Jay Ingate is Senior Lecturer in Roman and Classical Archaeology at Canterbury Christ Church University and his research focuses on the complex role of water in the development of urban centres in early Roman Britain Sam Grinsell is a Research Fellow at the Bartlett School of Architecture and follows rivers, canals, seas and oceans in the way they shape the spaces in which we live. He is currently working on a three-year project titled ‘Making North Sea coasts in England, Flanders and the Netherlands, c.1800-1950’. Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough is a Lecturer in Environmental History at Bath Spa University She’s a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker on the scheme which promotes research on the radio.
This New Thinking episode of the Arts & Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UKRI. You can find more collected on the Free Thinking programme website of BBC Radio 3 under New Research or if you sign up for the Arts & Ideas podcast you can hear discussions about a range of topics.
Producer: Jayne Egerton
From 1922, between 10-30,000 women and girls are thought to have been incarcerated at the Magdalene laundries which operated in Ireland. New Generation Thinker Louise Brangan has been reading the testimonies of many of the girls who survived these institutions. As the Irish state tries to come to terms with this history, how should it be spoken about? Is a language of legal blame and guilt enough to make sense of this history?
Dr Louise Brangan is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Strathclyde and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (part of UKRI) to put research on radio. You can find her contributing to Free Thinking discussion episodes looking at Ireland's hidden histories and secret stories
Producer in Salford: Olive Clancy
Canvey Island: cradle of innovation for gas heating and home to music makers Dr Feelgood, who drew inspiration from the Mississippi Delta. New Generation Thinker Sam Johnson-Schlee is an author and geographer based at London South Bank University. His essay remembers the influence of Parker Morris standards on heating in the home, songs written by Wilko Johnson and the impact of central heating on teenage record listening and playing instruments.
Producer: Julian Siddle
You can hear more from Sam in Free Thinking episodes exploring Dust and Sound, Conflict and Central HeatingNew Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put research on radio
Looking at the way human and animal bodies were treated in death and used in rituals prompts New Generation Thinker and archaeologist Marianne Hem Eriksen, from the University of Leicester, to ask questions about the way humans, animals and spirit-worlds were understood. Her Essay shares stories from a research project called Body-Politics’: presenting worlds where elite men could shapeshift into animals — and some people’s bones ended up in rubbish pits.
This Essay is part of the BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinkers scheme which puts academic research on radio.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can hear Marianne discussing insights from her research in episodes of Free Thinking called The Kitchen and in one broadcasting next week looking at Attitudes towards death.
Two years living at sea taught New Generation Thinker Kerry McInerney values which she wants to apply to the development of AI. Her Essay explores the "sustainable AI" movement and looks at visions of the future in novels including Waste Tide by Chen Qiufan and Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl. Dr McInerney is a Research Associate at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge and a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to put academic research on radio.
Producer: Julian Siddle
You can hear more from Kerry in Free Thinking and New Thinking episodes available as Arts & Ideas podcasts called AI, feminism, human/machines and Yellowface, AI and Asian stereotypes
Amalia Holst's defence of female education, published in 1802, was the first work by a woman in Germany to challenge the major philosophers of the age, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant. Unlike Mary Wollstonecraft writing in England, Holst failed to make headway with her arguments. New Generation Thinker Andrew Cooper teaches in the philosophy department at the University of Warwick. His essay explores the publishing of Holst's book On The Vocation of Woman to Higher Intellectual Education.
Andrew Cooper is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can hear more from Andrew in a Free Thinking discussion about The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe available as an Arts & Ideas podcast and on BBC Sounds
In 2024, Scotland marks two big anniversaries: David I ascended the throne nine centuries ago and James I of Scotland began his reign 600 years ago. Both Kings played a role in shaping Scotland's ideas about its monarchy. How did David shape Scotland, and what relevance does the Stone of Destiny have - then, and now, as it returns to its native Perthshire? We look at the Scottish dream-vision, initiated by James I in writing Scotland's first love poem, sparking a new tradition lasting through the Renaissance and beyond. Anne McElvoy hears about distinctly Scottish ideas of Kingship.
Kylie Murray is the author of The Making of the Scottish Dream Vision and a BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker
Alexandra Sanmark is Professor of Medieval Archaeology at the University of the Highlands and Islands
Donna Heddle is Professor of Northern Heritage and Director of the UHI Institute for Northern Studies at the University of the Highlands and Islands
William Murray is Viscount Stormont and owner of Scone Palace
Producer: Ruth Watts
You might be interested in other Free Thinking episodes exploring Scottish history and writing including programmes about The Declaration of Abroath; John McGrath's Scottish drama, Tales of Scotland: A Nation and its literature with Janice Galloway, Peter Mackay, Murray Pittock and Kathleen Jamie; The Battle of Culloden - Outlander and Peter Watkins; crime writer Ian Rankin talks to Tahmima Anam.
Rana Mitter explores looks at the role of writing in propagating ideas and exposing political tensions. He hears how writers have given voice to personal and political ambitions, from Ding Ling to the teenagers of modern China. Yuan Yang discusses her new book, Private Revolutions. Simon Ings talks about his latest book Engineers of Human Souls which examines four writers whose ideas shaped the careers of some of the twentieth century’s most infamous dictators. And Jeffrey Howard analyses the ethics of negotiating free speech and censorship today.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Private Revolutions: Coming of Age in a New China by Yuan Yang is out now
Simon Ings' book Engineers of Human Souls: Four Writers Who Changed Twentieth-Century Minds looks at Maurice Barrès, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Ding Ling and Maxim Gorky.
Jeffrey Howard is Associate Professor of Political Philosophy and Public Policy at UCL and Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Ethics in AI at Oxford University. You can find an Essay called Prison Break which he wrote for BBC Radio 3 asking if it is ever ok to escape from prison available on BBC Sounds. He was chosen as a New Generation Thinker in 2020 on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put research on radio.
Why do babies say "daddy" earlier and what might it mean when a baby does call for "mum" or "anne"? Dr Rebecca Woods, from Newcastle University, calls upon her training in linguistics and observations from her own home to trace the way children’s experiences shape their first words and the names they use for their parents.
Rebecca Woods is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put academic research on radio.
Producer: Ruth Watts
You can hear more from Rebecca Woods in a Free Thinking discussion about childhood and play when Young V&A opened - it's available from the programme website and as an Arts & Ideas podcast
When Saved was banned in 1965 by the Lord Chamberlain's office, the Royal Court theatre turned itself into a private club to allow performances of Edward Bond's drama to be staged. This may be the most famous incident in the career of the playwright, who has died aged 89, but he was the author of over 50 plays, including several written for young people to perform, and others designed for broadcast on BBC Radio and he also worked on film scripts, wrote poems and long prefaces to his works. Joining Matthew Sweet to discuss his life and writing are the playwright Mark Ravenhill, actor Kenneth Cranham who starred in a 1969 production of Saved, Jen Harvie who is a Professor of Contemporary Drama at Queen Mary, London, Tony Coult, a writer and teacher of drama who has run Edward Bond's website for the past five years and written introductions to his play texts, and Claudette Bryanston, who commissioned The Children for a performance in a local Cambridge school with teenagers acting alongside adults.
Producer: Robyn Read
There's nothing like a good night's sleep, but Laurence Scott discovers that our ability to enjoy one may be related to other societal inequalities, giving rise to the idea of sleep justice. His guests, researchers Sally Cloke, Jonathan White, Alice Vernon and Alice Bennett, also provide insights into sleep disorders, including night terrors, and the tyranny of the alarm clock.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Jonathan White is Professor of Politics and Deputy Head of the European Institute at the London School of Economics whose books include In the Long Run: The Future as a Political Idea and an article for the Journal of Political Philosophy Circadian JusticeDr Sally Cloke is a designer, researcher and writer on design and care ethics based at Cardiff Metropolitan UniversityDr Alice Vernon, a creative writing lecturer at Aberystwyth University is the author of Night Terrors: Troubled Sleep and the Stories We Tell About ItDr Alice Bennett, who lectures at Liverpool Hope University is the author of Alarm and Contemporary Fictions of Attention
In the Free Thinking archives and available as Arts & Ideas podcasts you can find other discussions relating to sleep hearing from Russell Foster, Sasha Handley, Diletta de Cristofaro, Kenneth Miller and Matt Berry
The medieval poet Hafez and how his work speaks to today, the impact of digs undertaken by 19th-century feminist archaeologist Jane Dieulafoy and the novels she wrote looking back to a Persian past, the role of classical singing and the impact of the Mongol invasion are discussed by the academics Julia Hartley, Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Glasgow; Michelle Assay, Principal investigator of the Marie Curie/UKRI project, “Women and Western Art Music in Iran” at King’s College London; Sussan Babaie, Professor in the Arts of Iran and Islam at the Courtauld Institute and Ide Haghi, Lecturer in Modern Foreign Languages at the University of Glasgow. Chris Harding presents.
Producer: Jayne Egerton
Julia Hartley's book Iran and French Orientalism: Persia in the Literary Culture of Nineteenth-Century France is out now. You can hear more from Julia in a Free Thinking discussion about Alexander the Great and in a Radio 3 Essay called Alexander and the Persians. Michelle Assay contributed to a discussion about Lady Macbeth. All are available as Arts & Ideas podcasts and on BBC Sounds.
Gene Hackman is a brilliant but troubled surveillance expert who gets drawn unwittingly into a conspiracy to murder. Released at the height of the Watergate scandal, Coppola's 1974 film about covert surveillance and wire-tapping reflected the mood of paranoia in the USA at the time. Matthew Sweet his guests, film historians Lucy Bolton and Phuong Le, writer Michael Goldfarb and writer and filmmaker Adam Scovell discuss the film and how our attitudes to being subjected to surveillance have changed in the fifty years since it was released.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Iseult Gonne is the daughter of the Irish suffragette, actress and republican who became a muse for WB Yeats. Novelist Helen Cullen has been researching her troubled life. Rochelle Rowe's research looks at women of colour who modelled for artists including Jacob Epstein and Dante Gabriel Rosetti, tracing the histories of women like Fanny Eaton and Sunita Devi. Tabitha Barber is curating an exhibition of women's art opening at Tate Britain in May. Naomi Paxton hosts a conversation about muses, women making art and carving out a public name for themselves.
Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts and Crafts Movement runs at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery until 31 OctoberFrom16 May, Tate Britain opens Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520 - 1920Angelica Kauffman runs at the Royal Academy (1 March - 30 June 2024)Julia Margaret Cameron runs at the National Portrait Gallery (21 March - 16 June)
You can find a collection of episodes exploring Women in the World on the Free Thinking programme website
1,300 women met in The Hague in 1915 to discuss votes for women, human rights and the importance of peace. Jennifer Thomson shares her research into how this fed into the development of the women's movement and fed into organisations like the United Nations. Storm Jameson (1891-1986) was President of the English branch of PEN International during WWII and helped many writers flee war torn Europe. Katie Cooper has been reading her newly re-published autobiography Journey From the North. Sarah Maldoror ( 1929 −2020) is best known for her feature film Sambizanga which looked at the 1961–1974 war in Angola. New Generation Thinkers Alex Reza and Sarah Jilani discuss her film-making career. Shahidha Bari hosts.
Producer: Ruth Watts
You can find a collection of Free Thinking episodes exploring Women in the World from Julian of Norwich to Hilma Af Klint, women warriors to stepmothers, landladies and divas.
Adam Smyth loves books - as well as being a Professor of English Literature he runs an experimental printing press from a cold barn in Oxfordshire. Who better then to tell us about the quirky pioneers of print, the subject of his new publication The Book-Makers? In this programme he takes us to 1490s London to tell the story of Wynken de Worde, a Dutch immigrant who came to work at William Caxton's press, the very first printing enterprise in England. A canny businessman, de Worde set about making all things printed into Early Modern must-haves.
At the same time as books and printing took hold in England, a network of communications grew across Early Modern Europe. Dr Esther van Raamsdonk is an expert in Anglo-Dutch relations and the people, goods and ideas that moved back and forth across the North Sea at the time. We will learn how myriad changes they brought continue to shape our society and also about the many cheese-based jokes published about the low countries when relations soured.
And Dr Elise Watson researches books and early modern Catholicism. She has stories to tell about crafty Dutch Catholic lay sisters running bookshops, establishing schools and outselling the guilds in Amsterdam with their book stalls and door-to-door peddling. What sort of influence did they have on Early Modern England?
Producer in Salford: Olive Clancy
Travelling in Woody Guthrie's footsteps inspired a history of hitchhiking written by Jonathan Purkis. He joins Matthew Sweet for a conversation which ranges across hitchhiking in the UK and in Eastern Europe, where Poland operated a kind of voucher system. We look at the influence of film depictions from the Nevada desert depicted in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the hippie vibe of Easy Rider to the horror of The Hitcher and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the female focus of Je Tu Il Elle by Chantal Akerman. Has the idea of hitchhiking now had its day? Joining Matthew to assess the idea of risk and our perception of thumbing a lift are Timandra Harkness, film critic Adam Scovell, plus Sally J Morgan, winner of the Portico prize for her book Toto Among the Murderers, based on her experience of being offered a lift by Fred and Rosemary West
Jonathan Purkis's book is called Driving with StrangersSally J Morgan's book Toto Among the Murderers is out nowTimandra Harkness is the author of Big Data: does size matter? has performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with a show called Take a Risk and contributes to and presents programmes on BBC Radio 4.Adam Scovell writes about film for Sight and Sound magazine and is a published novelist. His books include How Pale The Winter Has Made Us and Nettles.
Producer: Jessica Treen
We've a whole playlist of discussions exploring The Way We Live Now with topics ranging from Breakfast, to Gloves, Toys to Punk, Rationality and Tradition. Find them on the Free Thinking programme website and available to download as Arts and Ideas podcasts
Recycling Victorian clothes, the history of costume design, the messages conveyed in art made from textiles and the stories encoded in ancient embroidery are explored by Shahidha Bari and her guests Isabella Rosner, Rianna Norbert-David, Jade Halbert and Danielle Dove. They also look at exhibitions at the Barbican Gallery in London and the Museum of London in Docklands.
Isabella Rosner is the curator of the Royal School of Needlework and a New Generation Thinker. You can hear an Essay from her about Quaker needlework broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in MarchJade Halbert is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Leeds working on the project https://www.constructingcostumehistories.co.uk/Danielle Dove is a Fellow of the Institute for Sustainability at the University of Surrey researching second hand clothes in the Victorian periodRianna Norbert-David is an assistant curator at the Museum of London and has a MA in textile design from the Royal College of Art
Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art runs at the Barbican Art Gallery in London from Tue 13 Feb—Sun 26 May 2024Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners shaped global style runs at the Museum of London in Docklands until 14 April 2024Sargent and Fashion runs at Tate Britain in London from 22 Feb - 7 July 2024Leeds Art Gallery runs monthly stitch art events using works in their collection as the inspiration for textile art. The University is home to the M&S archive https://archive.marksandspencer.com/
Producer: Robyn Read
Formed in 1968, the German group Can's founding members included Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay who had both studied under Karlheinz Stockhausen. Joined by jazz drummer Jaki Liebezeit, guitarist Michael Karoli and Japanese vocalist Damo Suzuki for the group's 'classic' line-up that recorded Tago Mago (1971) and Ege Bamyasi (1972), their fourth album - Future Days - saw them exploring a more ambient, blissed-out sound, in contrast to their previous releases. Matthew Sweet is joined by musicians Jah Wobble and Gwenno, novelist Alan Warner and cultural historian Mererid Puw Davies to take a deep dive into the album and explore the blend of influences that made Can such a unique musical proposition.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
An expanded edition of Jah Wobble's autobiography Dark Luminosity: Memoirs of a Geezer is out on 7th March.
Asked to picture a nineteenth-century ship, you might think of the HMS Victory or HMS Temeraire, symbolic of empire. Something epitomised by flag-waving and victory - Britannia rules the waves. In this edition of Free Thinking, Catherine Fletcher asks if we memorialise one aspect of our maritime past at the expense of others.
Remember in Great Expectations when Magwitch escapes from a prison ship anchored by the coast? Dickens was likely inspired by the reality of the 19th century "prison hulks", decommissioned warships moored on docks to house criminals. Dr Anna McKay of the University of Liverpool can tell us more about how the hulks, supposed to be a short term solution to a crisis, ended up being used for decades. Dr Lloyd Belton of the University of Glasgow studies the Kru - fiercely independent West African sailors who formed an alliance with the Royal Navy to rid the African coast of slavers. His research follows what happened these men, who saw themselves as servants of the Empire, when they settled in Liverpool between the wars. And Dr Oliver Finnegan from the National Archive at Kew will tell us about the enorrmous historical potential of the "Prize Papers", a collection of thousands of unopened letters, legal papers and other documents from ships captured by British privateers and the Royal navy between 1652 and 1815.
Presented by: Catherine FletcherProducer in Salford: Olive Clancy
BBC Radio 3's Words and Music episode about Antartica, the explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and his ship Endurance is available on BBC Sounds and you can find other episodes of Free Thinking exploring ships in history hearing from Sarah Caputo, Hew Locke and Jake Subryan Richards
The first condoms were made of cloth and intended to be used after sex. Later they were replaced by hand stitched animal gut ones – designed to be washed and reused. We chart the bizzare, fraught and sexist history of attempts to deal with the prevention of sexually transmitted disease - where medical practice came into conflict with the morals of society.
Histories of Sexual Health in Britain 1918-1980 is a research project being led by Anne Hanley. She joins Bill Yarber from the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University and Kate Lister from the Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies who has looked at the experiences and depictions of sex work from the nineteenth century to today. Matthew Sweet hosts the discussion
Producer: Julian Siddle
Dr Kate Lister is a Senior Lecturer at Leeds Trinity University. She curates the online project www.thewhoresofyore.com and is the author the book A Curious History of Sex. You can hear more from her in a Free Thinking episode called How we talk about sex and women's bodiesDr Anne Hanley is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham whose research project is engaged in collecting oral histories with people who accessed and/or staffed sexual-health clinics between 1948 and 1980 in Britain.Professor Bill Yarber literally wrote the book or rather books for sex education in America, from some of the first guides to STDs, HIVAIDS and condom use to 'Human Sexuality: Diversity in Contemporary America' - the bestselling textbook on the subject.
Chocolate is an indulgent luxury used to mark special points in the calendar like Valentine's Day, Easter and Christmas. But it's also everywhere, from breakfast cereals to protein shakes. Shahidha Bari unravels this paradox, tracing the meanings of chocolate from ancient Central America, via the Aztecs and Maya, over the Atlantic to the Spanish court, the coffee houses and palaces of 17th century London, to the invention of mass-produced milk chocolate as we know it today in Switzerland in the late 19th and early 20th century. It's a story of pleasure, intoxication, conquest and industrialisation, all following from the specific culinary qualities of a bean.With:
Bee Wilson, food writer whose most recent book is The Secret Of Cooking: Recipes For An Easier Life In The Kitchen
Sean Williams, Radio 3 & AHRC New Generation Thinker and Senior Lecturer in German and European Cultural History at the University of Sheffield
Caroline Dodds Pennock, Senior Lecturer in International History at the University of Sheffield, whose most recent book is On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe
Misha Ewen, Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Bristol
Producer: Luke Mulhall
An indulgent luxury used to mark special points in the calendar like Valentine's Day, Easter and Christmas, but it's also everywhere, from breakfast cereals to protein shakes. Shahidha Bari unravels this paradox, tracing the meanings of chocolate from ancient Central America, via the Aztecs and Maya, over the Atlantic to the Spanish court, the coffee houses and palaces of 17th century London, to the invention of mass-produced milk chocolate as we know it today in Switzerland in the late 19th and early 20th century. It's a story of pleasure, intoxication, conquest and industrialisation, all following from the specific culinary qualities of a bean.With:
Bee Wilson, food writer whose most recent book is The Secret Of Cooking: Recipes For An Easier Life In The Kitchen
Sean Williams, Radio 3 & AHRC New Generation Thinker and Senior Lecturer in German and European Cultural History at the University of Sheffield
Caroline Dodds Pennock, Senior Lecturer in International History at the University of Sheffield, whose most recent book is On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe
Misha Ewen, Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Bristol
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can find other Free Thinking episodes exploring food, picnics, breakfast available on BBC Sounds and as the Arts & Ideas poodcast
In February 1894, the French anarchist Martial Bourdin was killed in Greenwich Park when the bomb he was carrying exploded accidentally. The event provided Joseph Conrad with the inspiration for his novel The Secret Agent, and the resulting backlash against anarchist groups in London eventually led to the first British immigration legislation - the 1905 Aliens Act. As a conference takes place exploring the incident and its legacy, Matthew Sweet is joined by historians Charlotte Jones, Ruth Kinna and Thomas Jones to discuss the bombing that was dubbed "the Greenwich Outrage".
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
In 1989 the demilitarized zone between East and West was the venue for a gathering which was titled the Pan-European picnic. Matthew Longo's new book explores the Hungarian, East German and Russian politics which led to this happening and how it contributed to the ending of the cold war. He joins historians of art and food in a conversation hosted by Anne McElvoy which ranges across picnics in ancient Greece, French impressionist painting, country house opera events like Glyndebourne and celebrating the arrival of the cherry blossom season.
Matthew Longo is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Leiden and author of The Picnic
Monika Hinkel is an art historian based at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London
Kirsty Sinclair Dootson is a lecturer in Film and Media at University College London
Pen Vogler is a food writer and the author of Scoff: A History of Food and Class in Britain
Producer: Ruth Watts
The Picnic: An Escape to Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain by Matthew Longo is out nowYou can find other discussions about German and cold war history on the Free Thinking programme website and available as the Arts and Ideas podcast.
Bidisha, Peter Conradi and Lucy Bolton join Matthew Sweet to read the moral philosophy book published by Iris Murdoch in 1970. Murdoch, who died aged 79, 25 years ago on Feb 8th 1999, was a writer of novels and philosophy books which explored the nature of good/evil, the role of the unconscious and of sex and love. In 1978 she won the Booker prize for her story The Sea, The Sea and in 1987 she was made a Dame.Lucy Bolton has written about Iris Murdoch, philosophy and cinema; novelist and critic Bidisha is a fan, Peter J Conradi, who is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Kingston, was a friend of Iris Murdoch and author of books including Iris Murdoch: A Life, A Writer at War: Letters and Diaries of Iris Murdoch 1939-45, The Saint and Artist: A Study of the Fiction of Iris Murdoch, and his autobiography Family Business: A Memoir which talks of his friendship with her.
The Iris Murdoch Research Centre is at the University of Chichester.You might also like another Free Thinking discussion on rewriting 20th-century British philosophy and women philosophers including Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley,
Producer: Luke Mulhall
The "best sci-fi film" never made? That's what Andrzej Zulawski's project has been called. Shut down by the Polish government before production had finished in 1977, the film wasn't completed and released until 1987. It's a visually stunning and wildly ambitious exploration of myth, religion and being human in an alien world. Zulawski (1940-2016) studied cinema in France and became known for art-house films working with actresses including Romy Schneider, Isabelle Adjani and Sophie Marceau. Matthew Sweet and his guests Daniel Bird, Sarah Dillon and David Hering, have been watching On the Silver Globe.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The Light of Asia: A History of Western Fascination with the East is the new book from New Generation Thinker and historian Christopher Harding. In Passions of the Soul, the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams looks at the classics of Eastern Christian writing. At Compton Verney in Warwickshire, the artist Gayle Chong Kwan is preparing to unveil ‘shrines’ made up of newly cast bronze offerings, incorporating references to Chinese, Taoist and Buddhist cultures, as well as focusing on ideas around food, soil and the body. Rana Mitter hosts the conversation.
Producer: Julian Siddle
The Taotie runs at Compton Verney from 21 March 2024 – 31 March 2026On the Free Thinking programme website you can find more collections of conversations exploring religious belief, and South and East Asian culture
The stories told and secrets kept in Ireland north and south are the focus of a pair of deeply personal new non fiction books - Missing Persons Or My Grandmother's Secrets from University of Cambridge Professor of English Literature Clair Wills and Dirty Linen by Martin Doyle who is Books Editor of the Irish Times. They're joined by the criminologist Dr Louise Brangan who researches the sociology of punishment, including work on Ireland's Magdalene Laundries and the poet Scott McKendry whose work deals with generational trauma and social decay in Belfast. John Gallagher hosts a discussion of how the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and others can shape society and history itself.
Professor Clair Will's books include Lovers and Strangers: An Immigrant History of Post-War Britain and The Family Plot: Three Pieces on Containment.Martin Doyle's book is called Dirty Linen The Troubles in My Home Place.Scott McKendry's debut poetry collection is Gub.Dr Louise Brangan is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Strathclyde and a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Thinker.
You can find other episodes exploring Irish history and writing on the Free Thinking programme website under past episodes and Arts & Ideas podcasts including programmes about Emigration and "bad Bridgets"; Ireland's Hidden Histories and Secret Stories; Edna O'Brien; Colm Tóibín; Anne Enright.
Radio 3 has a three part series tracing music and composers from the island over the past two hundred years - Irish Classical, hidden in plain sight. Find it on BBC Sounds.
Producer in Salford: Olive Clancy
Historians continue to unearth documents, interpret new records accounts and reinterpret old ones in their light. In doing so they expand our understanding of unfolding antisemitism and the holocaust. Anne McElvoy speaks to Barbara Warnock the senior curator of the Wiener Holocaust Library, the world's oldest holocaust research institution as it marks its 90th anniversary this year. Rachel Pistol explores the emerging stories of the Jewish men interned in Britain during the Second World War. We hear from Liza Weber about what we can learn from the Jewish art looted by the Nazis. And, Daniel Lee tells us about the lives of resisters Missak and Mélinée Manouchian whose courage will be honoured in Paris this month.
Dr Rachel Pistol is a digital historian and National Coordinator of European Holocaust Research Infrastructure. She is also the Historical Advisor for World Jewish ReliefDr Barbara Warnock of the Wiener Holocaust Library has curated its 90th anniversary exhibitionDr Liza Weber, University of Sussex Weidenfeld Institute of Jewish StudiesDr Daniel Lee is a BBC AHRC New Generation Thinker and a Reader in Modern French History at Queen Mary, University of London.
Producer: Ruth Watts
You can find previous episodes marking Holocaust Memorial Day with discussions about Nazis, Holocaust, Time and Memory with Richard J Evans, Jane Caplan, David Cesarani, Andre Singer and Eva Hoffman; Romani history, Portuguese Jewish experiences and a big academic literature research project in the 2023 episode hearing from Victoria Biggs, Richard Zimmler, Stuart Taberner and Daniel Lee; and episodes looking at Linda Grant and Jewish history; links between Judaism and Christianity, the writing of Betty Miller and Marghanita Laski; Jewish history, jokes and contemporary identity with Simon Schama and Devorah Baum.
In the first decades of the 20th century the Japanese philosopher Kitaro Nishida sent students to Europe and America to see what they could discover about Western philosophy. Keiji Nishitani went to Freiburg to study under Martin Heidegger, and became one of the leading figures in the Kyoto School, a project of synthesis that tried to read the Japanese intellectual tradition through the lens of European philosophy and vice versa. These thinkers took ideas from Christian mysticism, German idealism and Phenomenology, and combined them with an interest in direct experience shaped by Japanese Zen and other forms of Buddhism. But it was work carried out in Japan in the 1930s, in a society becoming increasingly militaristic and tending towards fascism. Chris Harding discusses the Kyoto School and its legacy with James Heisig, Professor Emeritus at Nanzan University, Graham Parkes, Professorial Research Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Vienna, Raquel Bouso, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, and Takeshi Morisato, Lecturer in Non-Western Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Martin Heidegger is widely viewed as one of the most significant philosophers of the 20th century. His 1927 book Being & Time took issue with the entire Western intellectual tradition since Aristotle and suggested a new beginning for philosophy, which has been widely influential in philosophy and beyond. But Heidegger was a card-carrying member of the Nazi party, and there is considerable evidence that he held anti-Semitic views. What is the relationship between the Epochal work, and the opinions and actions of the man? Matthew Sweet discusses, with Maximilian de Gaynesford, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading, Peter Osborne, Professor of Philosophy at Kingston University, Daniel Herskowitz, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in Theology at the University of Oxford, and Donatella Di Cesare, Professor of Philosophy at Sapienza Universita di Roma.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Neurodiversity, madness and disability are at the centre of the work being undertaken by three academics who join Matthew Sweet to look at the history of ideas about "normality". Dr Robert Chapman is Assistant Professor of Critical Neurodiversity Studies at Durham University and author of Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism. Dr Louise Creechan is also at Durham University and is working on a book about literacy in the nineteenth century. Dr Sarah Chaney researches the history of emotions at Queen Mary University of London and is the author of Am I Normal?: The 200-Year Search for Normal People (and Why They Don’t Exist).
Producer: Julian Siddle
You can find other Free Thinking discussions featuring Louise Creechan exploring How We Read, and looking at accents in Language, the Victorian and us.
From Lady Macbeth to Portia, Viola and Rosalind - Shakespeare's female characters continue to hold the highest appeal for actors, but less is known about the women in his own life. The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust is embarking on a year of events and exhibitions looking a the women who made Shakespeare, many of them forgotten, exploring their influence in his lifetime and the women who shaped his legacy beyond. Anne McElvoy hears about the latest research looking at the women in Shakespeare's life, his plays and his legacy. Sophie Duncan has looked at this first tragic heroine and the actress who did so much to promote his legacy, Ellen Terry. Hailey Bachrach has examined how Shakespeare used female characters in deliberate and consistent ways across his history plays. Emma Whipday has written Shakespeare's Sister, a play which follows Virginia Woolf's Room of One's Own in reimagining Shakespeare's sister as the playwright 'Judith Shakespeare'. And, Anouska Lester has looked at the role of Marie Corelli in Shakespeare heritage.
Sophie Duncan is a Research Fellow at Magdalen College, University of Oxford and the author of Searching for Juliet: The Lives and Deaths of Shakespeare's First Tragic Heroine.Hailey Bachrach is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Roehampton, drama critic and dramaturg who has worked at Shakespeare's Globe. Her book is called, Staging Female Characters in Shakespeare's English History Plays.Emma Whipday is a BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker and author of Shakespeare's Domestic Tragedies.Anouska Lester is researching the role of Marie Corelli in preserving Shakespeare's legacy and has recently completed a PhD at the University of Roehampton.
Producer: Ruth Watts
You can find a collection of Free Thinking episodes exploring Shakespeare on the programme website and available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts and Radio 3 also has podcast versions of some of the dramas to listen to as The Shakespeare Sessions.
What is the composition dirt and dust? Is there a better place to hang the washing? And how can I make my home more comfortable? These are all questions which preoccupy our guests.
Jay Owens first became interested in the nature of dust around fifteen years ago. Her book entitled ‘Dust’ considers its global significance as a factor in both the dirt in our homes and major economic and political events from the dustbowls of the 1930s to the fallout from nuclear testing.
Architect Marianna Janowicz is thinking about what we do with our laundry, how buildings are not well designed to help dry it. The water vapor produced causes indoor mould and damp and yet in many places outside drying is banned. In an era where there’s great interest in finding low energy solutions to a range of humanity’s problems what can be done to alleviate the burden, the domestic drudgery of the washing cycle?More on Marianna's work here ; https://www.editcollective.uk/
And are you comfortable with gas central heating, maybe you’d prefer a wood burner? How we heat our homes and what this means for the way we live is a long term research theme for Sam Johnson Schlee, but with increasing cost of fossil fuels and their role as key drivers of climate change what is the future for home comfort?
Producer: Julian Siddle
You might also be interested in Free Thinking episodes (available as the Arts and Ideas podcast) looking at Mid Century Modern and changes in the home; sneezing, smells and noses; Housework (and Hannah Gavron's The Captive Wife); and an episode called Breathe brought together writer James Nestor, saxophonist Soweto Kinch, Imani Jacqueline Brown of Forensic Architecture and New Generation Thinker Tiffany Watt Smith.
"A hermit in the middle of Los Angeles" is one way she described herself - born in 1947, Butler became a writer who wanted to "tell stories filled with facts. Make people touch and taste and know." Since her death in 2006, her writing has been widely taken up and praised for its foresight in suggesting developments such as big pharma and for its critique of American history. Shahidha Bari is joined by the author Irenosen Okojie and the scholar Gerry Canavan and Nisi Shawl, writer, editor, journalist – and long time friend of Octavia Butler.
Irenosen Okojie's latest collection of short stories is called Nudibranch and she was winner of the 2020 AKO Caine Prize for Fiction for her story Grace Jones. You can hear her discussing her own writing life alongside Nadifa Mohamed in a previous Free Thinking episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k8szGerry Canavan is co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to American Science Fiction.Nisi Shawl writes about books for The Seattle Times, and also contributes frequently to Ms. Magazine, The Cascadia Subduction Zone, The Washington Post.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You might be interested in the Free Thinking episode Science fiction and ecological thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000h6ywand on Ursula Le Guin's The Word for World is Forest https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b6yb37and a playlist exploring Landmarks of Culture including Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks and the writing of Audre Lorde, and of Wole Soyinkahttps://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44
Montaigne's literary self portraits led to him popularising the Essay form in the mid 1500s. With online articles, long reads in newspapers and magazines and a number of publishing houses interested in promoting essays and reprinting authors, Rana Mitter and guests look at what makes a good Essay drawing on examples from the past and present. Rana's guests are the author Kirsty Gunn; the essayist Chris Arthur, author of Hidden Cargoes; Paul Lay, Senior Editor at Engelsberg Ideas and a former editor of History Today and Emma Claussen is a lecturer in French at Trinity College, University of Cambridge who studies the work of Montaigne.
Producer: Ruth Watts
In the Free Thinking archives you can find a collection of episodes available as Arts and Ideas podcasts exploring Prose, Poetry and Drama including discussions about libraries, the history of paper, and what makes a good lecture
Going on a trip ? get ready to get uncomfortable, pack grease to treat your sore bum, and laudanum for the inevitable travel sickness - and perhaps you might also be in need of an anti-strangulation collar to ward off those potential murderers?We’re delving into the perils of travelling in the past. Back in the 1700s there was no such thing as a relaxing weekend break, travelling could be a fraught and even deadly undertaking. Such was the danger, making a will before you set off seemed reasonable.
Emily Stevenson, Lecturer in Renaissance and Early Modern Literature at the University of York, is researching women travellers as far back as the 1550s. Some set out on religious pilgrimages, others on trade missions, smoothing the way for their husband’s wheeler-dealing. It’s a picture of heroines and hardship.
Alun Withey, lecturer in History at the University of Exeter is opening the suitcases of the time, what did travellers take with them and why ? How have the accoutrements of travel changed or remained the same over the last 400 years?
Art Historian Rebecca Savage from the University of Birmingham, looks at the artistic legacy of travel poster designers from before the second world war. Many were artists in their own right and many were women. Their iconic images of country picnics and modernist landscapes evoke a sense of rural Britain lost in time.
And as we move from the era of the railway to the car, Social Historian Tim Cole from the University of Bristol takes us on a journey inspired by paternalistic travel guides and maps given out freely as part of the 1951 Festival of Britain. How relevant are they now, how much of what they describe is lost in the past or still with us?
Producer: Julian Siddle
Mickey Mouse in his first incarnation in a short film from 1928 becomes available for public viewing without infringing Disney's copyright next year. In a programme looking back at the copyright history which affected authors including Charles Dickens and at current questions around legislation, Matthew Sweet is joined by David Bellos, author of Who Owns This Sentence? – A History of Copyrights and Wrongs, Katie McGettigan, lecturer in C19th American literature and Hayleigh Bosher, Reader in Intellectual Property Law at Brunel University London.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
What links carol singing with dogs? Medieval musicologist Micah Mackay reveals that carols aren’t just for Christmas – they began life as communal songs for anything from lullabies to drinking songs. She explains the detective work required to bring to life a fundamentally oral culture from a small number of manuscript sources, and what the origin of carols can tell us about the concept of Englishness in the medieval period. Englishness is also a key point of interrogation for Dr Caroline Lesemann Elliott, whose research explores the fascinating world of exiled English convents in Continental Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries, focusing especially on their musical sound world. We hear from the Basilinda Consort, an ensemble Caroline founded in order to perform the music they discovered and reconstructed as part of their research.The host is BBC New Generation Thinker Leah Broad, author of Quartet, a group biography of four women composers, which came out earlier this year.
Dr Caroline Lesemann Elliott recently completed a PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London and a Bodleian Visiting Fellowship in Music. They are founder and director of the Basilinda Consort, an early music ensemble dedicated to exploring the lives of English Christian women religious. They are also a composer. https://carolinelesemannelliott.com/https://basilindaconsort.com/
Micah Mackay is a writer and historian who recently submitted her PhD at the University of Oxford as part of the ‘Hearing the Page’ project in the Publication Beyond Print Doctoral Centre. She is also a theatre maker, screenwriter, and presenter based in Edinburgh.https://mamackay.com/about/https://www.humanities.ox.ac.uk/hearing-page
This New Thinking episode of the Arts & Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find more on BBC Sounds and in a collection on Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme website called New Research with discussions on topics ranging from diverse classical music to how and why we talk.
Greek goddesses are the focus of Natalie Haynes' most recent book. She joins Ian Collins, curator of an exhibition at Pallant House celebrating the paintings made by John Craxton, who relocated from England to Crete after visiting in 1947; Minna Moore Ede, curator of an exhibition inspired by Leda and the Swan at the Victoria Miro Gallery and Dr Lucy Jackson talks about her research into the chorus in Greek drama. Shahidha Bari hosts
Natalie Haynes' books include Divine Might, A Thousand Ships, Pandora's Jar, Stone Blind, The Children of Jocasta, The Amber Fury and The Ancient Guide to Modern LifeJohn Craxton: A Modern Odyssey runs at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester until 21 April 2024 curated by Ian Collins, author of John Craxton: A Life of Gifts in partnership with the galleryLeda and the Swan: a myth of creation and destruction runs at the Victoria Miro Gallery in London until Jan 13th 2024 and is also available to view digitally via https://vortic.art/discover Dr Lucy Jackson is Assistant Professor at Durham University
Producer: Robyn Read
You can find Natalie Haynes discussing Phaedra, Cretan Palaces and the Minotaur in a Free Thinking episode in our Women in the World collection on the programme website
Cultural revolution memories, European resistance in occupied Poland and France and early attempts to establish trade with Mughal leaders in India are the topics explored in prize winning history books. Rana Mitter talks to authors Tania Branigan, Halik Kochanski and Nandini Das about digging in the archives and seeking out interviewees to help shape our understanding of these different periods in world history. Plus prize winning science books by John Vaillant, who considers the incredible power of fire as it consumes a city in Alberta built on the extraction of fossil fuels, and Ed Yong who reveals the extrodinary range of senses which humans don't have, but other animals do, from navigating using smell to the ability to detect electromagnetic waves.
Tania Branigan is the 2023 winner of the Cundill History Prize for Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China's Cultural RevolutionNandini Das is the 2023 winner of the British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding for Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of EmpireHalik Kochanski won the Wolfson History Prize 2023 with her book Resistance: The Underground War in Europe, 1939–1945John Vaillant won the 2023 Baillie Gifford Prize for non fiction for his book Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter WorldEd Yong was the winner of the 2023 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize for An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
Producer: Julian Siddle
You can hear more from Nandini Das talking to Rana alongside Peter Frankopan, author of The Earth Transformed: An Untold History in a Free Thinking episode called Climate change and empire buildingYou can hear more from Halik Kolchanski in the interviews Rana recorded with all six finalists for the 2023 Wolfson prize
Popularising calypso music, performing with Sinatra's Rat pack, Nana Mouskouri, Miriam Makeba and Charlie Parker, starring in films including Otto Preminger's Carmen Jones, the hip hop film he produced called Beat Street, Robert Altman's Kansas City and Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman: Harry Belafonte's career in film and music ran from 1949 to 2018 but he was also a tireless political activist who was inspired by Paul Robeson. As the BFI programmes a season of his films in December, Matthew Sweet is joined by Candace Allen, Kevin Le Gendre and Susanne Rostock.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
On the Free Thinking website you can find Matthew Sweet's interview with Harry Belafonte, recorded in 2012 after the publication of his autobiography My Song and the release of Susanne Rostock's documentary Sing Your Song. Susanne is currently working on another film that she made with Belafonte - Following Harry - that sees him meeting and talking to young activists.Also on the Free Thinking website are more episodes exploring Black History including a discussion about the career of Sidney Poitier and Radio 3 has a series of 5 Essays called Paul Robeson in Five Songs.Kevin Le Gendre's Edgar Allan Poe based musical project - Re:EAP - has just released its debut album 'Zoo For Barbers'.
Scientist, novelist, poet, philosopher, feminist, it's 400 years since the birth of Margaret Cavendish.An extraordinary character in many ways - she lived in a tumultuous time, when ideas around science, religion and the very nature of existence were being challenged and changed. And she had a view on them all. Margaret Cavendish’s writings are vast and broad and yet detailed and thoughtful. However for most of the last 400 years she has languished in obscurity before being rediscovered in the last 40 years and elevated to the status of feminist icon. She was in her time very much the only, and often outspoken, female voice in circles dominated by men – and by and large they hated her for it.
Nandini Das looks at the life, work and influence of Margaret Cavendish with:
Dr Emma Wilkins who has followed the rise in interest in the work and life of Margaret Cavendish in recent times, and has a particular focus on her science.
Professor Anne Thell, Vice President of the International Margaret Cavendish Society who is leading work on interpreting and presenting Margaret Cavendish’s writing for wider audiences.
Francesca Peacock, whose new biography of Margaret Cavendish ‘Pure Wit’ sets her in a modern feminist context.
And Emeritus Professor of Physics Athene Donald, who includes Margaret Cavendish in her book on women in science ‘ Not just for the boys’ arguing that the treatment of Margaret Cavendish by the 17th century scientific establishment illustrates negative attitudes and issues which have still to be addressed for women in science today.
In the Free Thinking programme archive you can find a collection of episodes exploring women in the world including programmes about Aphra Behn, Chaucer's the Wife of Bath, Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, Gwendolyn Brooks and Phillis Wheatley.
Producer: Julian Siddle
Sixty years after the death of C. S. Lewis's, his best known work, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, is still for many a childhood favourite and it's also the subject of a new literary study. Christianity was central to all of Lewis's his novels, his academic writing and generalist non-fiction. It is also his Christianity that divides his admirers and detractors. This tension lies at the heart of a new film which stages a clash between two ways of thinking, the psychoanalytic and the religious. Freud’s Last Session imagines an encounter between Lewis and Freud exploring the clash between their views of human nature and faith. Chris Harding and guests examine how we're still wrestling with the belief and the imagination of C.S. Lewis today.
Meg Thomson is the producer of Freud’s Last Session, starring Anthony Hopkins as Freud and Matthew Goode as Lewis
Jem Bloomfield is an assistant professor at the University of Nottingham and the the author of a new, literary exploration of Paths in the Snow: A Literary Journey through The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Ruth Jackson is co-host of the C.S. Lewis podcast and a producer at Premier Unbelievable Christian Radio.
Justin Brierley is a writer and broadcaster, his latest book is The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God.
Producer: Ruth Watts
7th Prince of the West Indies was the title that Frank Walter gave himself. An artist who created over 5,000 paintings, 1,000 drawings, 600 sculptures, 2,000 photographs, 468 hours of recordings, and a 50,000-page archive, tried to become Prime Minister and was the first Black man to manage a sugar plantation in Antigua - a show about him at the Garden Museum in London has been curated by Professor Barbara Paca. She talks to Jade Munslow Ong, plus New Generation Thinker Jim Scown, who's been researching Alexander Humboldt and Camilla Allen who's looked at tree planting and landscape design, and Jago Cooper, Director of the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich discusses their new approach to exhibitions about climate change.
Producer in Salford: Olive Clancy
Frank Walter: Artist, Gardener, Radical runs at the Garden Museum in London until 25 Feb 2024At the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich The Stuff of Life | The Life of Stuff which runs until Jan 14th 2024 is part of a season: Planet for our Future: How do we adapt to a Transforming World? Sediment Spirit: The Activation of Art in the Anthropocene runs until March 31st 2024The Politics of Street Trees edited By Jan Woudstra and Camilla Allen is out nowOn the Free Thinking programme website you can find a collection of episodes exploring Green Thinking, all available as the Arts & Ideas podcast.
When Hugh Jackman starred in the 2022 revival of ‘The Music Man’, he was taking on a classic Broadway musical with a little known connection to disability. Professor Dominic Broomfield-McHugh at the University of Sheffield has been digging through the archives to uncover how early drafts of the show originally focused on the experience of a young wheelchair user – an idea which was then scrapped by writer Meredith Wilson due to commercial and social pressures.
Megan Steinberg is the Lucy Hale Doctoral Composer in Association with Drake Music (a leading national organisation working in music, disability and technology) at the Royal Northern College of Music. Megan researches and creates art that explores adaptive music technologies and able-ist bias in AI.
They talk to Louise Creechan about disability politics in music in an episode recorded for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (3 December).
Dr Louise Creechan is a Lecturer in Literary Medical Humanities and Research Assosicate at the University of Durham, as well as a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to put research on radio
This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find more on BBC Sounds and in a collection on BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme website under the title New Research including conversations about language learning, sign language, green thinking and neglected women artists.
Producer: Lola Grieve
The Palace of Dreams is a novel from 1981 that is ostensibly set in the 19th century Ottoman empire, but the Albanian writer Ismail Kadare cleverly smuggles in thinly veiled criticism of the totalitarian state presided over by Enver Hoxha. The book was duly banned shortly after publication. Matthew Sweet looks at this and other examples of fiction that satirise bureaucratic overreach from Dickens to Kafka to Georgi Gospodinov, the Bulgarian novelist who won the 2023 International Booker prize for his novel Time Shelter. Sharing their thoughts on these books and on the history and role of bureaucracy within both democratic and totalitarian states are Lea Ypi, Mirela Ivanova and Roger Luckhurst.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Lea Ypi is a Professor at the London School of Economics and the author of Free: Coming of Age at the End of History. You can hear her discussing the culture of Albania in a previous Free Thinking episodeProfessor Roger Luckhurst's books include Gothic: an illustrated history; Corridors - passages of modernity; Science Fiction: a Literary HistoryMirela Ivanova teaches at the University of Sheffield. You can hear her in a Free Thinking discussion of Slavic Myths
The Great Library of Alexandria had a mission to collect every book in the world. In attempting to do so it created the foundations for the systems and structures of public libraries that we know today. We discuss the development of libraries, our emotional attachment to them and their pupose in the digital age.
Islam Issa's new book traces the development of Alexandria. He joins Andrew Pettegree, author of The Library: A Fragile History, Fflur Dafydd whose murder mystery story The Library Suicides is set in the National Library of Wales and academic Jess Cotton who is researching the history of loneliness and the role played by public libraries as hubs for communities. Laurence Scott hosts.
Andrew Pettegree is a Professor at St Andrews University and the author of The Library: A Fragile HistoryFflur Dafydd is a novelist and screenwriter who writes in Welsh and English. She is the author of BAFTA Cymru nominated thrillers 35 awr and 35 Diwrnod and her novel The Library Suicides has also been made as a film Y Llyfrgell.Dr Jess Cotton from the University of Cambridge has been researching Lonely Subjects: Loneliness in Postwar Literature and Psychoanalysis, 1945-1975Islam Issa is a Professor at Birmingham City University, author of Alexandria: The City that Changed the World. He is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and Arts and Humanities Research Council to share academic research on radio. You can hear him discussing the Shakespeare collection at the Birmingham Library in an Arts and Ideas podcast episode called Everything to Everybody - Shakespeare for the people
Producer: Julian Siddle
Women in the villages of Spain and the repression and passions of five daughters are at the heart of Lorca's last play the House of Bernarda Alba, completed two months before he was assassinated in 1936. Rana Mitter looks at the life and writing of Lorca, with guests including The Observer's theatre critic, Susannah Clapp and Professor Maria Delgado of the Central School of Speech and Drama and Professor Duncan Wheeler, Chair of Spanish Studies at the University of Leeds and Dr Federico Bonaddio who teaches Spanish literature at King’s College London.
Producer: Ruth Watts
The House of Bernarda Alba in a version by Alice Birch and starring Harriet Walter runs at the National Theatre until 6 January 2024. You can find more discussions about Prose, Poetry and Drama in a collection on the Free Thinking programme website including episodes looking at Ibsen, Moliere, Shakespeare, Lorraine Hansberry, John McGrath, George Bernard Shaw all available as Arts & Ideas podcasts
The perfect childhood and the failure of utopian experiments in living in Edwardian England were explored by AS Byatt in her 2009 novel The Children's Book. In this conversation with Matthew Sweet recorded in that year, they discuss her writing life, mythologising childhood and her meetings with Iris Murdoch, about whom she wrote two critical studies. A lecturer in English literature, AS Byatt's books drew on a wide range of reading and visiting art galleries and museums. In 1990 she won the Booker prize for her novel Possession.
You can find other conversations with writers on the Free Thinking programme website in a collection called Prose, Poetry and Drama
Re-invention and moral struggles are at the heart of the story of post-war Germany traced by Frank Trentmann in his new book Out of the Darkness. Anne McElvoy talks to him, to Thomas Meaney the new editor of Granta who is bringing out an edition called Deutschland, to journalist Stefanie Bolzen and to New Generation Thinker Dr Tom Smith who has studied the techno scene in German cities. How have 70 years of political struggles shaped Germany's culture and identity?
Producer Ruth Watts
Caribbean migrants striving to make their lives in London are the focus of this 1956 novel by Samuel Selvon. Written in creolized English, it established him as an important Caribbean voice. In an event organised in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature and the British Library, Shahidha Bari is joined by the poet Anthony Joseph, the writer Guy Gunaratne and by Susheila Nasta who is a writer, critic and literary executor and representative for the Sam Selvon literary estate.
Guy Gunaratne‘s first novel In Our Mad And Furious City won the International Dylan Thomas Prize, Jhalak Prize and the Authors Club Award. Their second novel published earlier this year is called Mister Mister.Anthony Joseph was born in Trinidad. The author of five poetry collections, Sonnets for Albert, won the T. S. Eliot Prize 2022 and was shortlisted for The Forward Prize for Best Collection 2022.Susheila Nasta founded Wasafiri, the Magazine of International Contemporary Writing and is an Emeritus Professor at Queen Mary, London and the Open University. Her books include The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing, and Brave New Words: The Power of Writing Now.
Producer: Torquil MacLeodYou can find other conversations about prose, poetry and drama - some recorded as events at the British Library and in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature gathered into a collection on the programme website for BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking. They are all available to download as the Arts & Ideas podcast.
Over 200 women sculptors have been uncovered in the research of Sophie Johnson from Bristol University. She describes some of their creations and discusses the challenges of working with the incomplete personal archives of these artists – including Mrs Goldsmith, Patience Wright, and Catherine Andras, who created wax portrait miniatures and effigies, and Anne Seymour Damer, who carved in marble.
Kathleen Collins died in her 40s and left un-filmed screenplays and unpublished stories which Alix Beeston from Cardiff University has been researching. Collins’ finished film Losing Ground didn’t get a theatrical release when it was made in 1982 but it was restored and reissued in 2015. Now her work is finding a new audience. But how should we approach her unfinished works? Joan Passey hosts the conversation.
Producer in Cardiff: Fay Lomas
Dr Joan Passey teaches English at Bristol University and is a New Generation Thinker working with the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to share research on radio.
Sophie Johnson is a PhD candidate at the University of Bristol researching eighteenth century European women sculptors. Her research focuses on women wax modellers and their entrepreneurship. Links to her articles are available at https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/persons/sophie-johnson
Dr Alix Beeston is a feminist writer and academic based at Cardiff University. Her most recent book is Incomplete: The Feminist Possibilities of the Unfinished Film. More details of her work are available at https://alixbeeston.com/
With special thanks to Michael Minard, who provided the song ‘It Might Be’ – written by Minard and Kathleen Collins, performed by Jenny Burton, intended for use in an unfinished film project by Collins – which we hear in the podcast.
This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the AHRC, part of UKRI. You can find more conversations about new research available on the website of Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme and another collection exploring Women in the World all available as the Arts & Ideas podcast.
A miserable child and a summer festival are at the heart of the short work of philosophical fiction first published by Ursula Le Guin in 1973. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas was sparked by "forgetting Dostoyevsky and reading road signs backwards" was the answer given by the author when asked where she got the idea from. Matthew Sweet is joined by guests including the authors Una McCormack, Naomi Alderman, Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson and Kevan Manwaring, and political philosopher Sophie Scott-Brown. They discuss Le Guin's thought experiments and writing career and also the short story called The Ones Who Stayed and Fought which NK Jemisin wrote in response to Le Guin's vision of Omelas.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Naomi Alderman's latest novel The Future is out now Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson publishes The Principle of Moments in January 2024Dr Sophie Scott-Brown is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia and is the author of The Histories of Raphael Samuel - A Portrait of A People’s HistorianDr Kevan Manwaring is Programme Leader for MA Creative Writing (online) and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Arts University BournemouthDr Una McCormack's books include Star Trek: Picard novel The Last Best Hope
You can find many other discussions about science fiction and imagining the future in collections on the Free Thinking programme website including episodes about Philip K Dick, John Rawls, Octavia Butler, Afro-futurism, AI and creativity
The first women’s liberation conference in the UK, Miss World protests, the formation of the Brixton Black Women’s Group and the politics of who cleans the house are all explored in a new exhibition at Tate Britain. Whilst activism and art linked to ecology by 50 women and gender non-conforming artists are on display at the Barbican Centre in London and eco-feminist Monica Sjöö (1938-2005) is celebrated in a show opening at Modern Art Oxford. Naomi Paxton is joined by the academics Sophie Oliver and Ana Baeza Ruiz, by Alona Pardo curator of the Re/Sisters exhibition at the Barbican, and by Marlene Smith, a member of the BLK art group in Britain, who has helped pull together the Tate show.
Producer: Julian Siddle
Women in Revolt: Art, Activism and the Women’s movement in the UK 1970–1990 runs at Tate Britain until 7 April 2024Monica Sjöö: The Great Cosmic Mother runs at Modern Art Oxford from 18 November to 25 February 2024RE/SISTERS A Lens on Gender and Ecology runs at the Barbican Centre, London until Sun 14 Jan 2024
Ana Baeza Ruiz is at Loughborough University working as the Research Associate for the project Feminist Art Making Histories - an oral history of women's art.Sophie Oliver teaches literature at the University of Liverpool, specialising in modernist writing by women and in links between art and writing. Both are New Generation Thinkers on the scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to put research on the radio.
Matthew Sweet is joined by Professor Preti Taneja – author of a novel We That Are Young which sets the King Lear in Delhi, by Dr Iain Robert Smith who studies films from around the world, and by Andrew Dickson, journalist and author of Worlds Elsewhere: Journeys Around Shakespeare’s Globe. As part of Radio 3’s day of music inspired by Shakespeare, Free Thinking looks at paintings by the Romantics and Pre-Raphaelites, at films from India and Turkey, and at the way Shakespeare’s plays resonate in political hot spots.
Producer: Ruth Watts
You can find plenty more Shakespeare discussions in a collection on the Free Thinking programme website and available as Arts and Ideas podcasts and we’ve got two New Thinking episodes exploring what else you might have seen in an Elizabethan playhouse aside from Shakespeare plays – and the title of another research project that we hear about might give you a clue - Box Office Bears
And you can hear all the music played today on Radio 3 inspired by Shakespeare on BBC Sounds - where you can also find episodes of Words and Music and a Sunday Feature presented by New Generation Thinker (and winner of the British Academy Book Prize) Nandini Das profiling Shakespeare’s rival Robert Greene.
Goldilocks, Robin Hood, Little Bess of Bromley, Moll Frith were star performers on the bear baiting circuit in Elizabethan England. New evidence of bear bones uncovered in archaeological digs and over 1,100 accounts in letters and documents from the period, are being studied in a research project called Box Office Bears. Andy Kesson delves into bears’ impact on the literary culture of the time and asks if bear baiting was not so much a sporting contest as a staged spectacles akin to contemporary wrestling. Hannah O’Regan explains how bear bones found in archaeological digs in Southwark’s theatre land reveal the animals’ stressful lives and she suggests that the scary, fighting bears of our cultural imaginary are strikingly different from the playful, conflict defusing bear of real life. Were they unfairly typecast?Hannah O'Regan is Professor of Archaeology and Palaeoecology at the University of Nottingham and Principal Investigator in the BOB Project. She has excavated on sites in the UK, Israel and South Africa. Her current research interests include human-non-human animal interactions (particularly bears). Andy Kesson is a Reader in Renaissance Literature at the University of Roehampton and Co-Investigator in the BOB project. He was the principal investigator for Before Shakespeare, and is working with the theatre maker Emma Frankland on a production of John Lyly’s Galatea which he discussed in an episode of Free Thinking called Galatea and Shakespeare https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001kvpk. He has recently explored a multitude of bears in early modern plays.Box Office Bears: Animal baiting in early modern England, is a project bringing together researchers from the Universities of Nottingham, Roehampton and Oxford and project partner Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) https://boxofficebears.com/about/Dr Emma Whipday is a Lecturer in Renaissance Literature at Newcastle University and an expert in Shakespeare, early modern literature, women's history, theatre history, and the history of the home and family . Her current book project, Subordinate Roles, explores the cultural importance of the brother-sister relationship and the place of the unmarried woman in early modern society. She’s a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker on the scheme which promotes research on the radio.
This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find more in a collection of the website of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking programme and all available on BBC Sounds.
Ultrasound tests in Burnley market hall will help the phonetics lab at Lancaster University explore tongue positions and accents as part of this year's Being Human Festival. Claire Nance joins John Gallagher to explain more. Alongside them are Rob Drummond from Manchester Met University, author of a new book You're All Talk, Andrea Smith from the University of Suffolk, who is researching early radio voices and Shane O'Mara, Professor of Experimental Brain Research in Trinity College Dublin, who has been exploring why we converse.
Producer in Salford: Faith Lawrence
This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI.
Professor Claire Nance and her team from Lancaster University are at Burnley Market on Saturday 11th November. The Being Human Festival runs a series of public events across the UK showcasing humanities research at universities. It runs November 9th - 18th https://www.beinghumanfestival.org/Dr Andrea Smith is a Lecturer in English and Creative Writing at the University of SuffolkProfessor Shane O'Mara teaches at Trinity College Dublin and is the author of books including In Praise of Walking and Talking Heads: The New Science of How Conversation Shapes Our Worlds
Professor Rob Drummond's book You're All Talk is out now and you can hear more from him in these podcastsNew Thinking: City Talk https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07h30hm and New Thinking: Accents https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0d66mtlYou can find John Gallagher's programme A History of the Tongue available if you look up Radio 3's Sunday Feature programme website And we have other Free Thinking discussions about speech:Sadie Ryan, Lynda Clark and Allison Koenecke in an episode called Speech, Voice, Accents and AI https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000srbnNew Thinking: Language the Victorians and Us https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0dmjgwxNew Thinking: Language Loss and Revival https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0dw6ctrWhat is Speech? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b1q2f3What is Good Listening? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000djtdThe pros and cons of swearing https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09c0r4mLanguage and Belonging https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006fh9AI and creativity: what makes us human? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005nml
From Iraq and Afghanistan and news headlines today back to earlier battles in the Spanish Civil War and World War Two, the relationship between war, photography and the press has affected attitudes towards conflicts. In the annual Remembrance discussion organised in partnership with the Imperial War Museum, Free Thinking presenter Anne McElvoy's panel are: Toby Haggith Senior Curator, Department of Second World War and Mid 20th Century Conflict; Irish Iraqi artist Jananne Al-Ani, whose work explores surveillance, aerial reconnaissance and exodus after warfare; Charlie Calder-Potts, who was an official war artist with the British Army in Afghanistan 2013/14; and Caroline Brothers, author of War and Photography: A Cultural History.
The Blavatnik Art, Film and Photography Galleries at IWM London include around 500 works from the museum collections including John Singer Sargent’s painting Gassed, Steve McQueen’s response to the 2003 war in Iraq, Queen and Country, and works by artists including Paul Nash, Laura Knight, Peter Jackson, Olive Edis and Omer Fast.Charlie Calder-Potts works with aluminium, wasli, wood panel and vellum (calf skin); combining photography, painting and drawing and has worked in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran and Russia.Jananne Al-Ani is an Irish Iraqi artist who teaches at the University of the Arts London. Her video piece Timelines which was on display at the Towner Art Gallery Eastbourne last year and has recently been seen at the Ab-Anbar Gallery, London, explores Armistice Day 1918 in the town of al-Hindayyah in what is now modern-day Iraq.Caroline Brothers is the author of War and Photography A Cultural History.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
You can find a collection of episodes exploring war and conflict on the Free Thinking programme website which include past discussions organised in partnership with the IWM.
From Lyons’ Corner House opera performances in the 1920s to 1980s productions staged in fish and chip shops in Scotland – Alexandra Wilson has been studying the history of opera going and presents us with a wider audience for the art form than current stereotypes might have you think. Callan Davies has looked at what went on in Elizabethan playhouses aside from plays by the likes of Shakespeare. New archaeological digs and legal documents featuring complaints are giving us evidence for a kind of leisure centre or arena which might have seen animal sports, fencing matches or spectaculars. Laurence Scott hosts the conversation.
Alexandra Wilson is Professor of music and cultural history from Oxford Brookes University and the author of Opera in the Jazz Age: Cultural Politics in 1920s Britain
Callan Davies is lecturer in 17th-century studies at the University of Southampton. His book is called What is a Playhouse? England at Play, 1520-1620 and he’s involved in a research project called Box Office Bears which you can hear more about in another of our New Thinking episodes of the Arts and Ideas podcast and you can find more information about playhouses here: https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/discover/shakespeares-world/playhouses/ https://www.thestageshoreditch.com/discover/history-heritage
Laurence Scott is the author of two books The Four-Dimensional Human and Picnic Comma Lightning. He teaches writing and literature at New York University in London and became a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker in the first year of the scheme in 2011.
This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find a collection of episodes focused on new research on BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme website.
Lady Fanshawe’s ‘Receipt Book’ (c.1651-1707) provides the inspiration for a public cooking event at Tamworth castle hosted by the academic Sara Read which includes preserving vegetables and a look at etiquette. Ideas about hospitality and how we behave when we eat are at the heart of a quiz organised by researchers at Edge Hill University. Both are part of the Being Human Festival and Sara Read and Zayneb Allak join Lindsay Middleton, who is researching food poverty, luxury ingredients and tin cans. Lisa Mullen is also joined at the Free Thinking table for a conversation about new research into food history by two authors: Rebecca May Johnson has written a memoir called Small Fires: an epic in the kitchen and Pen Vogler's History of Good Food and Hard Times in Britain is called Stuffed. So join them for a conversation which covers eel soup, salads, real butter and How to Cook a Wolf.
Producer: Jayne Egerton
The Being Human Festival runs from Nov 9th to 19th showcasing university research from around the UK in a series of public events https://www.beinghumanfestival.org/Dr Sara Read teaches at Loughborough University and is running a workshop at Tamworth Castle on Nov 18Rebecca May Johnson is running an experimental cooking demo in Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex on Nov 18 and her memoir is called Small FiresZaynab Allak at Edge Hill University is running events to do with hospitality 10-16 NovemberDr Lindsay Middleton is a literary historian of nineteenth-century food writing at the University of Glasgow. Her research projects include Dishes for the Sick Room: Invalid Recipes from Glasgow's Culinary CollectionsPen Vogler is the author of Stuffed: A History of Good Food and Hard Times in Britain and Scoff: A History of Food and Class in Britain
You can find more episodes exploring new research in a collection on the Free Thinking programme website including other New Thinking podcast episodes made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI
Around 3 million Bengali Pakistanis now live in Pakistan it is estimated and a research project has been exploring their experiences, mixing oral testimony and art projects with analysis of recent history. Humera Iqbal explains their findings to presenter Sarah Jilani. And Ahmad Naji Bakhti discusses his novel about the dreams of a boy growing up in Lebanon and how writing it in exile in Wales has led him to reflect on the language and phrasing he uses and what audience he is addressing.
Humera Iqbal is Associate Professor of Social and Cultural Psychology at University College London. Her project is called Partition of Identity https://poistudy.com/ and has led to a film called BHASHAILI (ADRIFT) (2023) directed and produced by: Jawad Sharif and produced by: Humera Iqbal, Syeda Kashmala, Anushay Malik based on their research work and that of Maria Rashid. It is being screened at Rich Mix as part of the Being Human Festival on November 16thhttps://richmix.org.uk/events/paper-boats-the-pakistani-bengali-story/
Ahmad Naji Bakhti is a lecturer in creative writing at Aberystwyth University and the author of a novel called Between Beirut and the Moon published by Influx Press. He is also working on a project with Syrian residents in Aberystwyth.
Dr Sarah Jilani is a Lecturer in English at City, University of London, looking at post-colonial world literatures and film and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and Arts and Humanities Research Council to put research on the radio. This episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the AHRC, part of UKRI.
Writers Teju Cole and Noo Saro-Wiwa and Tate curator Osei Bonsu talk to Laurence Scott.
The exhibition A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography at Tate Modern has a mission statement - to confront reductive representations of African peoples and cultures. All the images are from an African perspective, and explore ideas about masks, spiritual worlds, royalty, family portraits and shared dreams.
The lives of African settlers in China are at the heart of the new book Black Ghosts by Noo Sara-Wiwa. Opportunities for Africans to live and work in China are precarious and tightly controlled, the book explores why many choose to live under such restrictions.
And Teju Cole’s new novel is entitled Tremor. His central character a teacher of photography considers the revaluation of contemporary and historical identity in both Africa and America.
Producer: Julian Siddle
You can find more episodes exploring Black History including episodes on Octavia Butler, the Black Atlantic, Sankofa and Afro-futurism and Zimbabwean writing on the Free Thinking programme website and available on BBC Sounds and as the Arts & Ideas podcast https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbp
"Strange stories" is the way Robert Aickman (1914-1981) described his fiction and to be honest that's putting it mildly. When he wasn't writing fiction that leaves both his protagonists and his readers in some very weird places, he was involved in an investigation into the haunting of Borley Rectory, was a member of The Ghost Club and he also co-founded the British Inland Waterways Association to restore canals. Matthew Sweet is joined by three fans of his work - critic Suzy Feay, writer Andrew Male and publisher R.B. Russell.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Robert Aickman published the following collections of stories: Powers of Darkness (1966), Sub Rosa (1968), Cold Hand in Mine (1976), Tales of Love and Death (1977) and Intrusions (1980)You can find other spooky Free Thinking episodes including a discussion of Ghost Stories with Irving Finkel and Jeremy Dyson, a ghost hunt in Portsmouth and a discussion of Blade Runner and a programme about the TV programme Ghostwatch
The first live concert in 175 years of songs and music written by Eliza Flower (1803-1846) takes place tomorrow. A friend of JS Mill, Harriet Martineau and Robert Browning, Flower set to music some of Walter Scott's romantic songs, composed music for her sister Sarah Flower Adams, who penned hymns including Nearer, My God, to Thee.Singer Frances M Lynch, accompanied on piano by Laurence Panter, joins New Generation Thinker and historian Oskar Jensen and Dr Clare Stainthorp, who is researching the Freethought Movement: Atheism, Agnosticism, and Secularism, 1866–1907. Matthew Sweet hosts.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Flower of the Seasons: Politics, power and poverty takes place at Conway Hall in London on Friday 27th October at 7pm performed by Electric Voice Theatre.Clare Stainthorp will be leading an event - Great and Good? - at Conway Hall on Saturday 11th November as part of the Being Human Festival.
Sleep science pioneer Nathaniel Kleitman descended into a cave in 1938 to investigate the nature of our sleep cycle.The experiment was not a success.And while it may not have yielded much evidence - a thrilling news report detailing the subterranean sleep project caught the public imagination.It's one of the stories told in a new book by Kenneth Miller tracing the history of research into sleeping patterns and the impact of sleep deprivation which takes in figures including Pavlov, Joe Borelli, William Dement and Mary Carskadon. John Gallagher talks to Kenneth Miller and to - Dr Diletta da Cristaforo about how contemporary writers are dealing with our fraught relationship with a good night's sleep.Professor Sasha Handley is an expert in the approach to sleep of early modern people - and we consider if they have any tips to help us now.Dr Emily Scott Dearing discusses Turn it Up - a new exhibition at the London Science Museum which explores the soothing sounds - and surprising power of the lullaby.
Producer in Salford: Kevin Core
Radio 3's evening programmes include Night Tracks and Night Tracks mixes presented by Sara Mohr-Pietsch and Hannah Peel, Unclassified on Thursday evenings with Elizabeth Alker and six hours of music Through the Night - all available to listen at any time on BBC SoundsMapping the Darkness by Kenneth Miller is out nowDr Diletta de Cristofaro is an Assistant Professor at Northumbria University and is working on a project Writing the Sleep Crisis https://www.writingsleep.com/Sleeping Well in the Early Modern World is a project run at Manchester University by Professor Sasha Handley https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/sleeping-well/It includes a series of public events at Ordsall Hall near Salford Quays.Turn it Up an exhibition about music which was at Manchester Science Museum opens in London's Science Museum and includes a section about sleep and music.
The BBC Philharmonic Concert at Bridgewater Hall on Saturday October 28th takes us from dawn to dusk in a programme of music by Finnish composers and in London on the same evening Hannah Peel presents a 4 hour concert of Night Tracks Live at Kings Place. Both will become available on BBC Sounds and broadcast on Radio 3.You can find a Free Thinking Festival lecture about the need to sleep from Professor Russell Foster available on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08hz9yw
Ekow Eshun is curating an exhibition exploring the idea of Sankofa, taking from the past what is good and bringing it into the present. Sarah Jilani teaches novels written by Ama Ata Aidoo (1942-2023) and Flora Nwapa (1931-1993). Sculptor Zak Ové is showing a work called The Mothership Connection as part of Frieze Sculpture display in London's Regents Park which brings together the form of a Pacific Northwest totem and a rocket with elements relating to African culture like tribal masks. They join Shahidha Bari for a conversation exploring African ideas about a better future.
Producer: Marcus Smith
The Mothership Connection is on display in Regents Park as part of Frieze London's sculpture display and he has work on show in an exhibition opening at the Saatchi Gallery. He also in the past curated an exhibition called Get Up Stand Up Now: Generations of Black Creative PioneersPower to the People: Horace Ové’s Radical Vision is running at the BFI in London and Pressure, his film which was Britain’s first Black feature, has been newly restored by the BFI National Archive and is screening.Sarah Jilani teaches world literatures in English at City, University of London and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to showcase new research on radio.Ekow Eshun is a writer and curator. His most recent show In and Out of Time runs at Accra’s Gallery 157 until December 12th 2023. You can hear him discussing ideas about The Black Fantastic in a previous episode of Free Thinking.You can find a collection of episodes exploring Black History on the Free Thinking programme website and available to download as Arts and Ideas podcasts https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbp
A series of revelatory hallucinations that Philip K Dick experienced in 1974, radically altering his view of belief, time and history, were the inspiration for his quasi-autobiographical novel Valis which was published in 1981. Roger Luckhurst, Sarah Dillon, Beth Singler and Adam Scovell join Matthew Sweet to unravel this deeply strange book and to discuss how Dick's experience of mental illness and his tireless attempts at self-diagnosis thread their way through his novels and short stories, despite being largely absent from the many film and TV adaptations of his work, including Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Bach's view of the body and how that comes through in his cantatas is being studied by violinist and contributor to Radio 3's Early Music Show, Mark Seow. He joins presenter Naomi Paxton and historians of medicine Alanna Skuse and Michelle Pfeffer, alongside evolutionary biochemist Nick Lane. Together they look at music, metaphors and the idea that vital bodily fluids (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile) and links with five elements (earth, water, fire, air, and space) could regulate our health.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Alanna Skuse is an Associate Professor at the University of Reading. She has researched representations of self-wounding in plays, ballads, moral writings and medical texts from 1580-1740. Her first book is called Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England: Ravenous Natures and her second Surgery and Selfhood in Early Modern England.
Michelle Pfeffer is an early modern historian at Oxford with research interests in the history of science, religion, and scholarship in Europe.Nick Lane is Professor of Evolutionary Biochemistry at University College London.
Mark Seow is a violinist and academic who teaches at the University of Cambridge https://markseow.co.uk/about
Radio 3's Early Music Show is broadcast each Sunday afternoon at 2pm and available on BBC Sounds.
You can hear former Radio 3 controller Nicholas Kenyon exploring The Early Music Revolution in the Sunday Feature broadcasting on October 22nd.
Radio 3's weekly selection of Words and Music has a recent episode called Blow winds, blow.
Man-made gems are the subject of research being undertaken by jeweller Sofie Boons. She joins presenter Nandini Das alongside Matthew Winterbottom, the curator of an exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford which explores the explosion of colour in design, textiles, paintings and jewellery in the Victorian period. Dinah Roe has been looking at the the way colour infuses the pages of Victorian literature and in 1773, Birmingham Assay Office was founded to provide testing and hallmarking of precious metal items - Chris Corker from the University of York has been researching that history.
Colour Revolution at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford runs until 18 Feb 2024 and Matthew Winterbottom is its co-curator and Assistant Keeper, Curator of Decorative Arts and Sculpture at the Ashmolean.You can find out more about "the alchemical jeweller" at https://sofieboons.com/Dr Chris Corker lectures at the School for Business and Society at the University of York and you can hear more about his research in a previous episode of Free Thinking called Tin cans, cutlery and sewing https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001jcr0Dinah Roe is Reader in Nineteenth Century Literature at Oxford Brookes University. You can hear her discussing the writing and artwork of the Rosetti family which was displayed in an exhibition at Tate Britain in a previous episode of Free Thinking.
Nandini Das is a historian and New Generation Thinker based at the University of Oxford. She is the author of a book called Courting India and has presented Essays and Sunday Features for BBC Radio 3 including Rainsong in Five Senses and A Jig Into History about a bet undertaken by Shakespeare's former clown Will Kemp https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001j4rz
Jane Eyre and Shirley by Charlotte Bronte both refer to the unrest in Yorkshire which took place in the early years of the nineteenth century as new technology threatened jobs in the mills. Literary historian Sophie Coulombeau discusses parallels between the Luddites and concerns over AI now, and looks at what is real and what is fictional in the novels studied by Jonathan Brockbank of the University of York. Tania Shew shares some of the accounts of strikes outside the workplace which she has uncovered in her research. These include a charity worker strike and school strikes organised by pupils in 1911. How far do they strike a chord with more modern strike action?
Dr Jonathan Brockbank is a Lecturer in Modern Literature at the University of York who is exploring Luddite protests and their depiction in literature. Dr Tania Shew is the holder of the Isaiah Berlin Junior Research Fellowship at Wolfson College, Oxford researching the women’s suffrage movement. You can hear her discussing her work on suffrage sex strikes in this episode of New Thinking called Women’s History https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0bsjyr8Dr Sophie Coulombeau teaches literature at the University of York and has published articles on the writing of Frances Burney, Elizabeth Montagu, William Godwin and Jeremy Bentham. She is editing a volume of essays, Mary Hamilton and Her Circles, alongside colleagues working on the “Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers” project at the John Rylands Library and is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker on the scheme which promotes research on the radio.
This New Thinking episode of the Arts & Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UKRI. You can find more collected on the Free Thinking programme website of BBC Radio 3 under New Research or if you sign up for the Arts & Ideas podcast you can hear discussions about a range of topics.
What links “the British Marilyn” Diana Dors, the last women to be hanged in Britain Ruth Ellis, the artist Pauline Boty and the soap and film star Barbara Windsor? Professor Lynda Nead is giving a series of lectures this Autumn exploring Blondes, attitudes to desire and technological changes in film-making. She joins presenter Matthew Sweet alongside film critics Phuong Le and Christina Newland, and philosopher Heather Widdows.
Producer Luke Mulhall
The Paul Mellon Lectures run from on 5 Wednesday nights at the V&A Museum between 18 October to 15 November 2023https://www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/whats-on/forthcoming/paul-mellon-lectures-2023/event-group
You can find a host of Free Thinking episodes exploring film stars including Marlene Dietrich, Asta Nielson and Audrey Hepburn all available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts and on BBC Sounds
Nicholas Cullinan from the National Portrait Gallery, London (NPG) and Elvira Dyangani Ose from the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona (MACBA) join Anne McElvoy to discuss the challenges of running a major art museum and their visions for the future of their respective institutions. They discuss connecting with a wider community which has involved the NPG showing a David Beckham portrait in the hospital he was born in, and plans at MACBA to open out the ground floor and use the squares that surround the museum in Barcelona; the impact of blockbuster shows about Vermeer and Picasso and creating a space for VR and video at the NPG and whether the trend for immersive art experiences - like the David Hockney immersive show running at The Lightroom near Kings Cross station until December 2023 – is a good thing.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Frieze London runs from 11th - 15th October 2023. You can find previous Frieze/Free Thinking debates hearing from directors including Michael Govan, Sabine Haag & Hartwig Fischer; Suhanya Raffel, Richard Armstrong and Nathalie Bondil, Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky, Kaywin Feldman and Siak Ching Chong.
An accidental invention which revolutionised plant collecting has inspired an artwork from Mat Collishaw, created in collaboration with video artists based in Ukraine, which is being premiered in a gallery at Kew Gardens. The nine minute video, accompanied by music by Samuel Barber's Adagio for strings, draws on the discovery in 1829 that a Wardian case could allow plants to grow under airtight glass. And the way art and music respond to environmental concerns is at the heart of this Free Thinking conversation hosted by Jade Munslow Ong. Jimmy López Bellido has written a symphony inspired by photographs of a changing landscape, Sarah Casey's drawings look at the impact of ice melting in glaciers and New Generation Thinker Vid Simoniti has written a book exploring the political ambitions of contemporary art in the early twenty-first century. He talks about the work of Alberta Whittle, Olafur Eliasson, El Anatsui, Maurice Mbikayi, Margaret Wertheim and Christine Wertheim.
Producer in Salford: Nick Holmes
Petrichor, a new exhibition of work by Mat Collishaw runs from 20 October 2023- 7 April 2024 at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art, Kew Gardens.Sarah Casey is Director of the School of Art in Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts and has worked on The Emergency project which uses drawing to examine artefacts emerging from alpine glaciers as a result of climate change and ice melting. She also convenes a group studying rocky environments and geology. From 26-28th October ‘Rocky Futures’, an art exhibition in the form of three live video events streamed from destinations across the globe on the theme of geology, mobilities and the climate emergency will be available online at https://wp.lancs.ac.uk/rocky-climates/rocky-futures/Vid Simoniti's book is called Artists Remake the World: A Contemporary Art Manifesto. He is a New Generation Thinker and teaches at The University of Liverpool.Symphony No 3, Altered Landscapes by Jimmy López Bellido is being played by the BBC Concert Orchestra in a concert at London's Southbank Centre on Thu 12 Oct 2023 and will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on October 25th. With thanks to the Concert Orchestra for providing a recording of part of their rehearsal of the piece recorded on 10 October.The Hyundai Commission from artist El Anatsui runs at Tate Modern in London from October 10th - April 14th 2024Jade Munslow Ong teaches at the University of Salford and is writing a book about the environment in literature. She is on the New Generation Thinkers scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to work with early career researchers on making radio.
Green Thinking is a collection of programmes exploring different aspects of art and history and the environment available via the Free Thinking programme website - all episodes are downloadable as the Arts & Ideas podcast and on BBC Sounds.
DH Lawrence described outcasts living by the Thames, Mina Loy made art from trash, calling her pieces “refusées", Wyndham Lewis moved from England to North America in search of fame and stability after having been spurned by the cultural establishment in Britain. In this conversation about new research, Jade Munslow Ong discusses the way widening the canon of writers traditionally labelled as “modernist” might allow a greater understanding of attitudes towards homelessness and poverty in the early decades of the twentieth century.
Dr Laura Ryan was a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Galway researching modernism and homelessness investigating the work of writers who were literally homeless, including D. H. Lawrence, Claude McKay, Jean Rhys and Tom Kromer, and also looking at depictions of homelessness in modernist texts by George Orwell, Mina Loy and Samuel Beckett. She now teaches at the University of Limerick.
Dr Nathan Waddell is Associate Professor in Twentieth-Century Literature at the University of Birmingham. He is writing new books about Wyndham Lewis and about George Orwell. He has also edited collections of essays on Lewis, who featured in books already published by Nathan called Modernist Nowheres and Moonlighting. Nathan is also editing The Oxford Handbook of George Orwell. You can hear Nathan in a Free Thinking episode exploring futurism in a collection of discussions about modernism on the website of the Radio 3 Arts and Ideas programme
Dr Jade Munslow Ong is a Reader in English Literature at the University of Salford where she is working on a project entitled South African Modernism 1880-2020. You can hear about some of the authors featured in her Essay for Radio 3 called The South African Bloomsberries. She is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio
This podcast is made in partnership with the AHRC, part of UKRI. You can sign up for more episodes of the Arts and Ideas podcast wherever you find your podcasts or look at the collection of discussions focused on New Research available via the Free Thinking programme website.
I've been Thinking is the title of a memoir from philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett. Philip Goff is a Professor at Durham University who's written Why ? The Purpose of the Universe. The Bishop Auckland Project is opening a new museum exploring faith and their curator Amina Wright joins them and podcaster and former director of Theos Liz Oldfield for a discussion about finding meaning. The presenter is Chris Harding.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can find a collection of programmes exploring Philosophy and looking at Religious Belief on the Free Thinking programme website. All of them are available to download as Arts and Ideas podcasts and on BBC Sounds
Loss and belonging are explored in an installation at the Barbican Centre in London from Sierra Leonian poet and artist/filmmaker Julianknxx which hears choirs and musicians from cities across the world voice a single refrain: ‘We are what’s left of us’. Momtaza Mehri has been Young People's Poet Laureate for London. A poem from her collection Bad Diaspora Poems is picked out in a selection for this year's National Poetry Day on October 5th, which has the theme of refuge. Matthew Sweet explores with them where we find refuge and hears from the academic Dr Jesús Sanjurjo about refugees from Spain who arrived in Somers Town in Camden in 1823 .
Producer: Julian Siddle
Chorus in Rememory of Flight by Julianknxx runs until 11 Feb 2024 at The Curve in the Barbican Centre London.He also has a film exploring Sierra Leone in the exhibition A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography on at Tate Modern until Jan 14 2024 and an artwork on show in an exhibition about Sankofa curated by Ekow Eshun on in Accra, Ghana.On the National Poetry Day website https://nationalpoetryday.co.uk/ you can find the text and teaching resources relating to the poem by Momtaza Mehri Brief Dialogue Between the Self-declared East African Micronations of Regent Park Estate (Toronto) & Regent’s Park Estate (London)Dr Jesús Sanjurjo is an Early Career Fellow of the Leverhulme and Isaac Newton Trusts at the University of Cambridge
Tales of adventure and magic connect the Slavic lands: East Slavs (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus), West Slavs (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland) and South Slavs (the countries of former Yugoslavia plus Bulgaria). Matthew Sweet has been reading a new collection of Slavic myths. The authors Noah Charney and Svetlana Slapšak join academic Mirela Ivanova to talk about the way Slavic tales connect with stories from Greece, Rome, Egypt and Scandinavia and how they were used to bolster power in new Slavic nations.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The Slavic Myths by Noah Charney and Svetlana Slapšak and illustrated by Joe McLaren is out now.
You might also be interested in a Free Thinking discussion of Albanian culture and history, and in a Radio 3 New Generation Thinker Essay from Mirela Ivanova called Contesting an Alphabet about the competing claims over the invention of Cyrillic.
"Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" is the way Thomas Hobbes described the life of man in a state of nature in his 1651 book The Leviathan. The seventeenth century philosopher reasoned that what men needed was a "common power to keep them in awe". It was a conclusion that has not endeared him to the enlightenment and liberal thinkers of the centuries that followed. The philosopher John Gray thinks that Hobbes' bleak vision of the human condition might help us understand the recent disappointments of progressive politics and the failures of liberal democracies. Anne McElvoy talks to him about this theory and to journalist and author of Politics: A Survivors Guide, Rafael Behr and Teresa Bejan, Professor of Political Theory at the University of Oxford and author of Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration.
Producer: Ruth Watts
You can find other episodes exploring ideas about politics and history in the Free Thinking archives and available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts. They include -Utopianism in Politics a discussion about Thomas More's ideas with guests including Kwasi Kwarteng and Gisela StuartJohn Maynard Keynes with guests including Adam Tooze and Zachary D. CarterJohn Rawls's A Theory of Justice with Rupert Read, Teresa Bejan and Jonathan Floyd
From the forceps inventor Peter Chamberlen to letters written by Queen Victoria about giving birth saying ‘Dearest Albert hardly left me at all, & was the greatest support & comfort’: John Gallagher and his guests discuss childbirth and parenting. Dr Jessica Cox is the author of In Confinement: The Hidden History of Maternal Bodies in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Dr Laura Sellers is programmes curator at the medical history museum in Leeds The Thackray. We also hear from the dramatist Testament, whose play Daughter was nominated for the Prix Europa and Hannah Silva, whose book My Child The Algorithm is a memoir of queer parenting which started out as a radio play written using text generated by a machine-learning algorithm. The discussion is hosted by New Generation Thinker and historian at the University of Leeds John Gallagher in a recording at The Howard Assembly Room in Leeds as part of the BBC Contains Strong Language Festival.
Testament's play Daughter is available on BBC Sounds here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011545
Producer based in Salford: Nick Holmes
You can find a whole series of BBC programmes recorded at the 2023 Contains Strong Language Festival on the festival website and available on BBC Sounds. They include Radio 3's new writing programme The Verb, a Drama on 3, the music magazine programme Music Matters, Radio 4's discussion programme Start the Week and a special episode of Radio 3's The Early Music Show coming later this month.
Rejected by her usual publisher, Farewell Leicester Square is a novel by Betty Miller, written in 1935, exploring antisemitism, Jewishness and "marrying out". Marghanita Laski may now be best known for her contributions to broadcasting on programmes like The Brains Trust but was also a published author of many stories including The Victorian Chaise-Longue and Little Boy Lost. Both writers have now been republished by Persephone Books. Matthew Sweet's guests are the novelist Howard Jacobson, the academic Lisa Mullen and the author Lara Feigel. They explore the writers' lives and why they both abandoned writing fiction to focus on literary biographies. At the end of the discussion Howard Jacobson tells listeners “I very rarely hear people describing a novel that makes me want to read it - in fact if there is any listener out there who now does not want to read Marghanita Laski they are heartless.”
Producer: Fiona McLean
Betty Miller published 7 novels including Farewell Leicester Square and On the Side of the Angels (1945) and a biography of Robert Browning (1952).Marghanita Laski's books include To Bed with Grand Music (1946), Tory Heaven (1948), Little Boy Lost (1949), The Village (1952) and The Victorian Chaise-longue (1953), biographies of Jane Austen and George Eliot . She was also a prolific contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
On the Free Thinking programme website you can find a collection of episodes exploring prose, poetry and drama including previous discussions featuring Howard Jacobson, Lara Feigel and Lisa Mullen
Novelist Jonathan Coe joins book historians Roland Allen, Prof Lesley Smith and Dr Gill Partington and presenter Lisa Mullen. As Radio 3’s Late Junction devotes episodes this September to the cassette tape and the particular sound and way of recording and assembling music which that technology provided, we look at writing. At a time when there’s a lot of chat about AI and chatbots creating writing, what does it mean to write on a page of paper which is then printed and assembled into a book.The author Jonathan Coe’s many books include The Rotter's Club, What a Carve Up! Mr Wilder and Me and his latest Bournville is now out in paperbackRoland Allen has worked in publishing and has now written The Notebook: A History of Thinking on PaperGill Partington (with Simon Morris and Adam Smyth) is one of the founding editors of Inscription: Journal of Material Text, which brings together artists, book historians, and academic theorists. After editions looking at beginnings, holes and folds, the new issue coming soon looks at touch.Lesley Smith is Fellow and Tutor in Politics at Harris Manchester College, Oxford and has chosen a selection of handwritten documents from the collections of the Bodleian Library published as Handwritten: Remarkable People on the Page.
Producer: Ruth Watts
From Cold War triumphalism to wanting to secure the future of humanity, people have given many reasons for wanting to go into space. Christopher Harding is joined by an historian, a science fiction writer, a scientist and a visionary to unpick some of those reasons, and ask what they tell us about technology, society and utopia.
With Dr Ghina M. Halabi, Timothy Peacock, Una McCormack and Avi Loeb.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can hear more from Timothy Peacock, who teaches at the University of Glagow, in an episode of the Arts & Ideas podcast called New Thinking: From life on Mars to space junkUna McCormack has contributed to Free Thinking episodes discussing Time, Star Trek, Quatermass, Dystopian Thinking, Asimov. Avi Loeb has written Interstellar: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Our Future Beyond EarthDr Ghina M. Halabi spent 13 years working on astrophysics research before becoming a consultant
In 1816, Richard Fitzwilliam donated money, literature and art to the University of Cambridge, and the museum which bears his name began. A research project led by New Generation Thinker Jake Subryan Richards has been exploring Cambridge’s role in the transatlantic slave trade and he has curated an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam. Artist and writer Jacqueline Bishop who features in this show, joins Jake and April-Louise Pennant, who has been researching the history of Penrhyn Castle in Wales. Plus, Sherry Davis discusses the rediscovery of Black professionals in East African archaeology.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Black Atlantic: Power, people, resistance runs at the Fitzwilliam until Jan 7th 2024 and a catalogue accompanies the show.You can find more on BBC Sounds from Jake Subryan Richards, who is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to showcase new academic research. These include an Essay called John Baptist Dasalu and Fighting for Freedom as part of a series by New Generation Thinkers 2021 and Free Thinking/BBC Arts & Ideas discussions about Ships and Historyhttps://jacquelineabishop.com/Dr April-Louise Pennant, a sociologist based at Cardiff University, has a Leverhulme fellowship to research history and Penrhyn Castle https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/wales/penrhyn-castle-and-garden and she will be sharing some of her discoveries as part of the Being Human Festival which features public events taking place in partnership with UK universities from November 9th - 18th https://www.beinghumanfestival.org/Sherry Davis is founder of Rehema Cultural Arts and a 2023 winner of the Deutsch Bank Award for Creative Entrepreneurs (DBACE). Rehema Cultural Arts partner with cultural institutions to decolonise their collections relating to African history. She has curated an exhibition at the Horniman Museum in South London that explores historic images and stories of African archaeologists https://www.horniman.ac.uk/event/ode-to-the-ancestors/
A BBC Proms concert featuring spirituals sung by Reginald Mobley is available on BBC Sounds until October 9th.
The dancer Moira Shearer starred in the 1948 film written, directed, and produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger which reworks a Hans Christian Andersen story, mixed with elements of ballet history and the founding of the Ballet Russes by Diaghilev. The film, about the tangled relationships between a dancer, composer and ballet impresario, had a cast involving many professional dancers, and gained five Academy Award nominations including best score for Brian Easdale. As the BFI prepares a UK-wide season of Powell and Pressburger films running from 16th October to 31st December (including a re-release of The Red Shoes), Matthew Sweet is joined by film critics Lillian Crawford, Pamela Hutchinson, dance reviewer Sarah Crompton and New Generation Thinker and film lecturer Lisa Mullen.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
You can find Matthew Sweet presenting Radio 3's regular strand devoted to film and TV music Sound of Cinema on Saturday afternoons at 3pm and available on BBC Sounds and a whole host of Free Thinking episodes devoted to classics of cinema are in a collection on the programme website labelled Landmarks including: Jean Paul Belmondo and the French New Wave, Marlene Dietrich, Dirk Bogarde and the Servant, Bette Davis, Sidney Poitier, Asta Nielsen.
New narrative was a way of mixing philosophical and literary theory with writing about the body and pop culture. It was promoted by a group of writers in 1970s San Francisco. One of the chapters in New Generation Thinker Diarmuid Hester's new book Nothing Ever Just Disappears explores their work. He joins Dodie Bellamy in a programme exploring different aspects of the gay imagination and the re-inventing of tradition presented by Naomi Paxton. Alongside them is Lauren Elkin, author of a study of unruly bodies in feminist art called Art Monsters which explores artists including Carolee Schneemann, and the influence of writers like Kathy Acker. And James Corley has adapted a play, opening at Wilton's in London, which takes an influential essay by Merle Miller as its starting point.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can find a collection called Identity Discussion on the Free Thinking programme website which includes episodes about including Rocky Horror and camp, the V&A exhibition Diva, punk, tattoos, and perfecting the body. Based on the essay On Being Different by Merle Miller, James Corley's What It Means is at Wilton's Music Hall in London 4th - 28th October 2023 Dodie Bellamy's first novel, The Letters of Mina Harker, took a character from Bram Stoker's Dracula. She has also published poetry, essays and memoirs. Nothing Ever Just Disappears Seven Hidden Histories by Diarmuid Hester is out now. He is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Council to put academic research on the radio and you can find him talking about Derek Jarman's Garden in a previous Free Thinking episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jgm5 exploring Stories of Love including Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001hxhk and hosting an Arts and Ideas podcast episode about Raiding Gay’s the Word & Magnus Hirschfeld https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0ff53xv
Check out Forever Blue - Radio 3's broadcast on Sunday and then on BBC Sounds of a programme inspired by Derek Jarman's Blue, the film released 30 years ago which was also broadcast on Radio 3.
Six historians have been shortlisted for the 2023 history writing prize which has been awarded for over fifty years. Rana Mitter has been talking to the authors about the books in contention:African and Caribbean People in Britain: A History by Hakim AdiThe World the Plague Made: The Black Death and the Rise of Europe by James BelichThe Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Lives of Two Translators between Qing China and the British Empire by Henrietta HarrisonVagabonds: Life on the Streets of Nineteenth-Century London by Oskar JensenResistance: The Underground War in Europe, 1939-1945 by Halik KochanskiPortable Magic: A History of Books and their Readers by Emma SmithThe winner is announced on November 13th 2023. You can find interviews with past nominees for the Wolfson prize, plus winners of other non fiction prizes like the Cundill and the British Academy Book Prize in previous editions of Free Thinking all available on BBC Sounds and as the Arts & Ideas podcast.Producer: Ruth Watts
The Cairngorms National Park has inspired writing by Merryn Glover, whose books include The Hidden Fires: A Cairngorms Journey with Nan Shepherd. Writer and artist Amanda Thomson's book Belonging is on the longlist for the 2023 James Cropper Wainwright Prize for nature writing. As the BBC Proms broadcasts a concert from Perth, they talk to Radio 3's Kate Molleson about place and capturing Scottish nature in their work.Producer Ruth WattsYou can find out more about Amanda Thomson at https://passingplace.com/home.htmlYou can find out more about Merryn Glover at https://merrynglover.com/This is part of a series of conversations about writing and place recorded for BBC Proms around the UK in summer 2023. You can find more conversations about writing and about nature and green thinking on the website for BBC Radio 3's arts and ideas programme Free Thinking.
The coastline of Cornwall and its communities are the subject of a non fiction book called The Draw of the Sea by Wyl Menmuir. He joins writer Natasha Carthew in a conversation about the importance of place hosted by Joan Passey, who is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker and author of Cornish Gothic 1830-1913. Wyl Menmuir's novels include The Many and Fox Fires. Natasha Carthew is a poet and author of a memoir called Undercurrent: A Cornish Memoir of Poverty, Nature and Resilience
Producer: Luke Mulhall
In The Old Curiosity Shop, Charles Dickens portrayed The Black Country as a polluted hellscape where little Nell sickens and dies. So popular was the book that this idea of the region was rivetted into history and endures to this day. In this edition of Free Thinking Matthew Sweet sets out to find the real Black Country, a place whose borders you can cross without knowing, with a reputation for insularity in spite of centuries of migration. In a programme recorded at the Birmingham Hippodrome for the BBC’s 2022 Contains Strong Language Festival, Matthew’s guests are the poet Liz Berry - author of the prize winning 2014 collection Black Country, whose latest collection The Dereliction is a collaboration with the photographer Tom Hicks; dialectologist Dr Esther Asprey, from the University of Wolverhampton, who published the first complete scholarly account of Black Country dialect; the artist and film-maker Dawinder Bansal, who uses her upbringing in her parents' electrical shop, which also rented VHS Bollywood films as the starting point for the art installation Jambo Cinema which was part of The Birmingham 2022 Festival https://www.dawinderbansal.com/projects; and a pair of historians, Dr Simon Briercliffe from the Black Country Living Museum, author of Forging Ahead – Austerity to Prosperity in the Black Country and Dr Matthew Stallard from the Centre for the Study of Legacies of British Slavery UCL who grew up in Wolverhampton.
Producer: Olive Clancy.
The 2023 Contains Strong Language Festival takes place in Leeds from September 21st - 24th at Leeds Playhouse so go to their website for tickets and listen out for programmes on BBC Sounds.
Louise Jameson joins Matthew Sweet to recall the women who ran the digs she stayed in as a touring actor and the landladies that she's played (including a homicidal one!). Historian Gillian Williamson looks at how life in boarding houses in Georgian London has been portrayed both in contemporary accounts and in fiction, while Lillian Crawford encounters some memorable landladies in Ealing comedies and other post-war British films.
Gillian Williamson is the author of Lodgers, Landlords, and Landladies in Georgian London.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod.
Russell T. Davies is joined by his friend and author of Love from the Pink Palace, Jill Nalder to discuss their importance in one another’s lives, the importance of literature in their lives, and the TV series It’s a Sin with New Generation Thinker and psychiatrist Sabina Dosani and chair Matthew Sweet in a conversation recorded in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature which was recorded to mark World AIDS Day.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
You can find a collection of discussions recorded in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature in a collection called Prose, Poetry and Drama on the Radio 3 Free Thinking programme website.
Dame Sheila Hancock, Geoff Dyer and Rachel Stott join Matthew Sweet to discuss the work and performance of writers, artists, athletes and musicians near the end of their careers.
Old Rage by Sheila Hancock is out now in paperback and she can be seen on BBC i-player in the drama The Sixth Commandment The Last Days of Roger Federer by Geoff Dyer is out now in paperback. Rachel Stott is a composer and plays viola with the Revolutionary Drawing Room, the Bach Players and Sopriola.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
You can hear music composed by Beethoven as part of this BBC Proms season available on BBC Sounds.
Crime writer Ann Cleeves, theologian Mona Siddiqui, deep sea fish expert and podcast host Thomas Linley and poet Jake Morris-Campbell join Matthew Sweet to explore areas beyond the reach of light, both literally and metaphorically, as part of Radio 3's 2022 overnight festival at Sage Gateshead.
What darkness makes someone commit a murder? Shetland and Vera are two TV series developed from the crime novels of Ann Cleeves. Her most recent book is The Heron's Cry featuring detective Matthew Venn and his colleague Jen Rafferty, played on TV in an adaptation of The Long Call by Ben Aldridge and Pearl Mackie. Poet and New Generation Thinker Jake Morris-Campbell writes about the mining communities of Northumberland and Durham and the experience of working in darkness. Professor Mona Siddiqui joined the University of Edinburgh’s Divinity school in December 2011 as the first Muslim to hold a Chair in Islamic and Interreligious Studies Dr Thomas Linley hosts The Deep-Sea podcast and researches the behaviour of deep sea fish. He's based at Newcastle University. You can read the paper he co-authored 'Fear and loathing of the deep ocean: why don't people care about the deep sea?' here: https://bit.ly/3IBHsPT
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
You can find a series of BBC Proms concerts broadcast from Sage Gateshead available on BBC Sounds and a conversation about writing and place with North Eastern authors Jake Morris-Campbell and Jessica Andrews in conversation with Ian McMillan.
The German Romantic author of horror and fantasy published stories which form the basis of Jacques Offenbach's opera The Tales of Hoffmann, the ballet Coppélia and the Nutcracker. In the theatre he worked as a stagehand, decorator, playwright and manager and he wrote his own musical works, his opera Undine ended its run at the Berlin Theatre after a fire. But during his lifetime he also saw Warsaw and Berlin occupied by Napoleon and during the Prussian war against France, he wrote an account of his visit to the battlefields and he became entangled in various legal disputes towards the end of his life. Anne McElvoy is joined by:
Joanna Neilly Associate Professor and Fellow and Tutor in German at the University of Oxford.
Keith Chapin senior lecturer in music at Cardiff University.
Tom Smith a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. He is Senior Lecturer and Head of German at the University of St Andrews.
You can find details about performances of Offenbach's works on the website of the society http://offenbachsociety.org.uk/
Producer: Tim Bano
A world of sprites and spirits encountered by childhood sisters in the 1988 animated feature film by Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away) and Studio Ghibli has become a hit stage adaptation for the Royal Shakespeare Company. The original composer Joe Hisaishi worked with playwright Tom Morton-Smith and Director Phelim McDermott and the production returns to the Barbican this autumn. Chris Harding and guests look at how this story of Totoro relates to Japanese beliefs about ghosts and nature, and how Miyazaki used ideas of childhood innocence to critique post-War Japanese society. Chris Harding is joined by the playwright Tom Morton-Smith, Michael Leader from the podcast Ghiblioteque, Dr Shiro Yoshioka, Lecturer in Japanese Studies at the University of Newcastle, and Dr Xine Yao, co-director of qUCL at University College London, and a Radio 3/AHRC New Generation Thinker.
My Neighbour Totoro from the Royal Shakespeare Company in collaboration with Improbable and Nippon TV runs at the Barbican Theatre in London from 23 November
Music from Studio Ghibli films is included in a BBC Prom concert being performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra on Monday August 28th and then available on BBC Sounds.
You can find a collection of programmes exploring different facets of Japanese culture on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0657spq
Producer: Luke Mulhall
The creator of much-loved children's TV classics including The Clangers, Bagpuss and Pogles' Wood is discussed by Matthew Sweet and his guests: Daniel Postgate who took over Smallfilms from his father, singer Sandra Kerr who was the voice of Madeleine in Bagpuss, composer and author Neil Brand, and writer and broadcaster Samira Ahmed. Oliver Postgate's father was a communist and his mother was a political activist, daughter of prominent Labour figure George Lansbury - how much of this political background can we find in the fantastical worlds that he created? There's also discussion of the music that plays such a major role in the programmes - the deep folk roots of the songs performed by Sandra and John Faulkner in Bagpuss and Vernon Elliot's sparse and poignant compositions for The Clangers, Noggin the Nog and Ivor the Engine.
CLANGERS: The Complete Scripts 1969-1974 has been published
You can find more Free Thinking/Arts & Ideas discussions of influential TV, film, books and art in a collection on Radio 3's Free Thinking programme website called Landmarks
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Chaucer's widow and clothmaker is one of three characters given a longer confessional voice than other pilgrims in his Canterbury Tales and she uses her narrative to ask who has had the advantage in setting out the stories of women - "Who peyntede the leon, tel me who?" Shahidha Bari explores both the roots and the influence of Chaucer's creation and the different modern versions created by writers such as Zadie Smith and Ted Hughes and a film version by Pasolini. Shahidha's guests are Marion Turner, author of The Wife of Bath: A Biography, Patience Agbabi who reimagines this timeless character as a Nigerian businesswoman in her poem The Wife of Bafa, and New Generation Thinker Dr Hetta Howes who teaches at City University, London.
You can hear Marion Turner discussing Chaucer's own life in a past episode of Free Thinking hearing from nominees for the 2020 Wolfson History Prize https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000j2qw You can find a discussion about Chaucer's court case in an Arts and Ideas podcast episode with Hetta Howes called A Feminist Take on Medieval History https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06n28wv And Free Thinking has a whole collection of programmes exploring Women in the World all available on BBC Sounds and as Arts & Ideas podcasts https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p084ttwp
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Chaucer's widow and clothmaker is one of three characters given a longer confessional voice than other pilgrims in his Canterbury Tales and she uses her narrative to ask who has had the advantage in setting out the stories of women - "Who peyntede the leon, tel me who?" Shahidha Bari explores both the roots and the influence of Chaucer's creation and the different modern versions created by writers such as Zadie Smith and Ted Hughes and a film version by Pasolini. Shahidha's guests are Marion Turner, author of The Wife of Bath: A Biography, Patience Agbabi who reimagines this timeless character as a Nigerian businesswoman in her poem The Wife of Bafa, and New Generation Thinker Dr Hetta Howes who teaches at City University, London.
You can hear Marion Turner discussing Chaucer's own life in a past episode of Free Thinking hearing from nominees for the 2020 Wolfson History Prize https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000j2qw You can find a discussion about Chaucer's court case in an Arts and Ideas podcast episode with Hetta Howes called A Feminist Take on Medieval History https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06n28wv And Free Thinking has a whole collection of programmes exploring Women in the World all available on BBC Sounds and as Arts & Ideas podcasts https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p084ttwp
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Glenda Jackson plays part of a love triangle in John Schlesinger's follow up to his Oscar winning Midnight Cowboy. The plot written by Penelope Gilliat centres on an artist who has relationships with a female job consultant and a male doctor. Was the 1971 film ahead of its times? Matthew Sweet re-watched it with guests including Glenda Jackson, playwright Mark Ravenhill, film historian Melanie Williams and BFI National Archive curator Simon McCallum. They discuss the different elements of the film, including the score, which features the trio Soave sia il vento from Mozart's opera Così fan tutte, the very precise decor and evocation of late '60s London and filming inside a Jewish synagogue. Glenda Jackson died in June 2023 and we are repeating this discussion to mark her death.
Producer: Fiona McLean
Sunday Bloody Sunday is available on Blu-ray
You can find Matthew Sweet discussing other classics of British Cinema in the Free Thinking archives including British New Wave Films of the 60s - Joely Richardson and Melanie Williams evaluate the impact and legacy of Woodfall Films, the company behind Look Back in Anger, A Taste of Honey and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09ysnl2 An extended interview with Mike Leigh, recorded as he released his historical drama Peterloo, but also looks back at his film from 1984 Four Days in July https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000tqw Early Cinema looks back at a pioneer of British film Robert Paul and at the work of Alice Guy https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dy2b Philip Dodd explores the novel and film of David Storey's This Sporting Life with social historian Juliet Gardiner, journalist Rod Liddle, writer Anthony Clavane and the author's daughter Kate Storey https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09j0rt6 Samira Ahmed convenes a discussion about British Social Realism in Film https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pz16k
A Roman road which winds up through central Wales forms the spine of the latest book by Tom Bullough. He joins poet Zoë Skoulding in a conversation with Joan Passey about how the Welsh landscape has fed into their writing. Tom Bullough spent his early years on a hill farm in Radnorshire and his books include the novel Addlands. Zoë Skoulding is Professor of Poetry and Creative Writing at Bangor University. She lives in Porthaethwy/Menai Bridge and her latest poetry collection is called Marginal Sea. Joan Passey is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker who teaches on literature at the University of Bristol.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can find a collection of conversations about Prose, Poetry and Drama on Radio 3's Free Thinking programme website, all available to download as Arts and Ideas podcasts.
Jessica Andrews grew up in Sunderland and has written two novels - Saltwater and Milk Teeth. Jake Morris-Campbell still lives in his native South Shields and his poetry includes the collection Corrigenda for Costafine Town and various Radio 3 commissioned pieces. He is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. They talk to Ian McMillan, host of Radio 3's new writing programme The Verb, about how their sense of the North East of England has fed into their writing.
Producer Torquil MacLeod
You can find a collection of conversations about Prose, Poetry and Drama on Radio 3's Free Thinking programme website, all available to download as Arts and Ideas podcasts.
Small town life in Northern Ireland is the focus of this conversation about writing and place. Since his debut Divorcing Jack in 1994, Colin Bateman has written many novels, dramas and screenplays and most recently Thunder and Lightning: A Memoir of Life on the Tough Cul-de-Sacs of Bangor. Michelle Gallen’s novels Big Girl, Small Town and Factory Girls have appeared on literary prize lists and they focus on life in a border town. Shahidha Bari, who presents Radio 3's arts and ideas programme Free Thinking is the host of the first in this series of conversations about writing and place to tie into a series of BBC Proms concerts.
Producer: Robyn Read
You can find a collection of conversations about Prose, Poetry and Drama on Radio 3's Free Thinking programme website, all available to download as Arts and Ideas podcasts. You can find recordings of Michelle Gallen's books available to listen to on BBC Sounds
Rula Lenska was one of the stars of this 1970s TV series about a fictional female band, playing the role of Nancy "Q" Cunard de Longchamps, alongside Julie Covington and Charlotte Cornwell. She joins Matthew Sweet along with Howard Schuman, who wrote the series, and Andy Mackay, saxophonist with Roxy Music, who co-wrote the songs with Howard. Also taking part are Chloë Moss who has written the book for a stage adaptation of the series that is opening at the Chichester Festival Theatre, and critic David Benedict.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Rock Follies based on the television series written by Howard Schuman. Book by Chloë Moss/ Songs by Howard Schuman and Andy Mackay runs at Chichester Festival Theatre from Mon 24 Jul – Sat 26 Aug
You can find other discussions about groundbreaking TV in our Free Thinking archives and available on BBC Sounds including Russell T Davies, Sabina Dosani and Jill Nalder on Depicting AIDS in Drama and It's A Sin Crossroads and TV soaps with Paula Milne, Gail Renard and Russell T Davies Quatermass discussed by Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat, Una McCormack, Claire Langhamer and Matthew Kneale Star Trek with George Takei, Naomi Alderman, Una McCormack and José-Antonio Orosco Oliver Postgate discussed by Sandra Kerr, Daniel Postgate, Neil Brand and Samira Ahmed
The influence of World War Two on philosophical thinking is the focus of today's discussion as Chris Harding explores the years when the University of Oxford hosted one of the most distinctive and influential philosophy departments in the English speaking world. Thinkers like J.L. Austin, Gilbert Ryle and Elizabeth Anscombe, although very different in their own right, developed a style of philosophising that is sometimes called 'ordinary language philosophy': rejecting grand theory or metaphysical speculation, it was driven by the earnest conviction that philosophical problems could be dissolved, rather than solved, by paying close attention to the minutiae of language and speech as they are actually used. The proponents of ordinary language philosophy were profoundly influenced by the experience of the Second World War: they were serious, modest, and working in the same spirit as the post-War reconstruction of Britain (including the foundation of the NHS) that was going on around them. And yet within a couple of decades, that style of philosophy was completely out of fashion.
Chris Harding is joined by:
Nikhil Krishnan, author of A Terribly Serious Adventure: Oxford Philosophy 1900 - 1960 Rachael Wiseman, co-author (with Clare MacCumhaill) of Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back To Life M.W. Rowe, author of J.L. Austin: Philosopher and D-Day Intelligence Officer And David Edmonds, author of Parfit, a biography of one of the most influential moral philosophers of recent decades, and a leading light of the generation that succeeded ordinary language philosophy at Oxford.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can find a collection of episodes exploring philosophy on the Free Thinking programme website including, Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, early and later Wittgenstein, pansychism, epistemic injustice
How do children develop language and experiment with sounds? What toys help them develop? And, how they explain their games? As the Young V&A, previously the Museum of Childhood, opens in East London, Anne McElvoy hosts a discussion looking at the history of play. Does our interest in children's play tells us more about them or, the adults who care for them?
Dr Helen Charman, is the Director of the revamped Young V&A in East London
Dr Yinka Olusoga is a Lecturer in Education at the University of Sheffield. Her research interests focus on the social construction of children and childhood in the educational policy, political debate, art and popular culture, in the present and in the past. She has been leading research in the Iona and Peter Opie Archive and with the Play Observatory.
Dr Rebecca Woods is a BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker and a senior lecturer in language and cognition at the University of Newcastle. Her work focuses on children’s language acquisition.
Joe Moshenska is Professor of English Literature and a Fellow of University College. Another BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker, he has been researching Tudor toys.
Producer: Ruth Watts
You might be interested in a recent Free Thinking episode exploring boyhood to manhood which looks at teenage experiences - and you can find more about museum displays including the re-opening of the National Portrait Gallery in London and the V&A exhibition Diva in a collection on the website called art, architecture, photography and museums.
In 1897 women played American football in San Fransisco. Dr Katie Taylor, is a qualified coach who previously managed the Great Britain Men's Flag Football Team, supporting the team at three European Championships. She is a Lecturer in Sociology of Sport at Nottingham Trent University and has been researching the history of women playing the sport and the language used in newspaper to describe both women players and coaches working in the game.
Stacey Pope is Associate Professor in the Department of Sport and Exercise at Durham University. She is author of The Feminization of Sports Fandom and has recently published research looking at newspaper coverage of women’s football, the impact of the Lionesses and at continuing sexist attitudes amongst male fans to women playing football. She has also worked on an oral history project with women fans of Newcastle football club recording their experiences of attending games which you can find here https://womenfootballfans.org
And you can read more here https://canvas.vuelio.co.uk/5047/study-reveals-misogynistic-attitudes-towards-womens-sport/view
Christienna Fryar is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker who studies sport, and Caribbean/British history
This Arts & Ideas podcast is part of the New Thinking series of episodes which focuses on new research from UK universities. It was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find a collection under New Research on Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme website
Joya Chatterji has written about the South Asian twentieth century in her new book called Shadows at Noon. Tripurdaman Singh has been researching Indian princely states. Novels by Kamala Markandaya (1924-2004) are being republished. Her daughter Kim Oliver and literary scholar Alastair Niven discuss Nectar in a Sieve. A bestseller when it first came out in 1954, it's a story about a tenant farmer, his wife and the impact of a tannery built in a neighbouring village. Rana Mitter hosts.
The books recommended by our guests are: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Those-Days-Sunil-Gangopadhyay/dp/0140268529 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lady-Alice-Bhatti-Mohammed-Hanif/dp/0099516756 https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/23130761
Producer: Julian Siddle
The Sacred Return of Lost Things is the theme of this year's Art Biennial in Liverpool. Catherine Fletcher talks to some of the artists showing work about how they have engaged with the city's history. Visual artist Melanie Manchot introduces her first full length feature film, STEPHEN, about a character recovering from gambling and alcohol addictions. Rudy Loewe describes their new large-scale installation The Reckoning, based around the Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago. And Charmaine Watkiss introduces a sacred space she has created in Liverpool’s Victoria Gallery & Museum, with life-size drawings and a sculpture representing unheard voices and stories that survived the Middle Passage.
New Generation Thinker Vid Simoniti gives his view and reports on an exhibition at the Whitworth in Manchester called Economics the Blockbuster – It’s not Business as Usual which looks at disrupting ideas about value, ownership, trade and economy. Liverpool Biennial runs until 17th September 2023.
Economics the Blockbuster – It’s not Business as Usual is part of Manchester International Festival MIF23 and this show runs until October 22nd. You can hear about music featured in MIF in other Radio 3 broadcasts and on BBC Sounds and on the Free Thinking programme website there is a collection of discussions about art, architecture, photography and museums.
Marrying someone based on a portrait was part of life in Renaissance Europe. An exhibition in Bath explores the politics of wedlock and painting - New Generation Thinker Christina Faraday has been to visit. Eleanor Chan has been studying the history of depicting musical notes on the page, whilst Sew What podcast host Isabella Rosner looks at needlework skills in Tudor England. John Gallagher hosts the conversation.
Producer: Nick Holmes
BBC Radio 3 is marking the anniversary of the Tudor composer William Byrd with episodes of Composer of the Week, concerts including one during the Proms season at Londonderry and other discussions - all available on BBC Sounds.
You can also find Eleanor Chan's Essay about another Tudor composer - The discordant tale of Thomas Weelkes .
Painted Love: Renaissance Marriage Portraits runs at the Holburne Museum in Bath until October 1st 2023.
Christina Faraday's book Tudor Liveliness: Vivid Art in Post-Reformation England is out now from Yale University Press.
You might also be interested in other Free Thinking conversations about Tudor history, including:
The Tudor Mind with guests including Helen Hackett https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0017dsp
Tudor Families with guests including Joanne Paul and Emma Whipday https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0017dvc
What do you call a stranger with guests including Nandini Das and John Gallagher https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b89ssp
A collection of discussions about Shakespeare collected on the Free Thinking programme website
160 volunteers recorded over 2,400 interviews with over 1,200 people on their lived experience of the NHS - as patients, staff and members of the public in an oral history project run by the University of Manchester. Professor Stephanie Snow discusses the way these help us understand how caring for children has changed in the NHS, what it felt like to get health care and not have to pay for it and other stories which interviews with policy makers in the archives didn't reveal. The Voices of Our National Health service is held at the British Library
https://www.nhs70.org.uk/story/voices-our-national-health-service-nhs https://blogs.bl.uk/sound-and-vision/2021/07/the-nhs-at-73.html
Film maker Sara David talks about NHS Untold Film Stories and her documentary Khichdi which focuses on three Indian women, including the filmmaker’s mother, who trained together in India, became friends and came to work as nurses in the NHS in the 1990s You can find out more about her film and others which have been funded in this article https://www.ukri.org/news/next-generation-of-filmmakers-to-tell-nhs-untold-film-stories/ and you can find more archive films here https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/collection/nhs-on-film
Dr Sarah Jilani is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker who is a Lecturer in English at City, University of London
This New Thinking conversation is part of a series marking NHS75 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. If you don’t want to miss an episode sign up for the BBC Arts & Ideas podcast from BBC Sounds.
What can we learn from children's experiences in the Pandemic at home and at school? Can children express their experiences through drawing, and how might a simple curtain help create happy family homes?
Lindsey McEwen is Professor of Environmental Management within the Department of Geography and Environmental Management at the University of the West of England, Bristol. Her research involved working with children in Bristol to understand their experiences and impact of the Pandemic on their school lives. As part of the research, she helped to create a children's book called "Learning to Live With Fog Monsters" which aims to understand and help children to cope with the impacts of invisible threats like pandemics or climate change. The book and more information on the project are available at https://www.vip-clear.org/the-primary-book/
Rosie Parnell is Professor of Architecture & Pedagogy at the University of Newcastle. Her research explored the impact on home design and sharing family spaces during the pandemic, and how families changed homes during the Covid lockdowns. As part of the research, she helped to create a "Home Hack Help Kit" to help families come up with solutions to issues around shared spaces in the home, which can be found here https://homehacktoolkit.co.uk/
Dr Daisy Fancourt is Associate Professor of Behavioural Science and Health Institute of Epidemiology & Health and University College London and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker.
Producer: Sofie Vilcins
This New Thinking conversation is a part of a series of 5 episodes of the Arts and Ideas podcast marking the 75th anniversary of the NHS focusing on new research in UK universities which explores links between the arts and health. It is made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find out more on their website https://www.ukri.org/councils/ahrc/ and if you want to hear more there is a collection called New Research on the website of BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0144txn or sign up for the Arts and Ideas podcast on BBC Sounds
From exercise on prescription to museum visits and debt advice. Christienna Fryar hears about social prescribing projects which are trying to link up the arts with other services to improve people’s health and tackle loneliness. These include wild swimming in the waterways of Nottinghamshire, the “Arts for the Blues” project based in the North west of England, a pilot programme in Scotland called “Art at the Start”, and a community hub at the Grange in Blackpool.
Helen Chatterjee, Professor of Human and Ecological Health at UCL is heading a programme which brings together a range of national partners including NHS England’s Personalised Care Group, the National Academy for Social Prescribing, and the National Centre for Creative Health. Myrtle Emmanuel, Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management & Organisational Behaviour at the University of Greenwich is starting a project aiming to have an impact on mental health by using Caribbean folk traditions working with communities in Greenwich and Lewisham, which have the fastest growing Caribbean communities in London.
Christienna Fryar is a historian of sport and the history of Britain and the Caribbean. She is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker
You can find more about the projects Helen is involved in https://culturehealthresearch.wordpress.com/health-disparities/ You can find out more about projects being funded by the AHRC including Myrtle’s in this article https://www.ukri.org/news/ahrc-projects-kickstart-future-of-health-and-social-care-dialogue/
Producer: Jayne Egerton
This New Thinking conversation is part of a series marking NHS75 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. If you don’t want to miss an episode sign up for the BBC Arts & Ideas podcast from BBC Sounds.
How a new material helps stroke patients recover and how mapping where infections and contamination happen helps staff training.
New Generation Thinker Elsa Richardson hears from two leading designers whose new research ideas have transformed the lives of stroke survivors and the elderly. Laura Salisbury is founder of the Wearable MedTech Lab at the Royal College of Art and CEO of KnitRegen and Professor Alastair Macdonald is Senior Researcher in the School of Design at The Glasgow School of Art.
They discuss the importance of collaborative design and testing usability. Laura tells us about her PowerBead design – a garment embedded with beads that aid in the rehabilitation of stroke survivors. Alastair discusses his work with the ageing population and how an app to register not just food provided but what patients have eaten has helped improve malnutrition in hospitals. Dr Elsa Richardson is a Chancellor's Fellow at the University of Strathclyde in the Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare (CSHHH) and is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker
You can find out more about Laura’s work here https://www.rca.ac.uk/research-innovation/research-degrees/research-students/laura-salisbury/ And Alastair’s work here https://www.gsa.ac.uk/research/design-profiles/m/macdonald,-alastair/ The AHRC funds projects linking art and health https://www.ukri.org/councils/ahrc/
Producer: Belinda Naylor
This New Thinking conversation is part of a mini-series of Arts and Ideas podcasts made to mark the anniversary of the NHS 75 years ago. It was produced in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find out more more in a collection called New Research on Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme website or sign up for the Arts and Ideas podcast on BBC Sounds.
In the first NHS hospital to be opened in 1948 by then Minister of Health Aneurin Bevan, a prize winning poet and academic has been sitting in the restaurant which serves as the canteen, persuading hospital workers to share their stories and take time to involve themselves in writing. Dr Kim Moore is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her time as NHS75 writer in residence at Trafford General Hospital has led to an anthology being published Untold Stories of the NHS
Kim Moore talks to Jade Munslow Ong alongside Kim Wiltshire, who works with the Lime Arts charity to roll out projects like this in healthcare settings and who has created a poetic collage about working in the NHS. Dr Kim Wiltshire is Programme Leader for the BA Creative Writing at Edge Hill university in Lancashire and she has collaborated with Lime Arts as an artist and project manager over 20 years https://www.limeart.org/
Kim Moore’s project Untold Stories of the NHS is a partnership with Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT), MFT’s arts for health organisation Lime Arts, Health Education England, and Manchester UNESCO City of Literature and includes a display at Trafford General, and an exhibition in the Manchester Poetry Library running over the Summer.
Dr Jade Munslow Ong teaches literature at the University of Salford and is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker
Producer: Nancy Bennie
This New Thinking conversation is a part of a series of 5 episodes of the Arts and Ideas podcast marking the 75th anniversary of the NHS focusing on new research in UK universities which explores links between the arts and health. It is made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find out more on their website https://www.ukri.org/councils/ahrc/ and if you want to hear more there is a collection called New Research on the website of BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0144txn or sign up for the Arts and Ideas podcast on BBC Sounds
Dystopias are a longstanding staple of film and literature, particularly science fiction, but what can we learn from them? Do they simply entrench despair or act as a prompt to improve the world? And what do The Two Ronnies have to do with all this? As a stage adaptation of Kay Dick's 1977 novel 'They: A Sequence of Unease' opens at the Manchester International Festival - a work that imagines a Britain that has been purged of culture - Matthew Sweet is joined by writer Una McCormack and New Generation Thinkers Sarah Dillon and SJ Beard to trace the history of dystopias and what they tell us about the fears and preoccupations of successive generations.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Maxine Peake, Sarah Frankcom and Imogen Knight's adaptation of 'They: A Sequence of Unease' by Kay Dick is at John Rylands Library, Manchester 5th-9th July 2023.
Ibsen referred to Emperor and Galilean as his "major work". The play describes the life of Julian, who ruled the Roman empire from AD361-363. Julian attempted to abolish the recently established state religion of Christianity and replace it with the worship of the ancient, pagan gods. The play is brimming with action and ideas, but is rarely performed. Rana Mitter discusses Ibsen's play and the history and religious ideas behind it with theatre critic and writer, Mark Lawson; historian and author of Pax, Tom Holland; Nicholas Baker-Brian, a theologian; and, Catherine Nixey, a journalist at the Economist and author of The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Emperor and Galilean will be broadcast as the Drama on 3 in July on BBC Radio 3 and available on BBC Sounds You can find another conversation about Ibsen's dramas available as an episode of Free Thinking and on BBC Sounds and a collection on the programme website exploring religious belief
The Second World War obsessed Luke Turner when he was growing up, before he founded the music website Quietus. Music has also been former teacher and now Add to Playlist host Jeffrey Boakye's passion and he's written a novel for teens called Kofi and the Rap Battle. Lisa Sugiura researches the online world that has drawn in so many. Chris Harding has been to see the new James Graham play at the National Theatre which explores the football team put together by Gareth Southgate. They come together for a conversation about how young men find their role models and navigate growing up?
Jeffrey Boakye's books include Hold Tight: Black masculinity, millennials and the meaning of grime and What is Masculinity? Why does it matter? And other big questions (co-authored with Darren Chetty); his new childrens' book is called Kofi and the Rap Battle Summer. Lisa Sugiura researches focuses on cybercrime and gender at the University of Portsmouth Men at War: Loving, lusting, fighting, remembering 1939-1945 by Luke Turner is out now Dear England by James Graham runs at the National Theatre until August 11th 2023
You might also be interested in a Free Thinking conversation about the changing image of masculinity with authors Ben Lerner, JJ Bola and Derek Owusu https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b0mx And Matthew Sweet talked with photographer Sunil Gupta, authors CN Lester and Tom Shakespeare, and a Barbican exhibition curator Alona Pardo about How do we build a new masculinity? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gm6h
The Skeptic Editor Michael Marshall talks to Matthew Sweet about how we judge actions and truth. They're joined by New Generation Thinkers Elsa Richardson, who is a historian of the emotions at the University of Strathclyde working on a popular history of the gut-brain connection and digestion more widely, and Brendan McGeever, who teaches on sociology, racism and anti-semitism at Birkbeck, University of London.
Producer: Julian Siddle
Maria Callas (1823-1977) and Adelina Patti (1843-1914) are two of the performers whose images are on show at the Victoria and Albert Museum's Diva. Professor Peggy Reynolds and Dr Ditlev Rindom have been to visit the exhibition which runs from opera, through films like Cleopatra, to pop performers such as Grace Jones, Lizzo and Cher. But what about performers from an earlier era ? Brianna Robertson-Kirkland shares her research, whilst Michael Twaits shares what the idea of Diva means to drag performers. Naomi Paxton hosts.
Producer: Sofie Vilcins
Diva opens June 24th at the V&A museum. BBC Radio 3 broadcasts opera every Saturday evening except during the Proms season and discussions about the making of music each Saturday on Music Matters.
You can find other Free Thinking conversations about Women in the World collected on the programme website.
An instant bestseller in 1774, The Sorrows of Young Werther was carried by Napoleon on his campaign in Egypt, it led to spin offs in fashion, porcelain and perfume and created Werther fever. A work of his Sturm und Drang years, Goethe's epistolary novel was published anonymously when he was aged 24. The story captures the intensity of unrequited love, frustrated ambition and mental suffering. It is also a novel that keys into the big philosophical arguments of its age and has given rise to a wide range of artistic responses in the two centuries since. With the Royal Opera House staging Massenet's operatic adaptation of the story, Anne McElvoy explores the ideas that fed into it.
Professor Sarah Hibberd is Stanley Hugh Badock Chair of Music at the University of Bristol. Her research focuses on nineteenth century opera and music theatre in Paris and London.
Dr Sean Williams is a BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker and Senior Lecturer in German and European Cultural History in the School of Languages and Cultures at the University of Sheffield and is a BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker.
Dr Andrew Cooper is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick and is a BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker.
Dr Sabina Dosani is a doctoral researcher in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of East Anglia. She is a consultant psychiatrist and a BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Werther: Antonio Pappano conducts Massenet's opera with a cast including Jonas Kaufmann and Aigul Akhmetshina. Performances at the Royal Opera House are from June 20th - July 4th
You can find other discussions about artworks, literature, film and TV which are Landmarks of culture gathered into a collection on the Free Thinking programme website. They include episodes about Gunter Grass, ETA Hoffmann, Hannah Arendt, and Thomas Mann https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44
In the Kitchen (washing machine) 1977 is an art work by Helen Chadwick being displayed at the Hepworth Wakefield, whilst Carrie Mae Weems' images called Kitchen Table Series 1990 are coming to a Barbican show. Art critic Sarah Kent joins New Generation Thinker and archaeologist Marianne Hem Eriksen, film scholar Melanie Williams, whose latest book looks at Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey, and journalist and writer Angela Hui, whose memoir is called Takeaway: Stories from a childhood behind the counter, for a conversation about kitchens from the ancient hearth to kitchen sink realism. Matthew Sweet is the chef in charge.
Producer: Julian Siddle
You might also be interested in a discussion about mid century modern and kitchen appliances https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000x709 Housework https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001629r Bedrooms https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000pmsl
Glenda Jackson (May 1936-June 2023) starred in many plays and films. One of those was Sunday Bloody Sunday where she plays part of a love triangle in John Schlesinger's follow up to his Oscar winning Midnight Cowboy. The plot written by Penelope Gilliat centres on an artist who has relationships with a female job consultant and a male doctor. Was the 1971 film ahead of its times? Matthew Sweet re-watched it with guests including Glenda Jackson, playwright Mark Ravenhill, film historian Melanie Williams and BFI National Archive curator Simon McCallum. They discuss the different elements of the film, including the score, which features the trio Soave sia il vento from Mozart's opera Così fan tutte, the very precise decor and evocation of late 60s London and filming inside a Jewish synagogue. This programme was recorded in July 2022.
Producer: Fiona McLean
Sunday Bloody Sunday is available on Blu-ray
You can find Matthew Sweet discussing other classics of British Cinema in the Free Thinking archives including:
British New Wave Films of the 60s - Joely Richardson and Melanie Williams evaluate the impact and legacy of Woodfall Films, the company behind Look Back in Anger, A Taste of Honey and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09ysnl2
An extended interview with Mike Leigh, recorded as he released his historical drama Peterloo, but also looks back at his film from 1984 Four Days in July https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000tqw
Early Cinema looks back at a pioneer of British film Robert Paul and at the work of Alice Guy https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dy2b
Philip Dodd explores the novel and film of David Storey's This Sporting Life with social historian Juliet Gardiner, journalist Rod Liddle, writer Anthony Clavane and the author's daughter Kate Storey https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09j0rt6
Samira Ahmed convenes a discussion about British Social Realism in Film https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pz16k
What exactly is a portrait? As the National Portrait Gallery re-opens and Sheffield Documentary Festival begins, Shahidha Bari talks to the gallery's Chief Curator Alison Smith, film-makers Kim Longinotto and Franky Murray Brown about their film Dalton's Dream, photographer Johny Pitts, whose project Home is Not a Place moves to the Photographers’ Gallery in London and New Generation Thinker Ana Baeza Ruiz about an oral history project with 1970s feminist artists.
Producer: Sofie Vilcins
You can hear music relating to an image held in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery every day on BBC Radio 3's Breakfast programme next week and an episode of the weekly curation of Words and Music inspired by portraits is broadcast on Sunday June 18th and then available on BBC Sounds for a month. On BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds a series called Close Encounters presented by Martha Kearney invites ten leading figures of today to the newly refurbished National Portrait Gallery to champion a favourite picture from the Gallery's collection. The NPG re-opens after refurbishment on June 22nd 2023. The NPG has linked up with Creative Southampton to open a show at Southampton City Art Gallery and Museums: which is a follow up to a project run by the NPG with Sheffield Galleries. Joshua Reynolds' birth on July 16th 1723 is being marked by an exhibition in the city of his birth at the Box Plymouth which runs until October 29th
Johny Pitts' work has been on show in Sheffield, Edinburgh and is now opening at the Photographers Gallery London this June. The Sheffield Doc Festival runs June 14th to 19th premiering a host of films, tv and podcasts which will be coming your way soon. The screenings include Dalton's Dream on 15th June, by Kim Longinotto and Franky Murray Brown, which tracks the journey of the first non-British and Black man to win X-Factor UK and the new life which follows Blood & Fire: Our Journey Through Vanley Burke's History runs at Soho House in Birmingham until Nov 4th 2023
Edinburgh GP Gavin Francis has been reading the writings of Thomas Browne (1605 -1682), who travelled to Padua and Leiden to qualify in medicine and then wrote on topics including religion, burial and examples of false understanding of science at the time. A Fortunate Woman - a depiction of a country doctor working now - takes inspiration from A Fortunate Man published in 1967 by John Berger and photographer Jean Mohr. Author Polly Morland joins Gavin Francis and New Generation Thinker Matt Smith from Strathclyde University, who is working on a history of health and medicine and who researches mental health, to discuss with Rana Mitter how our ideas have changed.
Producer: Julian Siddle
You can hear Gavin Francis discussing Ancient Wisdom and Remote Living in a previous Free Thinking episode available on BBC Sounds and as the Arts & Ideas podcast https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000q3by There's more about Thomas Browne in an episode devoted to his writings https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02tw4xw Matt Smith discusses Ritalin in an episode about Resting and Rushing https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000bp2c and an Essay for Radio 3 looks at The Magic Years, a manuscript found in the American Psychiatric Association archives, written when the eradication of mental illness was believed possible https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08j9x3c Ways of Talking about Health looks at new research from UK universities https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000q12w Mental Health hears from Human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith and New Generation Thinker Dr Sabina Dosani https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0016ynv
The father of capitalism or a sensitive moral philosopher? Adam Smith has been claimed as the defender of self-interest and advocate of free market economics, but his reputation has undergone a recent reappraisal. With his tercentenary in 2023, Anne McElvoy hears about the unexpected side of Adam Smith and his enduring presence in modern political economy.
Glory Liu is a Lecturer on Social Studies at Harvard University. Her first book, Adam Smith's America: How a Scottish Philosopher became an Icon of American Capitalism, is a history of of the reception of Adam Smith's ideas in America.
Maha Rafi Atal is a lecturer in Global Economy at the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow.
Dafydd Mills Daniel is a lecturer in Divinity at the University of St Andrews who looks at the history of philosophy and religious thought. He is a BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker.
Roos Slegers is Assistant Professor in the School of Humanities and Digital Sciences at Tilburg University. Her research focuses on the intersection of philosophy, literature and economics in the late 18th Century authors.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Adam Smith 300 sees events taking place at universities in Scotland including Adam Smith 300 at the University Glasgow. Smith, Ferguson, and Witherspoon at 300 runs at St Andrews University from 18th-21st July
Previous Free Thinking episodes exploring economic ideas include an episode about John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971) and Mandeville's view of 18th century economics in his Fable of the Bees (1714)
Is it ever okay to pass off someone else’s work as your own? What if it’s a computer programme faking it? And how are our perceptions of ownership and Identity influenced by the apparent power of digital technology?
These are some of the big questions Chris Harding discusses with :
Rebecca Kuang, author of a new novel, ‘Yellowface’, which is largely a story about plagiarism and publishing, but also touches on identity, social media and use of digital technology in perpetuating misinformation.
New Generation Thinker Kerry McInerny, who researches the impact of AI. Amongst other aspects she’s looking at how it can get things wrong, and its misuse in racial profiling. https://www.gender.cam.ac.uk/technology-gender-and-intersectionality-research-project/kerry-mackereth
And, MIT economist Daron Acemoglu, whose new book ‘Power and Progress’ says advances in technology don’t always equate with positive outcomes. He discusses the way AI algorithms have been used in social media to make money and spread hate, but also outlines how we can harness tech for good Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity written by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson is out now
Ghislaine Boddington is a curator and director, specialising in the future human, body responsive technologies and digital intimacy. She is a Reader in Digital Immersion at the University of Greenwich. https://ghislaineboddington.com/
You can find more from Kerry on the Arts and Ideas podcast as part of our strand New Thinking – made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council which focuses specifically on research being done in UK universities – And the AHRC is also behind a big project involving academics in Edinburgh and the Ada Lovelace Institute looking at AI ethics And if you want to hear about AI in music – composers Robert Laidlow and Emily Howard talked to Radio 3’s Music Matters programme and you can find that on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001l4d8
Le Mépris in 1963 brought fame to Michel Piccoli. Jean-Luc Godard's new wave film was based on an Italian novel about a love triangle and power dynamics involving a playwright asked to work on a film script. Piccoli (1925-2020) went on to work with many other directors, including Buñuel, Chabrol, Varda, Rivette, Demy and Sautet in roles which run from a weak priest to a confused pope, with a host of rebels, cynics, lovers and losers mixed in. Matthew Sweet is joined by Geoff Andrew, Muriel Zagha, Phuong Le and Adam Scovell to look at this remarkable career that spanned seven decades.Producer: Torquil MacLeodMichel Piccoli: A Fearless Talent, is running at BFI Southbank from 1-29 JuneYou can find a series of discussions about film stars and key films available as Arts & Ideas podcasts and on BBC Sounds including Marlene Dietrich, Jacques Tati, Audrey Hepburn, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Sidney Poitier, Laurel and Hardy's The Music Box, Charlie Chaplin's City Lights.Each Saturday on Radio 3 Matthew Sweet presents Sound of Cinema looking at film music relating to the week's new film releases - all the episodes are on BBC Sounds.
From Pakistan to Bulgaria to swimming the waterways of Britain: Rana Mitter is joined by a panel of writers to look at our relationship with particular landscapes and the natural world. Kapka Kassabova’s latest book Elixir: In the Valley at the End of Time details her stay in a remote valley by the River Mesa in Bulgaria and the knowledge of herbalism she finds there. Patrick Barham's latest book is about Roger Deakin, the environmentalist who co-founded Common Ground and was passionate about wild swimming. New Generation Thinker Noreen Masud from the University of Bristol has written a memoir called A Flat Place which details the impact of displacement from her Pakistani roots and her pilgrimage to the low lying landscapes of Orkney, Morecambe Bay and Orford Ness. The programme is part of Radio 3's broadcasts from the 2023 Hay Festival and was recorded in front of an audience there earlier this week.You can find a collection of discussions about Green Thinking all available to download or on BBC Sounds on the Free Thinking programme website of BBC Radio 3. Radio 3 is also broadcasting a series of lunchtime concerts from this year's Hay Festival and you can find past Hay festival discussions about Prose, Poetry and Drama in a collection on the Free Thinking programme website Producer: Luke Mulhall.
From dockworkers in Poland to meetings with European prime ministers and presidents and witnessing the fall of the Berlin Wall - the latest book by Timothy Garton Ash is a memoir called Homelands: A Personal History of Europe. He is joined by the Turkish writer now in exile from her home country Ece Temelkuran, by journalist Ben Judah who has been interviewing citizens across different European countries and by Misha Glenny, who has written on the former Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe and presents for BBC Radio 4 a history series about different countries called The Invention of …. Rana Mitter chairs the discussion which is recorded in front of an audience as part of BBC Radio 3's programming from the Hay Festival.Producer: Luke MulhallYou can find a series of concerts from Hay, an episode of the Verb and other BBC discussions all available on BBC Sounds.Ece Temelkuran was born into a political family and after her work as an investigative journalist and author of a series of books exploring Turkey’s history and politics, including How to Lose a Country and Ten Choices for a Better Now. She now lives outside the country.Ben Judah has written This is Europe: The Way We Live Now which draws on a series of interviews with a range of European citizens detailing their experiences of life.Misha Glenny's books include The Balkans 1804-2012 and McMafia.
The Imperial War Museum in London is putting on display recently collected objects and new first-hand testimony describing life in Northern Ireland during The Troubles in its first show to look at this topic. Anne McElvoy explores what it means to explore this history in writing, music and museum displays. The author Louise Kennedy's novel Trespasses is a 1970s love story. Poet Maria McManus and composer Keith Acheson have collaborated on a piece called Ellipses which they describe as being about "doubling back and reclaiming the sense of wonder, awe and timelessness that came before all the grimness". And Maria Fusco has worked on a new opera film which highlights the experiences of working class women in Belfast.Producer: Robyn ReadLouise Kennedy's books include the short story collection The End of the World is a Cul de Sac and a novel set during 1970s Belfast called Trespasses which is now out in paperback.Northern Ireland: Living with the Troubles is a free exhibition at the IWM London curated by Craig MurrayEllipses is being performed at the Belfast International Arts Festival in NovemberHistory of the Present an opera film was made on 35mm and SD video in the streets of Belfast, the Ulster Museum and the Royal Opera House in London. It was co-directed by Maria Fusco and Margaret Salmon with music by composer Annea Lockwood and will be screened 24.06.23 at Art Night, Dundee02.07.23 The Royal Opera House, London and 11.08.23 for the Edinburgh Art Festival [live version]
The profound effects of losing our sense of smell, why historians should think more about the smells of the past and some thoughts on sneezing from Montaigne and La Condamine. Rana Mitter is joined by philosopher and wine-taster Barry Smith, Chrissi Kelly who founded the charity AbScent following her own experience of anosmia (the loss of smell), sensory historian William Tullett and New Generation Thinker Gemma Tidman.William Tullett's book Smell and the Past: Noses, Archives, Narratives is out now.Producer: Torquil MacLeodYou can find previous Free Thinking discussions about other body parts available on BBC Sounds and as the Arts & Ideas podcast. We have looked atKnees From dance to prayer, knees ups to kneeling https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gv2tHands Matthew Sweet explores hands with psychoanalyst Darian Leader, an art historian and a computer scientist https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07gnj18Barry Smith discussed what gives us Pleasure https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000tf72Novelist Michele Roberts discussed evoking smell in fiction https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08n24f5
A Baltic forest in 1913, Soho and the suburbs of Liverpool and the Jewish community that grows up there are the settings for Linda Grant's new novel The Story of the Forest. She joins presenter John Gallagher, Rachel Lichtenstein and Julia Pascal for a conversation about writing and Jewish identity in the North West as we also hear about Julia Pascal's play Manchester Girlhood and look at the re-opening of the Manchester Jewish Museum with curator Alex Cropper .Producer in Salford: Nick Holmeshttps://www.manchesterjewishmuseum.com/ has re-opened after a £6 million redevelopmentDr Rachel Lichtenstein is a writer, curator who teaches at Manchester Metropolitan University and is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Manchester’s Centre for Jewish Studieshttp://www.juliapascal.org/ has links to Julia's new play You can find other Free Thinking discussions about Jewish history and identity includingJonathan Freedland, Hadley Freeman, Howard Jacobson and Bari Weiss on Jewish Identity in 2020Simon Schama and Devorah Baum on Jewish history and jokesHoward Jacobson delivering a lecture on Why We Need The Novel and talking to Philip Dodd about his dystopian novel JRabbi Baroness Julia Neuberger and New Generation Thinker Brendan McGeevor from the Pears Institute discussing stereotypes and also anti-SemitismMatthew Sweet in conversation with David GrossmanJonathan Freedland exploring Jewish identity in fiction from Amos Oz, Ayelet Gundar-Goshen & Jonathan Safran FoerLinda Grant alongside AD Miller, Boris Dralyuk, and Diana Vonnak discussing Odessa Stories and the writing of Isaac Babel
Disney's The Little Mermaid and a musical adaptation of a Caribbean version of the story kick off our conversation as Shahidha Bari is joined by director Ola Ince, historian and Sarah Peverley, who is writing a cultural history of mermaids. "Mermaid hunter" Sacha Coward considers mermaids as queer icons and Claudy Op den Kamp talks us through Disney copyright history.Producer: Sofie VilcinsOnce On This Island directed by Ola Ince runs at the Regent's Park Theatre until June 10th. It's the story of peasant girl Ti Moune and a boy called Daniel, and it's based upon a novel by Rosa Guy called My Love, My Love or The Peasant Girl which takes its inspiration from the Hans Christian Andersen story The Little MermaidDisney's The Little Mermaid starring Halle Bailey and directed by Rob Marshall is in cinemas from May 26th.
Thanks in part to the birth of those enduring caricatures - Essex Man & Essex Girl - in the 1990s, this is a county that has struggled to break free from a whole raft of stereotypes and assumptions. Matthew Sweet and his guests - all Essex residents - are here to present a more nuanced, complicated and historically rich vision of this woefully misunderstood part of England.Tim Burrows has written The Invention of Essex: The Making of an English CountyElsa James is an artist whose work includes the Forgotten Black Essex projectSimon Heffer is a historian and journalist who first coined the term 'Essex Man'Dan Taylor is a New Generation Thinker. He lectures in Social and Political Thought at the Open University and his most recent research has taken him along the route of the A13, from east London to Southend on SeaProducer: Torquil MacLeodComposer William Byrd has strong Essex connections - and you can hear his music daily on Essential Classics between 9am and 12 as part of Radio 3's Byrd spotting series to mark the anniversary of his birth in July 1623In the Free Thinking archives you can find Matthew Sweet talking to Essex born author Sarah Perry in conversations about spookiness and fear and her book The Essex Serpent https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000kk2 and a Covid conversation about Melmoth the Wanderer https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jgcs
Premiered to 63 people at the Royal Court back in 1973, the Rocky Horror Show is marking its anniversary with a production touring the UK. New Generation Thinkers Louise Creechan and Joan Passey explore its links with Frankenstein and the Gothic tradition and Paul Baker discusses its place in a history of camp. Shahidha Bari presents.Camp: The Story of the Attitude that Conquered the World is out now. Paul Baker is a Professor at Lancaster University.Rocky Horror runs at Sadlers Wells Peacock Theatre in Holborn, London until June 10th and then moves on to venues including Crewe, Leeds, Truro, Belfast, Nottingham and Eastbourne. For more details https://rockyhorror.co.uk/tour-datesYou can find other conversations about LGBTQ+ culture and history in the Free Thinking collection of episodes called Identity Discussions on the programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06jngztProgrammes include The politics of fashion and drag https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09zcjchPolari Prize winners from 2020 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nmrlQueer Histories https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000f74jNew Thinking: Raiding Gay’s the Word & Magnus Hirschfeld https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0ff53xv
A '70s London squat was home to the writer Dambudzo Marechera when he was writing his first novel The House of Hunger (1978), which was published in the Heinemann African Writers series and has now been issued as a Penguin Classic. Tinashe Mushakavanhu is researching his story and writings. Mufaro Makubika has adapted the coming of age story published by NoViolet Bulawayo in 2013 as a play, which is now touring England. Jocelyn Alexander is involved in creating an archive and oral history documenting Southern Africa's liberation armies and has researched experiences of political imprisonment over 50 years in Zimbabwe. Rana Mitter hosts the conversation.Producer: Ruth WattsWe Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo, in a new adaptation by Mufaro Makubika is a Fifth Word and New Perspectives co-production directed by Monique Touko.It tours to Derby, Manchester, Newcastle, Peterborough, and BristolThe House of Hunger is available as a Penguin ClassicYou can find more discussions about African writing and history in a collection called Exploring Black History on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbpThey include Pettina Gappah on African Empire Stories https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fgxmLouise Egbunike on Pan-Africanism and Nana Oforiatta Ayim on her African encyclopedia https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000c4mfA focus on Wole Soyinka's writing with novelist Ben Okri, academic Louisa Egbunike and playwright Oladipo Agboluaje https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k35sAn exploration of the politics and writing of Amílcar Lopes da Costa Cabral https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001ghhz
"Not so much a fear of going out as a fear of something dreadful happening whilst being out" - writer Graham Caveney talks to Matthew Sweet about his own experience of agoraphobia and also how the condition has been reflected in the work of other writers, including Shirley Jackson and Emily Dickinson. Writer Kate Summerscale and New Generation Thinker Joan Passey trace the shifting ideas about sources of phobias in the 19th century and the explosion of interest in naming and cataloguing them. Film critic Christina Newland explores Alfred Hitchcock's portrayal of phobias in films including Frenzy and Marnie.Graham Caveney's book 'On Agoraphobia' is available now.Kate Summerscale is the author of 'The Book of Phobias and Manias'.Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Overcoming grief, historian Rachel Hewitt's new book mixes recent personal history and her experiences of fell running and lockdown with her research into the pioneering mountain climber known as Lizzie Le Blond (1860 – 1934). In 1907, Le Blond set up the Ladies' Alpine Club and over her lifetime made 20 first ascents of different peaks. Chris Harding is joined by Rachel Hewitt, Dr Ben Anderson from Keele University, and science writer Caroline Williams to discuss alpine sports, running, risk and research into health and fitness ahead of Mental Health Awareness Week.Producer: Julian SiddleRachel Hewitt and Ben Anderson were both chosen as BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinkers in the scheme which turns research into radio.Rachel's book In Her Nature How Women Break Boundaries in the Great Outdoors : A Past, Present and Personal Story is out now.You can hear more from Dr Ben Anderson in an episode called Simplify your life - ideas from 20th-century radicals https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000d826Caroline Williams is the author of Move ! The new science of body over mind.You might be interested in other Free Thinking discussions all available as Arts & Ideas podcasts, on BBC Sounds and the programme websiteRunning https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b087yrllTacita Dean, Mountains, John Tyndall https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b3fkt3Radio 3 has a series of programmes exploring different music for Mental Health including special episodes of the Classical Mixtape
650 years since the visions of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe's birth in King's Lynn, two novels have been published which explore these influential medieval mystics. Shahidha Bari brings together Claire Gilbert - author of I, Julian - and Victoria MacKenzie - author of For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain - and New Generation Thinker Hetta Howes to discuss these very different characters and what we know of their lives and faith.Producer: Robyn ReadYou can find other conversations about medieval figures including Chaucer's Wife of Bath, and Melusine in a collection on the Free Thinking programme website on BBC Radio 3 called Women in the World. All the episodes are available as the Arts and Ideas podcast to download and on BBC Sounds Radio 3's weekly Early Music Show broadcast every Sunday focuses on music of the period
Luxury and Power is the title of a new British Museum exhibition focusing on the politics of display used by rulers in Persia and Greece. Ahead of the coronation, Anne McElvoy hears from the curator, from academics researching past royal rituals in Tudor and Medieval England and about power and royalty on the operatic stage from Verdi's Don Carlos and Aida and to Philip Glass's Akhnaten and Britten's Gloriana.Dr Jamie Fraser is curator for the Ancient Levant and Anatolia at the British Museum and has curated Luxury and power: Persia to GreeceDr Joanne Paul is a writer, historian and broadcaster working on the history of the Renaissance, Tudor and Early Modern Periods.Professor Sarah Hibberd is Stanley Hugh Badock Chair of Music at the University of Bristol. Her research focuses on nineteenth century opera and music theatre in Paris and London.Dr Julia Hartley is a BBC Radio 3/AHRC New Generation Thinker who writes about Dante, Proust and representations of Iran. She lectures at the University of Glasgow School of Modern Languages and Cultures.Producer: Ruth WattsLuxury and power: Persia to Greece runs at the British Museum in London from 4 May 2023 - 13 Aug 2023On BBC Radio 3 you can find a discussion about recordings of Coronation Anthems on Building a Library, part of Record Review and music by Royal composers featured on In Tune and Radio 3 is broadcasting the music commissioned for the coronation before the ceremony begins. You can find that on BBC Sounds Music:Meyerbeer, Le Prophète, The Coronation March,London Symphony Orchestra, Richard Bonynge, Decca – SXL.6541Verdi, Don Carlos, Act II, Cejour heureux est plein d’allgègresse!Coro del Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Claudia Abbado, Deutsche Grammophon – DEF058231107
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) tackled inter-racial relationships. In the Heat of the Night won the Best Picture Oscar in 1967. For Love of Ivy (1968) satirised white liberal attitudes and treated audiences to the indelibly suave image of Poitier eating sushi and talking Japanese. A new play at the Kiln Theatre in London explores the decisions Poitier had to make in his film career. The playwright Ryan Calais Cameron joins Matthew Sweet with film critic Jan Asante and biographer Aram Goudsouzian to look at the acting career of Sidney Poitier, the first Black actor to win the Best Actor Academy Award.Producer: Torquil MacLeodRetrograde is at the Kiln Theatre, London until May 27th 2023 - a Sidney Poitier film season runs alongside.You can find other Free Thinking episodes exploring actors including Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Asta Nielsen, Marlene Dietrich all available on BBC Sounds and as the Arts & Ideas podcast.
Recordings in sub-zero temperatures and the hottest day on record have fed into the sound of Erland Cooper's latest composition. Ahead of a performance at the Barbican Centre, he discusses the way his Folded Landscape piece thaws through seven movements.New Generation Thinker Sam Johnson-Schlee is researching the social history of central heating, how its changed what we do in the home, and why climate change and global geopolitics are leading to questions about its' future.Sarah Jilani has suggested reading for the Nigerian take on the impact of the oil industry, which has produced a new style of literature 'Petropoetry'.And in her new book 'Nomad Century' science writer Gaia Vince looks at how global temperature changes are raising the prospect of mass migration in response to climate change .Matthew Sweet presents.Producer: Julian SiddleFolded Landscapes by Erland Cooper is released as an album in May and performed with the Scottish Ensemble at the Barbican Centre from May 11th-13thSam Johnson-Schlee is a 2023 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put research on the radio. He teaches at London South Bank University and has written a book called Living RoomsDr Sarah Jilani is also on the scheme. She teaches at City University LondonYou can find out about books and articles from science writer Gaia Vince at https://wanderinggaia.com/about-me/
From Mary Queen of Scots - about whom her mother was going to write until she intervened - to her most recent biography of Caroline Lamb, out in mid May, Lady Antonia Fraser has had a career publishing prize winning books exploring historical figures. In this conversation, recorded at her London home with historian Rana Mitter, she reflects on what she calls "optical research", the crime fiction she has written, meeting figures from history including Clement Atlee dressed as Santa and the prize, established by her daughter Flora, in memory of her mother - The Elizabeth Longford Prize for historical biography.Producer: Torquil MacLeodThe shortlist for the 2023 Elizabeth Longford Prize for historical biography is announced in MayLady Antonia Fraser's books which are discussed include Mary Queen of Scots, Cromwell our Chief of Men, The Weaker Vessel: Woman's Lot in Seventeenth-century England, The Case of the Married Woman: Caroline Norton: A 19th Century Heroine Who Wanted Justice for Women, The King and the Catholics: The Fight for RightsIn May 2023 Lady Antonia Fraser publishes Lady Caroline Lamb: A Free SpiritYou can find other episodes hearing from historians who have been nominated for the Wolfson History Prize, the Cundill History Prize and the British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding on the Free Thinking website and available on BBC Sounds.
Music making, fashion and behaviour at court in the Georgian period are the focus of new research by Sophie Coulombeau, Mary-Jannet Leith and Lizzy Buckle. As Bridgerton launches a spin off series about Queen Charlotte and an exhibition opens at the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace called Style and Society, Shahidha Bari hosts a discussion about soirées, soprano stardom and sexual scandals.Producer: Julian SiddleA Georgian inspired episode of Radio 3's weekly curation of Words and Music is available on BBC Sounds until May 25th 2023You can find other conversations about Georgian history on BBC Sounds and Free Thinking and available as the Arts and Ideas podcastBridgerton and Georgian Entertainment heard from Brianna Robertson-Kirkland, Sophie Coulombeau, Ian Kelly and Hannah Greig https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015v3cHarlots and 18th-century working women https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rdfzSamuel Johnson's Circle https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000vq3wThe Value of Gossip https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fwfb18th century crime and punishment https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b040hyspStyle & Society: Dressing the Georgians runs at the Queen's Gallery until October 8thQueen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story launches on May 4th on Netflix
From unboxing and influencers to circular fashion and a new artwork unveiled for Earth Day: New Generation Thinker Xine Yao from University College London hosts a conversation about sustainable fashion ideas. How does the London College of Fashion experiment with materials and teach design practices and fashion media which focus on sustainability? Monica Buchan-Ng is the Acting Head of Knowledge Exchange at the Centre for Sustainable Fashion and she tells us about online courses and innovations including material made from algae https://www.futurelearn.com/partners/lcf Lucy Orta has been a Professor since 2002 and is currently the Chair of Art and the Environment at the University of the Arts London, where she founded the Art for the Environment Artist in Residency Program. She also runs her own studio in partnership with George Orta https://www.studio-orta.com/ Her artwork Fabulae Naturae, comprises three 60-foot draperies adorning the Granary Building behind Kings Cross station. A programme of events is taking place across Earth Day on April 22nd https://www.kingscross.co.uk/event/earth-day-at-kings-cross This New Thinking episode of the Arts & Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/ukri-circular-fashion-and-textile-programme-networkplus/ UCL is home to a People and Nature Lab https://www.ucl.ac.uk/biosciences/gee/people-and-nature-lab East Bank is the new cultural quarter which is home to UCL, London College of Fashion, BBC Music Studios and other cultural partners https://www.queenelizabetholympicpark.co.uk/east-bank You can hear on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds a special Earth Day concert featuring the music of Max Richter and find a whole collection of conversations about Green Thinking on the Radio 3 Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2 and if you want more discussions about fashion check out these New Thinking podcasts Arts & Ideas: Fashion Stories in Museums https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p096hw0q Arts & Ideas: Fashion AI and sustainability https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07nhbrd
As a new Tate exhibition of paintings puts the work of Swedish painter Hilma af Klint alongside modernist giant, Piet Mondrian. Both were painters fascinated by esoteric and occult ideas that became more marginal with the ascendancy of modernism. Matthew Sweet and guests discuss these abstract art works, theosophy and a search for the spirit world.Nabila Abdel Nabi is co-curator of Hilma Af Klint & Piet Mondrian: Forms of Life runs at Tate Modern in LondonJennifer Higgie is the author of The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit WorldDaniel Birnbaum is a Swedish art curator and an art critic. Since 2019, he has been director and curator of Acute Art in LondonSarah Kent is an art criticProducer: Ruth WattsHilma Af Klint & Piet Mondrian: Forms of Life runs at Tate Modern in London from April 20 - September 3 2023You can find a series of Radio 3's The Essay: Artists and the Spirit World written and read by Jennifer Higgie available on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001323q
Stevenson's swashbuckling Jacobite set novel has been translated into a play which is touring Scotland. Tartan and its history are on show at V&A Dundee, including a piece of tartan found in a peat bog in Glen Affric around forty years ago newly dated to circa 1500-1600 AD, making it the oldest known surviving specimen of true tartan in Scotland. The Highland Book prize has announced its shortlist. Anne McElvoy is joined by New Generation Thinker and poet Peter Mackay, fashion historian Jonathan Faiers and theatre director Isobel McArthur.Kidnapped: a swash-buckling rom-com adventure is directed by Isobel McArthur and Gareth Nicholls for the National Theatre of Scotland and the tour visits venues in Greenock, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Inverness, Perth, Newcastle and BrightonPresented by the Highland Society of London, and facilitated by Moniack Mhor Writers’ Centre, the Highland Book prize shortlist is:Companion Piece by Ali Smith, Confessions of a Highland Art Dealer by Tony Davidson, Crann-Fìge/ Fig Tree: Short Stories by Duncan Gillies, WAH! Things I Never Told My Mother by Cynthia Rogerson. The winner will be announced on the 6th of June https://www.highlandbookprize.org.uk/Tartan at V&A Dundee opened on April 1st and includes over 300 objects. The book Tartan: Revised and Updated by Jonathan Faiers is out now, published by Bloomsbury.Producer: Harry Parker
John Lyly's play Galatea, first recorded in 1588, inspired Shakespeare to write As You Like It and A Midsummer Night's Dream. In Brighton, Emma Frankland is directing a rare professional revival of it, so she and the academic advisor on the project Andy Kesson join Globe Theatre head of research Will Tosh and New Generation Thinker Emma Whipday for a conversation about cross-dressing in Elizabethan dramas and about the plays gathered together in Shakespeare's First Folio. Shahidha Bari hosts.Emma Frankland's Galatea is commissioned by and is on as part of Brighton Festival, from the 5-21 May, 2023Dr Andy Kesson teaches at Roehampton University and runs a Before Shakespeare projectDr Emma Whipday is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. She teaches at the University of NewcastleDr Will Tosh is Head of Research at Shakespeare's Globe, London. He is currently working on a book called Straight Acting: The Many Queer Lives of William ShakespeareThe Globe Theatre production of A Midsummer Night's Dream runs 27th April to 12th AugustOn the Free Thinking programme website you can find a collection of discussions about Shakespeare and the Shakespeare Sessions on BBC Sounds includes a whole series of plays available to listen to. The most recent addition is Henry IV part II which you can also hear as a Drama on 3 on Sunday night on Radio 3.Producer: Harry Parker
The singers Enrico Caruso and Elsie Houston, a new opera at ENO and links between musical and artistic traditions in Latin America, Europe and New York are explored by the academics Ditlev Rindom and New Generation Thinker Adjoa Osei. Plus the baritone Peter Brathwaite has an exhibition of lockdown photographs in which he recreates the poses of black people portrayed in paintings from the last 800 years opening in Bristol (the photographs have also been published in a book) and has a musical work in progress, shown at the ROH, which explores his family's Barbadian history. Shahidha Bari hostsBlue runs at English National Opera from April 20th - May 4thAdjoa Osei is organising a conference at Trinity College, the University of Cambridge on April 28th called Performing Black WomanhoodDr Ditlev Rindom is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at King's College, London currently finishing his first book, Singing in the City: Opera, Italianità, and Transatlantic Exchange, 1887-1914Peter Brathwaite's Insurrection: A Work in Progress was performed at the Royal Opera House and you can hear more about his research in this Sunday feature for BBC Radio 3 Rebel Sounds: Musical Resistance in Barbados https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001hg3tAn exhibition of his photographs Rediscovering Black Portraiture is at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery from April 14th to July 16th. A book accompanies the show.You can find his Essay series about the portraits on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nbrlProducer: Torquil MacLeod
From nature as "a living whole" in the ideas of Goethe and Alexander von Humboldt to the "Blood and Soil" ideas of Nazi Germany: New Generation Thinker Jim Scown, from Cardiff University, traces the links between ideas about the order of nature to more troubling views about links with the land that led organic pioneer Jorian Jenks to refer to "alien hands" tilling "British soil".Producer: Torquil MacLeod
‘Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did but backwards and in high heels’ said cartoonist Bob Thaves. Matthew Sweet is joined by Lucy Bolton, Pamela Hutchinson, David Benedict and Miles Eady to look at her life (1911-1995) and a film career that stretched far beyond the 10 movies she made with Astaire, including an Oscar winning performance in Kitty Foyle.Producer: Torquil MacLeodThe BFI season runs to the end of AprilMany of Ginger Rogers' RKO films are available to watch on iPlayer, including Primrose Path, Kitty Foyle, Vivacious Lady, Carefree and The Gay Divorcee.You can find a whole series of episodes of Free Thinking devoted to film stars including Asta Nielsen, Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn.
An ancient Japanese Buddhist ritual which involves a red baby bib, a small statue and water, has been taken up by women wanting to have some way of marking a miscarriage and the life not lived. New Generation Thinker Sabina Dosani is a psychiatrist and writer doing research at the University of East Anglia. Her essay looks at the language we use for unborn children who die and at what we can learn about mourning rituals from the work of the nineteenth century French sociologist Emile Durkheim, to modern services performed by Rabbis, in cathedrals and in peoples' back gardens.Producer: Ruth Watts
From the Pirates of Penzance and Captain Hook, to Ottoman corsairs, Henry Avery, Mary Read and Lady Killigrew: Anne McElvoy is joined by New Generation Thinkers Michael Talbot and Joan Passey, and by Robert Blyth, Senior Curator of World and Maritime History, Royal Museums Greenwich, who is also one of the co-curators of Pirates at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall.Producer: Harry ParkerPirates runs at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall from April to December and then moves in 2025 to Royal Museums GreenwichOther conversations in the Free Thinking archives available on the website include Ships and History with Hew Locke, Sara Caputo, Jake Subryan Richards and Tom Nancollas https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001626tSeagoings with artists Katie Patterson, Charlotte Runcie and Julia Blackburn and Cutty Sark curator Hannah Stockton https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002868Oceans and the Sea with Nobel Prize-winning author Abdulrazak Gurnah, climate scientist Professor Emily Shuckburgh and literature scholar and New Generation Thinker Joan Passey at Hay Festival https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0017m2y
"Cancel culture" is used to describe debates which touch on freedom of expression today but what can we learn if we look back at events after the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen? Clare Siviter, who lectures on the French Revolution and theatre at the University of Bristol, takes us through the experiences of playwrights and authors, Marie-Joseph Chénier, Olympe de Gouges, Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Suard and Destutt de Tracy, who wrote about how ideas spread.Producer: Torquil MacLeodYou can find a collection of essays, discussions and features which showcase the research of New Generation Thinkers on the Free Thinking programme website. The Arts and Humanities Research Council has worked with BBC Radio 3 on the scheme since 2012.
The trial of sisters begging on the streets of South London led to donations sent in by Victorian newspaper readers and an investigation by the Mendicity Society. New Generation Thinker Oskar Jensen, from Newcastle University, unearthed this story of the Avery girls in the archives and his essay explores the way attitudes to former slaves and to the reform of criminals affected the sisters' sentencing.Producer: Ruth Watts
Nicholas Spencer, Emily Qureshi-Hurst and Philip Ball join Christopher Harding for a conversation about the nature of reality – as science reveals it, as religion reveals it, and how the world might look if we treat science and religion not as competitors but as collaborators; a cosmic dynamic duo.Magesteria: The Entangled Histories of Science and Religion by Nicholas Spencer is out now.Producer: Ruth Watts
An 8 year old who condemns his own mother to execution in 1582: New Generation Thinker Emma Whipday, who researches Renaissance literature at Newcastle University, has been reading witch trial records from Elizabethan and Jacobean England to explore how they depict single mothers. And she finds chilling echoes of their language in newspaper articles in our own times.Producer: Ruth Watts
Customs officers raided the London bookshop Gay’s the Word on April 10th 1984 and seized 144 titles. A campaign was mounted after the directors were charged with conspiracy to import indecent books. Dr Sarah Pyke tells Diarmuid Hester about an oral history project which aims to raise awareness of Operation Tiger and how it ties into wider work on a history of queer reading. Dr Ina Linge has been looking at the way LGBTQ+ people used autobiographical writing to critically engage with the science of sexology and how their writing was used by and critiqued the work of sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld and a book based on this research called Queer Livability: German Sexual Sciences and Life Writing is coming out in 2023. Ina also hosts a sex and nature salon https://www.comedysalon.co.uk/ and along with other researchers at Exeter University held workshops for LGBTQ+ teenagers exploring climate activism https://www.exeter.ac.uk/research/socialinequality/lgbtqplus/ https://ies.sas.ac.uk/people/sarah-pyke is taking part in an event at the Bodleian on June 8th Queer Bibliography: A Discussion Diarmuid Hester is at the University of Cambridge and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council https://www.diarmuidhester.com/His book Nothing Ever Just Disappears: Seven Hidden Histories is out in August 2023 You can hear him discussing Rita Mae Brown’s novel Rubyfruit Jungle on an episode of Free Thinking called Stories of Love https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001hxhk This New Thinking episode of the Arts & Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find more in a collection called New Research on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
What is that people hate about the Pre-Raphaelites? From the 19th century to the present day their detractors have been remarkably consistent in the language that they have used to the describe their visceral dislike of these artists and their works. Dinah Roe, Greg Tate and Lynda Nead join Matthew Sweet to examine what makes Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his gang such a polarising force in art history. They also delve into the powerful and sensual poetry of Christina Rossetti and Walter Pater's scandalous book about the Renaissance.The Rossettis runs at Tate Britain from April 6th to September 24th 2023Dr Dinah Roe teaches at Oxford Brookes University and is currently editing the Collected Poems of Christina Rossetti.Dr Gregory Tate teaches at St Andrews University and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research CouncilProfessor Lynda Nead teaches at Birkbeck University, LondonYou might also be interested in a Radio 3 Sunday feature presented by Lily Cole called Plot 5779: Unearthing Elizabeth Siddall https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0009c67And Radio 3 listeners wrote a new carol inspired by Christina Rosetti's poem Love Came Down at Christmas https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/309PX0cDlP1wZpy4JkHTL1Y/radio-3-carol-competition-2021Producer: Torquil MacLeod
From lessons in civility learnt playing French board game to the value of babbling by babies in speech development, a history of central heating to the neglected industrial landscapes of the A13, Anti-Asian tropes in AI, Quaker needlework to Viking burial practices, 70’s women’s art collectives, the history of Ireland’s Magdalen laundries to the first philosophy book by a woman to be published in C17 century Germany: Chris Harding hears about the research topics of ten early career academics chosen as the 2023 New Generation Thinkers on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to promote academic research and turn it into radio broadcastsIncidentally you can also find on BBC Sounds the set of Essays by the 2022 New Generation Thinkers and there's a collection of other discussions and features from New Generation Thinkers across the years on BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking programme websiteBut in this podcast Chris Harding talks to:Dr Marianne Hem Erikson, Associate Professor of Archaeology at the University of Leicester is working on a project which asks what does it mean if a human body isn’t buried and the bones are broken apart and scattered?Andrew Cooper, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick is researching "Germany’s Mary Wollstonecraft" - Amalia HolstDr Ana Baeza-Ruiz, Loughborough University is conducting an oral history project looking at women’s art collectives in 1970s BritainDr Gemma Tidman, a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at Queen Mary, is working on her second book, Playing on Words: A History of French Literary Play, 1635–1789Dr Rebecca Woods, a Senior Lecturer in Language and Cognition at Newcastle University, researches how play helps language learning and the value of multi-lingualismDr Dan Taylor works at the Open University. His most recent book is Spinoza and the Politics of Freedom and he’s been an advisor on a BBC-Open University co-production Union, a four-part tv series due later this year presented by David OlusogaDr Sam Johnson-Schlee, from London South Bank University has been researching a history of gas heating and he's published a kind of domestic spaces memoir titled Living RoomsDr Kerry McInerney, a Research Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge co-hosts the Good Robots podcast and looks at anti-Asian racism in AIIsabelle Rosner, is a PhD student at King’s College London and presenter of the Sew What? podcast and her research looks at Quaker needleworkDr Louise Brangan, Chancellor's Fellow in Social Work and Social Policy at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow is researching the way Ireland is now coming to terms with the impact of the Magdalene Laundries and the treatment of women and babies.Producer: Ruth Watts
The noisy Victorian world annoyed the mathematician, philosopher and inventor Charles Babbage, who came up with the idea of a programmable computer. He wrote letters complaining about it and a pamphlet which explored ideas about whether the sea could record its own sound, had a memory and could broadcast sound. New Generation Thinker Joan Passey, from the University of Bristol, sets these ideas alongside the work done by engineers cabling the sea-bed to allow communication via telegraph and Rudyard Kipling's images of these "sea monsters."Producer: Torquil MacLeodNew Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in partnership with BBC Radio 3. Ten early career academics are chosen each year to share their research on radio. You can find a collection of discussions, features and essays on the Free Thinking programme page.Joan Passey can be heard in Free Thinking episodes discussing Cornwall and Coastal Gothic, Oceans and the Sea at the Hay Festival 2022, Vampires and the Penny Dreadful.
Composer Alex Ho, novelist Xiaolu Guo, curator George Young and director Anthony Lau join Rana Mitter to discuss a Cinderella story Ye Xian which has inspired a new music theatre piece, a new Manchester gallery display of Chinese life and history, a Brecht play set in China which looks at love, hospitality and goodness and a memoir which describes ideas about love and what it feels like to be based in a new city.Producer: Robyn ReadGeorge Young is Head of Exhibitions and Collections at the Manchester Museum which has re-opened with new galleries including the Lee Kai Hung Chinese Culture Gallery which features on display a late Qing dynasty (1636–1912) ‘Manchu’ headdress decorated with blue kingfisher feathers, a 20-metre scroll showing Emperor Kangxi’s birthday procession through the streets of Beijing in the 18th century and a taxidermy milu deer.Untold is a music theatre piece co-created by composer Alex Ho and creative director/choreographer Julia Cheng for premiere by Jasmine Chiu, Keith Pun, and Tangram at Concertgebouw Brugge in April 2023. Co-produced by Muziektheater Transparant, O.Festival Rotterdam, and Tangram, Untold won the FEDORA Opera Prize 2022 awarded at Opéra national de Paris.Anthony Lau is director of a version of Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan with a new adaptation by Nina Segal on at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield (Saturday 11 March - Saturday 1 April 2023) and then transferring to the Lyric Hammersmith (Saturday 15 April – Saturday 13 May). It is one of the first major revivals in the UK to have a creative team and company represented from the East Asian heritage where the play is set.Radical: A Life of My Own is being launched by Xiaolu Guo at the British Library on April 13th http://www.guoxiaolu.com/You can find other conversations about Chinese culture on the Free Thinking programme website and available on BBC Sounds and as Arts & Ideas podcasts. They include discussions about World Politics, Ink Art and Insomnia https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015vnsChina, Freud, War and Sci-Fi https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014grrBruce Lee's Film Enter the Dragon https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015l7zAfrica, Babel, China https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002h89The Inscrutable Writing of Sui Sin Far https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v9gl
Katja Hoyer and Karen Leeder join Anne McElvoy to discuss new histories of East Germany, stories depicting life in the state which have recently been translated into English as well as a recently translated edition of Uwe Wittstock's February 1933. Plus, Emily Oliver on the history of BBC German service and Elizabeth Ward is beginning a research project on the cinema of East Germany and its involvement in International Film Festivals.Katja Hoyer's book is called Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990Professor Karen Leeder has been reading February 1933, a new translated work by one Germany’s leading contemporary writers, Uwe WittstockProducer: Ruth Watts
Lea Ypi, author of a memoir entitled Free: Coming of Age at the End of History, joins Matthew Sweet to explore the history and culture of Albania - its art, music and literature. They're joined by Adela Demetja - curator and director of the Tirana Art Lab - Centre for Contemporary Art in Albania and curator of the Albania pavilion in last year's Venice Biennale, which featured the work of Lumturi Blloshmi. Ani Kokobobo, Associate Professor and chair of Slavic Languages & Literatures at the University of Kansas and translator of Ismail Kadare, discusses Kadare's major works including his 1981 novel The Palace of Dreams. Violinist Aurel Qirjo performs in studio - music featured on the album At least wave your handkerchief at me: The joys and sorrows of Southern Albanian song, by his band Saz'iso.Producer: Eliane Glaser
What ethical questions arise from new human-machine relations as we are increasingly asked, as citizens and workers, to collaborate with AI systems? And how might a feminist approach to AI design help us shape an equitable future for AI-Human relations?Research Associate, Kerry McInerney, discusses how facial recognition AI software is being deployed in job recruitment and to tackle gender based violence. Lecturer, Kendra Briken describes her work on the integration of the human labour force with AI, including in the nursing profession.Research Fellow, Eleanor Drage, discusses the use of Facial Recognition by the UK police and its implications for civic rights and privacy.Kerry McInerney and Eleanor Drage co-host THE GOOD ROBOT Podcast and are Research Associates at the University of Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. Their book The Good Robot: Feminist Voices on the Future of Technology is out soon.Kendra Briken is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. This episode of the New Thinking podcast was put together in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI as part of our series New Thinking focusing on new research at UK universities. There is a collection of discussions Free Thinking the Future on BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme website, from AI and creativity to our increasing reliance on robotics and automation. All of the conversations are available to download as the Arts and Ideas podcast.For more information about the research the AHRC support around AI https://www.ukri.org/what-we-offer/browse-our-areas-of-investment-and-support/research-into-artificial-intelligence/ Producer: Jayne Egerton
Billy Waters became a celebrity in early 19th century London as a talented street performer. New Generation Thinker Oskar Jensen and Mary L. Shannon join Rana Mitter to tell Billy's story and those of other musicians performing on the streets of London at the time. Charlie Taverner has written a history of Street Food. We also hear from Marigold Hughes about the latest production from Streetwise Opera, an organisation that devises opera productions with people who are or have been homeless.Vagabonds: Life on the Streets of Nineteenth-century London by Oskar Jensen is out now.Mary L. Shannon's book 'Billy Waters Is Dancing’ will be published later this year.Street Food: Hawkers and the History of London by Charlie Taverner is out nowStreetwise Opera, BBC Concert Orchestra and The Sixteen perform Re:sound at the Southbank Centre, London on Weds 22nd March and at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London on Sun 26th March.Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Cinderella is opening in a new ballet production at the Royal Opera House and Mothering Sunday is coming up so Matthew Sweet is joined by New Generation Thinkers Sabina Dosani and Emma Whipday and Marina Warner for a conversation about good and bad mothering and how images are changing.Marina Warner's many books include From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their TellersFrederick Ashton's ballet Cinderella has been re-imagined using video design for a new production running at the Royal Opera House 27th March - 3rd MayProducer: Eliane Glaser
A Persian epic depicted in The Yellow Book which Aubrey Beardsley was art editor for, Iranian figures on the French operatic stage and Rudyard Kipling's links with decadent ideas: Shahidha Bari is joined by Dr Julia Hartley, Dr Alexander Bubb and Professor Jennifer Yee to discuss new research into late nineteenth century art, literature and opera and what we mean by decadence. Was it really a-political and focused on surface and ornament? And how far are ideas about art for art's sake and sex for sex's sake linked?Producer: Robyn ReadDr Alexander Bubb teaches at the University of Roehampton, London and is the author of Flights of Translation: Popular Circulation and Reception of Asian Literature in the Victorian World.Professor Jennifer Yee teaches Modern Languages at the University of Oxford and has edited a book French Decadence in a Global Context.Julia Hartley is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker who teaches at Glasgow University. Later this year she will be publishing Iran and French Orientalism: Persia in the Literary Culture of Nineteenth-Century FranceYou might be interested in a Radio 3 Sunday Feature asking Should Feminists Read Baudelaire ?And the Free Thinking programme website has a collection of discussions exploring Prose, Poetry and Drama
Debt is central to the modern economy and it has long been so. The idea of debt has long been loaded with as much morality as financial meaning. Anne McElvoy explores our ideas about debt, what it is and how it works. Decisions about borrowing or paying down debt are currently being faced the world over. They’re informed by political beliefs and a whole history of ideas behind that. So, how have our ideas changed over time and what can or should be done about it?Professor Kenneth Rogoff is Maurits C. Boas Chair of International Economics at Harvard University, a former Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund and the author of This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. Vicky Pryce is an economist and a former Joint Head of the United Kingdom's Government Economic Service. New Generation Thinker Philip Roscoe is a Reader in the School of Management at the University of St Andrews and the author of How to Build a Stock Exchange: On the past, present and future of finance. And, New Generation Thinker, Dafydd Mills Daniel is a lecturer in Divinity at the University of St Andrews who looks at the history of philosophy and religious thought.Producer: Ruth Watts
Body language is being studied as a way of working out new ways of learning Sign Language and if British Sign Language is to be taught as a GCSE in schools who should do the teaching? As we mark 20 years since British Sign language was acknowledged as a language in its own right (18th March 2003) and then the passing in 2022 of recognition in law that it is an indigenous language of Great Britain: Naomi Paxton talks to two researchers in the field. Doctor Kate Rowley is the Deputy Director of the Deafness Cognition and Language Research Centre at UCL, and Doctor Gerardo Ortega is a lecturer in the Department of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Birmingham. They talk to New Generation Thinker Naomi Paxton about their research into language and literacy development in deaf children, body gestures and iconicity. Kate explains how regional accents are interpreted in sign language and Gerardo tells us how he and his team have created the first gesture dictionary in the Dutch community. They also discuss the importance of deaf education and the representation of deaf people in mainstream popular culture. And Kate and Gerardo share their own favourite sign.They are also joined in the studio by BSL interpreters Kal Newby and Susan Booth and you can find a transcript of the conversation on supporting content. This conversation is a New Thinking episode of the Arts & Ideas podcast made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find more discussions about New Research collected on BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme website
Iranian women using song to protest and whose voices do we pay attention to ? On International Women's Day, Shahidha Bari hosts a conversation with the authors of books called On Being Unreasonable and Who Gets Believed, an artist and a researcher looking at Iranian women using song. Michelle Assay is an academic specialising in music who was born in Iran and had to leave the country. Dina Nayeri is an Iranian American writer now based in Scotland and Kirsty Sedgman studies the behaviour of audiences. Alberta Whittle represented Scotland in the Venice Biennale and has exhibitions on at Bath's Holburne Museum and in Scotland.Alberta Whittle: Dipping below a waxing moon, the dance claims us for release is at the Holburne Museum until May 8th.Alberta Whittle | create dangerously runs at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art from Sat 1 Apr 2023 - Sun 7 Jan 2024Kirsty Sedgman's On Being Unreasonable: Breaking the Rules and Making Things Better is out now https://kirstysedgman.com/Dina Nayeri's latest book is called “Who Gets Believed? https://www.dinanayeri.com/ You can hear more from her in a previous episode of Free Thinking called Language and Belonging https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006fh9Free Thinking has a whole collection of programmes Women in the World with conversations ranging from fictional characters including The Wife of Bath and Lady Macbeth to Arabian queens, landladies, women warriors and goddesses ttps://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p084ttwpProducer: Jayne Egerton
Bullshit jobs, Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value, Debt: The First 5000 Years: the titles of some of David Graeber's books give a sense of his take on the world and his concerns. Matthew Sweet talks with archaeologist David Wengrow - co-author with Graeber of The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity and looks at Graeber's involvement with the Occupy movement and the influence of anarchist ideas. They are joined by historian of ideas Dr Sophie Scott-Brown, and by Kirsten Stevens-Wood, a lecturer for the School of Education and Social Policy at Cardiff Metropolitan University who studies communal living and intentional communities.Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia by David Graeber has been published posthumously in 2023.Producer: Luke Mulhall
The monk and poet Dom Sylvester Houédard (1924-92) used his Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter to fuse art and writing in concrete poetry. Born in 1924 he worked in Army Intelligence in India, Sri Lanka and Singapore during the Second World war and in 1949 he joined the Benedictine Abbey of Prinknash, Gloucestershire. Matthew Sweet looks at his life and art with guests Nicola Simpson, Rey Conquer, Charles Verey and Greg Thomas.Charles Verey is writing a biography of Dom Sylvester Houédard and jointly editing a book of talks given by Dom Sylvester in the context of Beshara, in the last years of his life.Nicola Simpson is editor of The Cosmic Typewriter, The Life and Work of Dom Sylvester Houédard (Occasional Papers, 2012) and curator of The Cosmic Typewriter exhibition and symposium (South London Gallery, 2012) and The Yoga of Concrete (Norwich University of the Arts, 2010). Her research interests focus on the influence of Zen and Vajrayana Buddhism on British Conceptual Art of the 1960s and 1970s. She has also worked on an online exhibition at the Lisson Gallery Greg Thomas is a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Edinburgh studying concrete poetry.Rey Conquer writes on poetry and religion and lectures in German at the University of Oxford and researches the problem religious belief in art and literature poses to the secular imagination.Producer: Luke Mulhall
Muppets in Moscow is Natasha Lance Rogoff's account of launching a Russian version of the American tv series Sesame Street. If a single announcer supplies the dialogue dubbing when a foreign film is shown in Russia where do you find the technical skills you need? Should you feature exclusively ethnically Russian actors or include nationalities from former Soviet republics? What puppets from Russian folklore might be suitable and what kind of education for children are you trying to achieve? Anne McElvoy asks Natasha about how she found the answers to these questions and how that period of Russian TV differs from the media landscape there today.Plus New Generation Thinker Victoria Donovan looks at punk protest and films such as Little Vera (1988); Lucy Weir traces the ways in which art and music responded to the era of Perestroika and beyond; and, Tamar Koplatadze explores how literature from across the former republics of the USSR is beginning to process the Soviet past.Producer: Ruth Watts
How sewing machines wrecked sewing. Why people mistrusted tin cans. What the invention of stainless steel had to do with the military. New research into the impact of industrialisation on materials like tin, steel and sewing machines is shared by the academics Chris Corker from the University of York, Lindsay Middleton from the University of Glasgow, and Serena Dyer who teaches at De Montfort University. Chris Harding hosts the conversation.Producer: Tim Bano
Hungry Ghosts is the new novel set in colonial Trinidad by Kevin Jared Hosein. Colin Grant has written a memoir about his Jamaican family. A new art project, Windrush Portraits, is a collaboration between Mary Evans and Michael Elliott with communities in both Kingston, Jamaica, and Southampton, UK. Shahidha Bari looks at the way ghosts of history haunt these artworks.Producer: Robyn ReadHungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein is out now.Colin Grant's memoir I'm Black So You Don't Have to Be is out now and you can find out more about his work at https://colingrant.info/Colin is also Director of the Royal Literary Fund website Writers Mosaic https://writersmosaic.org.uk/ This is an online magazine and developmental resource focused on UK writers of the global majority.Windrush Projects will see special billboards on display across Jamaica throughout February 2023 and the artists Mary Evans and Michael Elliott will make new artworks, created in collaboration with communities that will be presented during October 2023 (Black History Month in the UK) in both Southampton, UK and Kingston, Jamaica.You can find a collection of conversations exploring different aspects of Black History on the Free Thinking programme website. It includes recent episodes about Phillis Wheatley, Gwendolyn Brooks, Idrissa Ouédraogo, Amílcar Cabral and the Victorian circus performer Pablo Fanque https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbp
Haggling with Indian customs officials and presenting a mighty emperor with the distinctly unimpressive gifts of a cheap sword and a broken carriage are two particularly inauspicious moments that feature in the tale told by historian and New Generation Thinker Nandini Das in her new book about the four years Thomas Roe spent as James VI and I's ambassador to the Mughal Empire. Peter Frankopan has previously written about The Silk Roads and the First Crusade. Now he has turned his attention to writing a 5 billion year long history of the natural world, geography and climate change and the influence that these have had on shaping empires and civilisations. Nandini and Peter join Rana Mitter to share insights from their research and to discuss different ways writing history.Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire by Nandini Das is out on 16th March.Peter Frankopan's The Earth Transformed: An Untold History is published on 2nd March.Producer: Torquil MacLeod.You can hear Nandini Das presenting a Sunday feature about a wager journey made in Tudor England by Shakespeare's clown Will Kemp available on BBC Sounds and another feature The Kristapurana follows Thomas Stephens to Goa https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00016stPeter Frankopan discussed What Kind of History Should we Write ? with Rana Mitter and Cundill prize winner Maya Jasanoff in a previous Free Thinking episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00016vf
A new exhibition at the Ashmolean looks at the digs conducted by Sir Arthur Evans at Knossos in Crete. At the National Theatre Janet McTeer stars as the Cretan princess Phaedra in a new play by Simon Stone. Classicist Natalie Haynes, curator Andrew Shapland and Minoan archaeologist Nicoletta Momigliano join Rana Mitter to explore what the artefacts found at Knossos can tell us about the world of the Minoans and to delve into the powerful myths these Bronze Age Cretans left us.Labyrinth: Knossos, Myth and Reality runs at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford from 10 Feb 2023 to 30 July 2023Phaedra a new play by Simon Stone after Euripides, Seneca and Racine runs from 1 February to 8 April at the National Theatre in LondonNatalie Haynes is the author of books including Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek MythsA production of Medea starring Sophie Okenedo and Ben Daniels runs at the Soho Theatre in London from Feb to 22nd AprilA debut novel called Phaedra by Laura Shepperton puts the stories of Medea and Phaedra together.Producer: Torquil MacLeodRadio 3's Words and Music has an episode inspired by The Aeniad broadcasting on Sunday February 26th at 17.30 and available on BBC Sounds for the following monthYou can find more conversations about the Classics in the Free Thinking archives including a discussion with Bettany Hughes, Paul Cartledge and Colm Toibin recorded at Hay 2017: Women's Voices in the Classical World
Burkinabé filmmaker Idrissa Ouédraogo (21 January 1954 – 18 February 2018) was awarded the Grand Prix at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival for his film Tilaï. Much of Ouédraogo's work deals with the tensions between rural and city life and tradition and modernity in his native Burkina Faso. Matthew Sweet is joined by Boukary Sawadogo who teaches cinema studies at City College of New York and New Generation Thinker Sarah Jilani.Boukary Sawadogo is the author of books including “West African Screen Media: Comedy, TV Series, and Transnationalization” and “African Film Studies: An Introduction”Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Proust as an agony uncle, Romeo and Juliet rewritten as 21st century Welsh teenagers in a new drama by Gary Owen, the Lesbian coming of age novel by Rita Mae Brown that inspired the lead character in Willy Russell's Educating Rita to change her name and a new book inspired by the historical figures who collaborated on the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. Tom Crewe's novel The New Life depicts the married lives and love triangles of John Addington Symonds and Henry Havelock Ellis and the impact of Oscar Wilde's trial on their attempts to publish their study of what they called "inversion". Naomi Paxton is joined by Tom Crewe, Gary Owen and New Generation Thinkers Julia Hartley and Diarmuid Hester.Romeo and Julie by Gary Owen runs at the National Theatre in London until April 1st and then moves to the Sherman Theatre CardiffRubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown was first published in 1973 and is available now as a paperback. On the Radio 3 website you can find an Essay from Diarmuid Hester about the writing of Dennis Cooper and a Sunday Feature about the radical life of suffrage pioneer Edith Craig.New Generation Thinker Julia Hartley has published a book looking at reading Proust and Dante.Tom Crewe's novel is called The New Life.Other conversations about love in the Free Thinking archives includeSappho, Jonathan Dollimore and a Punjabi version of Romeo and JulietA quartet of researchers exploring dating, relationships and stories from the National Archives to London's gay bars.Free Thinking, Being Human: Love StoriesAnd we’ve discussions of poetry, philosophy and novels about love with the likes of AL Kennedy and Andrew McMillan, Alain de Boton and Tahmima AnamAnd a discussion and article about Rude Valentines' cards https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/34JCKJtrl07f5kY3G9kFNpd/eight-incredibly-offensive-victorian-valentinesProducer: Robyn Read
From Orwell and Shakespeare back to Greek myth, Aesop, and early Christianity: Matthew Sweet and guests look at a cultural history of the donkey. EO, a film out in UK cinemas this month, follows the life of a donkey born in a Polish circus.New Generation Thinker Lisa Mullen is an expert on George Orwell and lecturer in film at the University of CambridgeLucy Grig is Senior Lecturer in Roman History at the University of EdinburghFaith Burden is Executive Director of Equine Operations at the Donkey Sanctuary in DevonDirected by Jerzy Skolimowski EO is inspired by Robert Bresson's 1966 film Au Hasard Balthazar and is showing at venues across the UK organised by the BFI.Producer: Luke Mulhall
Soldiers fighting in the Crimean War lapped up this story and it also influenced the young William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones who read it at Oxford. The Heir of Redclyffe, published in 1853, reflects the mid-Victorian trend for medievalism and resurgence of High Church Anglicanism, combining gothic melodrama with sharply observed social realism, sprightly dialogue and wry humour. Although Charlotte M Yonge came to be associated mainly with domestic realism, in her long career (1823–1901) she worked across a wide range of genres, writing biographies, histories, children's books, and novels from historical epics to long-running family sagas. In Yonge's bicentenary year, New Generation Thinker Clare Walker-Gore argues that now is the time to rediscover this brilliant and neglected woman writer.Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Playwright Zinnie Harris, author Isabelle Schuler and New Generation Thinker Emma Whipday and Michelle Assay have looked at the murdering husband and wife of Shakespeare's Scottish play. Chris Harding hosts a discussion about the Macbeth story from Kurosawa and Shostakovich to a novel called Lady MacBethad and a play called Macbeth an Undoing.Macbeth - an Undoing by Zinnie Harris runs at the Lyceum Edinburgh from Feb 4th to 25th 2023.Throne of Blood Akira Kurosawa's 1957 film is part of a BFI season celebrating the director which runs across February. https://whatson.bfi.org.ukYou can find Free Thinking discussions about Rashomon https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b01vwk and Seven Samurai https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03yqt07 available on BBC SoundsLady MacBethad by Isabelle Schuler is published March 2023.Calixto Beito's production of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is being staged at the Geneva Theatre this spring. Alice Birch’s 2016 version of this story relocated to Yorkshire is a film available for rent.Michelle Assay is a musician and has researched Shakespeare.A collection called Free Thinking explores Shakespeare are all available to download as the Arts & Ideas podcast and on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06406hmProducer: Ruth Watts
Urbanisation, migration and ‘folk language’ are explored in the 1984 novel by Latife Tekin. The story is a carnivalesque fusion of contrasts like its title – where ‘Berji’ conjures images of an innocent shepherdess and ‘Kristin’ of a sex worker. There’s blind old Güllü Baba, rumoured to cure the ills caused by a nearby factory’s chemical wastewater. There’s Fidan of Many Skills, rumoured to know all the ‘arts of the bed’. There’s the rumour of roads, jobs, and clean water coming to Flower Hill: they never materialise. In his foreword to Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills, John Berger crowns ‘rumour’ its ultimate storyteller. New Generation Thinker Sarah Jilani looks at the way the inhabitants of Flower Hill make sense of their disorienting transition from village life to shantytown in the story from one of Turkey's most influential female authors writing today.Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Inner city life in Chicago's Bronzeville and the experiences of ordinary people inspired the first poetry collection published by Gwendolyn Brooks in 1945 and she followed this with a sequence of poems Annie Allen and a novella Maud Martha depicting Black women entering adulthood. Chicago based poet Peter Kahn, editor of an anthology of modern poets responding to the writing of Brooks, and poets Malika Booker and Keith Jarrett join Shahidha Bari to discuss the themes and textures in Gwendolyn Brooks' writing and what it means to write a Golden Shovel poem, whilst literature scholar Sarah Parker and pattern maker Gesa Werner talk about putting on an exhibition about fashion and poetry which features a poem by Brooks. Producer: Robyn ReadPoets in Vogue curated by Sophie Oliver, Sarah Parker and Gesa Werner runs Feb 17th to June 25th 2023. It includes a skirt that belonged to Sylvia Plath, a reconstruction of Anne Sexton’s red ‘reading dress’, creative interpretations of Audre Lorde’s, Edith Sitwell’s and Stevie Smith’s signature looks, a fabric-adaptation of a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks and the clothes-performances of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.Peter Kahn edited The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks. His own poetry collection Little Kings is published by Nine Arches Press.In the Free Thinking archives you can find Noreen Masud on the aphorisms of Stevie Smith https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000srj1A discussion Landmark: Audre Lorde hearing from her children, Jackie Kay and Selina Thompson https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004my0 and during February's Queer History month on BBC Sounds - a Words and Music episode celebrates Audre Lorde's writing https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000ql9kSophie Oliver discusses Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000
The legend of Mélusine emerges in French literature of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries in the texts of Jean d’Arras and Coudrette. A beautiful young woman, the progeny of the union between a king and a fairy, is condemned to spend every Saturday with her body below the waist transformed into the tail of serpent. She agrees to marry only on the condition that her husband should never seek to see her on that day every week. Shahidha Bari explores the emergence of the hybrid mermaid-woman, her historical significance and the legacy of the medieval myth of Mélusine.Olivia Colquitt is an AHRC funded doctoral candidate at the University of Liverpool whose research focuses upon the socio-cultural significance of the late Middle English translations of the French prose romance Mélusine and its verse counterpart, Le Roman de Parthenay.Hetta Howes is Senior Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern Literature at City, University of London and is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. She is the author of Transformative Waters in Medieval Literature.Lydia Zeldenrust is an Associate Lecturer in Medieval Literature, where she currently holds a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. She is the author of The Melusine Romance in Medieval Europe.The Royal Opera House is staging a version of Rusalka opening February 21st 2023. This folk-tale is a Slavic version of the water sprite figure seen in the Melusine story. This production will be broadcast as an episode of Opera on 3 on Radio 3 later in spring. Producer: Ruth Watts
Russell T Davies has written a 3 part mini-series - Nolly - about Crossroads star Noele Gordon. He joins Matthew Sweet along with screenwriter Paula Milne who wrote for Crossroads and Coronation Street and devised Angels for the BBC, and writer Gail Renard, who was working at ATV during the Crossroads years, to explore the unique and sometimes undervalued place of the soap opera in TV drama.Nolly will begin streaming on ITVX from Thursday 2nd February. The drama will be accompanied by a documentary entitled The Real Nolly which will also be available from the same date.Crossroads: The Noele Gordon Collection - a 96 DVD boxset - has just been released by Network.Producer: Torquil MacLeod
If the Tudors are the soap opera of English history, the restless years of the mid 17th century, often called the English Civil War, are more like a seminar in political and religious theory with an added component of armed violence. How did historians in the 20th century make sense of the period? And how are historians of today rising to the challenge? The Restless Republic: The People’s Republic of Britain, by Anna Keay, was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2022.Devil-Land: England Under Siege, 1588-1688, by Clare Jackson, was the winner of the 2022 Wolfson History Prize.New Generation Thinker Jonathan Healey has just published The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England.Producer: Luke Mulhall
Romani history and how mass murder is intertwined with a modern day pilgrimage site and the experiences of Portuguese Jewish communities are discussed by Matthew Sweet and his guests. Richard Zimler's talks about his latest book, The Incandescent Threads; Stuart Taberner reflects on the ways modern writers connect to the Holocaust; Victoria Biggs has been researching a pilgrimage site close to the a place of mass murder and Daniel Lee looks at the drawings left behind by the children of the Maison d'Izieu.Richard Zimler has written twelve novels that have been translated into twenty-three languages. The Incandescent Threads is the latest in his Sephardic Cycle, a group of works that explore the lives of different branches and generations of a Portuguese-Jewish family, the Zarcos. He was a finalist for the US National Jewish Book Award. Stuart Taberner is Professor of German Literature at the University of Leeds. He works on literary responses to the Holocaust and German Jewish identities. Daniel Lee is a senior lecturer in modern French history at Queen Mary, University of London, and the author of The SS Officer's Armchair. He is a BBC Radio 3 Arts and Humanities Research Council New Generation Thinker. You can hear him on previous episodes discussing Writing a life and biography with Hermione Lee and Rachel Holmes https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000n6vj and looking at WWII radio propaganda and French relations https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hwz9 Victoria Biggs is La Retraite Assistant Professor in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Durham. She researches memory, pilgrimage and the genocide of Roma people during the Holocaust. Producer: Ruth Watts
Stone circles, Roman Britain, a fossil crocodile and the flood described in the Book of Genesis, the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, a fake monk's manuscript: these were all studied by William Stukeley, English antiquarian, physician and clergyman (1687-1765) who pioneered research into Stonehenge and Avebury. Rana Mitter brings together a panel of archaeologists, historians and writers to look at the works of the first secretary of the Society of Antiquaries of London. His guests are New Generation Thinker and Lecturer in Archaeology at University of Exeter Susan Greaney; Rosemary Hill, whose book Time's Witness: History in the Age of Romanticism is a study of 18th-century antiquarianism; Ronald Hutton, historian of religion who has written about Stukeley and the Druids; and Robert Iliffe, Professor of the History of Science at Oxford.You can hear Susan Greaney discussing Stonehenge in a previous Free Thinking episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014g7y and changing archaeological digs also heard from Alexandra Sofroniew, Damian Robinson and Raimund Karl https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03xpn5pRonald Hutton has taken part in discussions about witchcraft and Margaret Murray https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001271f and goddesses https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014g7yProducer: Luke Mulhall
Matthew Sweet marks the 30th anniversary of the death of this icon of film and fashion who was also an EGOT (winner of an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award) and a noted humanitarian. Born in Belgium she supported the Resistance in World War II after moving to Holland, although her parents were Nazi sympathisers. Her films included My Fair Lady, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Roman Holiday, The Nun's Story, Funny Face and Charade. Matthew Sweet is joined by film historian Lucy Bolton, curator and fashion & film historian Keith Lodwick, film critic Phuong Le, and writer and broadcaster Samira Ahmed.Producer: Torquil MacLeodYou might like other episodes focusing on film all available on BBC Sounds and as the Arts & Ideas podcast:Jean-Paul Belmondo and the French New Wave https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00131mlBette Davis https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000y068Asta Nielsen https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0013t59Cary Grant https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hn1z
Over the last two hundred years, working class and women students, have found a place insides universities. Anne McElvoy hears about some of the stories behind the social expansion of higher education. Joanna Bourke's new book is a history of Birkbeck, the University of London college that began life as the London Mechanics’ Institution in 1823 and is now a leading centre of research in many areas. Iona Burnell Reilly has been looking at the lives of working class academics and Ann Kennedy Smith has considered women's pursuit of education at the University of Cambridge. And Clare Bucknell discusses the history of one educational resource, the anthology.Joanna Bourke is Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London, and a Fellow of the British Academy. She is the author of Birkbeck 200 years of radical learning for working people.Dr Clare Bucknell is a fellow of All Souls College, University of Oxford and author of a social history of poetry anthologies, The Treasuries: Poetry Anthologies and the Making of British Culture.Dr Iona Burnell Reilly is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Education and Communities at the University of East London and she is the author of The Lives of Working Class Academics: Getting Ideas Above your StationDr Ann Kennedy Smith is an independent scholar and literary critic. She was awarded a Women’s History Network Independent Researcher fellowship in 2021-22, and her blog about Cambridge women is called ‘The Cambridge Ladies’ Dining Society 1890-1914’.Producer: Ruth WattsYou might be interested in other content exploring the history of education including BBC AHRC New Generation Thinker Eleanor Lybeck's Essay on social attitudes to Victorian women pioneers: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09v64pk
Chaucer's widow and clothmaker is one of three characters given a longer confessional voice than other pilgrims in his Canterbury Tales and she uses her narrative to ask who has had the advantage in setting out the stories of women - "Who peyntede the leon, tel me who?" Shahidha Bari explores both the roots and the influence of Chaucer's creation and the different modern versions created by writers including Zadie Smith and Caroline Bergvall. Her guests are Marion Turner, author of The Wife of Bath: A Biography, Patience Agbabi who reimagines this timeless character as a Nigerian businesswoman in her poem The Wife of Bafa, and New Generation Thinker Hetta Howes.You can hear Marion Turner discussing Chaucer's own life in a past episode of Free Thinking hearing from nominees for the 2020 Wolfson History Prize https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000j2qwYou can find a discussion about Chaucer's court case in an Arts and Ideas podcast episode called A Feminist Take on Medieval History https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06n28wvAnd Free Thinking has a whole collection of programmes exploring Women in the World all available on BBC Sounds and as Arts & Ideas podcasts https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p084ttwpProducer: Torquil MacLeod
A language is a window onto a culture, history and way of life. So what do we lose when a community stops speaking the language of its ancestors? John Gallagher is joined by Gwenno, who writes and sings in Cornish, and researchers working to reclaim endangered languages around the world.With Mandana Seyfeddinipur of the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme, and Mel Engman and Mary Hermes who work in communities that speak Ojibwe, an indigenous language of Minnesota and elsewhere in North America.This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRIProducer: Luke MulhallOther episodes in our series exploring language include:What Language did Columbus Speak? Lingua franca in 15th-century travel and today’s refugee camps.Dead Languages: John Gallagher says hello in Oscan, the daily language of ancient Pompeii and looks at the translation of hieroglyphics.The Black Country: Matthew Sweet hears about the way the region has been depicted in writing which seeks to celebrate the local accent.Language, the Victorians, and Us: Greg Tate, Louise Creechan, Lynda Mugglestone and Simon Rennie.And Arts and Ideas New Thinking podcast episodes on research intoAccents: From variations in Mancunian to descriptions of the Geordie voice.City Talk: Mapping the accents of Greater Manchester with a camper van and a laptop.
Asylum and psychiatric institutions, obsession and heroin, and imagining a new self are explored in the writing of Anna Kavan (1901-1968). With the republication of her novel Ice, her reputation is now on the rise. Matthew Sweet is joined by critic and author Chris Power, Carole Sweeney, who researches experimental fiction, Sally Marlow, who studies the psychology of addiction and is Radio 3’s researcher in residence, and the literary scholar Victoria Walker, who founded the Anna Kavan Society.Producer: Luke MulhallYou might also be interested in an episode of Words and Music curated by Sally Marlow exploring ideas about addiction and intoxication being broadcast in January.Free Thinking has a playlist called Prose, Poetry and Drama where you can find plenty of conversations about other authors including John Cowper Powys, Sylvia Plath, Claude McKay, ETA Hoffmann
In her short life, the 18th century African American woman, Phillis Wheatley was a slave, a prodigy, a poet and a celebrity. As a child, she was kidnapped from her home in West Africa and transported to Boston, where she was sold as a domestic slave to the Wheatleys, a prominent family of merchants. She was named Phillis, after the ship that brought her across the Atlantic. Unusually, the Wheatleys took an interest in her education and within a few years, she was producing exquisite poetry. Since no one in Boston would publish the work of an enslaved black woman, she was taken to London, and in 1773 her remarkable first book of poetry was published. She was praised and feted by the literati and became a celebrated poet. But her success was shortlived. After returning to Boston, she was freed, but died in poverty and obscurity at the age of 31.In this, the 250th anniversary of the publication of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, the historian Christienna Fryar looks back on an extraordinary life and examines why, Phillis Wheatley is still largely unknown, on both sides of the Atlantic. She's joined by Xine Yao, lecturer in American Literature at University College London, who's also a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Thinker; the historian Montaz Marché, a PhD student researching the lives of black women in 18th century London; Brigitte Fielder, Associate Professor of Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Ade Solanke, a British-Nigerian writer, who wrote a play, Phillis in London, depicting Wheatley’s time in London. Producer: Jonathan HallewellThere are more conversations like this on the Free Thinking programme website, which has a collection called Exploring Black History: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbpThere is more information on Adeola Solanke's play, Phillis in London, at https://www.sporastories.com/
Insecurity, sexuality and bliss are amongst the topics explored in the short stories of Katherine Mansfield (14 October 1888 – 9 January 1923). Having left a New Zealand suburb she came to England aged 19 and made friends with the Bloomsbury set, meeting writers like Virginia Woolf and DH Lawrence. A new biography by Claire Harman uses ten stories to tell the story of Mansfield's life and writing. One of her admirers was the Canadian author Mavis Gallant (11 August 1922 – 18 February 2014) who spent much of her writing life in France. Laurence Scott and Kirsty Gunn join Claire Harman and Shahidha Bari to explore what these authors have to tell us about the art of short story writing.Claire Harman's biography is called All Sorts of Lives: Katherine Mansfield and the art of risking everythingKirsty Gunn is the author of My Katherine Mansfield project a long essay. Her own writing includes a collection of stories Infidelities and her latest novel Caroline's BikiniLaurence Scott is the author of Picnic, Comma, Lightning.Producer: Ruth WattsOn the Free Thinking programme website you can find a collection of discussions about Prose, Poetry and Drama https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vhand a collection exploring Modernism around the World https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07p3nxh
The anti-colonial leader killed 50 years ago (20th January) was a poet, influenced by Marxism and led the nationalist movement of Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands. António Tomás, José Lingna Nafafé and New Generation Thinker Alexandra Reza join Rana Mitter to explore his life, thinking and legacy.José Lingna Nafafé is Senior Lecturer in Portuguese and Lusophone Studies at the University of Bristol. His work concentrates on the Black Atlantic abolitionist movement in the 17th Century and the Lusophone Atlantic African diaspora.Alex Reza is a writer and lecturer in comparative literatures and cultures working in French, Portuguese and English at the University of Bristol. She is also a BBC Radio 3/AHRC New Generation Thinker.António Tomás is the author of several publications in Portuguese and English, namely Amílcar Cabral, the Life of a Reluctant Nationalist (2021) and In the skin of the City: Spatial Transformation in Luanda (2022). He is currently an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Architecture, at the University of Johannesburg.Producer: Ruth WattsYou might be interested in other Free Thinking discussions exploring Black History gathered into a collection on the programme website and all available to listen on BBC Sounds and to download as Arts and Ideas podcasts https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbpThey include a conversation about the writing of Aimé Césaire and the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nmxfA discussion of Frantz Fanon https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000tdtn
A blind woman who temporarily regains her sight is the heroine of Wilkie Collins’ 1872 novel Poor Miss Finch. Matthew Sweet is joined by Clare Walker Gore, Tom Shakespeare and Tanvir Bush to discuss how Collins’ own poor health led him to write about disability and physical difference in a more nuanced way than many of his contemporaries. Apart from Lucilla Finch, who has more agency when blind than sighted, other examples include the apparently monstrous Miserrimus Dexter ('the new centaur: half-man, half-chair') in The Law and the Lady, and the shockingly moustachioed Marian Halcombe in The Woman in White.Tanvir Bush is the author of Cull. You can also hear her discussing John Wyndham's novel The Day of the Triffids on Free Thinking.Clare Walker Gore has contributed to a Free Thinking discussion about Depicting Disability and written essays for Radio 3 about authors including Dinah Mulock Craik and Margaret Oliphant.Tom Shakespeare is Professor of Disability Research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. You can hear his Radio 3 essay on Tolkien on BBC Sounds.Producer: Torquil MacLeod
How tennis stars developed in the 1920s. Historian David Berry and poet Matt Harvey talk to Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough about Centre Court, its opening in the new home of the All England Club in 1922, the styling of stars and how participation in tennis changed.Producer: Torquil MacLeod You can find more conversations about art and culture of the 1920s in a collection called Modernism on BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07p3nxh
A new craze for body building and that distinctive figure of the 20th century, the hobbyist, are the topic of conversation as we continue our series of features looking at cultural life in 1922. John Gallagher considers what the expansion of free time in the 1920s meant for leisure and the things people did for fun. He is joined by historian Elsa Richardson and literary scholar Jon Day.Producer: Luke MulhallFind more discussions about culture and the arts of the 1920s in a collection called Modernism on the BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07p3nxh
Louise Jameson joins Matthew Sweet to recall the women who ran the digs she stayed in as a touring actor and the landladies that she's played (including a homicidal one!). Historian Gillian Williamson looks at how life in boarding houses in Georgian London has been portrayed both in contemporary accounts and in fiction, while Lillian Crawford encounters some memorable landladies in Ealing comedies and other post-war British films.Gillian Williamson is the author of Lodgers, Landlords, and Landladies in Georgian London.Producer: Torquil MacLeod.
Are animals a human invention? What is a lama like? Do plants have sex? Was Amelia Earhart eaten by crabs? These are just some of the questions posed by Shahidha Bari and addressed by her guests Katherine Rundell, Dan Taylor, Helen Cowie and Stella Sandford, as they trace the history of human conceptualisations of animals and the natural world. From the Medieval tendency to draw moral lessons from animals, to Linnaeus' attempts to organise them into taxonomies, via Darwin's abolition of the distinction between humans and animals, to the sense of wonder at the natural world needed to orient us towards tackling ecological crises. Plus, the growing area of plant philosophy and how it overturns the history of western metaphysics.Producer: Luke Mulhall
The list of contributors joining Lisa Mullen: Henry Eliot, author of a book of bookish lists which details everything from the different deaths of Greek tragedians to the contents of Joan Didion's travel bag; Florence Hazrat, New Generation Thinker and historian of punctuation; Liam Young, author of a book about lists as a way of organising knowledge, from Ancient Mesopotamia to Buzzfeed; and Joanna Nolan, a researcher in sociolinguistics at SOAS who asks whether lists are ever private languages.Eliot's Book of Bookish Lists, List Cultures by Liam Cole Young and An Admirable Point: A Brief History of the Punctuation Mark by Florence Hazrat and The Elusive Case of Lingua Franca: Fact and Fiction by Joanna Nolan are out now and you can hear Joanna talking about that research in a previous episode called What Language Did Columbus Speak?A Radio 3 Essay from Florence Hazrat called Pause for Thought exploring the way punctuation has developed over the centuries is available now on BBC Sounds The Free Thinking programme website has a collection of discussions exploring The Way We Live Now including episodes about breakfast, hitchhiking, immortality, writing about money, tattoos, mental health Producer: Luke Mulhall
Russell T. Davies is joined by his friend and author of Love from the Pink Palace, Jill Nalder, to discuss their importance in one another’s lives, the role of literature in their lives, and the TV series It’s a Sin with New Generation Thinker and psychiatrist Sabina Dosani and chair Matthew Sweet in a conversation recorded in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature at the British Library.Producer: Torquil MacLeod
From a Norwich workhouse to performing as "The American Voltigeur" - Pablo Fanque, or William Darby as he was born, was a star of 1830s circus in Britain. Nearly a hundred years later one of the names topping the bill was Lillian Leitzel. Kate Holmes is also an aerial performer and she shares her research into female aerialists with John Woolf, author of Black Victorians. Plus the presenter Shahidha Bari is also joined by New Generation Thinker Naomi Paxton who compares researching early music hall and pantomime performers with the experience of taking part in a professional panto and by novelist Lianne Dillsworth whose novel Theatre of Marvels imagines a Black British actress who performs at Crillick's Theatre as the "Great Amazonia".Producer: Sofie VilcinsBlack Victorians: Hidden in History by John Woolf and Keshia N Abraham is out now. John Woolf has also published The Wonders: : Lifting the Curtain on the Freak Show, Circus and Victorian AgeNaomi Paxton made a Sunday Feature for Radio 3 about suffragette theatre and Punch and Judy https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008qdlShe is now playing the baddie, Queen Rat in Dick Whittington at The Theatre Chipping NortonLianne Dillsworth's Theatre of Marvels is out now.You can find more programmes on Free Thinking about Victorian lifeOskar Jensen and Fern Riddell are amongst Matthew Sweet's guests in a conversation about Victorian Streets https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0017v2sKathryn Hughes talks Victorian Bodies and George Eliot https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b088jl64How the Victorians tried to make us sound the same looks at ideas about accents and reading https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001fng4Matthew Sweet looks at the career of impresario Philip Astley and 250 years of the circus https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09k8gywHow we talk about sex and female bodies, including Saartje Baartman https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000f5n6Swing High short documentary film was directed by Jack Cummings, and was produced by Metro Goldwyn Mayer in 1932.
Why Hardy's spelling matters, how Lancashire reflected on the American Civil War through dialect poems printed in local newspapers, how education inspectors at Victorian schools policed pupils dropping the letter "h" : a quartet of academics: Greg Tate, Louise Creechan, Lynda Mugglestone and Simon Rennie join John Gallagher for the latest part of Free Thinking's series looking at the way we speak, accents and multilingualism. With recent research from the Sutton Trust showing prejudice against regional accents is still rife, this conversation looks at earlier examples of attempts to standardise English spelling and speaking and at where local dialects were celebrated.Producer: Luke MulhallThis New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRIOther episodes include:What Language did Columbus Speak? Lingua franca in 15th century travel and today’s refugee campsDead Languages: John Gallagher says hello in Oscan, the daily language of ancient Pompeii and looks at the translation of hieroglyphicsThe Black Country: Matthew Sweet hears about the way the region has been depicted in writing which seeks to celebrate the local accent.
Soil degradation threatens our ecosystem and is among the most significant problems at a global level for agricultural production, food security and sustainability. World Soil Day 2022 on December 5th aims to heighten soil awareness so ahead of this, Anne McElvoy explores changes to both rural and urban farming. Mike Collins charts the evolution of the city farm; Jim Scown considers the relationship between soils, science and literary realism in Victorian Britain; Catherine Oliver asks why a growing number of city dwellers are rising with the rooster & discovering community in chicken keeping and Peter Wright, a film director, discusses his documentary, Arcadia, which captures the magic of rural Britain and our changing views towards the land and has a soundtrack from Adrian Utley (Portishead) and Will Gregory (Goldfrapp).
Jim Scown is a New Generation Thinker and Post Graduate Researcher at Cardiff University Catherine Oliver, Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Geography, University of Cambridge Mike Collins is Head of Public Engagement for the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and has written an article for the BBC History magazine Peter Wright's documentary, Arcadia is being screened with the soundtrack by Adrian Utley (Portishead) and Will Gregory (Goldfrapp) performed live in Sunderland on November 30th and can be seen in Leeds and London March 2023
You can find more discussions about Green Thinking in a collection on the Free Thinking programme website also available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - programmes includes episodes about mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and designing the home https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
The first interracial kiss on American TV, a decidedly internationalist cast of characters: Star Trek has always been a deeply political programme but what are those politics? How did they arise in the Cold War America in which the show was initially developed? And where does the vision of an international (or even intergalactic) Federation developed in the series fit into the politics of today? Matthew Sweet is joined by George Takei, who played Lieutenant Sulu in the original Star Trek series, novelist and screenwriter Naomi Alderman, screenwriter and academic Una McCormack, and academic José-Antonio Orosco, author of Star Trek's Philosophy of Peace and Justice: A Global, Anti-Racist Approach.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Shahidha Bari looks at the voices of women emerging from new writing in novels, plays and histories. Zenobia, Mavia, and Khadijah are Arabian queens and noblewomen who feature in the new book by Emran Iqbal El-Badawi which looks at the way female rulers of Arabia were crucial in shaping the history of the region. Hannah Khalil's new play at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at the Globe in London imagines a writers room of women weaving the tales that will last Scheherazade for 1,001 nights. And, Abdul Shayek's new production at the Tara Theatre in London is based on the testimony of women who survived Bangladesh's war of independence, a subject familiar in the writings of Tahmima Anam, including her novel A Golden Age.
Queens and Prophets - How Arabian Noblewomen and Holy Men Shaped Paganism, Christianity and Islam by Emran Iqbal El-Badawi is published in December 2022
Hakawatis: Women of the Arabian Nights is co-produced by Tamasha and runs at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare's Globe from December 1st 2022 to January 14th 2023.
Amma runs at the Tara Theatre in Earlsfield, London from November 30th to December 17th 2022.
You can hear Tahmima Anam discussing her latest novel about a tech start up The Start Up Wife in this episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wc3p
On the Free Thinking programme website is a collection of discussions about women in the world from goddesses to Tudor families, women warriors to sisters, witchcraft to artists' models https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p084ttwp
Producer: Ruth Watts
House of the Dragon was inspired by a medieval period known as The Anarchy. What do the real historical conflicts tell us about power, succession, class, and the status of women in medieval times, and why are fantasy writers so drawn to them? New Generation Thinker Sarah Peverley is Professor English Literature at Liverpool University. She is joined by Professor Carolyne Larrington of St John’s College Oxford, and Danielle Park, lecturer in Late Medieval History at the University of York.
A 12th century war of succession between Empress Matilda, daughter of Henry I, and her cousin Stephen of Blois which caused widespread breakdown in law and order in England and Normandy inspired the premise of House of the Dragon, with King Viserys Targaryen I lobbying for his eldest daughter Rhaenyra to be his heir whilst his nobles prefer his son Aegon II. And the warring dynastic families of the Starks and Lannisters in Game of Thrones are based on the 15th century Houses of York and Lancaster who battled for the throne of England throughout of the Wars of the Roses.
Producer: Ruth Thomson
This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI
You can find other episodes showcasing New Research in a collection on the programme website of BBC Radio e’s Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90 It includes episodes on Beowulf https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0db7883 What language did Columbus speak https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0d0tk22 Hey Presto magic in medicine and the history of panto https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p090yn26
House of the Dragon draws on ‘The Anarchy’ - a 12th century war of succession. What does this conflict tell us about power, succession, class, and the status of medieval women ? New Generation Thinker Sarah Peverley is joined by Professor Carolyne Larrington of St John’s College Oxford, and Danielle Park, lecturer in Late Medieval History at the University of York. A 12th century war of succession between Empress Matilda, daughter of Henry I, and her cousin Stephen of Blois which caused widespread breakdown in law and order in England and Normandy inspired the premise of House of the Dragon, with King Viserys Targaryen I lobbying for his eldest daughter Rhaenyra to be his heir whilst his nobles prefer his son Aegon II. And the warring dynastic families of the Starks and Lannisters in Game of Thrones are based on the 15th century Houses of York and Lancaster who battled for the throne of England throughout of the Wars of the Roses.
This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI You can find other episodes showcasing New Research in a collection on the programme website of BBC Radio e’s Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90 It includes episodes on Beowulf https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0db7883 What language did Columbus speak https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0d0tk22 Hey Presto magic in medicine and the history of panto https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p090yn26
St Teresa formulated a specifically Catholic version of contemplative religion in response to the 16th-century Protestant Reformation; Vivekananda was a Hindu holy man who articulated a religious path that set the template for much 20th-century spiritual thinking; Friedrich Nietzsche set out to subvert 1,800 years of religious thinking in his iconoclastic book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which has been newly translated by poet Michael Hulse.
Rana Mitter is joined by New Generation Thinker Dafydd Mills Daniel, historian Ruth Harris, and philosopher Katrina Mitcheson to discuss.
Producer: Luke Mulhall.
On the Free Thinking progamme website you can find a collection of Free Thinking episodes exploring religious belief including programmes about Cardinal Newman, early Buddhism, the links between Judaism and Christianity, Islam Mecca and the Quaran and a collection exploring philosophy
As Nottingham’s network of 800 man-made caves inspire an exhibition called ‘Hollow Earth’ at the city’s contemporary art gallery, Shahidha Bari and guests explore the underground world. Archaeologist Chris King discusses discoveries under Nottingham's streets, literary historian Charlotte May suggests stories to read, curator Sam Thorne picks out images, and award-winning cave explorer Andy Eavis, tells us about his career discovering more territory on earth than anyone else alive - all of it underground.
Producer: Ruth Thomson
Hollow Earth: Art, Caves & The Subterranean Imaginary runs at Nottingham Contemporary until January 22nd 2023. Organised in collaboration with Hayward Gallery Touring, the exhibition features works by René Magritte, Santu Mofokeng, Kaari Upson, Jeff Wall and Aubrey Williams, as well as new commissions from Sofia Borges, Emma McCormick-Goodhart, Goshka Macuga, Lydia Ourahmane and Liv Preston. In 2023, the exhibition will tour to The Glucksman in Cork and to RAMM in Exeter.
The Being Human Festival which showcases academic research has several events in Nottingham exploring the city's caves and underground history throughout November 2022. You can find another Free Thinking episode exploring Breakthroughs in electricity research showcased at this year's Festival https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0dhyp89
The Green Thinking collection on the Free Thinking programme website features a host of discussions about the environment and our landscapes https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2 You can find a discussion about holes in the ground featuring Prof Paul Younger from Glasgow University, Geoscientist magazine editor Ted Nield and writer Rosalind Williams in the Free Thinking archives https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06vs6g0 And poet Sean Borodale, archaeologists Francis Pryor, Paul Pettitt and Ruth Whitehouse join Sharon Robinson Calver in an episode called What Lies Beneath; Neanderthal Cave Art to Fatbergs
"Creative daring" is the quality rewarded by the Goldsmiths Prize, now in its tenth year. What does it mean for an artist or writer to be daring and experimental? Shahidha Bari is joined by this year's winners Natasha Soobramanien and Luke Williams who have co-written their novel Diego Garcia, composer Matthew Herbert whose latest project is making music from the skeleton of a horse, and poet Stephen Sexton who has written a poetry collection structured round every level of the 90s video game Super Mario World.
Producer in Salford: Ruth Thomson.
The Goldsmiths Prize of £10,000 is awarded to "a book that is deemed genuinely novel and which embodies the spirit of invention that characterises the genre at its best" https://www.gold.ac.uk/goldsmiths-prize/prize2022/
Matthew Herbert's new piece for the Estuary Sound Ark will have its interactive world premiere at the Gulbenkian Arts Centre in Canterbury on Sunday 27th November at 3pm before being archived and left untampered with in a carefully selected location for 100 years. https://thegulbenkian.co.uk/events/estuary-sound-ark/ He has also published a novel The Music: An Album in Words
Stephen Sexton won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2019 for If All the World and Love Were Young. This year he is judging the prize
You can find a collection of discussions exploring Prose and Poetry on the Free Thinking programme website including a discussion of mould-breaking writing featuring Max Porter and Chloe Aridjis, poet Will Harris and academic Xine Yao https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000pxn0 and a series of episodes exploring modernism hearing from Will Self and Alexandra Harris and looking at Mrs Dalloway, Finnegans Wake, Dada and Wittgenstein https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07p3nxh
The African American inventor Lewis Latimer who lived in South London and worked with Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison on developing light bulbs; Benjamin Franklin was one of the founders of the United States of America but what was he doing pouring oil on Derwent Water in the Lake District? How did theatrical department store demonstrations help sell Kenwood Chefs ? And Ganzflicker - the online experiment that depending on your neural pathways might make you see animals, fairies, and monsters – or nothing at all. Catherine Fletcher meets the academics whose research was showcased as part of the annual Being Human Festival of the Humanities which puts on a series of public events linked to universities across the UK.
Her guests are cultural historian Christopher Donaldson from Lancaster University, design historian Alice Naylor from the University of Portsmouth and the British Science Museum, Ayshah Johnston from the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton and the University of Surrey, and cognitive neuroscientist Reshanne Reeder from Edge Hill University in Ormskirk.
Benjamin Franklin’s Scientific Adventures in the English Lakes Putting on a Show with the Kenwood Chef at The Spring Arts & Heritage Centre in Havant A Lightbulb Idea: Lewis Latimer's Scientific Breakthroughs at the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton Ganzflicker: art, science, and psychedelic experience at The Atkinson in Southport
Producer in Salford: Ruth Thomson
This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI You can find a host of conversations showcasing New Research in a collection on the Free Thinking programme website and available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
This includes information about research showcased in previous Being Human festivals available to listen or download Lost Words and Language https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00013xg Death Rituals https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001419 Buses Beer and VR https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00014qk Covid comics and codes in Dickens https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011d1v
What does zero carbon look like if you are planning a new housing development in your town. The UK’s building stock is one of the oldest in Europe, accounting for nearly 40% of the nation’s total carbon emissions, so how possible is it for our cities to cut them to zero before 2050?
Lecturer Lara Salinas explains how she has worked with local residents in the borough of Southwark in South London, encouraging them to take up zero carbon building design and retrofit. Professor Ljubomir Jankovic describes working with Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council, supporting their thinking about how housing developments could be built in future and how to build in net zero principles as part of the design process. New Generation Thinker Des Fitzgerald hosts the conversation.
Ljubomir Jankovic is Professor of Advanced Building at the University of Hertfordshire and leads the Zero Carbon Lab.
Lara Salinas is Lecturer in the Design School at London College of Communication and Senior Research Fellow in Knowledge Exchange at University of the Arts London.
Professor Des Fitzgerald is a New Generation Thinker who has co-written a book called The Urban Brain: Mental Health in the Vital City.
This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. If you want to dig out other episodes you can find a collection called Green Thinking on the website of BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme – there are discussions about a range of topics including climate justice, energy, trees and transport. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: Responding to climate change – UKRI or follow @ahrcpress on twitter.
Producer: Jayne Egerton
Matthew Sweet gathers together four Proust fans from very different backgrounds - the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Jane Smiley, the psychotherapist, Jane Haynes, Christopher Prendergast, who has a translation of the book and written Living and Dying with Marcel Proust, and from France, the writer, Marie Darrieussecq. The actor Peter Marinker tackles the difficult task of giving an English voice to Proust.
The novel In Search of Lost Time is a modernist masterpiece which offers a symphonic account of what it meant to be alive in France as the 19th century became the 20th.
Producer: Zahid Warley
You can find a collection of programmes on the Free Thinking website exploring different aspects of modernism around the world https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07p3nxh
On Sunday Nov 20th at 5.30pm and for a month afterwards BBC Radio 3's curated selection of Words and Music inspired by the writing of Proust will be available on BBC Sounds.
Disillusionment with war and how you sue for peace are at the heart of Shaw's drama Arms and the Man, being staged in Richmond this autumn. Whilst in Bath a touring production of Mrs Warren's Profession stars Caroline Quentin and her daughter Rose Quentin as the former prostitute and her disapproving daughter. Anne McElvoy is joined by director Paul Miller, Professor Sos Eltis who has edited Shaw's work and theatre critic and writer Mark Lawson to look at Shaw's ability to construct arguments on stage and the resonances of his plays now.
Arms and the Man runs at the Orange Tree Theatre in London directed by Paul Miller from 19 November 2022 – 14 January 2023 Mrs Warren's Profession directed by Anthony Banks runs at the Bath Theatre Royal from 9th - 19th November starring Caroline Quentin and her daughter Rose Quentin as Mrs Warren and her daughter Vivie. It then tours to the Richmond Theatre from 22nd November to 26th November 2022 and goes on to visit theatres including the Chichester Festival Theatre, the Hall for Cornwall, the Yvonne Arnaud in Guilford. My Fair Lady - a production from the Lincoln Centre directed by Bartlett Sher - is at the Cardiff Millennium Centre from November 8th to 26th and it then tours to Edinburgh, Southampton, Sunderland, Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester.
Producer: Ruth Watts
You can find other Free Thinking conversations about drama past and present including discussions about Moliere, Ibsen, the playwright Rona Munro, John McGrath's Scottish drama, in a collection called Prose, Poetry and Drama https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vh
It revolutionised domestic chores, signified modernity and has been made into packaging, textiles, electrical machinery but plastic has also contributed to our throw-away society. Clay is turned into bricks, cookware and used in industrial processes including paper making, cement production, and chemical filtering and increasingly contemporary artists are taking up the material. As exhibitions at the V&A Dundee and the Hayward Gallery in London display the different qualities and associations of these materials Lisa Mullen is joined by ceramic artist Lindsey Mendick, curators Cliff Lauson and Johanna Agerman Ross, and Kirsty Sinclair Dootson who studies materials in visual culture.
Plastic: Remaking Our World is at the V&A Dundee. It features product design, graphics, architecture and fashion from the collections of the V&A and Vitra Design Museum, and other collections. It is the first exhibition produced and curated by V&A Dundee, the Vitra Design Museum and maat, Lisbon, with curators from V&A South Kensington. Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art is at the Hayward Gallery in London until 8 January 2023 and features 23 international artists.
You can find a collection of programmes exploring Art, Architecture, Photography and Museums on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p026wnjl
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Do video games help explore war? An exhibition at the Imperial War Museum includes Sniper Elite 5, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and a military training simulator. For the 2022 discussion about how we look at warfare past and present Anne McElvoy is joined by writer & broadcaster Louise Blain, retired Colonel Lincoln Jopp, game designer Florent Maurin and IWM curator Chris Cooper.
War Games runs at IWM London until May 2023 and is a free exhibition. Louise Blain presents Radio 3's Sound of Gaming - a monthly show looking at the music written for games.
You can find previous discussions available on BBC Sounds and downloadable as the Arts & Ideas podcast: Former soldier Lincoln Jopp, war reporter Christina Lamb, novelist Elif Shafak and curator Hilary Roberts explore the impact of the words we use to describe conflict in 2021 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011cxv What does it mean to make art to commemorate histories of conflict? Anne McElvoy's talked to the artists Es Devlin and Machiko Weston, Art Fund director Jenny Waldman, chair of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group Ekow Eshun and Paris Agar from the IWM as Radio 3 joined with the Imperial War Museum for the 2020 Remembrance Debate https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000p85j On the Free Thinking programme website is a collection of programmes called Free Thinking on War and Conflict which includes episodes on Odesa Stories; Abdulrazak Gurnah and Margaret McMillan on War in Fact and Fiction; architect Marwa al-Sabouni on Syria: Hope and Poetry
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The Scottish theologian and preacher John Knox died on 24th November 1572, bringing to an end a life packed with drama and controversy. Matthew Sweet is joined by historian Steven Reid, literary historian Lucy Hinnie and New Generation Thinker Dafydd Mills Daniel to go through some of the most vivid and important episodes in that life, including his periods in exile, his highly antagonistic meetings with Mary Queen of Scots, and his time on the high seas as a prisoner forced to row a French galley. They also address the question of what makes Knox such an important figure and how his influence is still felt in Scotland today.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Putting I at the centre, the Ich, was the creed of philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte whilst Friedrich Schelling, saw the self as at one with the rest of nature: naturphilosophie. These competing ideas were debated in literary salons in the German town of Jena in the 1790s and Andrea Wulf's new biography Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self tells this story. She joins Anne McElvoy alongside New Generation Thinker Dr Seán Williams and the musicologist and Classical music biographer, Stephen Walsh, author of The Beloved Vision: Music in the Romantic Age.
Producer: Ruth Watts
This edition features discussion of music inspired by the Jena writers and extracts of:
Franz Schubert, “Gretchen am Spinnrade” sung by Bernarda Fink (soprano) with Gerold Huber (piano), Harmonia Mundi, HMC901991
Weber, Der Freischütz, Rundfunkchor Leipzig, Staatskapelle Dresden, Carlos Kleiber Deutsche Grammophon, 4577362
You can find other programmes exploring German culture and thinking in the Free Thinking archives and available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts including ETA Hoffmann https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00188r7 Rainer Maria Rilke https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0016k0v Wittgenstein's Tractatus https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wcwk The 1920s Philosophy's Golden Age https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000q380 The Tin Drum https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05stw9v Thomas Mann https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001025h
King of Asia and Pharoah are two of the titles taken by Alexander, ruler of Macedonia from 336 B.C. to 323 B.C. He died aged 32 having conquered a vast area and founded the city of Alexandria in present day Egypt but his reputation stretched even further as a kind of philosopher king, and in myths and stories, as someone who travelled to paradise, created the first flying machine and explored underwater. Rana Mitter has been to visit a new exhibition at the British Library which illustrates these different images of Alexander and he's joined by New Generation Thinkers Dr Julia Hartley, Professor Islam Issa and by Peter Toth, curator of ancient and medieval manuscripts at the British Library. Plus we hear about the books on the shortlist of this year's Cundill History Prize from the chair of the judges, Professor J.R. McNeill.
Julia Hartley teaches on French, Italian, and Iranian art and literature at King's College London . You can find an Essay she wrote for Radio 3 on Alexander and the Persians available on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0016rpp Islam Issa is Professor of Literature and History at Birmingham City University. His book, Alexandria: The City that Changed the World, will be out in 2023. Alexander the Great: The Making of a Myth runs at the British Library until February 19th 2023.
The Cundill History prize has shortlisted the following books (the winner is announced on December 1st) https://www.cundillprize.com/ Cuba: An American History by Ada Ferrer All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union by Vladislav M. Zubok
Producer: Ruth Watts.
You can hear an episode of Radio 3's Words and Music on the theme of Egypt co-curated by New Generation Thinker Islam Issa available on BBC Sounds for a month after being broadcast on Sunday November 6th at 5.30pm. And an episode of Free Thinking available now on BBC Sounds and as an Arts & Ideas podcast explores Dead Languages and the deciphering of hieroglyphics.
Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough takes a look at the latest research shaping our understanding of the great Anglo-Saxon poem, Beowulf. She’ll be finding out about the insights that digital approaches are bringing to the tale of gold-hoarding dragons, sword-wielding heroes and murderous fenland beasties. We discover what video games and grammar have to tell us about Old English literature.
Andrew Burn Andrew Burn is Professor of English, Media and Drama at University College London’s Institute of Education. He is director of ReMap a research centre that focuses on media arts, creative practice and play and games. He has published work on many aspects of the media, including young people's production of digital animation, film and computer games. Further information about his research can be found at: https://iris.ucl.ac.uk/iris/browse/profile?upi=ANBUR40 and www.andrewburn.org.
Roxanne Taylor is a research student at the University of Manchester where she is completing her PhD. She is working on an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project on argument structure and genitive modification in Old English noun phrases.
Beowulf Retold is on Radio 3 on Sunday 30th October and is available on BBC Sounds for the following 28 days.
This podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI.
Producer: Ruth Watts
The director and writer of Ghostwatch Lesley Manning and Stephen Volk join Matthew Sweet and academic Lucy Arnold to look back at the reality–horror/pseudo-documentary TV, which aired on British tv screens on Halloween night 1992. The BBC switchboard received an estimated 1,000,000 phone calls on the night of the broadcast and it has never been repeated on British tv although it is now part of a BFI season exploring horror.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
A BFI Horror season In Dreams are Monsters is running at venues across the UK until 31 December 2022 with screenings and events themed around the vampire, the ghost, the zombie, the witch and the beast.
A pandemic, crumbling empire and new nationhood are the backdrop for Orhan Pamuk's latest novel Nights of the Plague. He talks to Rana Mitter about the historical basis for his novel. They're joined by historian and BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker Michael Talbot and literary scholar Keya Anjaria.
Some of the books they recommend at the end of the conversation are Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar (1901 – 1962) whose The Time Regulation Institute and A Mind at Peace have been published in English by Penguin Halide Edib Adıvar (1884 – 1964) whose memoirs have been published in English Yasher Kemal (1923 – 2015) author of Mehmet My Hawk Orhan Kemal - the pen name of Turkish novelist Mehmet Raşit Öğütçü (1914 - 1970) whose books describe the life of the poor in Turkey Oğuz Atay (1934 - 1977) a pioneer of the modern novel whose The Disconnected has become a best-seller Latife Tekin (1957 - ) and the film-maker Yılmaz Güney (1937 - 1984)
Producer Luke Mulhall
You can find more conversations about Turkish history via the Free Thinking website
John Gallagher discusses the latest research on the languages of the ancient world that weren't Latin and Greek. We associate places like Italy and Cyprus with those two best known ancient languages. But both were linguistically diverse. What informed people's choice of language in these places? How were alphabets developed and used? Plus, an exhibition at the British Museum explores the world opened up when Egyptian hieroglyphics were deciphered 200 years ago, and how the invention of the Cyrillic alphabet, developed in the Balkans over 1,000 years ago, still has political repercussions today.
With Dr Katherine McDonald, Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Durham, Dr Mirela Ivanova, Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Sheffield, and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker, Dr Philippa Steele is Senior Research Associate in the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge, and Dr Ilona Regulski, an Egyptologist based at the British Museum.
The British Museum exhibition Hieroglyphs: Unlocking Ancient Egypt runs until Feb 189th 2023.
This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can find other episodes exploring language in the New Research playlist on the Free Thinking programme website
The creator of much-loved children's TV classics including The Clangers, Bagpuss and Pogles' Wood is discussed by Matthew Sweet and his guests Daniel Postgate who took over Smallfilms from his father, singer Sandra Kerr who was the voice of Madeleine in Bagpuss, composer and author Neil Brand, and writer and broadcaster Samira Ahmed. Oliver Postgate's father was a communist and his mother was a political activist, daughter of prominent Labour figure George Lansbury - how much of this political background can we find in the fantastical worlds that he created? There's also discussion of the music that plays such a major role in the programmes - the deep folk roots of the songs performed by Sandra and John Faulkner in Bagpuss and Vernon Elliot's sparse and poignant compositions for The Clangers, Noggin the Nog and Ivor the Engine.
CLANGERS: The Complete Scripts 1969-1974 is published on November 10th.
You can find more programmes celebrating 100 years of the BBC on iPlayer and BBC Sounds.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Deafness and communication, writing Chinese, women as killers in Chile, German postwar history, testimony from a Swedish village and a global history of science are the topics explored in the books shortlisted for this year's prize for Global Cultural Understanding run by the British Academy. Rana Mitter talks to the six authors about their findings. The books are:
The Invention of Miracles: Language, Power, and Alexander Graham Bell's Quest to End Deafness by Katie Booth Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich by Harald Jähner Osebol: Voices from a Swedish Village by Marit Kapla Horizons: A Global History of Science by James Poskett When Women Kill: Four Crimes Retold by Alia Trabucco Zerán Kingdom of Characters: A Tale of Language, Obsession and Genius in Modern China by Jing Tsu
The prize of £25,000 will be awarded on October 26th 2022. You can find interviews with writers shortlisted in previous year's on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00106pn and https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000n0bv
Producer: Tim Bano
The ridiculous side of Romanticism, a new biopic of Emily Brontë and an exhibition about Fuseli and women are on today's agenda as Shahidha Bari is joined by New Generation Thinkers Emma Butcher, Sophie Oliver, Chris Harding and by Andrew McInnes.
Emily from writer/director Frances O'Connor starring Emma Mackey as Emily Brontë opens at cinemas across the UK this week.
Fuseli and the Modern Woman: Fashion, Fantasy, Fetishism runs at the Courtauld Gallery in London from Oct 14th to Jan 8th 2023
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born 21 October 1772.
You can find more about Fuseli in the book Dinner with Joseph Johnson written by New Generation Thinker Daisy Hay and longlisted for the Baillie Gifford prize - she discussed it in an episode of Free Thinking called Teaching and Inspiration
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Hong Kong, Paris and New York galleries and museums are in the spotlight as we hear the latest in a series of discussions exploring what it means to run museums and galleries in the 21st century. For the Frieze/Radio 3 Museum Directors Debate 2022 Anne McElvoy is joined by Suhanya Raffel (director of M+ Museum for Visual Culture, Hong Kong), Richard Armstrong (director of the Guggenheim Museum, NYC) and Nathalie Bondil (head of museums and exhibitions at the Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris).
The directors chose 3 artists whose work is either currently on show or has been recently displayed at their institutions: the graffiti painter Tsang Tsou-choi, better known as "King of Kowloon"; Cecilia Vicuña (currently showing at Tate Modern in the Turbine Hall 16 April 2023) and the Jordanian sculptor Mona Saudi who died earlier this year and whose work can be seen outside the Institut du Monde Arabe. They also discuss issues including their approach to questions about donors, decolonisation and digital displays.
You can find other discussions with directors from galleries in Singapore, Dresden, Washington, Paris, Beijing and London in the Free Thinking collection exploring art, architecture, photography and museums https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p026wnjl Frieze London runs from Oct 12th - 16th 2022
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
How Manc are the Gallaghers? John Gallagher hears about the results of a project to map accents in the city talking to Prof Rob Drummond. In Northumbria Dr Robert McKenzie has discovered that a Northern accent can cost you marks at school and job opportunities.
However you speak, your accent reveals something about you. Dr John Gallagher talks to two researchers whose projects explore the variation in accents across England, and the way those accents shape our place in society.
Rob Drummond is Reader in Sociolinguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University. With the help of an Accent Van and archive recordings, his project Manchester Voices maps the accents of Greater Manchester, documenting people’s relationships with their own accent and charting how accents have changed over time, from lost rhotic Rs to the made-up Manchester accent of the Gallagher brothers. https://www.manchestervoices.org/
You can find an earlier New Thinking conversation with Rob about setting up the project in an episode called City Talk which is available in the New Research collection on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
Robert McKenzie is Associate Professor in Sociolinguistics at Northumbria University. His project Speaking of Prejudice analyses both explicit and implicit attitudes towards accents in the South of England compared to the North, revealing that prejudices still exist towards particular accents and the effect on school progress and job opportunities. https://hosting.northumbria.ac.uk/languageattitudesengland/
This podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI.
Producer: Tim Bano
From James Brown to Stockhausen, the influences which fed into Miles Davis's 1972 album On The Corner are explored by Matthew Sweet and guests, 50 years after its release. Bill Laswell, Chelsea Carmichael, Kevin LeGendre and Paul Tingen join Matthew to celebrate an album that was dismissed by some jazz critics as evidence of Davis 'selling out' when it came out, but that has gone on to be appreciated as an important and influential milestone.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Bill Laswell's many recordings and productions include Panthalassa: The Music of Miles Davis 1969-1974. Chelsea Carmichael is a saxophonist and composer. Her most recent album is The River Doesn't Like Strangers. Paul Tingen is the author of Miles Beyond: The Electric Explorations of Miles Davis, 1967-1991. Kevin Le Gendre is one of the presenters of BBC Radio 3's J to Z broadcast Saturdays at 5pm
You can hear Matthew and Kevin exploring the politics, history and music which fed into Marvin Gaye's What's Going On in a previous episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011l7t Radio 3 will be broadcasting a range of programmes from the London Jazz Festival between Nov 11th and 20th https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011l7t
The word 'reading' may appear to describe something specific and universal, but in reality it's more of an umbrella term, covering a huge range of ways in which people interact with text. Dyslexia and hyperlexia may be two of the more obvious departures from normative ideas of reading, but whether we're neurodivergent or not we all read in different ways that can vary significantly depending on what we're reading and why we're reading it. Matthew Sweet is joined by Matt Rubery, Louise Creechan and poets Debris Stevenson and Anthony Anaxagorou.
Matt Rubery, Professor of Modern Literature at Queen Mary, University of London has worked on books including The Untold Story of the Talking Book; Audiobooks, Literature, and Sound Studies, Further Reading and Reader’s Block: A History of Reading Differences. You can hear more from him in an episode about the history of publishing called Whose Book is it Anyway? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b080xzm6 Dr Louise Creechan is studying is a Lecturer in Literary Medical Humanities at Durham University and a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to showcase academic research. You can hear her discuss Dickens' Bleak House in an episode called Teaching and Inspiration https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00169jh Debris Stevenson describes herself as 'Dyslexic educator, Grime-poet and Dancehall raving social activist'. Anthony Anaxagorou's latest collection of poetry is Heritage Aesthetics, published on 3rd November 2022. Free Thinking has a playlist featuring discussions about prose and poetry https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vh
The theme of this year's National Poetry Day is the Environment and you can hear Radio 3's weekly curation of readings and music inspired by that topic on Sunday at 5.30pm and then on BBC Sounds for 28 days https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006x35f
Producer: Torquil MacLeod.
Kamila Shamsie's new novel Best of Friends follows two women from Pakistan who take different route to power. Rona Munro's new plays explore the courts of James IV and Mary Stuart. Caroline Moorehead has written a biography of Edda Mussolini, the Italian leader's favourite daughter. Anne McElvoy talks to them about power and influence past and present.
Best of Friends by Kamila Shamsie is out now. You can hear her discussing her novel Home Fire and the Antigone story in a previous episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b095qhsm Edda Mussolini: The Most Dangerous Woman in Europe by Caroline Moorehead is out on October 27th 2022. James IV - Queen of the Fight by Rona Munro:is touring from Sept 30th to Nov 12th 2022 It is presented by Raw Material and Capital Theatres in association with National Theatre of Scotland www.capitaltheatres.com Mary by Rona Munro runs at the Hampstead Theatre in London from 21 Oct to 26 Nov 2022 www.hampsteadtheatre.com You can hear Rona discussing previous plays in the James trilogy and a drama inspired by Manchester in the Industrial Revolution in a previous episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b050xpsd And Free Thinking has a playlist exploring Women in the World https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p084ttwp
Producer: Ruth Watts
A world of sprites and spirits encountered by childhood sisters in the 1988 animated feature film by Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away) and Studio Ghibli has been adapted for stage by the original composer Joe Hisaishi working with playwright Tom Morton-Smith and Director Phelim McDermott. Chris Harding and guests look at how this story relates to Japanese beliefs about ghosts and nature, and how Miyazaki used ideas of childhood innocence to critique post-War Japanese society.
Chris Harding is joined by Tom Morton-Smith, Michael Leader from the podcast Ghiblioteque, Dr Shiro Yoshioka, Lecturer in Japanese Studies at the University of Newcastle, and Dr Xine Yao, co-director of qUCL at University College London, and a Radio 3/AHRC New Generation Thinker.
My Neighbour Totoro from the Royal Shakespeare Company in collaboration with Improbable and Nippon TV runs at the Barbican Theatre in London from 8 Oct 2022—Sat 21 Jan 2023
Producer: Luke Mulhall
With their casts of outsiders, deviants and miscreants, the novels of John Cowper Powys explore where meaning can be found in a world without God. Very often, the answer is in semi-mystical communion with nature and landscape. Heir of both Thomas Hardy and Friedrich Nietzsche, Powys was admired by contemporaries like Iris Murdoch, and anticipated lots of the concerns of ecocritical writers and thinkers of today. But few of his books are currently in print. To mark the 150th anniversary of his birth, Matthew Sweet discusses his life and writing with Margaret Drabble, John Gray, Iain Sinclair and Kevan Manwaring.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
With their casts of outsiders, deviants and miscreants, the novels of John Cowper Powys explore where meaning can be found in a world without God. Very often, the answer is in semi-mystical communion with nature and landscape. Heir of both Thomas Hardy and Friedrich Nietzsche, Powys was admired by contemporaries like Iris Murdoch, and anticipated lots of the concerns of ecocritical writers and thinkers of today. But few of his books are currently in print. To mark the 150th anniversary of his birth, Matthew Sweet discusses his life and writing with Margaret Drabble, John Gray, Iain Sinclair and Kevan Manwaring.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
With their casts of outsiders, deviants and miscreants, the novels of John Cowper Powys explore where meaning can be found in a world without God. Very often, the answer is in semi-mystical communion with nature and landscape. Heir of both Thomas Hardy and Friedrich Nietzsche, Powys was admired by contemporaries like Iris Murdoch, and anticipated lots of the concerns of ecocritical writers and thinkers of today. But few of his books are currently in print. To mark the 150th anniversary of his birth, Matthew Sweet discusses his life and writing with Margaret Drabble, John Gray, Iain Sinclair and Kevan Manwaring.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
From a farming family in Jamaica to travelling in Europe and Northern Africa, the writer Claude McKay became a key figure in the artistic movement of the 1920s dubbed The Harlem Renaissance. Publishing under a pseudonym, his poems including To the White Friends and If We Must Die explored racial prejudice. Johnny Pitts has written an essay about working class community, disability and queer culture explored in Claude McKay's Romance in Marseille, which was published for the first time in 2020. Pearl Cleage's play Blues for an Alabama Sky is set in 1930s New York. The African-American playwright is the daughter of a civil rights activist, and has worked as speechwriter for Alabama's first black mayor, founded and edited the literary magazine Catalyst, and published many novels, plays and essays. Nadifa Mohamed's novels include Black Mamba Boy and her most recent The Fortune Men (shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize). They talk to Shahidha Bari about Claude McKay and the flourishing of ideas and black pride that led to the Harlem Renaissance.
Producer: Tim Bano
Blues For an Alabama Sky runs at the National Theatre in London from September 20th to November 5th.
Johny Pitts presents Open Book on Radio 4. His books include Afropean: Notes from Black Europe which you can hear him discussing on Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005sjw His collaboration with Roger Robinson Home Is Not A Place exploring Black Britishness in the 21st century is out this month.
You can hear more from Nadifa talking about her latest novel The Fortune Men and comparing notes about the writing life with Irenosen Okojie in previous Free Thinking episodes available on our website in the prose and poetry playlist and from BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000x06v and https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k8sz
Alongside Verso’s reissue of Home to Harlem they have 3 other books out: Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes, The Blacker The Berry by Wallace Thurman, and Quicksand And Passing by Nella Larson.
On BBC Sounds and in the Free Thinking archives you can find conversations about Black History https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbp and a Radio 3 Sunday Feature Harlem on Fire in which Afua Hirsch looks at the history of the literary magazine https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06s6z0b
From a farming family in Jamaica to travelling in Europe and Northern Africa, the writer Claude McKay became a key figure in the artistic movement of the 1920s dubbed The Harlem Renaissance. Publishing under a pseudonym, his poems including To the White Friends and If We Must Die explored racial prejudice. Johnny Pitts has written an essay about working class community, disability and queer culture explored in Claude McKay's Romance in Marseille, which was published for the first time in 2020. Pearl Cleage's play Blues for an Alabama Sky is set in 1930s New York. The African-American playwright is the daughter of a civil rights activist, and has worked as speechwriter for Alabama's first black mayor, founded and edited the literary magazine Catalyst, and published many novels, plays and essays. Nadifa Mohamed's novels include Black Mamba Boy and her most recent The Fortune Men (shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize). They talk to Shahidha Bari about Claude McKay and the flourishing of ideas and black pride that led to the Harlem Renaissance.
Producer: Tim Bano
Blues For an Alabama Sky runs at the National Theatre in London from September 20th to November 5th.
Johny Pitts presents Open Book on Radio 4. His books include Afropean: Notes from Black Europe which you can hear him discussing on Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005sjw His collaboration with Roger Robinson Home Is Not A Place exploring Black Britishness in the 21st century is out this month.
You can hear more from Nadifa talking about her latest novel The Fortune Men and comparing notes about the writing life with Irenosen Okojie in previous Free Thinking episodes available on our website in the prose and poetry playlist and from BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000x06v and https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k8sz
Alongside Verso’s reissue of Home to Harlem they have 3 other books out: Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes, The Blacker The Berry by Wallace Thurman, and Quicksand And Passing by Nella Larson.
On BBC Sounds and in the Free Thinking archives you can find conversations about Black History https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbp and a Radio 3 Sunday Feature Harlem on Fire in which Afua Hirsch looks at the history of the literary magazine https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06s6z0b
From a farming family in Jamaica to travelling in Europe and Northern Africa, the writer Claude McKay became a key figure in the artistic movement of the 1920s dubbed The Harlem Renaissance. Publishing under a pseudonym, his poems including To the White Friends and If We Must Die explored racial prejudice. Johnny Pitts has written an essay about working class community, disability and queer culture explored in Claude McKay's Romance in Marseille, which was published for the first time in 2020. Pearl Cleage's play Blues for an Alabama Sky is set in 1930s New York. The African-American playwright is the daughter of a civil rights activist, and has worked as speechwriter for Alabama's first black mayor, founded and edited the literary magazine Catalyst, and published many novels, plays and essays. Nadifa Mohamed's novels include Black Mamba Boy and her most recent The Fortune Men (shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize). They talk to Shahidha Bari about Claude McKay and the flourishing of ideas and black pride that led to the Harlem Renaissance.
Producer: Tim Bano
Blues For an Alabama Sky runs at the National Theatre in London from September 20th to November 5th.
Johny Pitts presents Open Book on Radio 4. His books include Afropean: Notes from Black Europe which you can hear him discussing on Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005sjw His collaboration with Roger Robinson Home Is Not A Place exploring Black Britishness in the 21st century is out this month.
You can hear more from Nadifa talking about her latest novel The Fortune Men and comparing notes about the writing life with Irenosen Okojie in previous Free Thinking episodes available on our website in the prose and poetry playlist and from BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000x06v and https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k8sz
Alongside Verso’s reissue of Home to Harlem they have 3 other books out: Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes, The Blacker The Berry by Wallace Thurman, and Quicksand And Passing by Nella Larson.
On BBC Sounds and in the Free Thinking archives you can find conversations about Black History https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbp and a Radio 3 Sunday Feature Harlem on Fire in which Afua Hirsch looks at the history of the literary magazine https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06s6z0b
The individual versus the masses is at the heart of Enemy of the People. A bank manager speculating with his customers' money is the story told in John Gabriel Borkman. Lucinda Coxon and Steve Waters have written new versions of these Ibsen plays. They join Norwegian actor and director Kåre Conradi, theatre critic and writer Mark Lawson and presenter Anne McElvoy to explore the ways in which Ibsen's characters and dramas resonate now.
John Gabriel Borkman starring Simon Russell Beale, Lia Williams and Clare Higgins runs at the Bridge Theatre, London September 24th to November 26th. Drama on 3 scripted by Steve Waters will be on air early in 2023. Kåre Conradi has established The Norwegian Ibsen Company which has brought productions to the Print Room at the Coronet Theatre in London. Conradi is an actor and a lifetime employee at The National Theatre of Norway. Mark Lawson is theatre critic for The Tablet and has written many radio dramas for BBC Radio 4.
Producer: Ruth Watts
On BBC Sounds and the Free Thinking programme website you can find previous discussions about Adapting Molière https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00138km John McGrath's Scottish drama https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0017tzt Shakespeare https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06406hm Lorraine Hansbery https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06tpdh3 and other key thinkers and writers on morality like Hannah Arendt/ Iris Murdoch/ Thomas Mann in our landmarks collection https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44
The individual versus the masses is at the heart of Enemy of the People. A bank manager speculating with his customers' money is the story told in John Gabriel Borkman. Lucinda Coxon and Steve Waters have written new versions of these Ibsen plays. They join Norwegian actor and director Kåre Conradi, theatre critic and writer Mark Lawson and presenter Anne McElvoy to explore the ways in which Ibsen's characters and dramas resonate now.
John Gabriel Borkman starring Simon Russell Beale, Lia Williams and Clare Higgins runs at the Bridge Theatre, London September 24th to November 26th. Drama on 3 scripted by Steve Waters will be on air early in 2023. Kåre Conradi has established The Norwegian Ibsen Company which has brought productions to the Print Room at the Coronet Theatre in London. Conradi is an actor and a lifetime employee at The National Theatre of Norway. Mark Lawson is theatre critic for The Tablet and has written many radio dramas for BBC Radio 4.
Producer: Ruth Watts
On BBC Sounds and the Free Thinking programme website you can find previous discussions about Adapting Molière https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00138km John McGrath's Scottish drama https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0017tzt Shakespeare https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06406hm Lorraine Hansbery https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06tpdh3 and other key thinkers and writers on morality like Hannah Arendt/ Iris Murdoch/ Thomas Mann in our landmarks collection https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44
The individual versus the masses is at the heart of Enemy of the People. A bank manager speculating with his customers' money is the story told in John Gabriel Borkman. Lucinda Coxon and Steve Waters have written new versions of these Ibsen plays. They join Norwegian actor and director Kåre Conradi, theatre critic and writer Mark Lawson and presenter Anne McElvoy to explore the ways in which Ibsen's characters and dramas resonate now.
John Gabriel Borkman starring Simon Russell Beale, Lia Williams and Clare Higgins runs at the Bridge Theatre, London September 24th to November 26th. Drama on 3 scripted by Steve Waters will be on air early in 2023. Kåre Conradi has established The Norwegian Ibsen Company which has brought productions to the Print Room at the Coronet Theatre in London. Conradi is an actor and a lifetime employee at The National Theatre of Norway. Mark Lawson is theatre critic for The Tablet and has written many radio dramas for BBC Radio 4.
Producer: Ruth Watts
On BBC Sounds and the Free Thinking programme website you can find previous discussions about Adapting Molière https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00138km John McGrath's Scottish drama https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0017tzt Shakespeare https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06406hm Lorraine Hansbery https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06tpdh3 and other key thinkers and writers on morality like Hannah Arendt/ Iris Murdoch/ Thomas Mann in our landmarks collection https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44
Ruthless mercenaries who happened to be very good at PR or a dynamic force in Medieval European politics? Rana Mitter and guests Judith Green and Eleanor Parker discuss the current state of scholarship on the Normans. Plus: from the idea of the Norman yoke, to dreams of Hereward the Wake, to contemporary discussions about the right to roam and Brexit, what role have ideas of the Normans and Anglo-Saxons played in the British political imagination? Historian of ideas Sophie Scott Brown, and Phillip Blonde, director of the think tank Res Publica join Rana to debate.
Judith Green's book The Normans: Power, Conquest and Culture in 11th Century Europe looks at the role the Normans played in shaping their world, from Northern France and England, to Southern Italy, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East.
Eleanor Parker's book Conquered: The Last Children of Anglo-Saxon England looks at the generation that came of age as the Normans invaded and consolidated their hold over England, and examines the role they played in shaping the society that followed.
Dr Sophie Scott-Brown is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, where she teaches intellectual history and is the author of The Histories of Raphael Samuel - A Portrait of A People’s Historian (2017)
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can find past episodes of Free Thinking discussing Tudor history, The Vikings and Victorian streets all available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts.
Ruthless mercenaries who happened to be very good at PR or a dynamic force in Medieval European politics? Rana Mitter and guests Judith Green and Eleanor Parker discuss the current state of scholarship on the Normans. Plus: from the idea of the Norman yoke, to dreams of Hereward the Wake, to contemporary discussions about the right to roam and Brexit, what role have ideas of the Normans and Anglo-Saxons played in the British political imagination? Historian of ideas Sophie Scott Brown, and Phillip Blonde, director of the think tank Res Publica join Rana to debate.
Judith Green's book The Normans: Power, Conquest and Culture in 11th Century Europe looks at the role the Normans played in shaping their world, from Northern France and England, to Southern Italy, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East.
Eleanor Parker's book Conquered: The Last Children of Anglo-Saxon England looks at the generation that came of age as the Normans invaded and consolidated their hold over England, and examines the role they played in shaping the society that followed.
Dr Sophie Scott-Brown is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, where she teaches intellectual history and is the author of The Histories of Raphael Samuel - A Portrait of A People’s Historian (2017)
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can find past episodes of Free Thinking discussing Tudor history, The Vikings and Victorian streets all available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts.
Ruthless mercenaries who happened to be very good at PR or a dynamic force in Medieval European politics? Rana Mitter and guests Judith Green and Eleanor Parker discuss the current state of scholarship on the Normans. Plus: from the idea of the Norman yoke, to dreams of Hereward the Wake, to contemporary discussions about the right to roam and Brexit, what role have ideas of the Normans and Anglo-Saxons played in the British political imagination? Historian of ideas Sophie Scott Brown, and Phillip Blonde, director of the think tank Res Publica join Rana to debate.
Judith Green's book The Normans: Power, Conquest and Culture in 11th Century Europe looks at the role the Normans played in shaping their world, from Northern France and England, to Southern Italy, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East.
Eleanor Parker's book Conquered: The Last Children of Anglo-Saxon England looks at the generation that came of age as the Normans invaded and consolidated their hold over England, and examines the role they played in shaping the society that followed.
Dr Sophie Scott-Brown is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, where she teaches intellectual history and is the author of The Histories of Raphael Samuel - A Portrait of A People’s Historian (2017)
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can find past episodes of Free Thinking discussing Tudor history, The Vikings and Victorian streets all available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts.
Ian McEwan's new novel Lessons sets a relationship against the backdrop of the Cuban missile crisis and the fall of the wall in Berlin. Researcher and artist Michael Mulvihill, from the University of Newcastle, has been recording the sounds of radar interference and uncovering the archives held at RAF Fylingdales in Yorkshire which depict the replacement of the "golf balls" and the technology involved in operating the early warning systems. Jessica Douthwaite, University of Stirling, is looking at how the cold war is collected and represented in museum collections across the UK and is a historian of civilian experiences of the cold war in Britain. Christoph Laucht, from Swansea University, researches responses the the nuclear threat They join Anne McElvoy to discuss the impact of the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962 and public fears about nuclear conflict.
You can find out more at https://fylingdalesarchive.org.uk/ Operations began there on 17th September 1963 and about Michael Mulvihill's Arts and Humanities Research Council project at https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FS013067%2F1
Lessons by Ian McEwan is published in September 2022. His other books include On Chesil Beach set 3 months before the Cuban missile crisis.
Producer: Ruth Watts
You can find other discussions about history in the Free Thinking archives including an episode looking at the Stasi poetry circle https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001556q
Ian McEwan's new novel Lessons sets a relationship against the backdrop of the Cuban missile crisis and the fall of the wall in Berlin. Researcher and artist Michael Mulvihill, from the University of Newcastle, has been recording the sounds of radar interference and uncovering the archives held at RAF Fylingdales in Yorkshire which depict the replacement of the "golf balls" and the technology involved in operating the early warning systems. Jessica Douthwaite, University of Stirling, is looking at how the cold war is collected and represented in museum collections across the UK and is a historian of civilian experiences of the cold war in Britain. Christoph Laucht, from Swansea University, researches responses the the nuclear threat They join Anne McElvoy to discuss the impact of the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962 and public fears about nuclear conflict.
You can find out more at https://fylingdalesarchive.org.uk/ Operations began there on 17th September 1963 and about Michael Mulvihill's Arts and Humanities Research Council project at https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FS013067%2F1
Lessons by Ian McEwan is published in September 2022. His other books include On Chesil Beach set 3 months before the Cuban missile crisis.
Producer: Ruth Watts
You can find other discussions about history in the Free Thinking archives including an episode looking at the Stasi poetry circle https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001556q
Ian McEwan's new novel Lessons sets a relationship against the backdrop of the Cuban missile crisis and the fall of the wall in Berlin. Researcher and artist Michael Mulvihill, from the University of Newcastle, has been recording the sounds of radar interference and uncovering the archives held at RAF Fylingdales in Yorkshire which depict the replacement of the "golf balls" and the technology involved in operating the early warning systems. Jessica Douthwaite, University of Stirling, is looking at how the cold war is collected and represented in museum collections across the UK and is a historian of civilian experiences of the cold war in Britain. Christoph Laucht, from Swansea University, researches responses the the nuclear threat They join Anne McElvoy to discuss the impact of the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962 and public fears about nuclear conflict.
You can find out more at https://fylingdalesarchive.org.uk/ Operations began there on 17th September 1963 and about Michael Mulvihill's Arts and Humanities Research Council project at https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FS013067%2F1
Lessons by Ian McEwan is published in September 2022. His other books include On Chesil Beach set 3 months before the Cuban missile crisis.
Producer: Ruth Watts
You can find other discussions about history in the Free Thinking archives including an episode looking at the Stasi poetry circle https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001556q
Karel Čapek's 1922 play The Makropulos Affair about a famous singer who has lived for over 300 years was adapted into an opera by the composer Leoš Janáček and premiered in 1926. George Bernard Shaw's play Back to Methuselah, which premiered in 1922, also looks at human destiny and ideas about long life. As Welsh National Opera's new touring production of The Makropulos Affair opens in Cardiff, Matthew Sweet and guests New Generation Thinker Sarah Dillon, classicist Charlotte Higgins and philosopher Rebecca Roache explore the quest for endless youth in literature, film and myth and discussions of the idea by philosophers including Bernard Williams.
The Makropulos Affair opens at the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff on Friday 16th September for three performances and then goes on tour to Llandudno, Plymouth, Birmingham, Southampton and Oxford.
Professor Sarah Dillon is working on a student guide How to Study the Contemporary and researching a literary history of AI. Her books include Storylistening: Narrative Evidence and Public Reasoning and she is on the editorial boards of C21: Journal of Twenty-First Century Writing and Fantastika. Charlotte Higgins' books include Greek Myths: A New Retelling and Red Thread: On Mazes and Labrynths
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The Free Thinking programme website has a playlist called Free Thinking the Future which includes discussions about AI, robots and an interview with Ray Kurzweil https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zwn4d
Karel Čapek's 1922 play The Makropulos Affair about a famous singer who has lived for over 300 years was adapted into an opera by the composer Leoš Janáček and premiered in 1926. George Bernard Shaw's play Back to Methuselah, which premiered in 1922, also looks at human destiny and ideas about long life. As Welsh National Opera's new touring production of The Makropulos Affair opens in Cardiff, Matthew Sweet and guests New Generation Thinker Sarah Dillon, classicist Charlotte Higgins and philosopher Rebecca Roache explore the quest for endless youth in literature, film and myth and discussions of the idea by philosophers including Bernard Williams.
The Makropulos Affair opens at the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff on Friday 16th September for three performances and then goes on tour to Llandudno, Plymouth, Birmingham, Southampton and Oxford.
Professor Sarah Dillon is working on a student guide How to Study the Contemporary and researching a literary history of AI. Her books include Storylistening: Narrative Evidence and Public Reasoning and she is on the editorial boards of C21: Journal of Twenty-First Century Writing and Fantastika. Charlotte Higgins' books include Greek Myths: A New Retelling and Red Thread: On Mazes and Labrynths
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The Free Thinking programme website has a playlist called Free Thinking the Future which includes discussions about AI, robots and an interview with Ray Kurzweil https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zwn4d
Karel Čapek's 1922 play The Makropulos Affair about a famous singer who has lived for over 300 years was adapted into an opera by the composer Leoš Janáček and premiered in 1926. George Bernard Shaw's play Back to Methuselah, which premiered in 1922, also looks at human destiny and ideas about long life. As Welsh National Opera's new touring production of The Makropulos Affair opens in Cardiff, Matthew Sweet and guests New Generation Thinker Sarah Dillon, classicist Charlotte Higgins and philosopher Rebecca Roache explore the quest for endless youth in literature, film and myth and discussions of the idea by philosophers including Bernard Williams.
The Makropulos Affair opens at the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff on Friday 16th September for three performances and then goes on tour to Llandudno, Plymouth, Birmingham, Southampton and Oxford.
Professor Sarah Dillon is working on a student guide How to Study the Contemporary and researching a literary history of AI. Her books include Storylistening: Narrative Evidence and Public Reasoning and she is on the editorial boards of C21: Journal of Twenty-First Century Writing and Fantastika. Charlotte Higgins' books include Greek Myths: A New Retelling and Red Thread: On Mazes and Labrynths
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The Free Thinking programme website has a playlist called Free Thinking the Future which includes discussions about AI, robots and an interview with Ray Kurzweil https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zwn4d
A dig at Lindisfarne this September aims to find out more about the early Medieval monastery raided by Vikings. New Generation Thinker David Petts from Durham University shares his findings on Holy Island. Professor Michelle Brown has been looking closely at the text and illustrations in the Lindisfarne Gospels and the culture of producing books in Anglo Saxon England. And as the gospels produced by Eadfrith, a monk at Lindisfarne who became bishop in c. 698 until his death in c. 722, go on show at the Laing Gallery in Newcastle, New Generation Thinker Jake Morris-Campbell writes a poem to mark their return to the North East. Anne McElvoy hosts.
You can find out more about the dig at https://projects.digventures.com/lindisfarne/ and about the gospels https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/lindisfarne-gospels Michelle Brown is giving a number of talks associated with the exhibition at the Laing Gallery which runs from Saturday 17 September - Saturday 3 December with a host of related exhibitions and events across the region https://laingartgallery.org.uk/lindisfarne-gospels-2022 Jake Morris-Campbell's poetry collection called Corrigenda For Costafine Town is out now from Blue Diode Publishing. You can also hear him talking about mining and dark places in a recording from the After Dark Festival at Sage Gateshead https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015c8p
Radio 3's weekly curation of readings and music Words and Music takes inspiration from Northumbria and can be heard on Sunday September 25th at 5.30pm or on BBC Sounds for 28 days. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006x35f
Producer: Ruth Watts
A dig at Lindisfarne this September aims to find out more about the early Medieval monastery raided by Vikings. New Generation Thinker David Petts from Durham University shares his findings on Holy Island. Professor Michelle Brown has been looking closely at the text and illustrations in the Lindisfarne Gospels and the culture of producing books in Anglo Saxon England. And as the gospels produced by Eadfrith, a monk at Lindisfarne who became bishop in c. 698 until his death in c. 722, go on show at the Laing Gallery in Newcastle, New Generation Thinker Jake Morris-Campbell writes a poem to mark their return to the North East. Anne McElvoy hosts.
You can find out more about the dig at https://projects.digventures.com/lindisfarne/ and about the gospels https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/lindisfarne-gospels Michelle Brown is giving a number of talks associated with the exhibition at the Laing Gallery which runs from Saturday 17 September - Saturday 3 December with a host of related exhibitions and events across the region https://laingartgallery.org.uk/lindisfarne-gospels-2022 Jake Morris-Campbell's poetry collection called Corrigenda For Costafine Town is out now from Blue Diode Publishing. You can also hear him talking about mining and dark places in a recording from the After Dark Festival at Sage Gateshead https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015c8p
Radio 3's weekly curation of readings and music Words and Music takes inspiration from Northumbria and can be heard on Sunday September 25th at 5.30pm or on BBC Sounds for 28 days. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006x35f
Producer: Ruth Watts
A dig at Lindisfarne this September aims to find out more about the early Medieval monastery raided by Vikings. New Generation Thinker David Petts from Durham University shares his findings on Holy Island. Professor Michelle Brown has been looking closely at the text and illustrations in the Lindisfarne Gospels and the culture of producing books in Anglo Saxon England. And as the gospels produced by Eadfrith, a monk at Lindisfarne who became bishop in c. 698 until his death in c. 722, go on show at the Laing Gallery in Newcastle, New Generation Thinker Jake Morris-Campbell writes a poem to mark their return to the North East. Anne McElvoy hosts.
You can find out more about the dig at https://projects.digventures.com/lindisfarne/ and about the gospels https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/lindisfarne-gospels Michelle Brown is giving a number of talks associated with the exhibition at the Laing Gallery which runs from Saturday 17 September - Saturday 3 December with a host of related exhibitions and events across the region https://laingartgallery.org.uk/lindisfarne-gospels-2022 Jake Morris-Campbell's poetry collection called Corrigenda For Costafine Town is out now from Blue Diode Publishing. You can also hear him talking about mining and dark places in a recording from the After Dark Festival at Sage Gateshead https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015c8p
Radio 3's weekly curation of readings and music Words and Music takes inspiration from Northumbria and can be heard on Sunday September 25th at 5.30pm or on BBC Sounds for 28 days. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006x35f
Producer: Ruth Watts
Christopher Columbus spoke to lots of people: his family and kin in Genova, merchants in Venice, royalty in Madrid, the crew of his ship, not to mention the people he met on the other side of the Atlantic. Today, we would consider this a case of multilingualism. But is that how Columbus would have seen it? What language did he think he spoke himself? In the same period a pidgin language developed to allow linguistically diverse communities in the eastern Mediterranean and north Africa to carry out trade, diplomacy, and general communication. We look at the latest research on this language, known as lingua franca, and consider what it might tell us about communication amongst the linguistic communities of the same region today. New Generation Thinker John Gallagher is joined by guests Dr Joanna Nolan, Professor Nandini Das, Dr Birgül Yılmaz, and translator David Bellos.
This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find other episodes focusing on language in the playlist New Research on the Free Thinking programme website The impact of being multi-lingual https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08s6mjd Birmingham’s Shakespeare Library https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p084zd37 An Encyclopedia of Shakespeare’s Language https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07h2z4r City Talk: a project to map Manchester accents https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07h30hm
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Dr Joanna Nolan teaches at SOAS, University of London and is the author of The Elusive Case of Lingua Franca: Fact and Fiction
Christopher Columbus spoke to lots of people: his family and kin in Genova, merchants in Venice, royalty in Madrid, the crew of his ship, not to mention the people he met on the other side of the Atlantic. Today, we would consider this a case of multilingualism. But is that how Columbus would have seen it? What language did he think he spoke himself? In the same period a pidgin language developed to allow linguistically diverse communities in the eastern Mediterranean and north Africa to carry out trade, diplomacy, and general communication. We look at the latest research on this language, known as lingua franca, and consider what it might tell us about communication amongst the linguistic communities of the same region today. New Generation Thinker John Gallagher is joined by guests Dr Joanna Nolan, Professor Nandini Das, Dr Birgül Yılmaz, and translator David Bellos.
This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find other episodes focusing on language in the playlist New Research on the Free Thinking programme website The impact of being multi-lingual https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08s6mjd Birmingham’s Shakespeare Library https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p084zd37 An Encyclopedia of Shakespeare’s Language https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07h2z4r City Talk: a project to map Manchester accents https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07h30hm
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Dr Joanna Nolan teaches at SOAS, University of London and is the author of The Elusive Case of Lingua Franca: Fact and Fiction
Christopher Columbus spoke to lots of people: his family and kin in Genova, merchants in Venice, royalty in Madrid, the crew of his ship, not to mention the people he met on the other side of the Atlantic. Today, we would consider this a case of multilingualism. But is that how Columbus would have seen it? What language did he think he spoke himself? In the same period a pidgin language developed to allow linguistically diverse communities in the eastern Mediterranean and north Africa to carry out trade, diplomacy, and general communication. We look at the latest research on this language, known as lingua franca, and consider what it might tell us about communication amongst the linguistic communities of the same region today. New Generation Thinker John Gallagher is joined by guests Dr Joanna Nolan, Professor Nandini Das, Dr Birgül Yılmaz, and translator David Bellos.
This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find other episodes focusing on language in the playlist New Research on the Free Thinking programme website The impact of being multi-lingual https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08s6mjd Birmingham’s Shakespeare Library https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p084zd37 An Encyclopedia of Shakespeare’s Language https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07h2z4r City Talk: a project to map Manchester accents https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07h30hm
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Dr Joanna Nolan teaches at SOAS, University of London and is the author of The Elusive Case of Lingua Franca: Fact and Fiction
Created in a natural landscape feature, a conclave hillside, the Hollywood Bowl had already hosted religious services before its stage arrived. In 1922 the Los Angeles Philharmonic played its first season of open air concerts inaugurating a music venue. Lisa Mullen hears how the amphitheatre has hosted some of the greats of classical and popular music from Felix and Leonard Slatkin to Ella Fitzgerald, The Beatles and James Taylor. Michael Goldfarb and Mark Glancy discuss the emergence of a cultural landmark.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Created in a natural landscape feature, a conclave hillside, the Hollywood Bowl had already hosted religious services before its stage arrived. In 1922 the Los Angeles Philharmonic played its first season of open air concerts inaugurating a music venue. Lisa Mullen hears how the amphitheatre has hosted some of the greats of classical and popular music from Felix and Leonard Slatkin to Ella Fitzgerald, The Beatles and James Taylor. Michael Goldfarb and Mark Glancy discuss the emergence of a cultural landmark.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Created in a natural landscape feature, a conclave hillside, the Hollywood Bowl had already hosted religious services before its stage arrived. In 1922 the Los Angeles Philharmonic played its first season of open air concerts inaugurating a music venue. Lisa Mullen hears how the amphitheatre has hosted some of the greats of classical and popular music from Felix and Leonard Slatkin to Ella Fitzgerald, The Beatles and James Taylor. Michael Goldfarb and Mark Glancy discuss the emergence of a cultural landmark.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Dedicated in 1922, the Lincoln Memorial is a neoclassical temple built to honour the 16th president of the United States. Lisa Mullen discovers why America chose to mark the man who led the nation in the civil war and issued the Emancipation Proclamation that freed slaves forever. Michael Goldfarb, Professor Sarah Churchwell and Dr Joanna Cohen discuss the how the Lincoln Memorial became the backdrop for the continuing civil rights movement.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Prison breaks loom large in both literature and pop culture. But how should we evaluate them ethically? New Generation Thinker Jeffrey Howard asks what a world without prison would look like. His essay explores whether those unjustly incarcerated have the moral right to break out, whether the rest of us have an obligation to help -- and what the answers teach us about the ethics of punishment today.
Jeffrey Howard is an Associate Professor in the Political Science Department at University College London, whose work on dangerous speech has been funded by the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust. You can find him discussing hate speech in a Free Thinking Episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006tnf
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics who can turn their research into radio.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Dina Rezk from the University of Reading looks at politics and the role of humour as she profiles Bassem Youssef, “the Jon Stewart of Egyptian satire”. As protests reverberate around the world, she looks back at the Arab Spring and asks what we can learn from the popular culture that took off during that uprising and asks whether those freedoms remain.
You can hear her in a Free Thinking discussion about filming the Arab Spring https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005sjw and in a discussion about Mocking Power past and present https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dzww
You can find of Dina's research https://egyptrevolution2011.ac.uk/
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Robyn Read
New Generation Thinker Brendan McGeever traces the links between anti-Semitism now and pogroms in the former Soviet Union and the language used to describe this form of racism.
Brendan McGeever lectures at the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism at Birkbeck University of London. You can hear him discussing an exhibition at the Jewish Museum exploring racial stereotypes in a Free Thinking episode called Sebald, anti-Semitism, Carolyn Forché https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00050d2
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten early career academics each year to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Robyn Read
Earlier periods of history have seen more people with scarring to their faces from duelling injuries and infectious diseases but what stopped this leading to a greater tolerance of facial difference? Historian Emily Cock considers the case of the Puritan William Prynne and looks at a range of strategies people used to improve their looks from eye patches to buying replacement teeth from the mouths of the poor, whose low-sugar diets kept their dentures better preserved than their aristocratic neighbours. In portraits and medical histories she finds examples of the elision between beauty and morality. With techniques such as ‘Metoposcopy’, which focused on interpreting the wrinkles on your forehead and the fact that enacting the law led to deliberate cut marks being made - this Essay reflects on the difficult terrain of judging by appearance.
Emily Cock is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Cardiff working on a project looking at Disfigurement in Britain and its Colonies 1600 – 1850.
You can hear her discussing her research with Fay Alberti, who works on facial transplants, in a New Thinking podcast episode of the Arts & Ideas podcast called About Face https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p080p2bc
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Alex Mansfield
New Generation Thinker Majed Akhter explores how large dam projects continue to form reservoirs of hope for a sustainable future. Despite their known drawbacks, our love affair with dams has not abated – across the world more than 3,500 dams are in various stages of construction. In Pakistan this has become entwined with nationalism, both inside the community and in the diaspora - but what are the dangers of this “dam fever” ? This Essay traces the history of river development in the region, from the early twentieth century “canal colonies” in Punjab, to Cold War mega-projects, to the contemporary drive to build large new dams. Previously an engineer and a resource economist, Majed Akhter now lectures in geography at King’s College London. you can hear him discussing the politics of rivers in a Free Thinking episode called Rivers and geopolitics https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00051hb
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten early career academics each year to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Alex Mansfield
From a way of addressing the loss of common land due to the enclosures of the 18th and 19th centuries, to a means for the urban poor gainfully employed and away from drink, allotments have meant different things to different people. The Allotments Act of 1922 was an important step in defining the allotment as we know it today, and it's a fascinating window onto the social and economic tensions of the inter-war years. John Gallagher tells the story, with help from historian Dr Elsa Richardson and philosopher Dr Sophie Scott-Brown.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Robert Flaherty’s ground-breaking documentary film Nanook of the North came out in the same year as the BBC was founded. Continuing our series explores cultural events from 1922, Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough talks to film historian Roswitha Skare and journalist Luke Dormehl about why this study of life in the Arctic has proved to be both controversial and influential.
Roswitha Skare is the author of Nanook of the North from 1922 to Today: The Famous Arctic Documentary and Its Afterlife.
Luke Dormehl has written A Journey Through Documentary Film.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
A new craze for body building and that distinctive figure of the 20th century, the hobbyist, are the topic of conversation as we continue our series of features looking at cultural life in 1922. John Gallagher considers what the expansion of free time in the 1920s meant for leisure and the things people did for fun. He is joined by historian Elsa Richardson and literary scholar Jon Day.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
From health fads, to Virginia Woolf having a premonition of the microwave, New Generation Thinker John Gallagher is joined by food historians Annie Gray and Elsa Richardson
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Jade Halbert lectures in fashion, but has never done any sewing. She swaps pen and paper for needle and thread to create a dress from a Jean Muir pattern. In a diary charting her progress, she reflects on the skills of textile workers she has interviewed as part of a project charting the fashion trade in Glasgow and upon the banning of pins on a factory floor, the experiences of specialist sleeve setters and cutters, and whether it is ok to lick your chalk.
Jade Halbert is a Lecturer, Fashion Business and Cultural Studies at the University of Huddersfield. You can find her investigation into fashion and the high street as a Radio 3 Sunday Feature https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gvpn and taking part in a Free Thinking discussion called The Joy of Sewing https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002mk2. She has also broadcast another Essay for Radio 3 looking at the fashion label Droopy & Browns https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014ysq
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten early career academics to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Advances in robotics and virtual reality are giving us ever more 'realistic' ways of representing the world, but the quest for vivid visualisation is thousands of years old. This essay takes the guide to oratory and getting your message across written by the ancient Roman Quintilian and focuses in on a wall painting of The Judgment of Solomon in an Elizabethan house in the village of Much Hadham in Hertfordshire. Often written off as stiff, formal and artificial with arguments that the Reformation fear of idolatry stifled Elizabethan art, New Generation Thinker Christina Faraday argues that story telling and conveying vivid detail was an important part of painting in this period as art was used to communicate messages to serve social, political and religious ends.
Christina Faraday is a New Generation Thinker who lectures in the History of Art at the University of Cambridge. You can hear her talking about more Tudor art in a Free Thinking discussion called The Tudor Mind and explaining her work on an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of the painting of Nicholas Hilliard in a Free Thinking episode about the joy of miniatures https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002mk2
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten early career academics each year to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
This Essay tells a story of political marches and everyday acts of radical care; of sledgehammers and bags of rice; of the struggles for justice waged by migrant domestic workers but it also charts the realisation of Ella Parry-Davies, that acknowledging publicly for the first time her own condition of epilepsy – or “coming out crip” – is part of the story of our blindness to inequalities in healthcare and living conditions faced by many migrant workers.
Ella Parry-Davies is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London working on an oral history project creating sound walks by interviewing migrant domestic workers in the UK and Lebanon. You can hear her discussing her research in a Free Thinking episode called Stanley Spencer, Domestic Servants, Surrogacy https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000573q
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten early career academics each year who can turn their research into radio.
Producer: Robyn Read
There is fascinating evidence that 5,000 years ago, people living in Britain and Ireland had a deep and meaningful relationship with the underworld seen in the carved chalk, animal bones and human skeletons found at Cranborne Chase in Dorset in a large pit, at the base of which had been sunk a 7-metre-deep shaft. Other examples considered in this Essay include Carrowkeel in County Sligo, the passage tombs in the Boyne Valley in eastern Ireland and the Priddy Circles in the Mendip Hills in Somerset. If prehistoric people regarded the earth as a powerful, animate being that needed to be placated and honoured, perhaps there are lessons here for our own attitudes to the world beneath our feet.
Susan Greaney is a New Generation Thinker who works for English Heritage at Stonehenge and who is studying for her PhD at Cardiff University.
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which selects ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. You can hear her journey to Japan to compare the Jomon civilisations with Stonehenge as a Radio 3 Sunday Feature and there is an exhibition opening at Stonehenge in September https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hgqx
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
When Tom Smith sets out to research allegations of racism in Berlin’s club scene, he finds himself face to face with his own past in techno’s birthplace: Detroit. Visiting the music distributor Submerge, he considers the legacy of the pioneers Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, the influence of Afro-futurism and the work done in Berlin to popularise techno by figures including Kemal Kurum and Claudia Wahjudi. But the vibrant culture which seeks to be inclusive has been accused of whiteness and the Essay ends with a consideration of the experiences of clubbers depicted in the poetry of Michael Hyperion Küppers.
Tom Smith is a New Generation Thinker who lectures in German at the University of St Andrews. You can find another Essay from him called Masculinity Comrades in Arms recorded at the York Festival of Ideas 2019 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00061m5 and a New Thinking podcast discussion Rubble Culture to techno in postwar Germany https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07srdmh
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC with the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who turn their research into radio.
Producer: Robyn Read
A nurse who survived the genocide in 1994 against the Tutsi in Rwanda has written a testimony which New Generation Thinker Zoe Norridge has translated.
In Rwanda, Yolande Mukagasana is a well-known writer, public figure and campaigner for remembrance of the genocide. She has authored three testimonies, a collection of interviews with survivors and perpetrators and two volumes of Rwandan stories. Her work has received numerous international prizes, including an Honorable Mention for the UNESCO Education for Peace Prize.
Zoe Norridge, from King’s College London, argues there should be a place for Mukagasana on our shelves in UK, alongside works from the Holocaust and other genocides. Why? Because listening to survivor voices helps us to understand the human cost of mass violence.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
The novel Miss Marjoribanks (1866) brought to life a large comic heroine who bucked 19th-century conventions. New Generation Thinker Clare Walker Gore's essay outlines the prolific writing career of Margaret Oliphant and laments the way she was used by fellow novelist Virginia Woolf as a symbol of the dangers of needing to write for money to keep yourself and your family afloat.
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select academics who can turn their research into radio. You can find more conversations, features and Essays from the ten years of the scheme in a collection on the Free Thinking programme website of BBC Radio 3.
Author of the first prose romance published in England in 1621, her reputation at court was ruined by her thinly veiled autobiographical writing. Visit the family home, Penshurst Place in Kent, and you can see Lady Mary Wroth's portrait, but New Generation Thinker Nandini Das says you can also find her in the pages of her book The Countess of Montgomery's Urania, which places centre stage women who "love and are not afraid to love." Scandal led to her withdrawing it from sale and herself from public life.
If you are interested in more discussions about women writers you can find an Arts & Ideas podcast episode called Why We Read and the Idea of the Woman Writer which includes a discussion of both Anne Bronte and Anne Dowriche. And there is a collection of programmes about women writers on the Free Thinking programme website
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
In a series of features looking back at cultural milestones in 1922 – the year the BBC was founded – Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough finds out about the All England Lawn Tennis Club's move to a new home talking to David Berry, author of A People's History of Tennis, and Matt Harvey who was poet in residence at Wimbledon in 2010.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
New Generation Thinker Sophie Coulombeau argues that we should salute this woman who supported her family through her writing, who perfected sonnets about solitude before Wordsworth began writing his, and who explored the struggles of women and refugees in her fiction. Mother to 12 children, Charlotte Turner Smith wrote ten novels, three poetry collections and four children's books and translated French fiction. In 1788 her first novel, Emmeline, sold 1500 copies within months but by the time of her death in 1803 her popularity had declined and she had become destitute.
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to work with academics to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Robyn Read
Reader’s Digest magazine is celebrating its centenary this year. In the first of a series of features looking back at cultural milestones in 1922 – the year the BBC was founded – Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough finds out about the history of the Reader’s Digest talking to Professor Sarah Churchwell and Dr Victoria Bazin.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
A motorbike adorned with a zebu skull is one of the central images of Djibril Diop Mambéty's classic 1973 film, whose title translates as The Journey of the Hyena. Listed as one of the 100 greatest films of all time in the Sight and Sound magazine poll, it mixes West African oral traditions with influences from the French New Wave and Soviet cinema. Mory and Anta are two young people growing up in a newly independent Senegal who fantasise about leaving Dakar for a new life in France, but how can they realise those dreams and do they really want to leave? Matthew Sweet is joined by New Generation Thinker Sarah Jilani, Estrella Sendra Fernandez and Ashley Clark. Touki Bouki is being screened at the BFI London on July 27th as part of the Black Fantastic season of films drawing on science fiction, myth and Afrofuturism. The curator of that season Ekow Eshun joined Shahidha Bari in a recent Free Thinking episode which you can find on BBC Sounds and as the Arts and Ideas podcast.
Sarah Jilani is a lecturer in English at City, University of London and has written on neocolonialism in Francophone West African cinema.
Estrella Sendra Fernandez lectures in film and screen studies at SOAS, University of London. She directed the award-winning documentary film Témoignages de l’autre côté about migration in Senegal.
Ashley Clark is curatorial director at the Criterion Collection. He is the author of the book Facing Blackness: Media and Minstrelsy in Spike Lee’s “Bamboozled”
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
In the Free Thinking archives you can find a series of programmes exploring silent film, star actors including Jean-Paul Belmondo, Marlene Dietrich, Dirk Bogarde, and classics of cinema around the world including Kurosawa's Rashomon, Satyajit Ray's films, the films of Jacques Tati and Charlie Chaplin.
Glenda Jackson is the subject of a BFI season and in this film she plays part of a love triangle in John Schlesinger's follow up to his Oscar winning Midnight Cowboy. The plot written by Penelope Gilliat centres on an artist who has relationships with a female job consultant and a male doctor. Was the 1971 film ahead of its times? Matthew Sweet re-watches it with guests including Glenda Jackson, playwright Mark Ravenhill, film historian Melanie Williams and BFI National Archive curator Simon McCallum. They discuss the different elements of the film, including the score, which features the trio Soave sia il vento from Mozart's opera Così fan tutte, the very precise decor and evocation of late 60s London and filming inside a Jewish synagogue. The Glenda Jackson season runs at the BFI across July with a screening of this film on July 24th.
Producer: Fiona McLean
Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) still courtesy BFI Sunday Bloody Sunday is available on Blu-ray
You can find Matthew Sweet discussing other classics of British Cinema in the Free Thinking archives including:
British New Wave Films of the 60s - Joely Richardson and Melanie Williams evaluate the impact and legacy of Woodfall Films, the company behind Look Back in Anger, A Taste of Honey and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09ysnl2
An extended interview with Mike Leigh, recorded as he released his historical drama Peterloo, but also looks back at his film from 1984 Four Days in July https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000tqw
Early Cinema looks back at a pioneer of British film Robert Paul and at the work of Alice Guy https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dy2b
Philip Dodd explores the novel and film of David Storey's This Sporting Life with social historian Juliet Gardiner, journalist Rod Liddle, writer Anthony Clavane and the author's daughter Kate Storey https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09j0rt6
Samira Ahmed convenes a discussion about British Social Realism in Film https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pz16k
From the kit for athletes to interviews which tell us the impact of race times changing – Islam Issa hears about an oral history project in Scotland which aims to capture experiences of past Commonwealth Games held in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Another project explores the commercial and business links between commonwealth countries and what attempts to build connections tell us about and sharing units of measurement, currencies and the impact of EEC membership. New Generation Thinker Islam Issa talks to two researchers:
Christopher Cassidy is a researcher based at Stirling University working on the Commonwealth Games Archive in Scotland https://www.sportingheritage.org.uk/content/collection/university-stirling
Dr Andrew Dilley at the University of Aberdeen is researching the Federation of Commonwealth Chambers of Commerce https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/people/profiles/a.dilley#research https://search.lma.gov.uk/scripts/mwimain.dll/144/LMA_OPAC/web_detail?SESSIONSEARCH&exp=refd%20CLC/B/082
Dr Islam Issa teaches in the School of English at Birmingham City University and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio.
This conversation is part of the New Thinking series of Arts and Ideas podcasts made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find other discussions about archives across the UK and new research into archaeology, history, literature and language in a collection called New Research on the website for the Free Thinking programme on BBC Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0144txn
"The beauty of speed. Time and space died yesterday. We already live in the absolute, because we have created the eternal, omnipresent speed." Part of the 1909 manifesto drawn up by Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti that declared the aims of the groundbreaking Futurist branch of modernism. Their rejection of the past included embracing the march of machinery, the power of youth and of violence so how do we view this now? Matthew Sweet is joined by Steven Connor, Selena Daly, Rosalind McKever, and Nathan Waddell.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Image: Futurist food
Originally broadcast as part of the Modernism season on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and BBC Sounds. There is a collection on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07p3nxh
And across the Proms season, various interval features are focusing on cultural openings and events from 1922. You can find those available to download as Arts and Ideas podcasts.
Murals which aimed to synthesise the history and culture of Mexico, Japanese novels exploring urban alienation, an exhibition of Bauhaus paintings from Germany which inspired a generation of Indian artists.
Presenter Rana Mitter is joined by Jade Munslow Ong, Christopher Harding, Maria Blanco, and Devika Singh.
Amongst the Modernist writers and artists mentioned are: Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro Mexican artist Diego Rivera, and poet Manuel Maples Arce Brazilian artist Tarsila do Amaral Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier, and painter Wifredo Lam Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges Indian writer and artist Rabindranath Tagore, and artist Amrita Sher-Gil South African writers Olive Schreiner, Roy Campbell, Solomon Plaatje, Rolfes Dhlomo Japanese theorist Okakura Kakuzō, and writers Edogawa Ranpo, and Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Image: the Indian polymath and modernist Rabindranath Tagore Image credit: Keystone France/Getty Images
Originally broadcast as part of the Modernism season on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and BBC Sounds. There is a collection on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07p3nxh
And across the Proms season, various interval features are focusing on cultural openings and events from 1922. You can find those available to download as Arts and Ideas podcasts.
How a disaster in the 1922 led to new thinking about record keeping. Ahead of the ICHORA conference Dr William Butler, Head of Military Records and Jenny Bunn, Head of Archives Research from The National Archives join Naomi Paxton to discuss some of the researchers across the UK who have helped catalogue our history and about a research project based on documents held by the royal hospital which tell us about pension negotiations and disability history.
The research projects featured are: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FT011122%2F1
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/postcards-from-the-past/
You can find more conversations about New Research gathering into a playlist on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
Producer: Paula McFarlane
The Daleks are back! As restorations of the two 1960s Dr Who films are rereleased in British cinemas, Matthew Sweet lifts the lid on the most memorable monsters of post-war British science fiction. Expert guests will have 2000 rels - that’s 45 earth minutes - to explore Dalek culture, politics and philosophy, and to explore how Terry Nation’s creations carry the weight of the second world war, the cold war and contemporary arguments about race and difference. Matthew is joined by Roberta Tovey, who played the Doctor's granddaughter Susan in the 1960s film adaptation of the Dalek stories; Nicholas Briggs, who uses a voice modulator to give us the voice of the Daleks; political journalist Stephen Bush; and by Jonn Elledge, whose blog A Misadventure In Space And Time charts his project of watching every available episode of Doctor Who in order, from 1963 to today. Plus, the writer, actor, director and producer Mark Gatiss.
Doctor Who And The Daleks and Daleks: Invasion Earth are being given a 4K restoration and screenings in UK cinemas across the summer.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can find more discussions about key tv programmes, films, books and art in our playlist on the Free Thinking programme website called Landmarks which runs from 2001 Space Odyssey and Jaws to writing by Hannah Arendt, Simone De Beauvoir and John Wyndham
Tariq Ali picks Pather Panchali and New Generation Thinker Sarah Jilani describes Jalsaghar or The Music Room. Rana Mitter presents this programme which looks at what marked out the directing of Satyajit Ray. The BFI has a season of his films screening across July and August and is re-releasing The Big City. Rana's other guests are the programme of the BFI season and herself a film-maker, Sangeeta Datta, and Professor Chandak Sengoopta from Birkbeck, University of London.
Sarah Jilani researches postcolonial film and literature at the University of Cambridge. She is a 2021 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who use their research to make radio programmes.
Professor Chandook Sengoopta is writing on the historical, cultural and ideological contexts that shaped the work and impact of the film-maker, writer, designer and composer Satyajit Ray.
Sangeeta Datta is director of Baithak UK http://www.baithak.info/director-sangeeta-datta. You can find details of the season she has put together at BFI.org.uk
Tariq Ali has written more than 2 dozen books on world history, culture and politics https://www.versobooks.com/authors/63-tariq-ali
You can find a collection of Radio 3 programmes exploring film on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/FJbG166KXBn9xzLKPfrwpc/all-about-film-on-radio-3
Producer: Jayne Egerton
How does France look when viewed from different places and at different times? Graham Robb knows France well from his academic career and decades of travels and offers an alternative route through French history in his new book. Hannah Scott has looked at the role of low-brow music in forming an idea of ‘Britishness’ for the French at the height of cross-channel rivalry in the last century. Tash Aw has translated the latest work of biographical writing by Édouard Louis. Professor Ginette Vincendeau is currently co-editing a book on Paris in the cinema. They join Anne McElvoy to explore ideas of France and the French through it's history and culture.
Graham Robb has published widely on French literature and history and was a fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. His latest book is France: An Adventure History
Hannah Scott is an academic track fellow at the University of Newcastle. She is the author of Singing the English: Britain in the French Musical Lowbrow 1870-1904
Ginette Vincendeau is a Professor in Film Studies at King's College, University of London. She is is currently co-editing a book on Paris in the cinema. She has recently published on ethnicity in contemporary French cinema and is researching popular French directors of the 1950s and 1960s.
A Woman's Battles and Transformations by Édouard Louis (author)and translated by Tash Aw is out now.
Édouard Louis's earlier book Who Killed My Father has been adapted into a stage drama by Ivo Van Hove. You can see that at the Young Vic in London between 7th September and the 24th September and you can hear Édouard talking to Philip Dodd about street protest, gilets jaunes and his own upbringing in this episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0704m92
Producer: Ruth Watts
Aethelflaed and Bertha are two of the figures discussed in the new history of women in the Middle Ages written by Janina Ramirez. Choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh has taken the heroine who fights Tancredi the crusading knight and reframed the story set to the music composed by Monteverdi's Il Combattimento. Cat Jarman is a bioarchaeologist who has tracked the way a Viking ‘Carnelian’ bead travelled to England from 8th-century Baghdad, with all that it tells us about women and power.
They join Shahidha Bari to discuss ideas about women as warriors and power brokers.
Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It by Janina Ramirez is published July 21st 2022
Shobana Jeyasingh's new dance work Clorinda Agonistes premieres on July 13th and 14th at Grange Festival, Hampshire and then can be seen at Sadlers Wells Sept 9th and 10th, Snape Maltings October 8th, the Lowry Oct 18th and 19th, Oxford Playhouse 15th and 16th November.
River Kings: A New History of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads by Cat Jarman is out now.
Producer in Salford: Cecile Wright
You might be interested in another discussion about women fighting hearing from Maaza Mengiste, Christina Lamb, Julie Wheelwright https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000g4bz available on the Free Thinking programme website and to download as an Arts & Ideas podcast our our discussion about Vikings https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015582
and we have a whole collection called Women in the World https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p084ttwp
From Beyonce to Octavia Butler, from Chris Ofili to Jordan Peele, the speculative and the mythical have been used as powerful tools to shape Black art, film, music and writing. Ekow Eshun, who has curated a new exhibition on this theme at the Hayward Gallery, joins Shahidha Bari along with DJ/turntablist NikNak and New Generation Thinker Louisa Egbunike to discuss how this idea of the Black Fantastic relates to and in some ways challenges Afrofuturism.
In the Black Fantastic runs at the Hayward Gallery, London until 18th September 2022. The exhibition is accompanied by a book and by a season of films at the BFI, including Djibril Diop Mambéty's 1973 film Touki Bouki which you can hear being discussed by Matthew Sweet and guests in another edition of Free Thinking available on BBC Sounds.
NikNak is touring the UK with Sankofa, her latest multi-media project and album, from 12th-18th July. Details can be found on the Sound UK website.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
How does money shape history and how do we write about it? Anne McElvoy discusses those questions with a finalist in the political writing category of the 2022 Orwell Prize. In Uncommon Wealth: Britain and the Aftermath of Empire, Kojo Koram traces the some of the economic problems faced across the world today with wealth inequality, with sovereign debt, austerity, and precarious employment and how they are bound up in decolonisation. She also talks to leading UK economist Richard Davies about how Covid has had an impact on our understanding of economics. And John Ramsden is concerned with restoring the forgotten place of economics in poetry from Coleridge's interest in cycles of boom and bust to Jonathan Swift's fascination with trade sanctions. Dhruti Shah is a journalist and the author of Bear Markets and Beyond: A bestiary of business terms.
Kojo Koram teaches at the School of Law at Birkbeck College, University of London, and writes on issues of law, race and empire. He is the editor of The War on Drugs and the Global Colour Line and author of Uncommon Wealth: Britain and the Aftermath of Empire.
Richard Davies is the author of Extreme Economies: Survival, Failure, Future Limits for the World’s Economies. A former adviser at the Bank of England and HM Treasury, he now runs the UK’s Economics Observatory.
John Ramsden is a former career diplomat and ambassador. He is the author of The Poets’ Guide to Economics
Dhruti Shah is a journalist and the author of Bear Markets and Beyond: A bestiary of business terms.
The Orwell Festival of Political Writing, held across Bloomsbury and online from 22nd June to 14th July, when the winners are announced: https://www.orwellfestival.co.uk/
Producer: Ruth Watts
Whether it’s Jane Eyre transported to India, childrens masks used for political protests or film posters that trigger memories, there are endless fascinating stories nestled amongst archives that researchers are diligently bringing to the fore. Dr Naomi Paxton meets three researchers who work in archives that focus on Indian culture and history to find out more about some of the unexpected stories hiding amongst the books, prints and film paraphernalia.
Dr Monia Acciaria is Associate professor in Film and Television History at DeMontfort University and Associate Director of the UK Asian Film Festival. You can explore the Creative Archives of Indian Cinema YouTube channel here https://youtube.com/channel/UCN-wV7Jl9YeR3pGzJaP7-mw
Dr Pragya Dhital is the curator of ‘Crafting Subversion: DIY and Decolonial Print’. Her research focuses on paper crafts and communications in modern India. The exhibition ‘Crafting Subversion: DIY and Colonial Print’ is on until 3rd September 2022 at the SOAS Brunei Gallery https://www.soas.ac.uk/gallery/crafting-subversions/
Olivia Majumdar is project curator of ‘Two Centuries of Indian Print’ project at the British Library and specialises in novels in translation in Colonial India. Explore ‘Two Centuries of Indian Print’ at the British Library online here https://www.bl.uk/early-indian-printed-books Olivia’s article on the Tarakeswar Affair is here https://www.bl.uk/early-indian-printed-books/articles/notes-on-a-scandal
This episode was made in partnership with the AHRC, part of UKRI.
You can find more conversations about New Research in a playlist on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
Producer: Sofie Vilcins
Varney the Vampire was a blood soaked gothic horror story serialised in cheap print over the course of a couple of years in the nineteenth century. The resulting "penny dreadful" tale spilled out of a large volume when it was finally published in book form. In spite of his comfort with crosses, daylight and garlic, Varney's capacity to reflect on his actions made him an early model for Dracula. Matthew Sweet explores why a work, so often overlooked, was so important to the development of the vampire genre.
Roger Luckhurst is Professor in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of Gothic: an illustrated history and editor of The Cambridge companion to Dracula.
Joan Passey is a lecturer at the University of Bristol. She is the author of Cornish Gothic and editor of Cornish Horrors. And, she is a 2022 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio.
Sam George is an Associate Professor at the University of Hertfordshire and is the convener of the Open Graves, Open Minds Gothic research project. Her books include: In the Company of Wolves: Werewolves, Wolves, and Wild Children and Open Graves, Open Minds, Representations of the Vampire from the Enlightenment to the Present Day.
Producer: Ruth Watts
David Chalmers is credited with setting the terms for much of the work done in the philosophy of mind today when he posed the 'hard problem' of consciousness: how does matter, which is fundamentally inanimate, give rise to or interact with consciousness, which is qualitative and phenomenal - always a 'what it's like'? His most recent book, Reality +, is an investigation of the possibility that our entire experience could be an illusion.
Iain McGilchrist is a literary scholar turned psychiatrist whose 2009 book The Master And His Emissary developed the 'two hemisphere' model of the brain and cognition according to which the left hemisphere is rational, precise, but limited, and the right hemisphere is intuitive, creative, and expansive. Starting with this model, McGilchrist went on to analyse nothing less than the rise and fall of civilizations in terms of the interplay between these two aspects of human nature. His new book The Matter With Things goes even further, developing the hemisphere model into a means for explaining our basic relationship with reality - and suggesting ways it could be improved.
David Chalmers and Iain McGilchrist expound, explain and defend their work to Christopher Harding.
Produced by Luke Mulhall
For evolutionary scientists studying religion, it's more fruitful to examine what people do in religious contexts, rather than listen to what they say they believe. There's a new recognition that as well as looking at behaviour, people studying religion must take account of the religious experience of believers. But how do you do that? And what does doing it tell us? Rana Mitter is joined by an evolutionary psychologist, an anthropologist, a historian and a poet to discuss.
Robin Dunbar is an evolutionary psychologist who’s written a book called Why Religion Evolved: And Why It Endures.
Dimitris Xygalatas is an anthropologist whose book is called Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living
Anna Della Subin has investigated people who have been declared divine in her book Accidental Gods
Poet Kaveh Akbar is editor of The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Geoff Dyer, Dame Sheila Hancock and Rachel Stott join Matthew Sweet to discuss the work and performance of writers, artists, athletes and musicians near the end of their careers.
Old Rage by Sheila Hancock is out now. The Last Days of Roger Federer by Geoff Dyer is out now. Rachel Stott is a composer and plays viola with the Revolutionary Drawing Room, the Bach Players and Sopriola.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The German Romantic author of horror and fantasy published stories which form the basis of Jacques Offenbach's opera The Tales of Hoffmann, the ballet Coppélia and the Nutcracker. In the theatre he worked as a stagehand, decorator, playwright and manager and he wrote his own musical works. His opera Undine ended its run at the Berlin Theatre after a fire.
During his lifetime he also saw Warsaw and Berlin occupied by Napoleon and during the Prussian war against France, he wrote an account of his visit to the battlefields and he became entangled in various legal disputes towards the end of his life. Anne McElvoy marks 200 years since his death gathering together literary and musical scholars to look at his legacy.
Joanna Neilly is Associate Professor and Fellow and Tutor in German at the University of Oxford.
Keith Chapin is senior lecturer in music at Cardiff University.
Tom Smith is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. He is Senior Lecturer and Head of German at the University of St Andrews.
You can find details about performances of Offenbach's works on the website of the society http://offenbachsociety.org.uk/
Producer: Tim Bano
Waiting is an inevitable part of life, whether it’s in the waiting room of a GP surgery or waiting for lockdown to end.
As part of the Waiting Times project, Dr Michael Flexer, a publicly engaged research fellow at the University of Exeter, explores different concepts of waiting and suggests that some forms of waiting – for seeds to grow, for the curtain to rise in a theatre – can be positive. https://WhatAreYouWaitingFor.org.uk
Professor Victoria Tischler is from the European Centre for Environment & Human Health at the University of Exeter and co-investigator of the Pandemic and Beyond project. During lockdown her project Culture Box sent out packages to care home residents filled with activities: watercolour paints, seeds, guides to birdsong. She shares her thoughts on how these activities changed the recipients’ relationship to time. https://pandemicandbeyond.exeter.ac.uk/
This episode was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find a collection of episodes focused on New Research on the Free Thinking programme website on BBC Radio 3.
Producer: Tim Bano
John Gallagher with an exploration of Sheffield's cultural history through new words, music and film.
Can a 40-hour film of a Massachusetts garden or a project documenting rice growing over 40 years help us to understand our planet better? Who makes and who watches such projects? Matthew Sweet is joined by film historian Becca Voelcker who has watched projects recorded in Japan, Colombia, Scotland and America; Thomas Halliday, whose book Otherlands charts the changes in the earth's ecologies through deep time; and by environmentalist Rupert Read, who is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia and has been thinking about what an eco-spirituality would look like. Plus, artist James Bridle, whose book Ways of Being investigates how far beyond humanity we can extend concepts like 'person', 'intelligence', and 'solidarity'.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Understanding James Joyce's eye troubles gives you a different way of reading his book Ulysses. That's the contention of Cleo Hanaway-Oakley, who shares her research with presenter Shahidha Bari. Emma West has delved into the history of the Arts League of Service travelling theatre, who went about in a battered old van performing plays, songs, ballets and 'absurdities' to audiences from Braintree to Blantyre. And we look at the Royal Society of Literature's annual Dalloway Day discussion of Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway, first published in 1925, with Merve Emre.
Merve Emre is Associate Professor of English at the University of Oxford, and editor of the annotated Mrs Dalloway. Cleo Hanaway-Oakley is Lecturer in Liberal Arts and English at the University of Bristol and author of James Joyce and the Phenomenology of Film. Emma West is British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of English Literature at the University of Birmingham.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Find out more about Dalloway Day 2022 on the Royal Society of Literature website. The Bloomsday festival runs from June 11th to 16th You can find a collection of programmes exploring ideas about modernism on the Free Thinking website
Damon Galgut's novel, The Promise, explores the decline of the white Afrikaner Swart family and their failed promise to their black domestic servant. The family resist giving her, her own house and her own land as South Africa emerges from the era of apartheid. Land also occupies Julia Blackburn in her new book Dreaming the Karoo, which explores traces of the indigenous /Xam people who were driven from their ancestral lands in the 1870s. And, New Generation Thinker Jade Munslow Ong has been looking at the evolution of the farm novel and the ways in which South African literature maps experiences of displacement. They join Anne McElvoy to explore the ways in which writing has charted the personal and political histories of modern South Africa.
Damon Galgut is a is a South African novelist and playwright. He was awarded the 2021 Booker Prize for his novel The Promise. Two of his previous novels were shortlisted in 2003 and 2010, The Good Doctor and In a Strange Room. He has written several plays.
Julia Blackburn has written both fiction and non-fiction, including her memoir The Three of Us and the Orange Prize nominated novels The Book of Colour and The Leper's Companions. Her latest book, Dreaming the Karoo: A People Called the /Xam is published on 16th June 2022.
Dr Jade Munslow Ong is a BBC Arts and Humanities Research Council New Generation Thinker. lectures in English literature and environmental literature at the University of Salford, specializing in colonial and post-colonial writing and fin de siècle cultures. She has published Olive Schreiner and African Modernism.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Bill Paterson is a founding member of the 7:84 company established by John McGrath, his wife Elizabeth and her brother to create radical, popular theatre. Fusing techniques popularised by Bertolt Brecht with Scottish performance traditions, their best-known play The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black, Black Oil (1973) explored class struggle, the clearing of the Scottish highlands and the impact of drilling for oil. With energy in the news again, and the resurgence of political theatre on the British stage - Anne McElvoy looks at the writing of John McGrath with Bill Paterson, theatre critic Joyce McMillan and Joe Douglas, who directed a successful revival of the play for the National Theatre of Scotland, Dundee Theatre and Live Theatre which toured Scotland in 2019 and 2020.
Producer: Tim Bano
BBC Radio 3's Breakfast programme is travelling through Scotland this week. You can listen live or find Petroc's journeys on BBC Sounds.
You can find a series of discussions about influential plays, films, books and art collected together as Landmarks on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44
A blu-ray DVD of The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black, Black Oil is available.
Witches, statues, God's body, the Ottomans, medieval church going and seventeenth century England as a "devil land" are the topics explored in this year's shortlisted books. Rana Mitter interviews the authors ahead of the announcement of the winning book on June 22nd.
The six books are: The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars and Caliphs by Marc David Baer The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World by Malcolm Gaskill Devil-Land: England Under Siege, 1588-1688 by Clare Jackson Going to Church in Medieval England by Nicholas Orme God: An Anatomy by Francesca Stavrakopoulou Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History by Alex von Tunzelmann
Producer: Ruth Watts
Covert queer communities are examined as Naomi Paxton is joined by Dr Tom Hulme and Dr Ting Guo.
Tom Hulme is senior lecturer in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queen's University Belfast. As part of the research project Queer Northern Ireland: Sexuality before Liberation, Tom draws on under- or never-before used archives to reconstruct Northern Ireland's queer past from the late 19th century to the beginnings of the gay liberation movement in the 1960s. https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FV008404%2F1
Tin Guo is senior lecturer in Translation and Chinese Studies at the University of Exeter. Her project Translating for Change: Anglophone Queer Cinema and the Chinese LGBT+ Movement explores how Anglo queer cinema hs been translated by Chinese fans, especially queer fans, and how it has been received and used to further the Chinese LGBT+ movement. https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FS00209X%2F1#
This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI.
You can find more episodes devoted to New Research in a playlist on BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme website.
Producer: Tim Bano
In Amia Srinivasan's book The Right To Sex she discusses some of the most hotly controversial topics of today: sex work, pornography, the nature of sexual liberation. What can and should a philosopher bring to these debates? Also, we explore one of the philosophical techniques informing Srinivasan's work: genealogy. First named by Friedrich Nietzsche (although arguably practiced by philosophers before him) and developed by Michel Foucault and Bernard Williams, amongst others, genealogy seeks to investigate concepts and institutions by looking at the contingent historical situations in which they arose and that have shaped them over time. Christopher Harding in conversation with Amia Srinivasan, Caterina Dutilh Vovaes and Christoph Schurinnga.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Smugglers, refugees, trade and melting ice and polar exploration are part of the conversation as Rana Mitter is joined in the BBC tent at the Hay Festival by Nobel Prize-winning author Abdulrazak Gurnah, whose books have drawn on his birthplace Zanzibar and the refugees arriving at the Kent coast; climate scientist Professor Emily Shuckburgh, who worked at the British Antarctic Survey; and Joan Passey, author of Cornish Gothic, a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio.
Producer: Ruth Watts
You can find a series of Lunchtime concerts recorded with audiences at Hay being broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and an episode of The Verb with Ian McMillan. The Free Thinking website has a collection of episodes exploring Green Thinking and the environment - and a programmes looking at the history of the sea with artist Hew Locke and three historians.
Images of Cyril and Methodios adorn libraries, universities, cathedrals and passport pages in Slavonic speaking countries from Bulgaria to Russia, North Macedonia to Ukraine. But the journeys undertaken as religious envoys by these inventors of the Cyrillic alphabet have led to competing claims and political disagreements. Mirela Ivanova's essay considers the complications of basing ideas about nationhood upon medieval history.
Mirela Ivanova teaches at the University of Sheffield and was selected as a New Generation Thinker in 2021 on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, which turns research into radio. You can hear her discussing Sofia's main museum in this episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wc3p
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Sculptures like mouldy fruit, sea creatures that look like oil, blocks of ice carved from a melting glacier and transported to a gallery, reforesting a disused quarry: Vid Simoniti looks at different examples of environmental art and asks whether they create empathy with nature and inspire behaviour change or do we really need pictures of loft insulation and ground source heat pumps displayed on gallery walls?
Vid Simoniti lectures at the University of Liverpool. He hosted a series of podcasts Art Against the World for the Liverpool Biennial 2021. He was selected as a New Generation Thinker in 2021 on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which turns research into radio. You can hear him taking part in this Free Thinking discussion about Who Needs Critics? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000w5f3
Producer: Luke Mulhall
The discovery of goffering irons, the tools used to shape ruffs, by an archaeological dig in North America, gives us clues about the way the first English settlers lived. Lauren Working's essay looks at the symbolism of the Elizabethan fashion for ruffs. Now back in fashion on zoom, they were denounced by Puritans, shown off in portraits of explorers like Raleigh and Drake, and seen by the Chesapeake as a symbol of colonisation, whilst the starch was used for porridge at a time of scarcity and war.
Lauren Working teaches at the University of York and was chosen in 2021 as a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which turns research into radio. You can find another Essay by Lauren called Boy with a Pearl Earring https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014y52 and hear her in a Free Thinking discussion about The Botanical Past https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wlgv
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Henry VIII from a female perspective is on offer at the Globe Theatre this summer in a new adaptation of the play written by Shakespeare and John Fletcher. Globe writer in residence Hannah Khalil explains some of the more surprising innovations in this production, while New Generation Thinker Emma Whipday presents the familiar saga of Henry VIII as the story of a step-family and historian Joanne Paul reveals the machinations of the Dudley family in its quest for power and influence at the Tudor court. Catherine Fletcher presents.
Joanne Paul's book The House of Dudley: A New History of Tudor England is out now Henry VIII runs at the Globe Theatre, London until 21st October 2022 Emma Whipday teaches at the University of Newcastle and is the author of a play The Defamation of Cicely Lee inspired by Shakespeare’s Cymbeline
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
You can find more conversations about Tudor England on the Free Thinking programme website and an episode of Radio 3's curated selection of readings and music - Words & Music - inspired by Tudor times is available on BBC Sounds for 28 days.
Royal Trumpeter John Blanke's image is on show alongside portraits of the Tudor monarchy in an exhibition opening at the Walker Gallery in Liverpool. Blanke is the only black Tudor for whom we have an identifiable picture, painted on horseback in the royal retinue. New Generation Thinker Christina Faraday has been looking at these and other Tudor artworks. She joins Helen Hackett, author of The Elizabethan Mind and music historian Eleanor Chan for a discussion chaired by New Generation Thinker John Gallagher. And what aspects of the Tudor mind do we see at work in the next generation writing of John Donne? Biographer Katherine Rundell has the answers.
The Tudors: Passion, Power and Politics runs at Liverpool's Walker Gallery 21 May 2022—29 Aug 2022
John Gallagher is Associate Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Leeds and the author of Learning Languages in Early Modern England
Christina Faraday is a Research Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where she is working on a project exploring Elizabethan art and music.
Professor Helen Hackett teaches at University College London and her book The Elizabethan Mind is out now.
Katherine Rundell's biography of John Donne is called Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne
Eleanor Chan is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker who studies the links between music and art history. She's based at the University of Manchester.
You can find a host of programmes about Vaughan Williams on Radio 3 and BBC Sounds broadcasting this May. His Tudor Portraits are being performed by the Britten Sinfonia and Norwich Philharmonic Chorus at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival on Sunday 29 MAY, 7.30PM at St Andrews and Blackfriars Hall.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
The Forty Thieves gang, Buffalo Bill, designs chosen by sailors, convicts, lovers: Shahidha Bari looks at the history of tattoos with Matt Lodder, Zoe Alker and Tanya Buxton from the opening of the first commercial parlour in London’s West End in 1889 to the most popular images now and their use to enhance wellbeing.
Zoe Alker has studied over 75,000 tattoos seen on convicts between 1790-1925. She teaches in the criminology department at the University of Liverpool. Matt Lodder is a Senior Lecturer in Art History and Theory, and Director of American Studies at the University of Essex. His research primarily concerns the application of art-historical methods to history of Western tattooing from the 17th century to the present day. Tanya Buxton is a tattoo artist based in Cheltenham, specialising in medical tattoos.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
We've a whole collection of programmes exploring The Way We Live Now gathered together on the Free Thinking programme website. They include a discussion about Perfecting the Body, Mental Health, Gloves and Hitchhiking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p072637b
From monumental sculpture from ancient Greece, Egypt and India, wall hangings from Japan and China, to Western fine art, a British Museum exhibition asks: what does female spiritual power mean past and present? Christopher Harding is joined by the curator Belinda Crerar and by Ronald Hutton, whose new book explores Pagan Goddesses in Christian Europe, along with the writer Gavanndra Hodge who has investigated goddess cults of the past and present, and Anjali Sanyal from the London Durgostav Committee, dedicated to the worship of the Hindu goddess Kali.
Feminine power: the divine to the demonic runs at the British Museum from 19 May 2022 - 25 Sep 2022 Queens Of The Wild: Pagan Goddesses in Christian Europe: An Investigation by Ronald Hutton is out now.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
A playlist on the Free Thinking website explores Religious Belief https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03mwxlp and there's also an episode looking at Witchcraft and Margaret Murray which has guests including Ronald Hutton https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001271f
The man who killed Gandhi is the subject of a new play opening at the National Theatre by Anupama Chandrasekhar. She's one of Rana Mitter's guests along with Balkrishna Doshi, a Riba Gold Medal winner for his buildings, which include low-cost housing and research into environmental design. He studied with Le Corbusier and historian Vikram Visana joins Rana to trace the links between Corbusier, Doshi and Charles Correa. And as she directs a new play at Hampstead Theatre, the Tamasha Theatre Artistic Director Pooja Ghai is also in the Free Thinking studio.
The Father and the Assassin - a new play by Anupama Chandrasekhar runs at the National Theatre from 12 May Vikram Visana teaches at the University of Leicester. His research has included the work of architect Charles Correa (1930 -2015).
Lotus Beauty by Satinder Chohan is directed by Pooja Ghai at the Hampstead Theatre from May 13th to June 18th. You can find Tamasha Theatre company's podcast dramas online at https://tamasha.org.uk/projects/the-waves/ https://www.architecture.com/awards-and-competitions-landing-page/awards/royal-gold-medal
Producer: Tim Bano
John Gallagher digs deep into the significance of soil with food grower and gardener Claire Ratinon, Dr Jim Scown, who has researched the role of soil in the novels of Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, and George Eliot, and Anna da Silva, Project Director of Northern Roots, the UK’s largest urban farm and eco-park in the heart of Oldham in Greater Manchester. And philosopher and art historian Vid Simoniti reviews two major new exhibitions exploring our relationship with the world around us - Radical Landscapes at Tate Liverpool and Our Time on Earth at the Barbican in London.
Producer: Ruth Thomson
'Unearthed: On race and roots, and how the soil taught me I belong' by Claire Ratinon is published next month. Radical Landscapes runs at Tate Liverpool from 5 May – 4 Sep 2022 featuring over 150 artworks and live trees and plants in the gallery. Our Time on Earth runs at the Curve Gallery at the Barbican Centre from Thu 5 May—Mon 29 Aug 2022 Jim Scown is a 2022 New Generation Thinker at Cardiff University on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio. Vid Simoniti is a 2021 New Generation Thinker who teaches on art and philosophy at the University of Liverpool https://www.vidsimoniti.com/
You can find a collection of programmes on the Free Thinking website exploring Green Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
TV shows Hinterland and Hidden are bilingual using Welsh and English. Caryl Lewis, who has written scripts for these TV dramas and award-winning novels, joins Catherine Fletcher for an exploration of Cymraeg, the Welsh language. We hear from Richard King, whose book Brittle with Relics is an oral history of Wales in the second half of the twentieth century, Dr Elen Ifan from Cardiff University, and composer, performer and actor Seiriol Davies, whose new musical Milky Peaks is set in the 'bosom of Snowdonia'. Caryl Lewis's many novels include Martha, Jac a Sianco and Y Gemydd and she has just published her first novel written first in English and it is called Drift.
Producer: Ruth Thomson
How decoding Erewash, Trent, Averham and other field, river and place names from old maps can help us understand flooding patterns in Britain. Dr Richard Jones, Associate Professor of Landscape History at the University of Leicester is one of Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough’s guests. Her second guest is Dr Rebecca Wright, a Social and Cultural Historian of Energy from Northumbria University.
The research projects featured are:
Flood and Flow: https://waternames.wordpress.com/team/ Forthcoming manuscript Moral Energy in America: From the Progressive Era to the Atomic Bomb which explores the birth of an ‘energy consciousness’ in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century.
This episode was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI
Producer: Paula McFarlane
You can find more conversations about New Research gathering into a playlist on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
Soho in films from 1948-1963 and the 1970s glamour and porn industry discussed by Matthew Sweet and his guests Jingan Young, Benjamin Halligan and David McGillivray.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Hotbeds of Licentiousness: The British Glamour Fillm and the Permissive Society by Benjamin Halligan is out now and so is Soho On Screen: Cinematic Spaces of Bohemia and Cosmopolitanism, 1948-1963 by Jingan Young David McGillivray is the author of Doing Rude Things: The History of the British Sex Film
You can find a Free Thinking discussion with architects Eric Parry and Alison Brooks, pianist Belle Chen and novelists Fiona Mozley and SI Martin who have set their work in Soho in a programme about Building London https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000x6kv and A discussion about Harlots and 18th century working women with the historians Hallie Rubenhold and Laura Lammasniemi and script writer for the TV series Moira Buffini https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rdfz
From a death row prisoner to the schemes to raise money dreamt up by his father: human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith has written a memoir exploring the impact of mental health on his family, his clients in the legal system and himself. New Generation Thinker Sabina Dosani is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist. She writes a postcard for Mental Health Week about Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness. Curator George Vasey discusses activism on air pollution and curator James Taylor-Foster explains the sensations of ASMR. Anne McElvoy hosts.
Trials of the Moon: My Father's Trials by Clive Stafford Smith is out now. Sabina Dosani is a 2022 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio https://sabinadosani.com/ In the Air runs at the Wellcome Collection from 19 May 2022—16 October 2022 Weird Sensation Feels Good: The World of ASMR runs at the Design Museum from May 13th
Producer in Salford: Cecile Wright
You can find a new Music & Meditation podcast on BBC Sounds or take some time out with BBC Radio 3’s Slow Radio podcast. And Radio 3’s Essential Classics has a slow moment every weekday at 11.30am There is also a Free Thinking episode called Breathe hearing from Writer James Nestor, saxophonist Soweto Kinch, Imani Jacqueline Brown of Forensic Architecture and New Generation Thinker Tiffany Watt Smith https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000xszq
Isaac Babel, born in Odessa in 1894, became a journalist and writer before being executed in 1940 in Stalin's purges. In stories of extreme economy and compression, he depicted the Polish-Soviet War of 1918-21, and the exploits of Jewish gangsters in Odessa in the years before the Soviet revolution. Matthew Sweet is joined by Linda Grant, AD Miller, Boris Dralyuk, and Diana Vonnak to discuss Babel's work and its resonances today.
Producer: Luke Mulhall You might also be interested in Radio 3's series The Essay: Words for War in which Oksana Maksymchuk introduces the words of Ukrainian poets https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0016b7h
From full stops to emojis, a Tudor letter to texting - how has the use of punctuation marks developed over the centuries? Florence Hazrat thinks about the way brackets help us understand the pandemic. The first parentheses appear in a 1399 manuscript by the Italian lawyer Coluccio Salutati, but - as her essay outlines - it took over 500 years for the sign born at the same time as the bracket, the exclamation mark (which printers rather aptly call “bang”) to find its true environment: the internet.
Florence Hazrat is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, University of Sheffield. She is a 2021 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. You can find a collection of Essays, discussions and features showcasing the research of New Generation Thinkers on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35
Producer: Robyn Read
Linking tea, sugar, opium, addiction and trade, Fariha Shaikh's essay looks at the novel An Insular Possession published in 1986 by Timothy Mo, and at Amitav Ghosh's trilogy which began in 2008 with Sea of Poppies and how their depiction of the opium trade differs from the publication in 1821 of Thomas de Quincey's Confessions of an Opium Eater, which paved the way for drug memoirs. She also quotes from her researches into The Calcutta Review, Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country and the book Tea and Coffee written by the campaigning vegetarian William Alcott.
Dr Fariha Shaikh teaches in the Department of English Literature at the University of Birmingham. She is a 2021 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio.
Producer: Robyn Read
What made him great? Celebrated as a military leader, Alexander took over an empire created by the Persians. Julia Hartley's essay looks at two examples of myth-making about Alexander: The Persian Boy, a 1972 historical novel by the English writer Mary Renault and the Shānāmeh or ‘Book of Kings’, an epic written by the medieval Persian poet Abdolghassem Ferdowsi.
Julia Hartley lectures at King's College London. She was selected in 2021 as a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which turns research into radio. You can hear her in this Free Thinking discussion Dante's Visions https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000zm9b and in another episode about Epic Iran, Lost Cities and Proust https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000xlzh
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
From Hitchcock to George Formby, stained glass to Rachel Whiteread, Cindy Sherman to Rembrandt. A new exhibition called Reframed: The Woman in the Window is the starting point for today's conversation about windows covering everything from voyeurism and vandalism to stained glass and modernism. Shahidha Bari is joined by film scholar Adam Scovell, art curator Dr Jennifer Sliwka, architectural critic Hugh Pearman and stained glass expert Jasmine Allen.
Reframed: The Woman in the Window runs at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London from 4th May to 4th September 2022 Jasmine Allen is Director of The Stained Glass Museum, Ely
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Frogs, farting competitions, art connoisseurs, courtesans and crows all feature in the art of Kawanabe Kyōsai,- a key Japanese figure who challenged traditions of Japanese art. Kyōsai blurred the lines between popular and elite forms and we take a look at a new exhibition of his work at the Royal Academy. In today’s Free Thinking, Chris Harding looks at both his art and the writing of Yukio Mishima. Mishima was one of Japan's most infamous writers when he died in 1970, writing both for the mass market novels and readers of high literature, fusing traditional Japanese and modern Western styles. In his final years he became increasingly interested in extreme politics, a call for the restoration of the Emperor to his pre-war power and culminated in his death by seppuku, the Samurai’s ritual suicide. With a new translation of Beautiful Star, we learn about him and the recent reappraisal of his work.
Israel Goldman is a leading collector and dealer in the field of Japanese prints, paintings and illustrated books. The exhibition, Kyōsai: The Israel Goldman Collection, is at the Royal Academy from 19th March to 19th June 2022.
Koto Sadamura specialises in Japanese art history of the late nineteenth century, with a particular focus on the painter Kawanabe Kyōsai.
Stephen Dodd is Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature at SOAS, University of London. He has written widely on modern Japanese literature and translated two novels by Yukio Mishima, including a new version of Beautiful Star published in April 2022.
Kate Taylor-Jones is Professor of East Asian Cinema at the University of Sheffield.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Xangô (the god of thunder) and Paso Ñañigo’, composed by the Cuban Moises Simons, were two of the numbers performed by Elsie Houston in the clubs of Paris in the 1920s. Also able to sing soprano in Portuguese, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Russian, Elsie's performances in Afro-Brazilian dialects chimed with the fashion for all things African. Adjoa Osei's essay traces Elsie's connections with Surrealist artists and writers, (there are photos of her taken by Man Ray), and looks at how she used her mixed race heritage to navigate her way through society and speak out for African inspired arts.
Adjoa Osei is a researcher based at Trinity College, Cambridge. She was selected as a 2021 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio.
Producer: Ruth Watts
An 1856 portrait shows a 40 year old man from Benin who managed to secure his freedom after being captured. Dasalu was taken from Dahomey to Cuba, alongside over five hundred adults and children in the ship Grey Eagle. Once in Havana, he worked for the Count of Fernandina but managed to get a letter to a missionary Charles Gollmer back in Africa. Jake Subryan Richard's essay traces the way one man’s migrations reveal the shifting boundaries of slavery and freedom.
Jake Subryan Richards teaches at the London School of Economics and was chosen as a New Generation Thinker in 2021 on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Council which turns research into radio.
Producer: Ruth Watts
The People's History Museum researcher Dr Shirin Hirsch, folk expert Tim Healey and writer Zoe Gilbert join Matthew Sweet to explore rituals and beliefs associated with May Day, including the otherworldly figure of Herne the Hunter, and ideas about community and collective action.
Shirin Hirsch is one of the 2022 New Generation Thinkers on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the AHRC to turn research into radio. Tim Healey is author of The Green Man in Oxfordshire. Zoe Gilbert's latest novel Mischief Acts explores Herne the Hunter http://zoegilbert.com/ You can also find Zoe discussing Enchantment, witches and woodlands with Matthew Sweet in a previous Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000qkl and Charms and folk tales with the authors Madeline Miller and Kirsty Logan https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b1q0xc
On Sunday May 1st at 5.30pm and available on BBC Sounds - Radio 3's weekly curation of poems and prose extracts set alongside music is on the theme of May Day.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Africa's first filmmakers boldly revealed how, and why, colonialism lived on after the independences. Sarah Jilani takes a closer look at the works of Ousmane Sembène and Souleymane Cissé. The Malian director's 1982 film Finye (the Bambara word for wind) considers students as the winds of change, whilst Sembène's Mandabi, made in 1968, takes its title from a Wolof word deriving from the French for a postal money order – le mandat postale. Adapting his own novel about the frustrations of bureaucracy, the Senegalese director made the decision to make the film in the Wolof language.
Sarah Jilani teaches at City, University of London and was chosen as a 2021 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which makes research into radio. You can hear her discussing another classic of African cinema on Free Thinking in this episode about Touki Bouki https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0013js4 and Satyajit Ray's Indian Bengali drama Jalsaghar, which depicts a landlord who would prefer to listen to music than deal with his flood ravaged properties https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v9gj
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
A New Age mystic who fell out of favour for his apolitical views - how true a characterisation is this of the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 – 1926)? Anne McElvoy discusses the work and legacy of the visionary poet, from his idiosyncratic use of figures and images from both Classical mythology and Christianity to explore existential themes. Her guests are Lesley Chamberlain, author of a new biography; composer Ninfea Crutwell-Reade whose Vigil I is a setting of the first poem in the sequence 'Vigilien' by Rainer Maria Rilke; and New Generation Thinker Seán Williams, who lectures in German and European Cultural History at the University of Sheffield. In addition to discussing Rilke, Seán also sheds light on Walpurgisnacht Night and the folk traditions of the night before May Day when witches are said to meet on the Brocken Mountain.
You can find more about Ninfea's music at https://ninfeacruttwellreade.com/ New Generation Thinker Seán Williams has made Sunday features for Radio 3 about ice skating https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0013837 and the history of luxury https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003rpl Lesley Chamberlain's biography Rilke: The Last Inward Man is out now http://www.lesleychamberlain.co.uk/
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Comrade or "marra" in North East dialect, and the "dharma" or the way - were put together in a portmanteau word by poet Bill Martin (1925-2010). Poet and New Generation Thinker Jake Morris-Campbell reflects on this idea of Marradharma and what it offers to future generations growing up in the post Brexit and post industrial landscape of the North East. In his essay, Jake remembers the pilgrimage he made in 2016 carrying Bill Martin's ashes in a ram's horn from Sunderland (Martin was born in a nearby pit village) to Durham Cathedral.
Jake Morris-Campbell teaches at Newcastle University and was selected as a New Generation Thinker in 2021 on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. You can find him discussing ideas about darkness in a Free Thinking discussion recorded at Sage Gateshead as part of Radio 3's After Dark festival, and looking at mining, coal and DH Lawrence https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000xmjy
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Anna Barbauld's Lessons for Children (1778-79) set off a new conversational style in books aimed at teaching children. She was just one of the female authors championed by Joseph Johnson, who was also responsible for publishing Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women and her first book Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787). Daisy Hay has written a history of the publisher and she joins New Generation Thinker Louise Creechan to chart changes in ideas about education from Rousseau to Dickens. Julian Barnes' latest novel depicts an inspirational teacher Elizabeth Finch. Lisa Mullen presents.
Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes is out now
Professor Daisy Hay is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Exeter. Her latest book is called Dinner with Joseph Johnson. She has also written about Frankenstein and you can hear her discussing that in an episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09m1dvh She has also written on Disraeli and recorded a Radio 3 essay about him https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04n5st9
Dr Louise Creechan was chosen as a 2022 New Generation Thinker. She lectures at Durham University focusing on Victorian Literature with specific interests in neurodiversity, illiteracy, education, and Disability Studies.
Lisa Mullen is a New Generation Thinker and has presented a short feature for Radio 3 about Mary Wollstonecraft called The Art of Rowing https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00061ly
Producer: Robyn Read
The first pathologist in English writing? Andrea Smith looks at the figure of Warwick in Shakespeare's Henry VI. Owen Horsley is directing a new production for the RSC which involves a large community chorus. Derek Dunne's research looks at revenge - and at forgery and bureaucracy in the Tudor period whilst Ellie Chan's focus is on dissonant music. Shahidha Bari host the conversation.
Owen Horsley has directed parts 2 and 3 of Henry VI at the RSC. Henry VI Rebellion runs at the RSC in Stratford upon Avon from April 1st to May 28th 2022 and Wars of the Roses runs at the RSC from April 11th to June 4th. And, April 23rd sees the RSC stage birthday celebrations for Shakespeare and online insights into the rehearsal room.
Ellie Chan is a Leverhulme Research Fellow in the Music Department at the University of Manchester and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker.
Derek Dunne is Cardiff University and has written Shakespeare, Revenge Tragedy, and Early Modern Law: Vindictive Justice
Andrea Smith is at the University of East Anglia, where her research focuses on radio and audio productions of Shakespeare.
You can find a playlist of discussions about Shakespeare on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06406hm and a collection of new versions of Shakespeare’s greatest plays recorded for broadcast and available as the Shakespeare Sessions https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0655br3
New Generation Thinkers is the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio.
Producer: Ruth Watts
A collection of knitting patterns held in Southampton, an archive of Victorian greeting cards in Manchester, information about music hall and pantomime pulled together in Kent and the National Archives holdings of boat maps come under the microscope in today's conversation. New Generation Thinker Naomi Paxton's guests are Rachel Dickinson, Eleonora Gandolfi, Helen Brooks and Lucia Pereira Pardo.
The research projects featured are: Rachel Dickinson, Manchester Metropolitan University - Celebrations: Victorian and Edwardian greeting cards exploring a collection of over 32,000 cards collected by Laura Seddon https://www.mmu.ac.uk/special-collections-museum/collections/laura-seddon-collection
Eleonora Gandolfi, University of Southampton - Reimagining Knitting: a community perspective focusing on patterns and information contained in three collections assembled by Montse Stanley, Jane Waller and The Reverend Monsignor Richard Rutt known as "the Knitting Bishop" https://www.southampton.ac.uk/intheloop/collections/index.page
Helen Brooks, University of Kent - Beyond the Binary: performing gender then and now explores different aspects of the David Drummond Pantomime collection - a collection put together by the second hand book dealer https://www.kent.ac.uk/library-it/special-collections/theatre-and-performance-collections/david-drummond-pantomime-collection and the Max Tyler Music Hall Collection - Max Tyler was the archivist (between 1984-2012) and historian (between 1993-2016) of the British Music Hall Society https://www.kent.ac.uk/library-it/special-collections/theatre-and-performance-collections/max-tyler-music-hall-collection
Lucia Pereira Pardo, National Archives who is working on The Prize Papers a collection of articles and papers linked to ships which includes court records revealing the details of 1,500 ships captured during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars and 55 case books relating to ships seized by the British between 1793 and 1815 https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/news/prize-papers-research-portal-launched/
Producer: Paula McFarlane
You can find more conversations about New Research gathering into a playlist on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
Who's doing the cleaning and looking after the kids? Are we all shouldering an equal share of the domestic burden and if not, why not? Matthew Sweet and guests on housework, gender & class from early 20th century domestic appliance ads via1960s feminist critiques such as Hannah Gavron's The Captive Wife to the age of TikTok cleanfluencers.
MIchele Roberts is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and the author of twelve novels, including The Looking Glass and Daughters of the House.
Michele Kirsch has written about her experiences of working as a cleaner in her memoir Clean.
Rachele Dini is Senior Lecturer in English and American Literature, University of Roehampton. She is the author of ‘All-Electric’ Narratives: Time-Saving Appliances & Domesticity in American Literature, 1945-2020 and her current project is called Cleaning Through Crisis.
Oriel Sullivan is Professor of Sociology of Gender in the Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, and Co-Director of the Centre for Time Use Research. Her recent publications include What We Really Do All Day and Gender Inequality in Work-Family Balance.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Archaeological remains, Jewish rituals, music, memento mori and the construction of elaborately carved tombs: Matthew Sweet discusses grief and the expression of mourning with guests: Lindsey Buster, an archaeologist whose work at Death Cafes, set up to help people talk about death, has led her to reinterpret the way people's relationship with 'stuff' shows up in the archaeological record Emily MacGregor, a musicologist who is writing a memoir of the ways her relationship with music changed after the death of her father Christina Faraday, an historian of art who has studied memento mori and vanitas, two popular genres of painting in the early modern period that suggest a different set of attitudes towards death Sally Berkovic, who has written about Jewish rituals and traditions surrounding death and mourning https://sallyberkovic.com/
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can find on the BBC Ideas website a short film about how to face death with Kathryn Mannix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CruBRZh8quc and a Free Thinking Festival Discussion Death Comes to Us All https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09xnmgz
Former Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd is a long time scholar of China. In his new book, The Avoidable War, he argues that it is cultural misunderstanding and historical grievance which make Chinese-US relations so volatile. Rana Mitter asks him how he sees China's current positioning of itself on the world stage. We hear why it is that the ideas of Hegel and not Kant resonate in Chinese politics. And, in the spirit of better understanding the rich artistic traditions and cultural history of China, we hear from three researchers about the latest thinking on Hong Kong ink art, representations of sleep, Chinese identity and contemporary classical music and insomnia from the cultural revolution to the present day.
Kevin Rudd is President and CEO of Asia Society and a former Prime Minister of Australia. He is a leading international authority on China and began his career as a China scholar, serving as an Australian diplomat in Beijing before entering Australian politics. His latest book is The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping's China.
Alexander Ho is a British-Chinese composer based at the Royal College of Music in London. His work has been commissioned or performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Radio 3 and the Royal Opera House.
Ros Holmes is a lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of St Andrews. Her research focuses on ideas about sleep and the art and visual culture of twentieth century and contemporary China.
Malcolm McNeill is Director of Postgraduate Diploma in Asian Art at SOAS, University of London. He is a specialist in Chinese paining and he has worked for museums in the UK and Taiwan.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Venanzio Rauzzini, Fanny Burney, and Mr Foote are figures who come up in today's Free Thinking discussion as the hit period drama Bridgerton returns to Netflix for a second series and Shahidha Bari explores what kept the Georgians entertained, from a night at the opera to music lessons at home, strolls in the pleasure gardens, hot air balloons, chess playing Turks, and perhaps most of all - if Lady Whistledown is to be believed - gossip, intrigue, and scandal. Just what is it about the Georgians that we find so enduringly entertaining? Shahidha’s guests are: musicologist Brianna Robertson-Kirkland who has written a new book about Venanzio Rauzzini, a scandal ridden Italian castrato revered by Mozart who fled the continent to become one of Georgian England’s most celebrated singing teachers and a musical figurehead in the city of Bath. Writer and New Generation Thinker Sophie Coulombeau who has researched Georgian novelist Frances Burney and bluestocking socialite Mary Hamilton. Biographer, playwright and actor Ian Kelly who has played George III in his own play Mr Foote’s Other Leg. And History Film Club podcast presenter Hannah Greig whose credits as a historical consultant in TV and film include The Duchess, Sanditon, and Bridgerton.
Producer: Ruth Thomson
Image: Golda Rosheuvel as Queen Charlotte in Bridgerton Credit: Liam Daniel/Netflix
You might also be interested in previous conversations on Free Thinking exploring Harlots and 18th-century working women https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rdfz Samuel Johnson's Circle https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000vq3w The Value of Gossip https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fwfb 18th century crime and punishment https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b040hysp
From Shakespearian writing and Tudor sound to the power of song, ideas about stupidity to sea monsters and the soil - the ten academics working at UK universities who have been chosen to share their research on radio give us insights into a range of subjects. Laurence Scott - one of the first New Generation Thinkers back in 2010 is the host.
Dr Ellie Chan, University of Manchester Dr Louise Creechan, University of Durham Dr Sabina Dosani, University of East Anglia Dr Shirin Hirsch, Manchester Metropolitan University and the People’s History Museum Dr Oskar Jensen, University of East Anglia Dr Jade Munslow Ong, University of Salford Dr Joan Passey, University of Bristol Dr Jim Scown, University of Cardiff and Food, Farming and Countryside Commission Dr Clare Siviter, University of Bristol Dr Emma Whipday, Newcastle University
Producer: Ruth Watts
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio. There's a playlist featuring insights from the 120 academics over the 12 years the scheme has been running https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35
Born to a film-making family, Leopoldo Torre Nilsson was the first Argentine film director to be critically acclaimed outside the country. Before he died in 1978 from cancer, aged 54, Torre Nilsson worked alongside his wife Beatriz Guido, a published author, on many of the scripts which he turned into successful films. One of them, Martín Fierro (1968), is about the main character of Argentina's national poem. In today's programme Rana Mitter and his guests discuss another - Hand in the Trap - a psychological coming of age story which won the FIPRESCI prize at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival. Elsa Daniel discovers the reasons for her aunt shutting herself away from the world and arranges a confrontation with the man who jilted her.
Professor Maria Delgado is Director of Research a Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
María Blanco is Associate Professor in Spanish American Literature at the University of Oxford
Xavier Aldana Reyes is Reader in English Literature and Film at Manchester Metropolitan University
Jordana Blejmar is a lecturer in Visual Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Liverpool
Producer: Ruth Watts
Jeet Kune Do, the martial arts philosophy founded by Bruce Lee has influenced the creation of modern mixed martial arts. He started as a child actor in the Hong Kong film industry and his five feature-length 1970s films helped change the way Asian performers were portrayed. Matthew Sweet and guests look at his career, focusing on the film Enter the Dragon, which is one of the most influential action films made. With Lee's biographer Matthew Polly, film historian Luke White, philosopher William Sin, and New Generation Thinker Xine Yao.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can now find a playlist on the Free Thinking website, Film on Radio 3: music, history, classics of world cinema.
From Matthew Sweet on sound tracks to star performers through films which have created an impact to old favourites, including programmes on Marlene Dietrich, Asta Neilsen, Jacques Tati, Cary Grant, Bette Davis, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Satyajit Ray, The Tin Drum, Touki Bouki, Kurosawa, Dziga Vertov, 2001 A Space Odyssey, Penny Woolcock, Mike Leigh, Spike Lee. Plus Radio 3's regular exploration of The Sound of Cinema and classic soundtracks
Crime writer Ann Cleeves, theologian Mona Siddiqui, deep sea fish expert and podcast host Thomas Linley and poet Jake Morris-Campbell join Matthew Sweet to explore areas beyond the reach of light, both literally and metaphorically, as part of Radio 3's overnight festival at Sage Gateshead.
What darkness makes someone commit a murder? Shetland and Vera are two TV series developed from the crime novels of Ann Cleeves. Her most recent book is The Heron's Cry featuring detective Matthew Venn and his colleague Jen Rafferty, played on TV in an adaptation of The Long Call by Ben Aldridge and Pearl Mackie. Poet and New Generation Thinker Jake Morris-Campbell writes about the mining communities of Northumberland and Durham and the experience of working in darkness. Professor Mona Siddiqui joined the University of Edinburgh’s Divinity school in December 2011 as the first Muslim to hold a Chair in Islamic and Interreligious Studies Dr Thomas Linley hosts The Deep-Sea podcast and researches the behaviour of deep sea fish. He's based at Newcastle University.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Part of Radio 3’s After Dark Festival, a major new live music festival for 2022 in partnership with Sage Gateshead and TUSK Music, featuring some of the biggest names in contemporary, classical and experimental music. For all related content, search “After Dark Festival” in BBC Sounds.
Matthew Sweet and his guests begin coverage of the After Dark Festival - an overnight extravaganza recorded at Sage Gateshead for the equinox weekend. What meanings and interpretations has humanity given to the equinox moment - when the length of day and night is equal and to other key points of the solar year? Cosmologist Carlos Frenk from Durham University, archaeologist Penny Bickle from the University of York, Kevin Lapping from the Pagan Federation and his wife Kirsten discuss the significance of the changing seasons, what we learn from the solar alignment of Neolithic monuments and the vaster galactic and cosmic cycles that are we are also a part of.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Part of Radio 3’s After Dark Festival, a major new live music festival for 2022 in partnership with Sage Gateshead and TUSK Music, featuring some of the biggest names in contemporary, classical and experimental music. For all related content, search “After Dark Festival” in BBC Sounds.
JM Keynes and his theory, Keynesianism, is central to the financial history of twentieth century. However, he is also central to its cultural history. Keynes was not only an economist, but a man equally concerned with aesthetics and ethics; as interested in the ballet as he was with the stock market crash. Anne McElvoy talks to Robert Hudson about the musical drama has written about the political trading behind the Treaty of Versailles from Keynes's perspective. How does looking again at Keynes life and work offer us a different view of the man and his times?
Zachary D. Carter is a Writer in Residence with the Omidyar Network's Reimagining Capitalism initiative and the author of The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy and the Life of John Maynard Keynes.
Robert Hudson is the co-author of Hall of Mirrors a musical based on JM Keynes's experiences at the Paris Peace Conference. His other work includes Magnitsky the Musical.
Adam Tooze is Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor History at Columbia University and he serves as Director of the European Institute. His books include: Shutdown: how COVID-19 shook the world's economy; Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World; and, The Deluge: The Great War and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931.
Emma West is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Birmingham and her current research project, Revolutionary Red Tape, examines how public servants and official committees helped to produce and popularise modern British culture.
Producer: Ruth Watts
June 793 when Scandinavian raiders attacked the monastery of Lindisfarne in Northumbria, used to be the date given for the beginning of the Viking age but research by Neil Price shows that it began centuries before. He traces the impact of an economy geared to maritime war and the central role of slavery in Viking life and trade. Judith Jesch is Professor of Viking Studies at the University of Nottingham and Dr Kevan Manwaring is an author and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the Arts University Bournemouth. New Generation Thinker Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough presents.
The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings by Neil Price is out in paperback in April Vikings Valhalla is available now on Netflix New Generation Thinker Eleanor Barraclough researches this history and has written Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas. You can find her presenting the Radio 3 Sunday feature on runes, and the supernatural north https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tnwp
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Image: A reconstruction of the Viking life at Murton Park Dark Age Village (part of Yorkshire Museum of Farming).
Words and Music - Radio 3's weekly curation of prose, poems and music choices also looks at Vikings. You can hear it on Sunday at 5.30pm and then on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006x35f
In 1982, the East German security force was deeply concerned with subversive literature and decided to train soldiers and border guards to write lyrical verse. Decades earlier in 1933, a group of elite boarding schools modelled along the lines of English public schools were founded on Hitler's birthday. A new play explores the disappearance of English schoolboys in the Black Forest in 1936. Why did the authoritarian regimes of 20th-century Germany concern themselves so heavily with cultural output and influence? Anne McElvoy discusses some of the curious initiatives of Nazi Germany and the DDR and responses to them.
Pamela Carter is the author of The Misfortune of the English runs at The Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, London from 25 April to 28 May 2022
Karen Leeder is Professor of Modern German Literature at the University of Oxford. Her books include Rereading East Germany: The Literature and Film of the GDR and a translation of Durs Grünbein's Porcelain: Poem on the Downfall of My City
Philip Oltermann is Berlin Bureau Chief for The Guardian and the author of The Stasi Poetry Circle: The Creative Writing Class that Tried to Win the Cold War
Helen Roche is Associate Professor in Modern European Cultural History at the University of Durham. Her second book is The Third Reich’s Elite Schools: A History of the Napolas
Producer: Ruth Watts
"Delight in disorder" was celebrated in a poem by Robert Herrick (1591-1674) and the long hair, flamboyant dress and embrace of earrings that made up Cavalier style has continued to exert influence as a gender fluid look. Lauren Working's essay considers examples ranging from Van Dyck portraits and plays by Aphra Behn to the advertising for the exhibition called Fashioning Masculinities which runs at the Victoria and Albert museum this spring.
Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear is at the V&A from March 19th 2022. Radio 3 broadcast a series of Essays from New Generation Thinkers exploring Masculinities which you can find on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00061jm Lauren Working is a Lecturer in Early Modern Literature at the University of York and a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn academic research into radio. You can hear her discussing The Botanical Past in a Free Thinking discussion https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wlgv
From school to work to the military – uniforms can signal authority and belonging. But what happens when uniforms are worn by those whom institutions normally exclude? Or when they’re used out of context? New Generation Thinker Tom Smith explores playful, creative and queer uses of uniforms, from the cult film Mädchen in Uniform, recently released in the UK by the BFI, to documents he discovered in German archives, to his take on the styles embraced in subcultures today.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Tom Smith is a Senior Lecturer at the University of St Andrews. You can find other Essays by him for Radio 3 exploring Berlin, Detroit, Race and Techno Music https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kfjt and Masculinities: Comrades in Arms https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00061m5 and hear him in this Free Thinking episode debating New angles on post-war Germany and Austria https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006sjx
Fashion from the 1990s to the 1790s and back again: Jade Halbert traces the history of Droopy & Browns, a fashion business renowned for the flamboyant and elegant work of its designer, Angela Holmes. While many British designers of the late twentieth century looked to replicate a lean, monochromatic, almost corporate New York sensibility, Angela Holmes gloried in drama and historicism. A favourite of actresses, artists, writers, and stylish women everywhere, the closure of the business soon after Angela’s death, aged 50, in 2000 marked the end of an era in British fashion.
Producer: Jessica Treen
Jade Halbert lectures at the University of Huddersfield and is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker on the scheme which turns academic research into radio. You can find another Essay called Not Quite Jean Muir about learning to make a dress on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kgwq and a short Radio 3 Sunday feature on the state of high street fashion shopping https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gvpn
Oscar Wilde's famous line from The Importance of Being Earnest focuses on what we might not expect to find - Shahidha Bari's essay considers the range of objects we do carry around with us and why bags have been important throughout history: from designs drawn up in 1497 by Leonardo to the symbolism of Mary Poppins' carpet bag in PL Travers' novel to the luggage carried by refugees travelling across continents often in what's called a Ghana Must Go bag.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Shahidha Bari is a writer, critic, Professor of Fashion Cultures and Histories at London College of Fashion and presenter of Free Thinking. She was one of the first New Generation Thinkers on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to share their research on the radio. You can find a playlist featuring essays, discussions and features by New Generation Thinkers on the Free Thinking website and a whole host of programmes presented by Shahidha. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0144txn
"My lady's corselet" was developed by a pioneer of free verse on the frontlines of feminism, the poet Mina Loy. Celebrated in the 1910s as the quintessential New Woman, her love of freedom was shadowed by a darker quest to perfect the female body, as her unusual designs for a figure-correcting corset show. Sophie Oliver asks how she fits into a history of body-correcting garments and cosmetic surgery, feminism and fashion. Working on both sides of the Atlantic writing poetry and designing bonkers body-altering garments: like a bracelet for office workers with a built-in ink blotter, or her ‘corselet’ to correct curvature of the spine in women - in the end Mina Loy couldn’t stop time, and her late-life poetry is full of old clothes and outcast people from the Bowery, as she reckons with – and celebrates – the fact that she has become unfashionable.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Sophie Oliver teaches English Literature at the University of Liverpool and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which turns academic research into radio programmes. You can find a collection of essays, discussions and features with New Generation Thinkers on the Free Thinking programme website under the playlist Ten Years of New Generation Thinkers https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35
An artist murdered in his studio - the blackmailer thinks he knows who removed vital clues. This plot from Charles Bennett premiered in London's West End in 1928 and was subsequently turned into an early sound film by Alfred Hitchcock. Now playwright Mark Ravenhill has written a new version. He joins Matthew Sweet to discuss blackmail and our changing ideas about shame. New Generation Thinker and medieval historian Hetta Howes looks at ideas of shame in the middle ages, with critic and literary scholar Kaye Mitchell tracing those ideas today. Plus criminologist Paul Bleakley, who's researched the history of blackmail.
Blackmail, a new version written by Mark Ravenhill and directed by Anthony Banks, runs at Mercury Theatre, Colchester in Essex from March 4th - 19th
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Sex strikes suggested by Suffragettes, a theatre company devoted to exploring the experiences of women in the UK prison system and the campaign to make women's rights at the heart of human rights and its links with socialist Eastern Europe: Naomi Paxton finds out about new research into women's history.
Her guests are:
Tania Shew specialises in the history of feminist thought. She's currently a Scouloudi Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research working on sex strikes and birth strikes as tactics in the British and American women’s suffrage movements, 1890-1920.
Dr Celia Donert is Associate Professor in Central European History at the University of Cambridge. She is writing a book exploring How Women's Rights became Human Rights: Gender, Socialism, and Postsocialism in Global History, 1917-2017.
Caoimhe Mcavinchey is Professor of Socially Engaged and Contemporary Performance at Queen Mary University London. She has been working on a project Clean Break: Women, Theatre Organisation and the Criminal Justice System
Chloë Moss is a playwright who has worked with Clean Break on a number of projects.
You can see a film of Chloë's drama Sweatbox on the website https://www.cleanbreak.org.uk/
This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research council – part of UKRI.
Presenter: Naomi Paxton Producer: Paula McFarlane
Sex strikes suggested by Suffragettes, a theatre company devoted to exploring the experiences of women in the UK prison system and the campaign to make women's rights at the heart of human rights and its links with socialist Eastern Europe: Naomi Paxton finds out about new research into women's history.
Her guests are:
Tania Shew specialises in the history of feminist thought. She's currently a Scouloudi Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research working on sex strikes and birth strikes as tactics in the British and American women’s suffrage movements, 1890-1920.
Dr Celia Donert is Associate Professor in Central European History at the University of Cambridge. She is writing a book exploring How Women's Rights became Human Rights: Gender, Socialism, and Postsocialism in Global History, 1917-2017.
Caoimhe Mcavinchey is Professor of Socially Engaged and Contemporary Performance at Queen Mary University London. She has been working on a project Clean Break: Women, Theatre Organisation and the Criminal Justice System. Chloë Moss is a playwright who has worked with Clean Break on a number of projects.
You can see a film of Chloë's drama Sweatbox on the website https://www.cleanbreak.org.uk/
Presenter: Naomi Paxton Producer: Paula McFarlane
The Unthank sisters, writers Lucy Holland and Oyinkan Braithwaite and historian and feminist activist Sally Alexander join Shahidha Bari for a conversation about what it means to be a sister on International Women's Day 2022. You could make a family from recent novels depicting sisterhood from Oyinkan Braithwaite's My Sister the Serial Killer, to Daisy Johnson's Sisters and Brit Bennett's The Vanishing Half but literary sisterhood goes back via Jane Austen and the Brontës to Chekhov, King Lear's daughters, Cinderella and Greek myths about the seven sisters who formed the Pleiades, or Antigone and Ismene. And if you're looking at feminist history the idea of the sisterhood has been a cornerstone of political action. Is it right that sisters will have a particular bond and sound if they perform music together? All of this and more in tonight's Free Thinking conversation. The Unthank sisters will be on tour with their latest album Sorrows Away visiting a range of venues from Norwich, Poole, Northampton, Middlesborough, Belfast, Edinburgh, Dublin and a range of places in between starting on March 13th in Lincoln Lucy Holland has written Sistersong set in Anglo-Saxon Britannia. She also presents Breaking the Glass Slipper, a podcast celebrating women in genre. You can hear a reading of Oyinkan's novel My Sister the Serial Killer by Weruche Opia on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/p08q6q19 Sally Alexander, Professor Emerita at Goldsmiths, is founding editor of the History Workshop Journal and is working on a history of psycho-analysis.
Producer: Kevin Core
You might also be interested in the most recent episode of Radio 3's Words and Music on Sisters, with its curated playlist of readings and music of all kinds ranging from Wordsworth, Jane Austen, Brit Bennet and Arifa Akbar to Fanny Mendelssohn, Errollyn Wallen, Hildegard of Bingen and the Labeque Sisters performing Ravel. And tomorrow's programme explores new research into women's history. And there's a playlist on the Free Thinking programme website called Women in the World https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p084ttwp
Before Them, We is a photographic project by Ruth Sutoyé and also the title of an anthology of poems in which a group of poets of African descent reflect upon the lives of their grandparents and elders and the inter-generational relationships in the families they went on to establish. Ruth and co-editor and poet Jacob Sam-La Rose talk to Matthew Sweet alongside Booker prize winning author Howard Jacobson - the great-grandson of Lithuanian and Russian immigrants - who has just published a memoir exploring his early life in a working-class family in 1940s Manchester where he was raised by his mother, grandmother and aunt Joyce before becoming a writer.
Mother's Boy by Howard Jacobson is out now You can find photographs from Before Them, We on https://www.ruthsutoye.com/ and the poetry anthology is published by Flipped Eye.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
After Iraq and Afghanistan, solider Harry Parker turned author and has written a study of the way robotics, computing and AI might be about to irrevocably alter our understanding of what it means to be human. Scientist and Radio 4 presenter Adam Rutherford's new book traces ideas about the perfect body and eugenics from the Spartans and Plato to present day politics and the pandemic. In her new book, philosopher and professor Clare Chambers argues that the unmodified body is a key principle of equality. While defending the right of anyone to change their bodies, she traces the way that the social pressure to modify send a powerful message: you are not good enough. They join Matthew Sweet alongside New Generation Thinker and academic at UCL, Xine Yao
Hybrid Humans: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Man and Machine by Harry Parker is out now.
Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics by Adam Rutherford is out now. You can hear him discussing Genes, racism, ageing and evidence with guests including Daniel Levitin in a previous episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fpj2
Intact: A Defence of the Unmodified Body by Clare Chambers is out now.
Xine Yao is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio. You can find an essay about The Inscrutable Writing of Sui Sin Far on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v9gl and a discussion about Darwin's The Descent of Man (1871) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000s31z
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Project Fizzyo promotes better breathing in teenagers with cystic fibrosis by merging their daily physiotherapy exercise routine with a computer game. Emma Raywood, PHD student and Lead Investigator on Project Fizzyo explains how it works.
And vets are using a VR headset to help them oversee the health of cows in a project exploring the benefits of computer game technology for use in other working environments. Prof Ruth Falconer from Abertay University heads the SmARtview project. It’s a world away from 1972 when pong was developed by Allan Alcorn. New Generation Thinker Christopher Harding finds out more.
Project Fizzyo: https://scottishgames.net/2021/03/03/case-study-konglomerate-games/
SmARtview project: https://www.innovationforgames.com/ingame-projects/smartview/
Today’s conversation was a New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research council which is part of UKRI.
Link to playlist New Research on the Free Thinking programme website on BBC Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
Presenter: Christopher Harding Producer: Paula McFarlane
Pankaj Mishra's Run and Hide tells a story of modern Indian times, as the hidden pasts of wealthy, Gatsby-style tech entrepreneurs must be reckoned with.
And to help put this modern India in context, Dr Pragya Dhital will consider the resonances of the tumultuous period of "The Emergency", the response of the Indian government to a period of "internal disturbance" in the 1970s. She discusses the homemade or samizdat style leaflets which journalists like Ram Dutt Tripathi used to great effect.
The cuisine of India is a national symbol around the world, but Dr Sharanya Murali explores how this most traditional artform, cookery, can become iconoclastic when utilised in performance art by the likes of Pushpamala N and Raj Goody.
And Dr Vikram Visana will consider populism in India, telling us how differing parties are vying to answer questions of national identity which seem increasingly ill-suited to the challenges facing this modern democracy - and one of the key figures he discusses is KM Munshi.
Asked for their key cultural figures of India the panel made some eclectic choices. Seek out the short stories of Ismat Chughtai who endured an obscenity trial for her works, and VS Naipaul was viewed as a great chronicler of a crisis in the Hindu struggle with the modern world. Bilkis Dadi was the most recognisable face of the Shaheen Bagh protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the music of Mehdi Hassan was remembered as a culturally unifying force between India and Pakistan.
Read more at: https://www.shethepeople.tv/news/shaheen-baghs-bilkis-dadi-on-bbcs-100-women-of-2020-list/
Presented by Rana Mitter Produced by Kevin Core
If you want more programmes exploring South Asian culture and history you can find Rana looking at the film Pather Panchali made by Satyajit Ray and the writing of Sunjeev Sahota https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b060zmjs Maha Rafi Atal, Anindita Ghosh, Jahnavi Phalkey and Yasmin Khan share their research in an episode called Everything You Never Knew About Indian history https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b069yb6k O What a Lovely Savas explores India's First World War experiences https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b047zvbj Tariq Ali on the 50th anniversary of 1968 uprisings https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05x9zq2 Rana explores Pakistan politics and water supplies https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000s9cg Amitav Gosh on weaving the ancient legend about the goddess of snakes, Manasa Devi into a journey between America, the Sundarbans and Venice https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00066px Arundhati Roy https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08slx9t
The red-haired Joanna Hiffernan was James McNeill Whistler's Woman in White. An exhibition curated by Margaret MacDonald for the Royal Academy of Arts, London and the National Gallery of Art, Washington uncovers the role she played in his career. An instagram account about the women painted by Viennese artist Egon Schiele has amassed over 100,000 followers. Now Sophie Haydock is publishing a novel called The Flames, which imagines the story of Schiele's wife and three other women who modelled for him. Ilona Sagar has been working for over 2 years in social care services and community settings in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham to make art reflecting the consequences of asbestos exposure involving social workers, carers, organisers and residents. Shahidha Bari hosts a conversation about famous artists and their sometimes less famous models.
Whistler’s Woman in White: Joanna Hiffernan runs at the Royal Academy in London from 26 February — 22 May 2022 https://www.ilonasagar.com/ https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/radio-ballads/ On view at Serpentine (31 March – 29 May) and Barking Town Hall and Learning Centre (2-17 April), Radio Ballads presents new film commissions alongside paintings, drawings and contextual materials that share each project’s collaborative research process. The original documentary series Radio Ballads produced by musicians Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, working with radio producer Charlie Parker, were broadcast by the BBC from 1957–64. Sophie Haydock's novel The Flames is published in March 2022.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
You can find a playlist on the Free Thinking website exploring Art, Architecture, Photography and Museums with discussions on colour, trompe l'oeil, world's fairs, and guests including Veronica Ryan, Jennifer Higgie, Eric Parry and Alison Brooks, the directors of museums in London, Paris, Singapore, Los Angeles, Washington https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p026wnjl
Travelling in Woody Guthrie's footsteps inspired a new history of hitchhiking written by Jonathan Purkis. He joins Matthew Sweet for a conversation which ranges across hitchhiking in the UK and in Eastern Europe, where Poland operated a kind of voucher system. We look at the influence of film depictions from the Nevada desert depicted in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the hippie vibe of Easy Rider to the horror of The Hitcher and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the female focus of Je Tu Il Elle by Chantal Akerman. Has the idea of hitchhiking now had its day? Joining Matthew to assess the idea of risk and our perception of thumbing a lift is Timandra Harkness, film critic Adam Scovell, plus Sally J Morgan, winner of the Portico prize for her book Toto Among the Murderers, based on her experience of being offered a lift by Fred and Rosemary West
Jonathan Purkis's book Driving with Strangers is published in February and you can find more here https://www.jonathanpurkis.co.uk/ Sally J Morgan's book Toto Among the Murderers is out now. Timandra Harkness is the author of Big Data: does size matter? has performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with a show called Take a Risk and contributes to and presents programmes on BBC Radio 4. Adam Scovell writes about film for Sight and Sound magazine and is a published novelist. His latest book was called How Pale The Winter Has Made Us and his new book Nettles is out in April 2022.
Producer: Jessica Treen
We've a whole playlist of discussions exploring The Way We Live Now with topics ranging from Breakfast, to Gloves, Toys to Punk, Rationality and Tradition. Find them on the Free Thinking programme website and available to download as Arts and Ideas podcasts https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p072637b
The bombing of Chongqing, Freud’s collection of ancient Chinese artefacts, the boom in science fiction amongst Chinese readers and an increasingly influential generation of educated tech-savvy millennials. We look at how Chinese culture and history looks different, when we look at it through the eyes of Chinese readers and writers, its innovators and its consumers.
Freud and China is curated by Craig Clunas, Professor Emeritus of the History of Art at the University of Oxford and it runs at the Freud Museum in London from 12th February to 26th June 2022.
Melissa Fu’s novel Peach Blossom Spring is available from 17th March 2022.
The Subplot: What China Is Reading and Why It Matters by Megan Walsh is published in paperback on February 24th
Producer: Ruth Watts
Cultural recommendations: Novels: Tang Jia San Shao, Master of Demonic Cultivation; Liu Cixin, The Three Body Problem; Yan Ge, Strange Beasts of China TV (all available on YouTube): Nothing But Thirty; Da Ming Feng Hua; and, In The Name Of The People
There’s plenty more about China in the Free Thinking archives. You can find Xue Xinran exploring China's recent history through the lives and relationships of one family: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002h89 Is the Shadow of Mao still hanging over China? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000bmty Frank Dikott considers Mao in a programme looking at ideas about leadership and dictators https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0009bf3 – including a discussion of how Cantonese poetry has fuelled Hong Kong’s democracy movement.
Image: Readers perusing books at Zhonshuge bookstore in Shanghai. Image credit: Costfoto/Barcroft Media via Getty Images
The Nebra Sky Disc, a blue-green bronze dish around 30 cm in diameter, is thought to feature the oldest description of the cosmos on its surface. It's one of the exhibits in a new exhibition at the British Museum. Anne McElvoy looks at culture and travel between Britain and Europe from 4000 to 1000 BC, what we understand about the building of Stonehenge and other sites of that period in Scotland and Wales. Her guests are three archaeologists: Mike Pitts, Susan Greaney and Seren Griffiths. and the British museum exhibition curator Neil Wilkin.
The World of Stonehenge runs at the British Museum in London from February 17th to July 17th 2022. Mike Pitts is the author of How to Build Stonehenge. Susan Greaney works for English Heritage at Stonehenge as a Senior Properties Historian and is studying for a PhD at Cardiff University. She's a New Generation Thinker, on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn academic research into radio - and on the Radio 3 website and BBC Sounds you can find an Essay by her, and a short Sunday feature based on her trip to explore connections between the Neolithic peoples of Britain and the ancient Jomon civilisation of Japan https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hgqx Seren Griffiths is also a New Generation Thinker. She teaches at Manchester Metropolitan University and has co-curated exhibitions and projects at Oriel Môn Museum Anglesey and written an Essay for Radio 3 about world war one battlefield finds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000vgvb
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The doomsday clock stands at less than two minutes to midnight, but how alarmed should we be and how can art respond to humanity's apparent vulnerability? Shahidha Bari is joined by author Sheila Heti, theatre director Omar Elerian and New Generation Thinker SJ Beard.
Sheila Heti's new novel Pure Colour, a kind of fable about end times, is published on 15th February. You can find her discussing a previous novel exploring motherhood in the Free Thinking archives https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b3fjvg
The Chairs (Les Chaises) by Eugene Ionesco, translated and directed by Omar Elerian, runs at the Almeida Theatre, London until 5th March. First staged in post-war Paris in 1952, it features two characters, Old Man and Old Woman, who spend the play preparing chairs for a series of invisible guests coming to hear a revelation which could be the meaning of life, or could be about the end of the world.
SJ Beard is Academic Programme Manager at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to share academic research on the radio. You can find their Essay about AI and what we learn from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09vz70d
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The first underwater film, the making of Moby Dick in Fishguard, Wales, the poetry of Marianne Moore and the secret world of whale scavengers are conjured by Rana Mitter's guests:
In a new book, Strandings, Peter Riley, Associate Professor in Poetry and Poetics at the University of Durham, loses himself in the secretive world of whale-scavengers who descend on coastlines to claim trophies from washed-up carcasses.
Author and artist Philip Hoare has written extensively about whales, encountering them often in his daily swims in the sea. His most recent book, Albert and the Whale, explores the life of Albrecht Dürer. You can hear him talking more about this link in another Free Thinking episode called Dürer, Rhinos and Whales https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001212c
Rachel Murray is a Leverhulme Fellow at the University of Sheffield whose current project examines the presence of marine life, particularly invertebrates, in contemporary and modern literature and both she and Philip Hoare look at the poetry of Marianne Moore. You can hear her presenting a Radio 4 feature Lady Chatterley's Bed Bugs https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000qwtx
Edward Sugden, Senior Lecturer in American Studies at King’s College, is undertaking a biography of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, which turns the novel itself into a character and tracks its turbulent history from near-obscurity to becoming one of the most enduring novels of all time.
Producer: Tim Bano
You can find a playlist exploring prose and poetry of all kinds on the Free Thinking website and a series of programmes exploring Modernist ideas and writing and there's also an episode devoted to Jaws: Sharks and Whales https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b060zryf
Image: A sperm whale
The first under-water film, the making of Moby Dick in Fishguard, Wales, the poetry of Marianne Moore and the secret world of whale scavengers are conjured by Rana Mitter's guests: In a new book, Strandings, Peter Riley, Associate Professor in Poetry and Poetics at the University of Durham, loses himself in the secretive world of whale-scavengers who descend on coastlines to claim trophies from washed-up carcasses.
Author and artist Philip Hoare has written extensively about whales, encountering them often in his daily swims in the sea. His most recent book, Albert and the Whale, explores the life of Albrecht Dürer. You can hear him talking more about this link in another Free Thinking episode called Dürer, Rhinos and Whales https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001212c
Rachel Murray is a Leverhulme Fellow at the University of Sheffield whose current project examines the presence of marine life, particularly invertebrates, in contemporary and modern literature and both she and Philip Hoare look at the poetry of Marianne Moore. You can hear her presenting a Radio 4 feature Lady Chatterley's Bed Bugs https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000qwtx
Edward Sugden, Senior Lecturer in American Studies at King’s College, is undertaking a biography of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, which turns the novel itself into a character and tracks its turbulent history from near-obscurity to becoming one of the most enduring novels of all time.
Producer: Tim Bano
You can find a playlist exploring prose and poetry of all kinds on the Free Thinking website and a series of programmes exploring Modernist ideas and writing and there's also an episode devoted to Jaws: Sharks and Whales https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b060zryf
New Generation Thinker Christienna Fryar is joined by four scholars whose work on composers has fed into concerts being recorded by BBC Philharmonic.
Musicologist and pianist Dr Samantha Ege from the University of Oxford, is working on the American composer and pianist Margaret Bonds (1913 – 1972)
Dwight Pile-Gray, who is studying at the London College of Music at the University of West London, is researching the Canadian American composer, organist, pianist, choir director and music professor Robert Nathaniel Dett (1882 – 1943)
The ethnomusicologist and instrumentalist Ahmed Abdul Rahman, doing his PhD at Bath Spa University is investigating the music of Sudanese composer Ali Osman (1958 – 2017)
Musicologist and pianist Dr Phil Alexander is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Edinburgh working on the Scottish Jewish composer Isaac Hirshow (1883 – 1956)
You can find a previous episode of Arts and Ideas looking at three more composers: Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Kikuko Kanai and Julia Perry.
Produced by Amelia Parker
If you want more information about the Diverse Composers project you can find that on the website of UK Research and Innovation https://www.ukri.org/news/celebrating-classical-composers-from-diverse-ethnic-backgrounds-2/
If you enjoyed this – there’s a playlist called New Research on the Free Thinking website where you can find discussions about everything from conserving fashion and putting it on display in museums to recording the accents found around Manchester, so do dip in. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
"The beauty of speed. Time and Space died yesterday. We already live in the absolute, because we have created the eternal, omnipresent speed." Part of the 1909 manifesto drawn up by Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti that declared the aims of the groundbreaking futurist branch of modernism. Their rejection of the past included embracing the march of machinery, the power of youth and of violence so how do we view this now ? Matthew Sweet is joined by Steven Connor, Selena Daly, Rosalind McKever, and Nathan Waddell.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Murals which aimed to synthesise the history and culture of Mexico, Japanese novels exploring urban alienation, an exhibition of Bauhaus paintings from Germany which inspired a generation of Indian artists. Presenter Rana Mitter is joined by Jade Munslow Ong, Christopher Harding, Maria Blanco, and Devika Singh.
Amongst the Modernist writers and artists mentioned are: Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro Mexican artist Diego Rivera, and poet Manuel Maples Arce Brazilian artist Tarsila do Amaral Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier, and painter Wifredo Lam Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges Indian writer and artist Rabindranath Tagore, and artist Amrita Sher-Gil South African writers Olive Schreiner, Roy Campbell, Solomon Plaatje, Rolfes Dhlomo Japanese theorist Okakura Kakuzō, and writers Edogawa Ranpo, and Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Image: the Indian polymath and modernist Rabindranath Tagore Image credit: Keystone France/Getty Images
Part of the Modernism season running across BBC Radio 3 and 4 with programmes marking the publication in 1922 of Ulysses by James Joyce, a reading of Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, a Words and Music playlist of readings from key works published in 1922 and a Sunday Feature on Radio 3 looking at the "all in a day" artwork.
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From paper bullets to Tibetan rituals, early printing presses to present day recycling: Laurence Scott explores the cultural and social history of paper, from the Chinese Han Dynasty in 105 AD to the 20th-century workplace. His guests are:
Adam Smyth, a Professor of English Literature and the History of the Book at the University of Oxford. His books include Material Texts in Early Modern England; Book Destruction from the Medieval to the Contemporary (co-edited with Dennis Duncan) and Book Parts: A collection of essays on the history of parts of a book; Therese Weber, an artist who has made paintings out of pulp, paper tearing and dipping and is the author of The Language of Paper: A History of 2000 Years; Nicholas Basbanes, a writer and journalist, whose books include On Paper: The Everything of its Two Thousand Year History and Emily Cockayne, an Associate Professor in Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia and author of Rummage: A History of the Things We Have Reused, Recycled and Refused to Let Go. Laurence Scott is the author of books about digital life including The Four-Dimensional Human and Picnic Comma Lightning.
How did such a mundane substance revolutionise modern warfare, enable Imperialism and transform art? Can there ever be a blank page? Is recycling the answer to waste?
The conversation ranges across the relationship between paper and religious history in the printing of the Quran and Tibetan rituals for the dead; to C17 Swedish paper bullets; Dickens’ Bleak House - in which a pile of paper leads to a fatal fire; the Bristol company who specialised in papier-mâché – a material used for elaborate decorations in C18 homes – and then used by artists like Jean Dubuffet in the 1940s and 50s and a scrap of paper, which survived 9/11 and told a widow, about her husband's final moments.
Producer: Jayne Egerton
A "house on chicken legs” in Moscow designed by Viktor Andreyev, Virginia Woolf’s novel Jacob’s Room first published on 26 October 1922, Coal Cart Blues sung by Louis Armstrong drawing on his own experiences of pulling one round the streets of New Orleans where he started his teenage years living in a Home for Waifs; Duchamp’s 1912 painting Nude Descending a Staircase, No 2 are picked out as novelist Will Self, art historian and literary critic Alexandra Harris, jazz and music expert Kevin Le Gendre and architecture writer Owen Hatherley try to nail down the elements that make something modernist; looking at the importance of rhythm, the depiction of everyday life and new inventions, psychology and how you describe the self and utopian ideas about communal living. The presenter is New Generation Thinker and essayist Laurence Scott.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Image: Will Self in BBC Broadcasting House, London
Part of the modernism season running across BBC Radio 3 and 4 with programmes marking the publication in 1922 of Ulysses by James Joyce, a reading of Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, a Words and Music playlist of readings from key works published in 1922 and a Sunday Feature on Radio 3 looking at the "all in a day" artwork.
Censored by the US, Europe's greatest early film star played leading roles in love triangle melodramas, comedies, stories of women trapped by tragic circumstances, and she took the role of Hamlet: Asta Nielsen (11 September 1881 – 24 May 1972) is the focus of a BFI season in February and March. To discuss the life and work of the silent movie pioneer, Matthew Sweet is joined by:
Historian and film critic Pamela Hutchinson, curator of the BFI season; Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at the University of Oxford; Dr Erica Carter, Professor of German and Film at King's College London, who looks at Nielsen’s time in Germany in the 20s and 30s; and Lone Britt Christensen, Denmark’s Cultural Attaché.
In the Eyes of a Silent Star: The Films of Asta Nielsen runs at the BFI Southbank, London from 03 February to 15 March 2022: www.bfi.org.uk/whatson
Emma Smith is the author of This is Shakespeare: How to Read the World's Greatest Playwright
Erica Carter is co-editor of The German Cinema Book
In the Free Thinking archives you can find a series of programmes exploring silent film, star actors including Jean-Paul Belmondo, Marlene Dietrich, Dirk Bogarde, and classics of cinema around the world.
Producer: Tim Bano
Image: Asta Nielsen in Black Dreams. Image credit: BFI Southbank.
A tour guide at Polish holocaust sites is at the centre of a new novel by Yishai Sarid. The author talks to Anne McElvoy about his own trips to Poland as a teenager and then as a father and the questions they made him ask about how that history is taught and commemorated. Plus three researchers share insights from their studies. Roland Clark has co-curated an exhibition at The Wiener Holocaust Library which explores the wider role of European fascist movements in genocide. Joseph Cronin has been looking at how Jewish refugees come to end up in colonial India. And, Allis Moss asks how anti-Semitism in nineteenth century France might have led to the murder of Emile Zola, and what we can learn about that murder from the art and cartoons of the time.
The Memory Monster by Yishai Sarid translated into English by Yardenne Greenspan is out now.
This Fascist Life: Radical Right Movements in Interwar Europe runs at The Wiener Holocaust Library until 15 February 2022. You can hear more from Roland about his research in a previous episode of Free Thinking called Remembering Auschwitz https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dq00 If you want recommendations of Romanian writing including books exploring Jewish history Anne McElvoy talked to Mircea Cărtărescu, Philippe Sands and Georgina Harding https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011rwx
Producer: Ruth Watts
Holocaust Memorial Day will be marked on January 27th 2022. You can find Free Thinking conversations from previous years in a playlist looking at War and Conflict https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06kgbyb
Widening the repertoire of classical music comes under the spotlight in today's Free Thinking conversation as New Generation Thinker Christienna Fryar speaks to researchers uncovering music that has been left out of the canon. Ahead of concerts featuring their work, she hears about the stories of three composers: the 18th-century French polymath Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, the Japanese trailblazer Kikuko Kanai and the prolific African-American composer Julia Perry.
Christopher Dingle, a Professor of Music at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, is studying the music of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799). Born in Guadeloupe to an enslaved mother and a French plantation owner father, Boulogne lived an extraordinary life – as well as being one of the first black colonels in the French Army, he was a master fencer, celebrated violinist and conductor, whose concertos rival his contemporary Mozart in their fiendish virtuosity.
Mai Kawabata, from the Royal College of Music, is a musicologist and violinist. She shares the story of Kikuko Kanai (1906-1986), the first female composer in Japan to write a symphony. Kanai made waves in the musical establishment by fusing Japanese melodies with Western-classical influences –her “life mission” was to popularise the folk music of her native Okinawa.
Michael Harper, a vocal tutor from the Royal Northern College of Music, is championing the work of Julia Perry (1924-1979). Perry occupied a unique place as a black American composer – female and upper-middle class, she won Guggenheim fellowships to train in Europe. Despite a life cut short by paralysis and illness, her works include 12 symphonies and 3 operas.
This research, done in collaboration with the AHRC and Radio 3, will result in special recordings and a concert performed by the BBC Philharmonic broadcasting works by Nathaniel Dett, Margaret Bonds and Joseph Bologne in Afternoon Concert on BBC Radio 3 on Wednesday 2nd February at 2pm and then on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001414g
And listen out for another episode of the Arts & Ideas podcast featuring the research being done into the classical musicians: Nathaniel Dett, Margaret Bonds, Ali Osman and Isaac Hershow and a further concert.
Produced by Amelia Parker
If you want more information about the Diverse Composers project you can find that on the website of UK Research and Innovation https://www.ukri.org/news/celebrating-classical-composers-from-diverse-ethnic-backgrounds-2/
If you enjoyed this – there’s a playlist called New Research on the Free Thinking website where you can find discussions about everything from conserving fashion and putting it on display in museums to recording the accents found around Manchester, so do dip in. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
A motorbike adorned with a zebu skull is one of the central images of Djibril Diop Mambéty's classic 1973 film, whose title translates as The Journey of the Hyena. Listed as one of the 100 greatest films of all time in the Sight and Sound magazine poll, it mixes West African oral traditions with influences from the French New Wave and Soviet cinema. Mory and Anta are two young people growing up in a newly independent Senegal who fantasise about leaving Dakar for a new life in France, but how can they realise those dreams and do they really want to leave? Matthew Sweet is joined by New Generation Thinker Sarah Jilani, Estrella Sendra Fernandez and Ashley Clark.
Sarah Jilani is a lecturer in English at City, University of London and has written on neocolonialism in Francophone West African cinema. Estrella Sendra Fernandez lectures in film and screen studies at SOAS, University of London. She directed the award-winning documentary film Témoignages de l’autre côté about migration in Senegal. Ashley Clark is curatorial director at the Criterion Collection. He is the author of the book Facing Blackness: Media and Minstrelsy in Spike Lee’s “Bamboozled”
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Image: Mareme Niang (Right), and Magaye Niang in a still from the film Touki Bouki Le Voyage de la Hyène, 1973 Senegal. Director : Djibril Diop Mambéty. Image credit: Alamy
In the Free Thinking archives you can find a series of programmes exploring silent film, star actors including Jean-Paul Belmondo, Marlene Dietrich, Dirk Bogarde, and classics of cinema around the world including Kurosawa's Rashomon, Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali, the films of Jacques Tati and Charlie Chaplin.
Drama and gaming are being used in a pair of projects exploring adolescent mental health. Dr Daisy Fancourt finds out why this meeting of the arts and science might unlock new ideas for treatments and discovers the different ways in which young people are participating in the projects.
Professor Eunice Ma is the Provost of Falmouth University and is co-leading a new project called ATTUNE. This will look at the way adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can affect adolescents' mental health with the aim of developing new approaches to prevention and care. Edmund Sonuga-Barke is Professor of Developmental Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience at King’s College London and is leading a new project called RE-STAR which aims to help young people with neuroatypicalities such as Attention Deficit/Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
You can find information about the projects on this link https://www.ukri.org/news/24-million-investment-into-adolescent-mental-health/
The podcast is made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find a playlist called New Research on the website for Radio 3's Free Thinking programme and all the episodes are available as Arts & Ideas podcasts.
Producer: Phoebe McFarlane
Love during a lockdown is at the centre of Sarah Hall's latest book Burntcoat. Monica Ali's new novel is called Love Marriage and looks at love across two cultures and different ideas about feminism, family and careers. Adam Mars-Jones' Box Hill is a darkly affecting love story between men set in 1975. The authors join Shahidha Bari for a conversation exploring writing about relationships.
Burntcoat by Sarah Hall and Box Hill by Adam Mars-Jones are both out now. Monica Ali's novel Love Marriage is published in February 2022.
Producer: Jessica Treen
You can find other conversations about writing in the Free Thinking Prose and Poetry playlist https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vh
From Aldous Huxley to cat pictures by Louis Wain: altered states of consciousness can be induced by taking drugs, but they also include dreams, tiredness, grief, and various states of mental illness. Matthew Sweet is joined by Turner Prize winning artist Tai Shani, whose recent work Neon Hieroglyphs explores the history and culture of the hallucinogenic fungus ergot; Sarah Shin, editor of an anthology Altered States; Gary Lachman, historian of the occult whose most recent book Dreaming Ahead of Time explores precognitive dreams; and David Luck, archivist at the Bethlem Museum of the Mind, currently staging an exhibition of Louis Wain's cat pictures which are often described as being psychedelic.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can find Tai Shani's artwork online at the Serpentine Gallery https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/tai-shani-untitled-hieroglyphs/
Animal Therapy: The Cats of Louis Wain runs at the Bethlem Museum of the Mind until April 14th and there's also an online version https://museumofthemind.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/animal-therapy-the-cats-of-louis-wain
Altered States edited by Sarah Shin and Dreaming Ahead of Time by Gary Lachman are out now.
In the Free Thinking archives you can find Matthew Sweet discussing Drugs and Consciousness with guests including David Nutt https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000nll
And David Nutt shared his musical choices with Michael Berkley on Radio 3's Private Passions https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tnv3
Image: Louis Wain's painting Kaleidoscope Cats. Image credit: By permission of Bethlem Museum of the Mind
The legend of Mélusine emerges in French literature of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries in the texts of Jean d’Arras and Coudrette. A beautiful young woman, the progeny of the union between a king and a fairy, is condemned to spend every Saturday with her body below the waist transformed into the tail of serpent. She agrees to marry only on the condition that her husband should never seek to see her on that day every week. Shahidha Bari explores the emergence of the hybrid mermaid-woman, her historical significance and the legacy of the medieval myth of Mélusine.
Olivia Colquitt is an AHRC funded doctoral candidate at the University of Liverpool whose research focuses upon the socio-cultural significance of the late Middle English translations of the French prose romance Mélusine and its verse counterpart, Le Roman de Parthenay.
Hetta Howes is Senior Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern Literature at City, University of London and is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. She is the author of Transformative Waters in Medieval Literature.
Lydia Zeldenrust is an Associate Lecturer in Medieval Literature, where she currently holds a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. She is the author of The Melusine Romance in Medieval Europe.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Do we underappreciate comic writing ? It’s 400 years since the birth of France’s great satirical playwright, Jean-Baptiste Pocquelin, better known by his pen-name Molière. Stendhal described him as “the great painter of man as he is” and his works have continued to be translated and performed on both the French and British stage with recent adaptations by Christopher Hampton, Anil Gupta and the Scottish poet and playwright, Liz Lochhead. She joins Anne McElvoy to help consider what we make of Molière now and how well his plays work in translation, alongside Clare Finburgh-Delijani, Professor of European Theatre at Goldsmiths, University of London and Suzanne Jones, a Junior Research Fellow in French at St Anne’s College Oxford. Their discussion looks at various adaptations of Tartuffe, Moliere’s play translated as The Hypocrite or The Imposter, which was first performed in 1664.
Listen out for a Words and Music episode which picks out key speeches from plays including The Miser, the Imaginary Invalid, The School for Wives and the Misanthrope. You can hear that on BBC Radio 3 at 5.30pm Sunday 16th - followed by a new adaptation of The Miser scripted by Barunka O’Shaughnessy. You can also find out about the court music of Lully in Composer of the Week and there's a special edition of Radio 3's Early Music Show.
Producer: Ruth Watts
The conventional view of Neville Chamberlain's dealings with Hitler at the 1938 Munich Conference, paints him as weak and gullible - an appeaser. But why did appeasement become such a dirty word when negotiation and accommodation are such valuable diplomatic tools? Rana Mitter is joined by historian Tim Bouverie, screenwriter Alex von Tunzelmann and journalist Juliet Samuel to reassess Chamberlain's reputation and to examine how the long shadow of Munich still affects the actions of politicians in the 21st century.
Tim Bouverie is the author of Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the Road to War. Alex von Tunzelmann wrote the screenplay for Jonathan Teplitzky's 2017 film Churchill. Juliet Samuel is a columnist who covers politics, economics, foreign policy and technology for The Telegraph.
There's a new film adaptation of Robert Harris's best-selling novel Munich. Munich: The Edge of War is on selected release in cinemas from 7th January and available on Netflix from 21st January.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
You can find a playlist of programmes exploring War and Conflict on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06kgbyb
From duels to hygiene and medical protection to the image of the gloved aristocrat whose hands aren’t coarsened by work: Shahidha Bari dons a pair of gloves as she finds out about tranks, fourchettes, lace, wool and glove making which is on The Heritage Craft Assosicaion's 'Red List' of Endangered crafts. The Glove maker Riina Oun creates high-fashion bespoke gloves. She has collaborated with designers such as Giles Deacon and Meadham Kirchhoff, and she also teaches the art of gloving. Technologist Tom Chatfield considers the glove as cutting edge technology, explains what haptic feedback does for us and why the hand is so important in helping us navigate virtual worlds. Anne Green's book 'Gloves: An Intimate History', has just been published, a cultural history written as disposable protective gloves took on a whole new resonance. And Rebecca Unsworth brings us stories from her work with Birmingham Museums as she considers the smells of gloves and their role as the ultimate 17th century gift.
Producer: Jessica Treen
You might be interested in other conversations about fashion in the Free Thinking archives: Fashion stories in Museums hears from V&A fashion curator Claire Wilcox, Veronica Isaac and Cassandra Davies Strodder https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000s2by Fashion, Art and the Body brings together Ekow Eshun, Charlie Porter and Olivia Laing https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wc78 Jade Halbert discusses recycling of fashion in this episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00061m1 The Politics of Fashion and Drag hears from Scrumbly Koldewyn, visits the Vauxhall Tavern and talks to Jenny Gilbert https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09zcjch
Matthew Sweet explores Belmondo's central role in the revolutionary cinema of 1960s France and how he became one of the most celebrated screen actors of his generation with Ginette Vincendeau, Lucy Bolton and Phuong Le.
Ginette Vincendeau is Professor of Film Studies at King's College London. Lucy Bolton is Reader in Film Studies at Queen Mary University of London. Phuong Le is a film critic based in Paris.
A BFI season focused on the films of Francois Truffaut runs across January and February and includes a BFI Player collection and a batch of Blu-rays being released in Spring 2022 and partner seasons at cinemas around the UK including Edinburgh Filmhouse and Ciné Lumière.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
90% are unknown still but the species which have been studied have given us penicillin, ways of breaking down plastics, food and bio fuels but they can also be dangerous. Neither animal nor vegetable, they are both amongst us and within us, shaping our lives in ways it is difficult to imagine. Merlin Sheldrake's book about fungi, Entangled Life, has won the Royal Society Science book of the year and the Wainwright Conservation prize so here's Matthew Sweet with him and others discussing the amazing life of mushrooms.
Francesca Gavin curated an exhibition Mushrooms: The Art, Design and Future of the Fungi, which ran at Somerset House in London and is now available to view as an online tour. It features the work of 40 artists, musicians and designers from Cy Twombly to Beatrix Potter, John Cage to Hannah Collins.
Sam Gandy is an ecologist, writer and researcher who has collaborated with the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/psychedelic-research-centre/
Begoña Aguirre-Hudson is Curator and Mycologist at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. She helps look after the Kew Fungarium - the largest collection of fungi in the world. https://www.kew.org/science/our-science/people/begona-aguirre-hudson
Producer: Alex Mansfield You can find other discussions in the Free Thinking archives about food https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08wn51y
Cows, farming and our view of nature https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000n0g8
Humans, animals, ecologies: conversations with Anna Tsing and Joanna Bourke https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000sjmj
Sticking in stamps and killing animals were the main achievements of King George V - according to his biographer Harold Nicholson. Now Jane Ridley has written a new book about him subtitled "Never a Dull Moment" so can dullness be a virtue. Anne McElvoy chairs the discussion, which also looks at the history and image of Roundheads and Cavaliers with New Generation Thinker Tom Charlton and the appearance of dullness in political theory with Jonathan Floyd, Associate Professor at the University of Bristol. Plus Anne talks to Colm Tóibín, the winner of the David Cohen Prize for Literature - biennial British literary award given to acknowledge a whole career.
Professor Jane Ridley's biography George V: Never a Dull Moment is out now.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Helping start the Women's Liberation Movement in Britain is just one of the key moments in Sheila Rowbotham's life. This year she published Daring to Hope: My Life in the 1970s and she compares then and now talking to Rana Mitter. Also a discussion of early Buddhism and new research uncovered by Sarah Shaw and Kate Crosby.
The Art of Listening: A Guide to the Early Teachings of Buddhism by Sarah Shaw is out now
Esoteric Theravada is a book Kate Crosby exploring the Southeast Asian meditation tradition
Sheila Rowbotham's Daring to Hope: My Life in the 1970s is out now. Her other books include Dreamers of a New Day: Women Who Invented the Twentieth Century; the biography Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love and Rebel Crossings: New Women, Free Lovers and Radicals in Britain and the United States
Producer: Luke Mulhall
On the Free Thinking programme website you can find a playlist exploring religious belief featuring a range of interviewees including Giles Fraser, Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Yaa Gyasi, Shelina Janmohamed and Haemin Sunim. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03mwxlp
From unwrapping Egyptian mummies to her theories about witch trials and the influence of her 1921 book The Witch-Cult in Western Europe on Wicca beliefs: Margaret Murray's career comes under the spotlight as Matthew Sweet is joined by guests including New Generation Thinker Elsa Richardson and historian of witchcraft Ronald Hutton.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You might also be interested in the Free Thinking discussions on Magic with Kate Laity, Chris Gosden, Jessica Gossling and John Tresch https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kvss
On Witchcraft, Werewolves and Writing the Devil with Jenni Fagan. Salena Godden, Tabitha Stanmore and Daniel Ogden https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000r5hk
Enchantment, Witches and Woodlands hearing from Marie Darrieussecq, Zoe Gilbert, Lisa Mullen and Dafydd Daniel https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000qkl
James Graham’s play exploring the encounters between the American political commentators Gore Vidal and William F Buckley Jr, opens at the Young Vic in London this week. We also have Germaine Greer v Norman Mailer at New York's Town Hall, April 1971 which was filmed as a documentary Town Bloody Hall. More recent Presidential debates have become part of the British political landscape during our elections - and there's the weekly politics show Question Time with viewers now on zoom and twitter. Anne McElvoy and guests look at whether debating has changed?
James Graham latest play is Best of Enemies
Helen Lewis is a broadcaster and staff writer for The Atlantic. Her latest book is Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights.
Alex Massie is a columnist for The Times and The Sunday Times and is the Scotland Editor of The Spectator.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Best of Enemies is at the Young Vic in London until Jan 22nd 2022 with Charles Edwards as Gore Vidal, alongside David Harewood, as William F Buckley Jr. It is inspired by Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville's 2015 American documentary film Best of Enemies, available on https://dogwoof.com/bestofenemies Town Bloody Hall a documentary made by Chris Hegedus and DA Pennebaker is available from https://www.criterion.com/films/30213-town-bloody-hall James Graham's other dramas include Quiz, Labour of Love and Ink. You can hear him discussing Dramatising Democracy in a Free Thinking discussion with Michael Dobbs, Paula Milne, and Trudi-Ann Tierney https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04yb7k6 and his play which put Screaming Lord Sutch on stage https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06zq2jl
Migration, autism, young Colombians escaping violence, Yorkshire farming and children born of war in Uganda are the topics highlighted in the winners of this year’s AHRC Researcher in Film Awards. Naomi Paxton looks at the winning entries.
The Best Animated Film of the Year winner Osbert Parker is a three-time BAFTA nominated director and an animation lecturer at the National Film and TV School. His winning film Timeline was produced in collaboration with the Migration Museum for an exhibition called Departures and Matthew Plowright from the museum joins him to talk to Naomi Paxton about condensing a history of migration into a ten minute animation built around the idea of lines connecting. https://www.migrationmuseum.org/ https://vimeo.com/496398115
The Best Doctoral or Early Career Film of the Year winner was Alex Widdowson’s animated film Drawing on Autism. This forms part of his practice-based doctoral work with the Autism through Cinema project at Queen Mary, University of London. He talks to Naomi Paxton and the ethics of making a film about other people’s experiences of autism. https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sllf/film-studies/research/autism-through-cinema/
You might also be interested in this Free Thinking conversation with novelist Michelle Gallen and Dr Bonnie Evans from QMUL about representations of autism https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000r3ly
The Best Research Film of the Year was won by Birte Vogel for The Art of Peace, Medellín – a documentary exploring the impact of community-led arts initiatives that work with marginalised youth, and particularly young men, in Colombia who are at risk of becoming involved in ongoing violent conflict. Joining Naomi to talk about the film is Teresa Ó Brádaigh Bean, Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Manchester and part of The Art of Peace project team. https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/the-art-of-peace/home/about/research/
The Best Climate Emergency Film of the Year was given to Newland: New Vision for a Wilder Future which hears from a pair of farmers in York shire and focuses on the tensions between farming and conservation, looking at issues including public access, heritage, and sustainability. Suzie Cross is Artistic Director of the Land Lines Research Project at the University of Leeds – she made the film with Dave Lynch https://landlinesproject.wordpress.com/
You can find two Free Thinking conversations about the Land Lines project The episodes are called Nature Writing https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000ktf4 featuring Pippa Marland and Connecting with Nature https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000xthj hearing from Pippa Marland and Anita Roy about their anthology.
The Inspiration Award winner was Dheeraj Akolkar. His film The Wound is Where the Light Enters was inspired by a docu-dance performance created by fifteen young people born of war rapes in Northern Uganda. Professor Sabine Lee from the University of Birmingham is part of a research network that explores the experiences of Children born of war https://www.chibow.org/ https://research.birmingham.ac.uk/en/publications/children-born-of-war-past-present-and-future
You can find out more about the awards here https://ahrc.ukri.org/innovation/research-in-film-awards/
This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI You can find more episodes devoted to New Research in a playlist on BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme website.
Producer: Paula McFarlane
The Cundill Prize and PEN Hessell-Tiltman prizes for non-fiction writing about history are announced in early December. Rana Mitter talks to Cundill judge Henrietta Harrison about why their choice this year was Blood On The River by Marjoleine Kars. And with the news tonight that Rebecca Wragg Sykes book Neanderthals has won the PEN Hessell Tiltman - we revisit the conversation Rana recorded when the book came out bringing together Priya Atwal, Joseph Henrich and Rebecca Wragg Sykes in a conversation about family ties and power networks which ranges across Sikh queens, through the ties of marriage and religion which helped shape the Western world, back to the links between Neanderthals and early man.
Priya Atwal has published Royal and Rebels: The Rise and Fall of the Sikh Empire. Dr Atwal is a Teaching Fellow in Modern South Asian History at King's College London. Joseph Henrich is a Professor in the department of Human and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and the author of The Weirdest People in the World: How the West became psychologically peculiar and particularly prosperous. Rebecca Wragg Sykes is an Honorary Fellow at University of Liverpool and Université de Bordeaux. She is the author of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art and is one of the founders of https://trowelblazers.com/ Marjoleine Kars has won the 2021 Cundill Prize for her book Blood on the River: A Chronicle of Mutiny and Freedom on the Wild Coast
You might be interested in other Free Thinking conversations with Rutger Bregman author of Human Kind https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08d77hx Penny Spikins speaking about Neanderthal history at the 2019 Free Thinking Festival https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003zp2 Tom Holland on his history of the impact of Christianity on Western thinking in a programme called East Meets West https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00093d1 The 2020 Cundill prize winner Camilla Townsend discussing Times of Change with Tom Holland, Emma Griffin and Jared Diamond https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000py89
Producer: Robyn Read
Killer plants, a blinding meteor shower, the spread of an unknown disease: John Wyndham's 1951 novel explores ideas about the hazards of bio-engineering and what happens when society breaks down. Matthew Sweet is joined by writers Amy Binns and Tanvir Bush, broadcaster Peter White and New Generation Thinker Sarah Dillon to look at the book that spawned film, TV and radio adaptations and discuss what resonance it has today.
Amy Binns has written a biography of John Wyndham - 'Hidden Wyndham: Love, Life, Letters'. Tanvir Bush is a writer and photographer whose most recent novel is 'Cull'. Peter White is the BBC's Disability Affairs Correspondent and presents You and Yours on Radio 4. He presented a documentary exploring science-fiction and blindness https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0931fvq Sarah Dillon is Professor of English at Cambridge University and a Radio 3 New Generation Thinker. Her most recent book is 'Storylistening: Narrative Evidence and Public Reasoning'.
You can find other Free Thinking conversations exploring a range of films, books, artworks and TV series which are Landmarks of Culture on the website - everything from Jaws and The Quatermass Experiment to the writing of Günter Grass, Audre Lorde and Lorraine Hansberry. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44
Producer: Torquill MacLeod
Aubrey Williams, Horace Ové, Sonia Boyce, Lubaima Himid, Peter Doig, Chris Ofili, Hurvin Anderson, Grace Wales Bonner and Alberta Whittle have works on show at Tate Britain as part of an exploration of artists from the Caribbean who made their home in Britain, and British artists who have looked at Caribbean themes and heritage in their work. Shahidha Bari's guests include the curator David A Bailey, New Generation Thinker Sophie Oliver and academic Asha Rogers.
David A Bailey is co-curator of Life Between Islands, Caribbean British Art from 1950 at Tate Britain which runs until 3 April 2022 Lubaima Himid's exhibition runs at Tate Modern until 3 July 2022. You can find a discussion about the Black British Art movement in this playlist exploring Black History on the Free Thinking website - it also includes conversations about the writing of Maryse Condé, Aimé Césaire, with Kei Miller and Colin Grant, and a discussion of sugar https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbp
Sophie Oliver is a BBC AHRC New Generation Thinker and Lecturer in Modernism at the University of Liverpool. You can hear her Essay on Jean Rhys's dress here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v870
Asha Rogers is Associate Professor in Contemporary Postcolonial Literature at the University of Birmingham. She is the author of State Sponsored Literature: Britain and Cultural Diversity after 1945.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Dürer’s whale-chasing and images of rhinos, dogs, saints and himself come into focus, as Rana Mitter talks to Philip Hoare, author of Albert and the Whale, curator Robert Wenley and historian Helen Cowie as exhibitions open at the National Gallery and the Barber Institute in Birmingham. And Philip Hoare explains the links between the Renaissance artist and the visions of Derek Jarman which are on show in Southampton in an exhibition he has curated.
Philip Hoare's books include Leviathan, or The Whale, RisingTideFallingStar, Noel Coward a biography, and his latest Albert and the Whale: Albrecht Dürer and How Art Imagines Our World. He has curated Derek Jarman's Modern Nature at the John Hansard Gallery, Southampton. It runs until Feb 26 2022 and presents Jarman alongside works by John Minton, John Piper, Graham Sutherland, and Keith Vaughan; from the surrealists, Eileen Agar and John Banting, through to Albrecht Dürer. Robert Wenley is Head of Collections, Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham where Miss Clara and the Celebrity Beast in Art 1500 - 1860 runs until 27 Feb 2022 Helen Cowie is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of York . Her books include Exhibited Animals in Nineteenth Century Britain and Llama and catalogue descriptions for the Barber exhibition. Dürer's Journeys: Travels of a Renaissance Artist runs at the National Gallery until 27 Feb 2022.
Producer: Robyn Read
You can find a playlist of discussions exploring Art, Architecture, Photography and Museums on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p026wnjl If you want more conversations about animals we have programmes about Dogs, Rabbits and Watership Down, Cows and farming, and one asking Should We Keep Pets?
A stunt track and farting game are said to be this year's must have toys but what can we learn from the toys children played with in Argentina during the Cold War and from Beatrix Potter's anger at the production of cuddly German Peter Rabbits? And why is the idea of toys coming to life both endearing and terrifying? Matthew Sweet is joined by Jordana Blejmar, Miranda Corcoran, Filippo Yacob and Nadia Cohen.
Jordana Blejmar is Lecturer in Visual Media & Cultural Studies at Liverpool University and is leading the research project Cold War Toys: Material Cultures of Childhood in Argentina. Miranda Corcoran is a lecturer in twenty-first-century literature at University College Cork. Her book Exploring the Horror of Supernatural Fiction is out now. Filippo Yacob is the CEO & Cofounder of URSOR, a browser and search engine for children, Design Director at product studio FINH, partner at Studio Playfool, and creator of the coding robot toy Cubetto. Nadia Cohen has written biographies of Enid Blyton, A.A. Milne and Roald Dahl. Her latest book The Real Beatrix Potter is out now.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod.
You can find a playlist on the Free Thinking website called The Way We Live Now which has a host of conversations on everything from breakfast to time, punk to breathing, accents to autism https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p072637b
Left unfinished at his death in 2011, the poet worked on his version of the Illiad for over 40 years. As a new audio book of Christopher Logue reading War Music is released, Shahidha Bari and her guests, the writers Marina Warner and Tariq Ali, and Logue's widow, the historian Rosemary Hill, examine the work. Rosemary Hill describes Logue as writing "poems to be read to jazz accompaniment, to be set to music and to be printed on posters. He wanted poetry to be part of everybody’s life." In War Music he used anachronistic imagery to link this classical war to more modern examples. In the Second World War Logue served briefly in the Black Watch, before spending sixteen months in a military prison and later becoming a member of CND.
The British Library has acquired the archive of Christopher Logue, which includes 22 boxes of private papers, along with 53 files of drafts, working materials and correspondence relating to War Music, and annotated printed books and an event in December marks this.
In the programme you will hear Christopher Logue – War Music The original recording read by the Author Recorded December 1995, Sound Development Studios, London Produced and directed by Liane Aukin Mastered by Simon Heyworth (P) & © 2021 Laurence Aston and Rosemary Hill Clips from War Music are not to be reproduced in any way without prior permission of the copyright holders.
This programme also includes a clip from a programme Christopher Logue made on 'Minor Poets' for the Third Programme in 1957, and a clip of Christopher Logue reading part of his poem Lecture on Man at the International Poetry Incarnation at the Royal Albert Hall in 1965.
Producer Luke Mulhall
The Fall of Ceaușescu in 1989 ended 42 years of Communist rule in Romania. How did the experience of living through that make its way into fiction? Georgina Harding published In Another Europe: A Journey To Romania in 1990 and followed that with a novel The Painter of Silence, set in Romania of the 1950s. Mircea Cărtărescu was born in 1956 and has published novels, poems and essays. In the novel Nostalgia published in 1989, he looks at communist Bucharist in the 80's, in a dreamlike narrative seen in part through the eyes of children and young adults. Philippe Sands has chronicled Jewish histories in Eastern Europe in his books and podcast series The Ratline. He recommends Mihail Sebastian's book For Two Thousand Years.
Producer: Ruth Watts
You can find a playlist called Prose and Poetry on the Free Thinking website which contains other conversations organised in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vh
A rainbow monument in Warsaw which has now been destroyed. The response of residents in Belfast to an exhibition commemorating the Somme and the Easter Rising. Dr Martin Zebracki works on the Queer Memorials project which looks at memorials in Amsterdam, Warsaw and New York. Professor Keith Lilley is a geographer who has worked on a series of mapping projects linked to the anniversary of the First World War. New Generation Thinker and researcher of suffragette history, Dr Naomi Paxton, hosts the conversation.
The dining room at Windsor Castle holds one of Grinling Gibbons's carvings, others are found at churches including St Paul's Cathedral and the sculptor developed a kind of signature including peapods in many of his works. As an exhibition at Compton Verney explores his career: Matthew Sweet is joined by the curator Hannah Phillip, the artist and film-maker Alison Jackson who is known for working with lookalike performers. We also hear from artist Lucy McKenzie who has over 80 works on show at Tate Liverpool and Curator and New Generation Thinker Danielle Thom who has been collecting craft for the Museum of London.
Grinling Gibbons: Centuries in the Making runs at Compton Verney until January 30th 2022.
https://www.alison-jackson.co.uk/
Lucy McKenzie's work is on show at Tate Liverpool until 13 March 2022 comprising 80 works dating from 1997 to the present which include large-scale architectural paintings, illusionistic trompe l’oeil works, as well as fashion and design.
https://daniellethom.com/bio
Producer: Sofie Vilcins
Vietnam, ecological worries and poverty and suffering inspired the lyrics in Marvin Gaye's 1971 album What's Going On. Written as a song cycle from the point of view of a war Vet returning home, it was inspired in part by the letters he was receiving from his brother from Vietnam and from his own questions following the 1965 Watts riots. The Nu Civilization Orchestra is performing their version of the album at the London Jazz Festival tomorrow. Matthew Sweet is joined by jazz journalist Kevin Le Gendre, musician Gary Crosby, Dr Althea Legal-Miller - Senior Lecturer in American History & Culture at Canterbury Christ Church university and poet Roy McFarlane
The Nu Civilization Orchestra, founded by Gary Crosby, perform their version of the album at the London Jazz Festival at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre 18th November @7.30pm, with subsequent dates in Birmingham, Liverpool & Canterbury.
You can hear a host of programmes featuring performers from the London Jazz Festival on BBC Radio 3 including a special Jazz Through the Night. Free Thinking has a playlist of discussions devoted to influential artworks, books, films, music and plays called Landmarks of Culture with everything from the plays of Lorraine Hansberry to the film Jaws. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44
Kick-starting second-wave feminism with her 1949 book The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir was a key member of the Parisian circle of Existentialists alongside Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Her philosophical influences include Descartes and Bergson, phenomenology via Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, the assessment of society put forward by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and ideas about idealism from Immanuel Kant and GWF Hegel. Shahidha Bari and her guests consider her role in contemporary philosophy and Lauren Elkin describes translating a newly discovered novel The Inseparables.
Kathryn Belle is Associate Professor of Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University
Skye Cleary is Lecturer, Barnard College
Lauren Elkin is a Writer and translator of Simone de Beauvoir's The Inseparables, which follows two friends growing up and falling apart.
Kate Kirkpatrick is Fellow in Philosophy and Christian Ethics, Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford
Recorded in partnership with LSE Forum for Philosophy. You can find a playlist of Free Thinking discussions about philosophy on the programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07x0twx You can find a Radio 3 Sunday Feature hearing from some of our guests and archive of Simone de Beauvoir called Afterwords: Simone de Beauvoir https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011m4h
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Deciphering Dickens's shorthand, how the National Health Service uses graphic art to convey messages, creating a comic strip from Greek myths: these are some of the events taking place at the annual Being Human Festival in which universities around the UK introduce their research in a series of public talks, walks, workshops and performances. Laurence Scott meets some of those taking part and discusses different ways of recording and presenting information from comics to coded notebooks, to a scheme that projected books onto the ceilings of hospitals, which made it possible for thousands of people with disabilities to read after the Second World War.
Dr Claire Wood is at the University of Leicester. Her event is called Cracking the Dickens Code
Professor Anna Feigenbaum is at the University of Bournemouth. Her event is called Covid Comics and Me. Find out more at https://www.covidcomics.org/
Dr Amanda Potter is at the Open University. Her event is called Greek Mythology Comic Writing Workshop
Professor Matthew Rubery is at Queen Mary University of London. His event is called Projected Books for Veterans of the Second World War
The Being Human Festival runs from November 11th to 20th https://beinghumanfestival.org/
Producer: Phoebe McFarlane.
This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find other programmes hearing insights from academics in our New Research playlist on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
Melting perma-frost in Alaska has led to crooked housing, an eroded air-strip and changes to the hunting and fishing diets of the inhabitants. But are their views and experiences being properly registered in our discussions about climate change? Today's conversation looks at the idea of climate justice. Des Fitzgerald is talking about community based research with: Dr Tahrat Shahid - the Challenge Leader for Food Systems, and cross-portfolio Gender Advisor at the Global Challenges Research Fund, a UK government fund managed primarily by UK Research and Innovation. https://www.newton-gcrf.org/gcrf/challenge-leaders/dr-tahrat-shahid/ and Dr. Rick Knecht - Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at University of Aberdeen where he specialises in working with the Yup’ik communities of Alaska, both past and present https://www.abdn.ac.uk/geosciences/people/profiles/r.knecht
Professor Des Fitzgerald is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Exeter.
The podcast series Green Thinking is 26 episodes 26 minutes long looking at issues relating to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. It explores the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: Responding to climate change – UKRI or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Sofie Vilcins
Cold, civil, world, uprising, conflict, war on terror: Anne McElvoy and her guests Elif Shafak, Christina Lamb, Lincoln Jopp and Hilary Roberts explore the impact of the words we use to describe conflict. The Imperial War Museum has just revamped its "Second World War" galleries with changed dates and a wider focus and Cold War history is being rewritten in the light of current politics. So this year's Remembrance discussion asks how does language affect attitudes to war?
Elif Shafak's latest novel The Island of Missing Trees explores the division of Cyprus. Journalist Christina Lamb's books include Our Bodies, Their Battlefield: What War Does to Women and Farewell Kabul: From Afghanistan to a More Dangerous World and with Nujeen Mustafa she published The Girl from Aleppo: Nujeen's Escape from War to Freedom and with Malala Yousafzai she published I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban. Hilary Roberts is the IWM's Senior Curator and Historian of Cold War and Late 20th Century Conflict. Total War: A People’s History of the Second World War and The Holocaust by IWM curators Kate Clements, Paul Cornish and Vikki Hawkins an illustrated history of the Second World War, told with the help of personal stories from across the globe has been published to mark the re-opening of the IWM galleries. Lieutenant-Colonel Lincoln Jopp MC (retired) discussed war and modern memory on Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07jlbvp and at the Free Thinking Festival he debated decision making and quick reactions with Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson and Damon Hill https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08j9zsh
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
You can find a playlist on the Free Thinking website exploring war hearing from historians, writers, soldiers, diplomats, artists and including the previous Remembrance Discussions. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06kgbyb
Eliminating plastic from building houses, creating a house out of construction waste – rubble, chalk, ply timber and second hand nuts and bolts – and designing for circular cities are amongst the projects undertaken by Duncan Baker-Brown from the University of Brighton. Professor Flora Samuel from the University of Reading has been looking at the value of good architecture and how we can measure the social impact of sustainable housing. They talk to Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough.
You can find out more about Flora’s work and publications here: https://research.reading.ac.uk/urban-living/people/fsamuel/ and https://www.architecture.com/knowledge-and-resources/resources-landing-page/post-occupancy-evaluation
The Brighton Waste House: https://www.brighton.ac.uk/research-and-enterprise/feature/brighton-waste-house.aspx
Designing for Circular Cities: https://research.brighton.ac.uk/en/organisations/design-for-circular-cities-and-regions-dccr-research-and-enterpri-2
Dr Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Durham.
The podcast series Green Thinking is 26 episodes 26 minutes long looking at issues relating to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. It explores the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency.
New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough are in conversation with researchers about a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: Responding to climate change – UKRI or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Sofie Vilcins
Modern theology often treats God as an abstract principle: a mover that doesn't move. But in the Bible, Abraham walks alongside him, Jacob (arguably) spends a night wrestling with him, Moses talks with him face to face, Ezekiel sees him sitting on a throne, and Amos sees him standing in his temple. Jesus is declared the son of God, and declares in turn that he has sat alongside God at his right hand. Biblical scholar Francesca Stavrakopoulou joins Matthew Sweet to discuss the embodied divine and what it means for our understanding of God, along with with Hetta Howes, who studies Medieval mystical Christianity, and psychotherapist and former priest Mark Vernon.
On our website you can find a playlist called Free Thinking explores religious belief which includes conversations about Jewish history, Buddhism, interviews with Karen Armstrong and Richard Dawkins, a discussion of St John Henry Newman and about Islam and Mecca. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03mwxlp
You might also be interested in hearing the music picked out by Francesca Stavrakopoulou on Radio 3's Private Passions https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tnv3
Producer: Luke Mulhall
How can zines and board games help us understand climate change? Projects in Birmingham and Glasgow are using these techniques to allow young people to express their hopes and their experiences of activism. Dr Melanie Ramdarshan Bold and Simeon Shtebunaev talk to Rosamund Barraclough about why we should listen to and include the thoughts of young people.
Dr Melanie Ramdarshan Bold is Senior Lecturer in Children’s Literature Studies at the University of Glasgow. More information on zine-making workshops: https://festivalofsocialscience.com/events/the-climate-in-your-hands-empowering-young-peoples-engagement-in-climate-action-through-zine-making/
Simeon Shtebunaev is a doctoral researcher and lecturer at Birmingham City University. You can find more information about ‘Are You Game For Climate Change?’ here: https://www.bcu.ac.uk/research/our-phds/news-and-events/new-board-game-to-educate-young-people-in-climate-change
Both projects are funded through the AHRC’s ‘Engaging young people with climate research’ fund. More information can be found here: Food, theatre and music engage young people with climate research – UKRI
The podcast series Green Thinking is 26 episodes 26 minutes long looking at issues relating to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. It explores the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2 For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: Responding to climate change – UKRI or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Sofie Vilcins
Is district heating, not boilers, the answer to lowering our energy use? How should we think of decommissioned factories? Professor Frank Trentmann and Dr Ben Anderson explain the concept of district heating and how cities need to adapt to be more sustainable.
Frank Trentmann is Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London, where he is the principal investigator of the Material Cultures of Energy project.
You can find more information at: http://www7.bbk.ac.uk/mce/about/
Dr Ben Anderson is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental History at Keele University. He is currently running two projects, including ‘Decommissioning the Twentieth Century’, which aims to establish a new role for local communities in decommissioning large industrial facilities.
You can find more information at: https://chatterleywhitfieldfriends.org.uk/news/2524/decommissioning-the-twentieth-century/
Professor Des Fitzgerald is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Exeter.
The podcast series Green Thinking is 26 episodes 26 minutes long looking at issues relating to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. It explores the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency.
New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough are in conversation with researchers about a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: Responding to climate change – UKRI or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Sofie Vilcins
Caesars with the wrong beard, faint laurels in the background of a scene from Hogarth's A Rake's Progress and the experiences of the guardian of empty tombs, part of a ruined Neolithic necropolis in the Sharjah desert in the United Arab Emirates: Rana Mitter and his guests discuss the ghosts of history and depictions of power in art. Classicist Mary Beard has traced the collecting of images of Caesar over centuries in her latest book. Ali Cherri's artwork, born out of his experiences growing up in Lebanon, includes films like the Digger and interventions in galleries designed to make us notice what is on display and what is being hidden or erased. Alice Insley is Curator of Historic British Art at Tate Britain and she's been exploring the continental connections between Hogarth and his fellow artists.
Hogarth and Europe runs at Tate Britain from November 3rd to 20th March 2022. Ali Cherri is the National Gallery’s new Artist in Residence for 2021. He is also making work inspired by the archives held by Coventry's Herbert Art Gallery and Museum. You can find examples of his work https://www.alicherri.com/ Mary Beard's book is called Twelve Caesars: Images of Power form the Ancient World to the Modern
Our playlist of conversations about visual arts includes the 2021 Frieze Discussion with three directors of museums and galleries, an exploration of colour, and Aboriginal artworks on show at the Box Plymouth https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p026wnjl
Producer: Robyn Read
A concrete diving suited figure apparently swimming into the gallery floor is one of the sculptures created by Tania Kovats for her current exhibition. Margo Neale Ngawagurrawa has curated the Songlines exhibition of Aborginal art and the importance of their landscape. Huhana Smith works on the Te Waituhi a Nuku project which looks at Māori Coastal Ecosystems and Economies and climate change. Michael Falk researches the poetry of Papua New Guinea, including Reluctant Flame by John Kaisapwalova, which was written 50 years ago. Laurence Scott hosts the conversation about our relationship with water, the land and a sense of identity.
Tania Kovats: Oceanic is on show at Parafin London until Sat 20 Nov 2021. She is Profess of Drawing at Bath Spa University and her drawings and sculptures are inspired by reading Rachel Carson’s 1953 book The Sea Around Us https://www.drawingopen.com/tania-kovats has links to projects including Te Waituhi ā Nuku: Drawing Ecologies: Planning for Climate Change Impacts on Māori Coastal Ecosystems and Economies which Huhana Smith works on. Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters runs at the Box Plymouth until 27 February 2022 and includes the work of over 100 artists covering a landscape of 500,000 sq km. This link has more information about the poetry discussed by Michael Falk https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-kasaipwalova
You can find a playlist on the Free Thinking programme website called Green Thinking which gathers together podcasts made for COP26 highlighting new research into ways of combatting climate change and a series of discussions with writers, artists and musicians interested in exploring nature in their work. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
Producer: Sofie Vilcins.
Are states policing themselves properly? How is the law helping put the CITES agreement into practice to stem the international trade of wild animals and plants? Professor Elizabeth Kirk and Professor Tanya Wyatt discuss the pros and cons of international law as a tool and how it is hard to keep treaties up to date with changing environmental conditions. Des Fitzgerald hosts the conversation.
Professor Elizabeth Kirk is Global Chair of Global Governance and Ecological Justice and Director of the Lincoln Centre for Ecological Justice.
You can find more information at: https://www.lincoln.ac.uk/home/collegeofsocialscience/research/lincolncentreforecologicaljustice/
Dr Tanya Wyatt is Professor of Criminology specialising in green criminology at the University of Northumbria.
You can find more information at: https://cites.org/eng/disc/what.php
The podcast series Green Thinking is 26 episodes 26 minutes long looking at issues relating to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. It explores the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency.
New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough are in conversation with researchers about a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: Responding to climate change – UKRI or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Sofie Vilcins
As the clocks go back, theoretical physicist Fay Dowker, philosopher Nikk Effingham and science fiction writer Una McCormack join Matthew Sweet get to grips with the weirdness of time travel.
Fay Dowker is Professor of Theoretical Physics at Imperial College London. Una McCormack's latest book is The Autobiography of Mr Spock. Nikk Effingham is Reader of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham and author of Time Travel: Possibility and Improbability
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Radio 3 is broadcasting a series of programmes Capturing Twilight including a Free Thinking episode and an edition of Words and Music. On Sunday October 31st you can hear Music for the Hours - a day punctuated by moments of musical reflection. This is inspired by the daily rituals of the Liturgy of the Hours, also known as the Divine Office, which formed the basis of the earliest Christian services particularly in the monastic tradition. The music centres on medieval chant and the Renaissance vocal polyphony that arose from this tradition, with complementary choral works from contemporary composers, recorded specially for Radio 3 by the Tallis Scholars, directed by Peter Phillips. You can find details of the broadcasts on the BBC Radio 3 website.
Would it help to see Superheroes do their recycling? Do viewers feel more invested in climate protests depending on what the protesters look like? And how does bingeing box sets contribute to emissions and a bigger carbon footprint? Pietari Kaapa explains how blockbusters might be able to have a bigger impact than documentaries about the climate emergency, and Sylvia Hayes describes the changes in news images of climate change protest influence audiences.
Sylvia Hayes is a postgraduate researcher at the University of Exeter and is currently on placement with Carbon Brief, a climate change news website. Her research looks in to the use of media and images in reporting climate change news. https://geography.exeter.ac.uk/staff/index.php?web_id=Sylvia_Hayes
Dr Pietari Kaapa is Reader in Media and Communications at the University of Warwick, where he specialises in environmental screen media, particularly film and television. He is also the Principle Investigator for the Global Green Media Network. https://globalgreenmediaproduction.wordpress.com/
Dr Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Durham.
The podcast series Green Thinking is 26 episodes 26 minutes long looking at issues relating to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. It explores the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough are in conversation with researchers about a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: Responding to climate change – UKRI or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Sofie Vilcins
Christienna Fryar speaks to the researchers uncovering classical music that has been left out of the canon – discovering the stories of three composers whose voices and stories have been marginalised and obscured over time, despite their profound influence on music: the 18th-century French polymath Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, the Japanese trailblazer Kikuko Kanai and the prolific African-American composer Julia Perry.
Christopher Dingle, a Professor of Music at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, is studying the music of Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799). Born in Guadeloupe to an enslaved mother and a French plantation owner father, Boulogne lived an extraordinary life – as well as being one of the first black colonels in the French Army, he was a master fencer, celebrated violinist and conductor, whose concertos rival his contemporary Mozart in their fiendish virtuosity.
Mai Kawabata, from the Royal College of Music, is a musicologist and violinist. She shares the story of Kikuko Kanai (1906-1986), the first female composer in Japan to write a symphony. Kanai made waves in the musical establishment by fusing Japanese melodies with Western-classical influences –her “life mission” was to popularise the folk music of her native Okinawa.
Michael Harper, a vocal tutor from the Royal Northern College of Music, is championing the work of Julia Perry (1924-1979). Perry occupied a unique place as a black American composer – female and upper-middle class, she won Guggenheim fellowships to train in Europe. Despite a life cut short by paralysis and illness, her works include 12 symphonies and three operas.
Their research, in collaboration with the AHRC and Radio 3, will result in special recordings and concert broadcasts of these composers’ works. Produced by Amelia Parker
Today’s conversation was a New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research council which is part of UKRI. And if you want more information about the Diverse Composers project you can find that on the website of UK Research and Innovation https://www.ukri.org/news/celebrating-classical-composers-from-diverse-ethnic-backgrounds-2/
If you enjoyed this – there’s a playlist called New Research on the Free Thinking website where you can find discussions about everything from conserving fashion and putting it on display in museums to recording the accents found around Manchester, so do dip in. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
The government plans to plant 30,000 hectares of trees each year by 2025. But how practical is it and what would the real impact be? Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough talks to Dr Julie Urquhart of the University of Gloucestershire about why we need more information about carbon capture to help select the best places and the best tree species to plant. William Macalpine is based at Rothamsted – his project explores how cutting back and coppicing willows as a crop encourages a rapid growth cycle and replenishment. His presentation Willow Power at the 2008 Chelsea Flower show demonstrated the versatility of willow and the number of varieties. He argues we need longer term funding and to break the 5 year funding cycle for farmers, and researchers.
Dr Julie Urquhart is Associate Professor of Environmental Social Science at the University of Gloucestershire. She’s an ambassador for the Future of UK Treescapes programme, a collaboration funded by UK Research and Innovation, the Scottish and Welsh government and DEFRA.
William Macalpine is a willow breeder at Rothamsted Research, looking at shrub willows as a sustainable energy source. He is also a Chelsea Flower Show Gold Medal winner, for a display entitled ‘Willow Power’.
You can find out more about William Macalpine here: https://repository.rothamsted.ac.uk/staff/841w0/william-macalpine&resultMode=3 and the National Willow collection here https://www.rothamsted.ac.uk/uk-national-willow-collection
You can find more information about the Treescapes projects here: https://nerc.ukri.org/research/funded/programmes/future-of-uk-treescapes/
Dr Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Durham.
The podcast series Green Thinking is 26 episodes 26 minutes long looking at issues relating to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. It explores the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough are in conversation with researchers about a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: Responding to climate change – UKRI or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Photographing at nightfall, capturing the sense of light in classical music, the charged body of a black Jaguar in the Amazon: Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough's guests poet Pascale Petit, photographer Jasper Goodall, literary expert Alexandra Harris and composer Sally Beamish discuss the way twilight has been reflected in their own work and that of writers and painters of the past.
Pascale Petit's collection Fauverie draws on her experiences of watching wildlife at both ends of the day. Her most recent collection is Tiger Girl. Jaspar Goodall has taken a series of images of trees called Twilight's Path which you can find out about on https://www.jaspergoodall.com/ Alexandra Harris's books include Weatherland, Romantic Moderns, Time and Place. She is Professor of English Literature at the University of Birmingham and a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and AHRC to put academic research on the radio - leading to a feature for BBC Radio 3 on the art of Eric Ravilious, and a series of walking tours in the footsteps of Virginia Woolf https://www.alexandraharris.co.uk/tv-radio Sally Beamish has written various compositions reflecting on light at the beginning and end of the day including Epilogue reflecting on a Quaker prayer meeting, Bridging the Day and Wild Swans inspired by the Yeats poem. https://www.sallybeamish.com/
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
BBC Radio 3 is broadcasting a series of programmes reflecting on twilight including a recent episode of the weekly curation of prose and poetry set alongside music Words and Music which will be available on BBC Sounds for 28 days.
How can we come up with ethical and equal solutions to the climate emergency, helping rural communities to develop, and learn from the experience of indigenous communities. Alison Mohr explains how food waste can be turned into energy, and how giving communities access to energy, football and cold drinks can create business opportunities and help people help themselves. Antonio Ioris shares his experience of working with indigenous communities in Brazil, how they are coping with impacts on their lifestyles, and how they connect with other indigenous communities around the world.
Dr Alison Mohr is an independent researcher and advisor on energy systems governance. Her work sits at the intersection of energy, environmental and social systems, balancing sustainability, decarbonisation and economic development.
Dr Antonio Ioris is Reader in Human Geography at Cardiff University, where his research focuses on the interconnections and interdependencies between society and the rest of nature. He looks at indigenous geography, political ecology and the economy of development and environmental regulations.
Dr Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Durham.
The podcast series Green Thinking is 26 episodes 26 minutes long looking at issues relating to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. It explores the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough are in conversation with researchers about a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: Responding to climate change – UKRI or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Sofie Vilcins
Child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education are amongst the topics explored in over 20 books by the author Buchi Emecheta. Born in 1944 in an Ibusa village, she lost her father aged eight, travelled to London and made a career as a writer whilst bringing up five children on her own, working by day and studying at night for a degree. Shahidha Bari is joined in the studio by her son Sylvester Onwordi, New Generation Thinker Louisa Egbunike, publisher Margaret Busby and Kadija George (otherwise known as Kadija Sesay) founder of SABLE LitMag. We also hear from other writers and readers, including Diane Abbott MP and poet Grace Nichols, who took part in an event held at the Centre of African Studies at SOAS, University of London, a year after her death.
Buchi Emecheta's career took off when she turned her columns for the New Statesman about black British life into a novel In The Ditch which was published in 1972. It depicted a single black mother struggling to cope in England against a background of squalor. Two years later Allison and Busby published her book Second-Class Citizen, which focused on issues of race, poverty and gender. Now her books are being re-published so for Black History Month this October 2021 here's another chance to hear this discussion recorded in 2018.
Producer: Robyn Read
You can find a playlist Exploring Black History on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbp
Main Image: Buchi Emecheta (Photograph by Valerie Wilmer, courtesy of Sylvester Onwordi (c)).
Gardening and George Orwell might not be the first pairing that comes to mind but he uses gardening metaphors in his writing and made many notes about the growth of vegetables and flowers he had planted. Rebecca Solnit discusses how this focus helps us understand his work and that of other writers interested in flowers. Shahidha Bari is also joined by Amy de la Haye, curator and author of 'Ravishing: The Rose in Fashion', Randy Malamud, whose study of cut flowers in culture is called 'Strange Bright Blooms', and Simon Morley, author of 'By Any Other Name: A Cultural History Of The Rose'.
Orwell's Roses by Rebecca Solnit is out now. You can hear her discussing her ideas about truth in a previous episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008wc1
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Emissions, reputation and shame: what does the history of climate conferences tell us about what to expect at COP26? Professor Paul Harris and Professor John Vogler look at whether there are different ways of approaching some of the key questions to ensure greater success in meeting targets. Why do emissions created in China for businesses based in Europe but using Chinese labour count against China’s pollution tally rather than the European businesses? Should there be a more joined up way of thinking about worldwide trade? Would a framework for businesses rather than for nation states be better? Is a focus on coal and fossil fuels the way forward?
Professor Paul Harris is Chair Professor of Global and Environmental studies at the Education University of Hong Kong. His work focuses on climate change, climate governance and justice, and he has authored and edited books on topics around environmental politics, and climate change and foreign policy. https://www.earthsystemgovernance.org/person/paul-g-harris/
Professor John Vogler is Professorial Research Fellow in International Relations at the University of Keele. His research focuses on international relations and the environment, and includes studies of governance of oceans, Antarctica and outer space. https://www.keele.ac.uk/spgs/staff/vogler/#biography
Professor Des Fitzgerald is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Exeter.
The podcast series Green Thinking is 26 episodes 26 minutes long looking at issues relating to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. It explores the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough are in conversation with researchers about a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: Responding to climate change – UKRI or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Sofie Vilcins
Do we value the right ideas? Two concepts come in for close scrutiny in this edition of Free Thinking: Rationality and Tradition. So, what are they, how has our understanding of them changed over time and why do we seem to place such little emphasis on each in our contemporary world? Presenter Anne McElvoy will listening to the arguments as Steven Pinker makes the case for rationality and Tim Stanley for tradition.
Steven Pinker is Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and author or Rationality: What it is, why it seems scarce, why it matters Tim Stanley is a writer, broadcaster and journalist, his latest book is Whatever Happened to Tradition? History, Belonging and the Future of the West
Producer: Ruth Watts
How have we shaped the landscapes around us, and how have landscapes shaped us? From flooding in Cumbria to community groups in Staffordshire, how can understanding the history of a landscape help planners, council policy, and current residents? Do we need to rethink the way we archive information about changes to landscapes? Professor Neil Macdonald has explored the history of relationships with landscapes, whilst artist and scientist Nicole Manley is delving into hidden knowledge to discover what people know about landscapes without realising.
Professor Neil Macdonald is a Professor of Geography at the University of Liverpool. He is currently focussing on floods, droughts and extreme weather in projects taking place in the Hebrides, Staffordshire and Cumbria. https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/geography-and-planning/research/clandage/
Artist Nicole Manley is a mixed media artist, researching the influence of environmental art. She is also know as Dr Nicole Archer and is a a soil hydrologist from the British Geological Survey. https://www.nicolemanley.org/
Dr Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Durham.
You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: Responding to climate change – UKRI or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Sofie Vilcins
Who complained about Olivier's Othello? Stephen Bourne has been mining the archives to find out who raised questions about Laurence Olivier's blacked up performance in 1964. It's one of the stories he tells in his new book, which also includes memories of meeting performers including Carmen Munroe, Corinne Skinner-Carter and Elisabeth Welch. Nadine Deller hosts a podcast linked to the National Theatre's Black plays archive and she's particularly interested in women playwrights whose work deserves to be better known including Una Marson. They talk to performer and historian of women in theatre Naomi Paxton. Plus New Generation Thinker Adjoa Osei tells the story of Afro Cuban performer Rita Montaner who straddled the worlds of opera and cabaret between the 1920s and 1950s.
Deep Are the Roots: Trailblazers Who Changed Black British Theatre is out now from Stephen Bourne. His other books include Black Poppies and Playing Gay in the Golden Age of British TV. The National Theatre Black Plays archive is at https://www.blackplaysarchive.org.uk/ and Nadine's podcast is called That Black Theatre Podcast. You can hear Dawn Walton who directed the Hampstead Theatre production of Alfred Fagon's drama The Death of a Black Man in this Free Thinking conversation about black performance From Blackface to Beyoncé https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000tnlt
Naomi Paxton is the author of Stage Rights! The Actresses' Franchise League, activism and politics: 1908-1958 and has written an introduction to the new book 50 Women in Theatre. Naomi and Adjoa are New Generation Thinkers on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio.
A playlist of discussions, features and essays about Black history, music, writing and performance is available on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbp
This episode is part of the New Thinking series of conversations focusing on new research put together in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI.
Producer: Tim Bano
Should we consider nature economically, socially, spiritually or culturally? What is the financial worth of bees? And do whales value each other? Dr Rupert Read and Professor Steve Waters explore how humans value nature and how that can impact climate change, whether that’s setting a play in a nature reserve, or considering the fact that whales go on holiday.
Dr Rupert Read is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, and a climate and environmental campaigner. You can find out about Rupert’s work, including his blog posts, videos and upcoming public events, here: https://rupertread.net/
Professor Steve Waters is a Professor of Scriptwriting at the University of East Anglia, and has written numerous plays on climate change and human relationships with nature. He is also an AHRC Leadership fellow working on the project, ‘The Song of the Reeds: Dramatising Conservation’ in collaboration with Wicken Fen and Strumpshaw Fen nature reserves. You can listen to his seasonal drama, ‘Song of the Reeds’, which was produced in four parts for Radio 4 and features Sophie Okonedo and Mark Rylance, here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000x6pk
Professor Des Fitzgerald is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Exeter.
You can find the podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: Responding to climate change – UKRI or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Sofie Vilcins
Could the modern world be built on the back of our craving for an addictive substance? Matthew Sweet marshals historians Mimi Goodall and Dexnell Peters, and artist and theorist Ayesha Hameed, to see how far we can push the idea that our desire for sugar led to the development of new forms of agriculture, as well as slavery, empire and capitalism, indeed the initiation of a new era in the earth's geological history and climate. And they consider how we can think through such massive, world-historical shifts.
Ayesha Hameed is Co-Programme Leader for the PhD in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her video Black Atlantis: The Plantationocene is here: https://vimeo.com/415428776 Dexnell Peters is Teaching Fellow in History at the University of Warwick and Supernumerary Fellow at Exeter College, Oxford Mimi Goodall has just finished a DPhil in History at Oxford
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You might be interested in episodes exploring Black history available on the Arts & Ideas podcast or a playlist on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbp
A novel about Matisse, hand glazed ceramic panels, red ochre to Yves Klein blue, the story of female pioneers of colour theory: Laurence Scott is joined by the artist Lubna Chowdhary, author Michèle Roberts and art historians James Fox and Kelly Grovier to celebrate colour and find out more about the history of different colours and the way we look at them.
Lubna Chowdhary's exhibition at Peer in London until November will be expanded when it goes on show in Middlesborough at MIMA in 2022 https://lubnachowdhary.co.uk/ James Fox's book is called The World According to Colour: A Cultural History Michèle Roberts' novel is called Cut, Out. You can hear Michèle talking about failure and female friendship in a previous Free Thinking discussion https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jvwp Kelly Grovier is writing about female pioneers of colour theory for bbc.com You can find more of his work at https://www.kellygrovier.com/
In the Free Thinking visual arts playlist we talk to painter Sean Scully, a fashion expert and a neuro scientist about colour perception https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b046cs01 and Kelly thinks about how we look at art in this episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04xrzd5 And if you want to experience colour on the walls of galleries at the moment – the Royal Academy Summer show is ablaze with it, the Hayward Gallery has a display of painters, Frieze London art fair is on this week, Mit Jai Inn has created a Dreamworld at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, Charleston farmhouse in Sussex – the colourfully decorated home of the Bloomsbury gang - pairs the work of Duncan Grant with contemporary art and the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge has a show focusing on gold artefacts found in Kazakhstan.
Producer: Jessica Treen
The National Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut were among the many arts institutions forced to close during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. How has this experience changed the running of these galleries and museums? Anne McElvoy talks to:
Gabriele Finaldi - Director of the National Gallery in London, which filmed its Artemisia Gentileschi exhibition and then sold online passes to view the show. Courtney J. Martin - Paul Mellon Director, Yale Center for British Art. Daniel Weiss - President and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
You can find directors of museums and galleries in Singapore, Beijing, Paris, St Petersburg, Washington, Los Angeles, London and Dresden in previous Frieze/Free Thinking discussions. There's a playlist on the Free Thinking website called Visual Arts which also includes conversations about colour in art, slow looking, women's art, Black British art, the role of critics.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Climate change presents new challenges to human health. As temperatures rise, tropical and sub-tropical diseases are already becoming more widespread. While climate change has consequences on human health, engaging with the natural world can also have benefits for physical and mental health. But, how do we best communicate and explain these issues and the choices we face. Des Fitzgerald talks to Samantha Walton and Christopher Sanders about their research and discuss the challenges the climate and nature emergency presents to human health, and how we might respond.
Dr Christopher Sanders is a Fellow in Entomology, Epidemiology and Virology at the Pirbright Institute funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), which is part of UK Research and Innovation. His research focuses on the physiological and behavioural attributes that enable an insect species to transmit a pathogen. Since 2006, his work has explored the behaviour of Culicoides biting midges, a type of small insect which has the potential to be transported over long distances on prevailing winds, carrying viruses with it. https://www.pirbright.ac.uk/users/dr-christopher-sanders
Dr Samantha Walton is a poet and Reader in Modern Literature at Bath Spa University. Her research explores psychology and environmentalism; experimental poetics, fiction of the 1920s-30s; and the Scottish novelist and nature writer, Nan Shepherd. Walton is the author of The Living World: Nan Shepherd and Environmental Thought, and the forthcoming Everybody Needs Beauty: In Search of the Nature Cure. Between 2016-2018, Walton was an Early Career Leadership Fellow working on the AHRC-funded project, Cultures of Nature and Wellbeing: Connecting Health and the Environment through Literature. This project involved working with environment and health policymakers and wellbeing practitioners, and original research into what literature tells us about our emotional and ethical entanglements with the living world. You can read more about the project here: https://culturenaturewellbeing.wordpress.com
Professor Des Fitzgerald is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Exeter.
You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to soil and sustainable transport.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on festivals, rivers, eco-criticism and the weather. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: https://www.ukri.org/our-work/responding-to-climate-change/ or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Ruth Watts
The theme of this year's National Poetry Day is choice. Shahidha Bari is joined by Marvin Thompson, winner of this year's Poetry Society National Poetry Competition, and poet and New Generation Thinker Jake Morris-Campbell to discuss the choices poets make in their work, and the choices audiences make in their reception of poetry too. But is choice an illusion? What does it mean to choose anyway? Philosopher Clare Carlisle discusses the analysis of choice offered by the 17th century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, and the economist Carol Propper discusses the concept of choice in economics.
Marvin Thompson's prize winning poem is The Fruit of the Spirit Is Love (Galatians 5:22) https://poetrysociety.org.uk/poems/the-fruit-of-the-spirit-is-love-galatians-522 His poem for National Poetry Day is May 8th, 2020 https://nationalpoetryday.co.uk/poem/may-8th-2020/
Clare Carlisle's book Spinoza's Religion is published by Princeton University Press on the 12th October
Jake Morris-Campbell will be at the Durham Book Festival on the 17th October reading from his forthcoming collection Corrigenda for Costafine Town, tickets are available here https://durhambookfestival.com/programme/event/north-east-poetry-showcase-john-challis-jo-clement-and-jake-morris-campbell/
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Names to put back into the conversation about the history of British Theatre are suggested by Naomi Paxton’s guests in this New Thinking podcast. Stephen Bourne is the author of Deep Are the Roots – Trailblazers Who Changed Black British Theatre. Nadine Deller is an academic whose research focuses on the place of Black women in the Black Plays Archive. She hosts That Black Theatre Podcast in collaboration with the National Theatre and is based at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
Naomi Paxton is also at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She has written an introduction to the new book 50 Women in Theatre and her own research looks at the links between theatre, entertainment and the suffrage movement.
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put research on the radio. This episode of New Thinking is made in partnership with the AHRC, part of UKRI.
You can find a playlist with topics including women and slavery, eco-criticism, fashion stories in museums, magic, and Aphra Behn on the BBC Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
Stephen’s book Deep Are the Roots – Trailblazers Who Changed Black British Theatre is published by The History Press and available now.
You can listen to That Black Theatre Podcast in all podcast places.
50 Women in Theatre is published by Aurora Metro and available now.
Producer: Tim Bano
Racial injustice in USA; ghost towns in post-industrial Scotland; how maritime history looks from the viewpoint of Aboriginal Australians and Parsis, Mauritians and Malays; the roots of violence that has plagued postcolonial society. These are topics covered in the books shortlisted for the British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding. Rana Mitter talks to the four authors who are:
Cal Flynn for Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape Eddie S. Glaude Jr. for Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Today Mahmood Mamdani for Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities Sujit Sivasundaram for Waves Across the South: A New History of Revolution and Empire
Producer: Ruth Watts
Previously known as the Al Rodhan prize - you can find interviews with previous winners and shortlisted authors on the Free Thinking website. The winner in 2020 was Hazel V. Carby for Imperial Intimacies: A Tale of Two Islands. Other previous winners include Toby Green, Kapka Kassabova, Neil MacGregor and Karen Armstrong.
The Full English or Continental? What does our breakfast choice signify and how has it been represented in culture? 60 years on from the opening of the film Breakfast at Tiffany's - taken from Truman Capote's novella - Matthew Sweet and his guests consider a range of examples from monks and nuns breaking the fast, through films and TV series depicting the upper class English choices to the clubs promoted by the Black Panthers and poverty campaigner Marcus Rashford. Matthew is joined by medieval expert and New Generation Thinker Hetta Howes, by the French cultural critic Muriel Zagha and food historian Annie Gray. Hetta Howes has published a book called Transformative Waters in Late Medieval Literature. Annie Gray is a food historian who appears regularly on BBC Radio 4's The Kitchen Cabinet and is the author of books including Victory in the Kitchen: The Life of Churchill's Cook http://www.anniegray.co.uk/ You can find the book Matthew recommends Round About a Pound a Week by Maud Pember Reeves here https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58691 You can find out more about the Black Panther breakfast clubs at http://www.itsabouttimebpp.com/index_PhotoGallery.html
Muriel talks about films including Groundhog Day and Phantom Thread.
In the Free Thinking archives you can find programmes about food hearing from: philosopher Barry Smith, restaurant critic-cum-trainee chef Lisa Markwell, book critic Alex Clark and food historian Elsa Richardson https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08wn51y Food, the Environment and Richard Flanagan : Cassandra Coburn, Anthony Warner and Alasdair Cochrane discuss food security, hunger and vegan politics https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rn6v The Working Lunch: James C Scott on the birth of cities and how the Victorians changed lunch, with New Generation Thinkers Elsa Richardson and Chris Kissane https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b7my5n Funghi: An Alien Encounter https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dr46
Producer: Robyn Read
Children walking to school, or cycling is the aim of a project in Manchester which one of today's guests, Dr Sarah Mander, works on. She shares her ideas about how to change our patterns of transport use from the morning walk to work or school to worldwide shipping. Professor Tim Schwanen is exploring inclusive transition towards electric mobility and he heads up the transport studies unit at the University of Oxford. They talk to Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough Professor Tim Schwanen oversees various researchers exploring transport studies at https://www.tsu.ox.ac.uk/ Dr Sarah Mander is working with the CAST centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations https://cast.ac.uk/ and she talks about the experiences of working with a Manchester community to change school journeys https://ourstreetschorlton.co.uk/ This episode is part of the podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. These are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on topics including money, fashion, festivals, rivers, food, soils and the weather. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2 For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: https://www.ukri.org/our-work/responding-to-climate-change/ or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast. Producer: Ruth Watts
Archiving or hoarding - the mother in Ruth Ozeki's new novel The Book of Form and Emptiness is overwhelmed by the newspaper cuttings she is supposed to categorise for her job. In his new history of indexes, Dennis Duncan tells us about why people were criticised as "index rakers" in the Restoration, and the links between Cicero, the idea of alphabetical ordering and a former Bishop of Lincoln. Saxophone player Alam Nathoo is helping Ruth Ozeki launch her novel at the Southbank Centre in London and he joins us to explore the ideas of structure and improvising in jazz music.
Ruth Ozeki launches her new novel The Book of Form and Emptiness at the Southbank Centre London alongside a performance by Alam Nathoo on October 7th. BBC Radio 3 is broadcasting a series of concerts from Southbank Centre London - all available to listen to on BBC Sounds. Dennis Duncan's book is called Index, A History of the You can hear him discussing title pages and marginalia in a Free Thinking episode called Book Parts and Difficulty https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006tnf and translation in an episode called Africa, Babel, China https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002h89
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Would he condemn Hitler? That's the question novelist Thomas Mann was continually asked, after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929 following novels such as Buddenbrooks and The Magic Mountain. Colm Toibin's new novel The Magician details the differences of opinion between Mann and his brother, and the way his children were part of a bold and experimental younger generation of writers. Anne McElvoy brings Colm Toibin, Sean Williams and Dr Erica Wickerson together for a discussion about Mann's life and writing and the pressure put upon writers to make a public stand on topical issues.
Colm Toibin is the author of ten novels including Brooklyn, Nora Webster and The Testament of Mary. His latest book, The Magician, is out now.
Sean Williams is a BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker and Senior Lecturer in German and European Cultural History in the School of Languages and Cultures at the University of Sheffield.
Erica Wickerson, is the author of The Architecture of Narrative Time: Thomas Mann and the Problems of Modern Narrative, she's a British Academy Rising Star and recent holder of a research fellowship at St John’s College, Cambridge.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Image: Colm Toibin Credit: Reynaldo Rivera
You can find Colm Toibin in a Free Thinking discussion about women's voices in the Classical world recorded at Hay Festival https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08rsrlt and talking about his novels at the 2012 Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p2shp
You can find Free Thinking discussions about German culture including Neil McGregor and crime writer Volker Kutscherhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b079mcgf New Angles on Post-War Germany and Austria with Sophie Hardach and Florian Huber https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006sjx Mocking Power past and present with Daniel Kelhmann, Karen Leeder https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dzww Anne McElvoy talks to Susan Neimann, Christopher Hampton and Ursula Owen about tolerance, censorship and free speech and lessons from German history https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008hvz
From a "monthly nurse" registered in the census, to local newspaper reports of strikes and industrial accidents, an auction of household goods and furniture to the records of an asylum: just some of the sources and stories that have gone into the most recent programmes broadcast in the BBC TV series A House Through Time. In this podcast exploring the research process, producer Kat Feavers and freelance researcher and historian Melanie Backe-Hansen share some of the work that goes on behind the scenes with presenter John Gallagher, including a discussion about why house numbers can be misleading, some of the family histories which didn't make it on air and the difficulties of finding proof when interpreting some historical records.
A House Through Time is made for the BBC by the twenty twenty production company and you can see episodes of series 4 on the i player now A book from the series is now available co-written by Melanie and the presenter David Olusoga Melanie Backe-Hansen's website is http://www.house-historian.co.uk/ This podcast is made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) which is part of UKRI.
A playlist on the Free Thinking programme website called New Research collects all the episodes together https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
Historical novelist Philippa Gregory, historians Susan Doran and Nandini Das, and literary scholar and author Adam Roberts join Matthew Sweet at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry to discuss the enduring appeal of Tudor history and the role that historical fiction plays in shaping our view of history. Plus the connection between Sir Walter Scott and nearby Kenilworth Castle. Part of the BBC Contains Strong Language festival.
Elizabeth and Mary: Royal Cousins, Rival Queens opens at the British Library opens 8 October 2021–20 February 2022. Professor Susan Doran has edited the exhibition catalogue and will be giving an online talk on October 13th called Too Close to Her Throne: The Other Cousins Kenilworth Castle and Garden are run by English Heritage https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/kenilworth-castle/ Walter Scott (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832) wrote many historical novels including Kenilworth - his account of Queen Elizabeth, the Earl of Leicester and the murder of his wife Amy Robsart which was published 13 January 1821. Philippa Gregory's novels include The Other Boleyn Girl, The King's Curse and her current Fairmile Series. She is a fellow of the Universities of Sussex and Cardiff and an honorary research fellow at Birkbeck University of London. Adam Roberts teaches at Royal Holloway, University of London and Nandini Das teaches at the University of Oxford. She is a BBC/ARHC New Generation Thinker.
You can find a Free Thinking discussion about Waverly available to download as an Arts & Ideas podcast from the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04dr39q There is also a discussion about how we used to feel in the past and the idea of emotional history which hears from author and historian Tracy Borman https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003zp2
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Rebellion and causing offence: Shahidha Bari looks at punk and finds that beyond the filth and the fury of the ‘70s music scene, it provided a new vocabulary for artists that’s shaped the cultural scene to the present day, with photographs of the British punk scene on show, a new documentary coming in the Autumn and the opening of a play this week drawing on the idea of punk. Shahidha's guests are: Morgan Lloyd Malcolm whose drama, opening in Sheffield, features women in a prison becoming inspired by a punk band; Philip Venables, the classical composer of works including 4:48 Psychosis and Denis and Katya; musican and 6 music broadcaster Tom Robinson, and Radio 3 and AHRC New Generation Thinker Diarmuid Hester, author of Wrong, A Critical Biography of Denis Cooper. They look at figures ranging from Rimbaud up to the Slits and Derek Jarman. Plus - as Ru Paul's Drag Show returns to TV, Diarmuid Hester considers an earlier portrayal of queer culture in the paintings of Edward Burra.
Typical Girls - Morgan Lloyd Malcolm's play produced by Sheffield Theatres and Clean Break runs from Sept 24th to October 16th You can find out more about Philip Venables at https://philipvenables.com/ Diarmuid Hester's website with information about his queer tours of Cambridge and Rye https://www.diarmuidhester.com/ The photographs of Michael Grecco and Kevin Cummins were on show at Photo London. Rebel Dykes, is a documentary set in 1980s post punk London, directed by Harri Shanahan and Sian A. Williams Edward Burra's work is on show at the Rye Art Gallery in Burra and Friends (until October 3rd).
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Soil nurtures plant, animal and human life. Industrial farming practices have depleted soil and agrochemicals have been used to revive it. In recent years some farmers have adopted regenerative methods, to create and nurture soil, before turning their attention to growing crops and livestock. So what does the latest research suggests we need to change if we are to encourage greater sustainability in our soil culture and practices? Des Fitzgerald talks to Maria Puig de la Bellacasa and Daryl Stump about how we might change the way we think about and treat soil.
Maria Puig de la Bellacasa is an AHRC Leadership Fellow and a Reader at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, University of Warwick. Her research covers science and technology studies, feminist theory and environmental humanities. Her current work explores the formation of novel ecological cultures, looking at how connections between scientific knowing, social and community movements, and art interventions are contributing to transformative ethics, politics and justice. Her current work explores the changes in human-soil relations. Inspired by a range of interventions and practices from science, community activism, art, and soil policy and advocacy, Maria explores contemporary human-soil encounters that happen beyond the usual uses of soil for production. Through her research, Maria hopes to change the way we relate to soils and to contribute to nurturing everyday ecological awareness. You can find details about Maria’s research here: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FT00665X%2F1. And, you can watch a talk Maria gave for the Serpentine Galleries here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfNSPx24f2l
Daryl Stump is an archaeologist in the Departments of Archaeology and Environment and Geography at the University of York. His research makes use of archaeological techniques to assess the sustainability of human-environment interactions, with a particular focus on historic agricultural systems in eastern Africa. He is currently leading on the AHRC-funded project, SOIL-SAFE, which explores the benefits of soil erosion and river-side sediment traps for agricultural production and, in turn, food security. Building on relationships with agricultural NGOs in the UK, Europe and eastern Africa, this project combines archaeological, ethnobotanical and development studies research to design a method of assessing the costs and benefits of sediment traps that can be applied by NGOs and researchers to a range of social and ecological environments worldwide. It aims to benefit rural communities where soil erosion presents a serious threat to their future livelihoods. You can find details about Daryl’s research here: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FT004185%2F1 And here: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FV000551%2F1#/tabOverview
Professor Des Fitzgerald is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Exeter.
You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on festivals, rivers, eco-criticism and the weather. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: https://www.ukri.org/our-work/responding-to-climate-change/ or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Hannah Arendt tackled the big ideas behind possibly the most dangerous period of the twentieth century: Anti-Semitism, Imperialism and Totalitarianism. These phenomena and the concepts of freedom and evil were all the more immediate to her, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany. In recent years there has been a renewed interest in her writing which has often focused on mass propaganda, the differences between fact and fiction and the rise of the strong man leader. It's 70 years since Hannah Arendt published The Origins of Totalitarianism in 1951, so what does a re-reading of it tell us about our own world?
Anne McElvoy is joined by the guests: Author and journalist Paul Mason, who has just published a book called How to Stop Fascism; Samantha Rose Hill is a senior research fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and the Humanities and her latest book is a biography, Hannah Arendt (2021). Her edition of Hannah Arendt's Poems will be published in 2022. Daniel Johnson is a journalist and the editor of The Article And, Gavin Delahunty is the curator of On Hannah Arendt: Eight Proposals for Exhibition running at the Richard Saltoun Gallery throughout 2021.
Producer: Ruth Watts
In the Free Thinking archives and available to download as an Arts & Ideas podcast: Anne McElvoy talks to Susan Neimann, Christopher Hampton and Ursula Owen about tolerance, censorship and free speech and lessons from German history https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008hvz Matthew Sweet looks at What Nietszche Teaches Us with biographer Sue Prideaux and philosophers Hugo Drochon and Katrina Mitcheson https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000d8k Orwell's 1984: A Landmark of Culture brings together Peter Pomerantsev, Joanna Kavenna, Dorian Lynskey and Lisa Mullen to explore Orwell's ideas about surveillance and propaganda. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005nrl
"I have no relation or friend" - words spoken by Frankenstein's monster in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel. That story, alongside Georg Büchner's expressionist classic Woyzeck, has inspired the new production for English National Ballet put together by Akram Khan.
He joins poet Hannah Lowe, who's been reflecting on her experiences of teaching London teenagers; Tash Aw, who explores his Chinese and Malaysian heritage, and his status as insider and outsider in memoir Strangers on a Pier; and New Generation Thinker Eleanor Lybeck, who's been looking at the images of music hall performance and circus life in the paintings of Walter Sickert (1860 - 1942) and Laura Knight (1877-1970) for a conversation exploring different ideas about belonging.
Shahidha Bari hosts.
Creature: a co-production between English National Ballet, Sadler's Wells and Opera Ballet Vlaanderen opens at Sadler's Wells on 23rd Sept and then tours internationally. Hannah Lowe's new collection from Bloodaxe is called The Kids. Strangers on a Pier by Tash Aw is published by Fourth Estate. Sickert: A Life in Art is on show at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool from 18 Sep 2021—27 Feb 2022. It's the largest retrospective in the UK for 30 years. Laura Knight: A Panoramic View is on show at the Milton Keynes Gallery from 9 Oct 2021 - 20 Feb 2022. Eleanor Lybeck is an academic on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council called New Generation Thinkers which turns research into radio. She is a lecturer in Irish Literature at the University of Liverpool and explored her own family history and her great grandfather's links with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in a short Sunday Feature for Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06pqsqr
Producer: Tim Bano
Image: Akram Khan Credit: Jean-Louis Fernandez
You might also be interested in our exploration of language and belonging in which the writers Preti Taneja, Michael Rosen, Guy Gunaratne, Deena Mohamed, Dina Nayeri and Momtaza Mehri compare notes https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006fh9
The fast fashion industry stands accused of depleting natural resources, creating vast carbon emissions and producing endless garments destined for landfill. So, what can be done? Researchers across creative and scientific disciplines have been looking at how the fashion industry can cut waste, recycle, consume less – and, critically, change our attitudes to what we wear. Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough talks to Professor Jane Harris and Professor Simon McQueen Mason about how we can change clothes production and curb our shopping habits.
Professor Jane Harris is Director of Research and Innovation (Stratford) and Professor of Digital Design and Innovation at the University of the Arts London. She has over 25 years’ experience in transdisciplinary research, with a background in textile design and extensive experience of computer graphic imaging. Through her research, Professor Harris has devised novel approaches to the digital representation of dress and textiles. She is also Director of the Business of Fashion, Textiles and Technology (BFTT), a five-year industry-led project, funded by the Industrial Strategy through the Arts and Humanities Research Council and part of the Creative Industries Cluster Programme. The project, which delivers sustainable innovation within the entire fashion and textile supply chain, aims to create a new business culture that supports fashion, textiles and technology businesses of all sizes to use R&D to grow. Its focus on sustainability centres around sustainable design and business practice, material usage, and new methods of manufacturing. You can read more about the project here: https://bftt.org.uk/ and its recent report co-authored by here: https://bftt.org.uk/publications/
Professor Simon McQueen-Mason is Chair in Materials Biology at the University of York. His research encompasses various aspects of plant cell wall biology. He is a member of the UKRI-funded Textiles Circularity Centre (Royal College of Art, RCA) and its Materials Circularity Research Strand where his work plays a critical role in helping to establish new processes for using biotechnology to convert household waste and used textiles into new, functional and regenerative textiles designed for circularity. His research makes use of waste cellulose to create textile fibres, which are sent from the University of York to the University of Cranfield where they are spun to make new textiles. These textiles are then sent to the Royal College of Art for the students to design and make new clothing with. You can read more about McQueen Mason’s work around sustainable fashion here: https://www.plasticexpert.co.uk/york-biologists-discover-method-of-turning-waste-into-fashion/ and his latest project, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), and here: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FT017023%2F1#/tabOverview You can also read more about the Textiles Circularity Centre here: https://www.rca.ac.uk/research-innovation/research-centres/materials-science-research-centre/textiles-circularity-centre/ and find out more about the five UKRI-funded circular economy research centres here: https://www.ukri.org/news/circular-economy-centres-to-drive-uk-to-a-sustainable-future/
Dr Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Durham.
You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on festivals, rivers, eco-criticism and the weather. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: https://www.ukri.org/our-work/responding-to-climate-change/ or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Ruth Watts
One definition of a glitch is a short-lived fault in a system operating otherwise as it should. Glitches in digital systems have been used by artists for at least a decade to produce work with a characteristic aesthetic, that invite reflection on the computer systems that play an ever bigger part in our lives. Matthew Sweet is joined by the artists and theorist of glitches Rosa Menkman and Antonio Roberts to discuss the glitch as a meeting point between technology and aesthetics, along with the novelist Tom McCarthy whose new novel The Making of Incarnation features the work of the psychologist and industrial engineer Lilian Gilbreth (1878-1972), who developed a series of time-and-motion studies which aimed to improve the organisation of factory production lines, and ultimately arrive at the one most efficient way of doing everything. And they're joined by the philosopher Hugo Drochon, who's investigated conspiracy theories and the role glitches play for people who follow them.
The Making of Incarnation by Tom McCarthy is published in September 2021. Antonio Roberts' website is https://www.hellocatfood.com/ Rosa Menkman's is http://rosa-menkman.blogspot.com/
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can find Tom McCarthy in a Free Thinking conversation about the "experimentalism" of Alain Robbe Grillet https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000xr4m and he discusses a previous novel Satin Island in this episode with Anne McElvoy https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b054t24q
Descending into the nine circles of Hell is one of the key ideas set out in Dante's Inferno. Today's Free Thinking looks at the way his thinking and imagery have been taken up by other artists and writers. Rana Mitter's guests include the art historian Martin Kemp, the painter Emma Safe, the scholar and Dante website creator Deborah Parker and the New Generation Thinker Julia Hartley from Kings College London.
Professor Martin Kemp's latest book is called Visions of Heaven: Dante and the Art of Divine Light. He is a leading authority on the work of Leonardo da Vinci and has written explorations of science and art. Dr Julia Hartley has written a book called Reading Dante and Proust by Analogy. The clip from the Dante dramedy she's developing features Sam Ferguson as Dante and Matthew Salisbury as Guido Cavalcanti. Deborah Parker is Professor of Italian at the University of Virginia and has created worldofdante.org You can see examples of Emma Safe's artwork at https://www.emmasafe.com/
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The most recent episode of Words and Music sets extracts from different translations of the key works by Dante with music including by Tchaikovsky, Liszt and Puccini. That will be available on BBC Sounds and the Radio 3 website for 28 days. For a discussion of Dante's writing in The Divine Comedy the Free Thinking Landmarks playlist features a discussion with the scholars Prue Shaw and Nick Havely, poet Sean O'Brien and writer Kevin Jackson https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05tq3st
Catherine Pepinster, Kate Kennedy, Tim Stanley and New Generation Thinker Dafydd Mills Daniel join Rana Mitter to look at the poet, theologian and now Saint John Henry. The programme explores Newman's conversion from the high church tradition of Anglicanism and the Oxford Movement to the Catholic faith looking at his thinking, his poetic writing and what his story tells us about Catholicism and the British establishment.
Catherine Pepinster is former editor of the Tablet and the author of The Keys and the Kingdom: The British and the Papacy Dafydd Mills Daniel is McDonald Departmental Lecturer in Christian Ethics at the University of Oxford and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. His book is called Ethical Rationalism and Secularisation in the British Enlightenment Tim Stanley is a columnist and leader writer for the Daily Telegraph who studied history at Cambridge and who is a contributing editor for the Catholic Herald https://www.timothystanley.co.uk/index.html Dr Kate Kennedy is Oxford Centre for Life-Writing Associate Director and a music specialist who has written on Ivor Gurney, and co-edited The Silent Morning: Culture and Memory after the Armistice and The First World War: Literature, Music, Memory. You can find her presenting a Sunday Feature for Radio 3 about her research into Ivor Gurney.
You can find a playlist Free Thinking explores religious belief https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03mwxlp including contributions from Ziauddin Sardar, Richard Dawkins, Karen Armstrong, Rabbi Sacks, Marilynne Robinson and Simon Schama.
Producer: Ruth Watts
From Roman sandals to trainers and stilettos. Shahidha Bari looks at the shoe trade, with guests including Thomas Turner, who has written about sneakers in his book The Sports Shoe, A History From Field To Fashion; Tansy Hoskins,who examines global commerce in her book Footwork: What Your Shoes Are Doing To The World; Rebecca Shawcross, Shoe Curator at Northampton Museum & Art Gallery; and Roman shoe expert Owen Humphreys from Museum of London Archaeology.
Sneakers Unboxed: Studio to Street runs at the Design Museum in London until October 24th Northampton Museum and Art Gallery and its collection of over 15,000 shoes has re-opened this July following a £6million revamp.
Producer: Emma Wallace
Artists Sonia Boyce, Isaac Julien, Eddie Chambers and Harold Offeh talk to Anne McElvoy about their art and the influence of the British black arts movement - which began around the time of the First National Black Art Convention in 1982 organised by the Blk Art Group and held at Wolverhampton Polytechnic.
Eddie Chambers has written Roots and Culture: Cultural Politics in the Making of Black Britain and Black Artists in British Art: A History since the 1950s. He teaches at the University of Texas, Austin.
Sonia Boyce is Professor at Middlesex University, a Royal Academician and the Principal-Investigator of the Black Artists & Modernism project. She will show work in the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2022.
Isaac Julien shows at the Victoria Miro Gallery. His work is on display at the Museum of Modern Art in Scotland until August 31st. Lessons of the Hour is a ten-screen film installation looking at the life and times of Frederick Douglass who, from 1845-7, made repeated visits to Edinburgh, while campaigning across the UK and Ireland against US slavery.
Harold Offeh is an artist, curator and senior lecturer in Fine Art at Leeds Beckett University. His work Covers features in Untitled: art on the conditions of our time which runs in a newly curated display at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge 10 July 2021 – 3 October 2021 following its opening at the New Art Exchange in Nottingham. You can also see his work in the Wellcome Collection exhibition Joy which runs until February 2022.
Nottingham Contemporary's The Place Is Here brought together around 100 works by over 30 artists and collectives in 2017 when this episode first aired.
Producer: Karl Bos Editor: Robyn Read
You might be interested in our playlist on the Free Thinking programme website Exploring Black History https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbp
Tokyo used to be presented as the ultimate hyper-modern city. But after years of economic recession the Tokyo of today has another side. A site of alienation and loneliness, anxiety about conformity and identity, it is a place where self-professed 'geeks' (or 'otaku'), mostly single middle-aged men, congregate in districts like Akibahara to pursue fanatical interests outside mainstream society, including cult-like followings of teenage girl singers known as Tokyo Idols.
Novelist Tomoyuki Hoshino, photographer Suzanne Mooney, writer/photographer Mariko Nagai and film-maker Kyoko Miyake look at life in the city for the Heisei generation. Presented by Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough.
Director Kyoko Miyake has made a film called Tokyo Idols which looks at the obsession of middle aged men with superstar teenage girls who make a living online Suzanne Mooney's photographs depict the urban landscapes of Tokyo. Novelist Tomoyuki Hoshino's latest book to be translated into English is called ME. It's about rootless millennials and suicide. Mariko Nagai is an author and photographer who has written for children and adults. Her books include Instructions for the Living and Irradiated Cities.
The translator was Bethan Jones and the speakers were all in the UK to take part in events as part of Japan Now - a festival at the British Library in London, and in Manchester, Sheffield, Norwich. Programmed by Modern Culture in partnership with the Japan Foundation and Sheffield University.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Who can you trust? That's the question posed in Rashōmon. In today's programme Rana Mitter's guests David Peace, Natasha Pulley, Yuna Tasaka and Jasper Sharp look at both the book and the film.
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's short story 'In a Grove', published in 1922, became the basis for the 1950 film from Akira Kurosawa 'Rashōmon', one of the first Japanese films to gain worldwide critical acclaim. 'The Rashōmon Effect' has become a byword for the literary technique where the same event is presented via the different and incompatible testimonies from the characters involved. David Peace's book 'Patient X' is a novelised response to Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's last years and his death by suicide at the age of 35. Natasha Pulley is a novelist and Japanophile with a particular interest in Japanese literature of the 1920s, and in the unreliable narrator implied by use of the Rashōmon Effect. Jasper Sharp is a writer and curator, author of the Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema. Yuna Tasaka is one of the contributors to The Japanese Cinema Book published by Bloomsbury. David Peace's third novel in his Tokyo trilogy Tokyo Redux is out this summer. Natasha Pulley's most recent novel is a time travel story set in Napoleonic times - The Kingdoms. Her book The Watchmaker of Filigree Street became an international best seller.
Producer: Luke Mulhall.
You can find a playlist of Radio 3 programmes exploring Japanese Culture on the Free Thinking programme website from the Tale of Genji to Godzilla, jazz to the sound of rain, Rashomon to Rampo https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0657spq
A spinster dominated by her mother in Now Voyager (1942), a strong-willed Southern belle in Jezebel (1938) which won her an Academy award for best actress, a Broadway star in All About Eve (1950): just some of the 100 film roles played Bette Davis during a career which ran from the 1930s to the late 1980s. As the British Film Institute puts on a season of films throughout August, including a re-mastered version of Now Voyager, Matthew Sweet is joined by Sarah Churchwell, Lucy Bolton and Anna Bogutskaya to talk about Bette Davis failing her first screen test because she didn't "look like an actress", her legal fight with the studios, working for the war effort and the appeal of Bette Davis eyes.
Sarah Churchwell is professorial fellow in American literature and chair of public understanding of the humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London and the author of Behold, America: A History of America First and the American Dream, Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and The Invention of The Great Gatsby, and The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe.
Anna Bogutskaya is a film programmer, broadcaster, writer and creative producer. She is the co-founder of the horror film collective The Final Girls and Festival Director of Underwire Festival.
Lucy Bolton is Reader in Film Studies at Queen Mary, University of London. She is the author of Contemporary Cinema and the Philosophy of Iris Murdoch and co-editor of Lasting Screen Stars: Images that Fade and Personas that Endure.
Now Voyager, directed by Irving Rapper opens at the BFI and selected cinemas around the UK from August 6th 2021. The BFI is screening 20 films and staging a series of events to celebrate the work of Bette Davis as part of a major season this August.
You can find other discussions about "landmark" films and Hollywood stars in the Landmarks playlist on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44
Episode includes discussions about Marlene Dietrich, Glenda Jackson on Filming Sunday Bloody Sunday, Jacques Tati's Trafic, Jaws and Solaris.
Still from Now, Voyager (1942) Warner Bros. 2021. All Rights Reserved
Producer: Ruth Watts
Climate Change is expected to continue disrupting food production and consumption. Over recent years pressures have intensified on everyone, from those growing food and selling it, to those paying for and eating it. Researchers are considering how we can best ensure our food supplies are sustainable and secure into the future. We look at the possible options: from local food communities and digital small-holder farming to reducing our meat consumption – and, tackling food inequality. Des Fitzgerald asks Professor Peter Jackson and Dr Matthew Davies how we might best ensure that everyone is well fed.
Peter Jackson is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Sheffield. He is also the Co-Director of the University of Sheffield Institute for Sustainable Food which aims to find dynamic solutions to the challenges of food security and sustainability by drawing on the expertise of researchers across the sciences, social sciences and the arts and humanities. He works on social geography, cultural geography, consumption, identity, families and food. Further information can be found here: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/sustainable-food
Dr Matthew Davies is Associate Professor at University College London. He is based at the Institute for Global Prosperity which has coordinated an AHRC funded partnership for Prosperity and Innovation in the Past and Future of Farming in Africa (PIPFA). He has been engaged in rethinking the role of small-holder farmers in the future of food production. He also works on a range of topics on environment, society and prosperity in eastern Africa. Details of his research can be found here: https://md564.wordpress.com/
Professor Des Fitzgerald is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Exeter.
You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: https://www.ukri.org/our-work/responding-to-climate-change/ or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Marcus Smith
Music from Orkney thunderstorms, dog walks in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park that have inspired a set of tiles, essays about the seasons from a diverse collection of writers: Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough's guests, composer Erland Cooper, writer Anita Roy, artist Alison Milner and Dr Pippa Marland, compare notes on the way they filter countryside experiences to create art, music and literature.
Anita Roy and Pippa Marland have co-edited a collection of essays titled Gifts of Gravity and Light featuring Luke Turner, Testament, Tishani Doshi, Michael Malay, Jay Griffiths and others with a foreword by Bernadine Evaristo. You can find a selection of blogs and poems pulled together in a lockdown nature writing project run by Pippa at landlinesproject.wordpress.com Anita Roy has also published a selection of her stories called Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean. Alison Milner's tiled artwork is on show at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park https://ysp.org.uk/ https://www.alisonmilner.com/ Erland Cooper's music inspired by Orkney and the poet George Mackay Brown will be heard on an episode of Between the Ears broadcasting on BBC Radio 3 this autumn. His music is being performed in concerts at the Edinburgh International Festival, the Cathedral Arts Quarter Festival Belfast, Stroud, Bristol and Birmingham. https://www.erlandcooper.com/
Producer: Sofie Vilcins
You can find a Green Thinking playlist of programmes exploring different aspects of nature and our approach to the environment on the Free Thinking programme website and an episode of the Verb exploring the experience of going for a walk hearing from guests including Testament and Stuart Maconie.
A "cubist" story - with a plot and timeline broken up and repetitive descriptions of objects, like a painting by Picasso, is one way in which the French nouveau romain of the 1960s has been described. Alain Robbe Grillet (1922 – 2008) was one of the main figures associated with this literary movement. He was also a member of the High Committee for the Defense and Expansion of French and published novels called Les Gommes (Erasers), Le Voyeur (the Voyeur), and collaborated on films with Alan Resnais which included the1961 film Last Year at Marienbad. This film was nominated for the 1963 Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay and won the Golden Lion. Matthew Sweet and his guests, the author Tom McCarthy, the film historian Phuong Le and the French cultural historian Agnès Poirier discuss the screen-writing, novels and philosophy of Alain Robbe-Grillet.
Tom McCarthy is the author of novels including C, Satin Island, Remainder and Men in Space and a series of art installations and manifestos put together with the philosopher Simon Critchley as the International Necronautical Society (INS).
Producer: Luke Mulhall
With extreme weather events expected to become more frequent in the future, are there any lessons we can learn from the past? Environmental historians have been looking at droughts, floods and hurricanes - and, considering the impact they had on communities and how they responded. Des Fitzgerald asks Georgina Endfield and Jean Stubbs how both local and international stories of extreme weather can encourage public awareness and engagement with preparing for the realities of climate change.
Georgina Endfield is Professor of Environmental History at the University of Liverpool. Her AHRC-funded research project, ‘Spaces of Experience and Horizons of Expectation: Extreme weather in the UK, past, present and future’ explores how people have been affected by extreme weather through time. You can read a blog post about the project here: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/history/blog/2018/extreme-weather-stories And you can also access a database about extreme weather, which spans 500 years of weather events and history and is based on Professor Endfield’s research, here: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/geography/extreme-weather/search/
Professor Jean Stubbs (School of Advanced Studies) is co-director of the Commodities of Empire Project. In 2019, she co-produced the AHRC-funded documentary Cuba: Living Between Hurricanes with Michael Chanan and Jonathan Curry-Machado. You can watch the film here: https://www.livingbetweenhurricanes.org
Professor Des Fitzgerald is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Exeter.
You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: https://www.ukri.org/our-work/responding-to-climate-change/ or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Marcus Smith
Lisa Mullen is joined by Imani Jacqueline Brown of Forensic Architecture, whose exhibition for the Manchester International Festival explores the links between power and the air we breathe; journalist James Nestor, whose best selling book traces his search for medical answers to his sleeping and breathing problems; jazz saxophonist and MC Soweto Kinch; and New Generation Thinker Tiffany Watt Smith, who has been considering the cultural history of sighing and book The Anatomy of Melancholy.
Cloud Studies exhibits investigations by Forensic Architecture - part of Manchester International Festival, it runs at the Whitworth in Manchester 2 July-17 October and is online.
Breathe: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor is out in paperback.
The Anatomy of Melancholy has been republished by Penguin.
The Black Peril by Soweto Kinch is available now.
Soweto Kinch will perform with the London Symphony Orchestra as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival on 19 Nov 2021 at the Barbican in London.
Producer: Emma Wallace
Festivals are a key part of our culture and economy, but traditionally they’ve had a big ecological footprint. Festivals attendees have long been heavy consumers of resources from travel to food and disposable plastic. But, researchers are turning their attention to assessing the environmental impacts of major sport and cultural events – and making them more sustainable. Des Fitzgerald asks Dr Andrea Collins and Steve Muggeridge about the latest research and practice on making festivals and events greener.
Dr Andrea Collins is a Senior Lecturer at Cardiff University where she is Programme Director for MSc in Sustainability, Planning and Environmental Policy. She is a member of Cardiff University’s Festival research Group. Her research has informed the development UK Sport's eventIMPACT Toolkit.
Steve Muggeridge is Director of the Green Gathering charity and Optimistic Trout Productions (OTP), a not-for-profit Community Interest Company where he runs the Green Gathering festival.
Professor Des Fitzgerald is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Exeter. You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2 For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: https://www.ukri.org/our-work/responding-to-climate-change/ or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Marcus Smith
Lawrence's dad was a butty - a contractor who put together a team to mine coal for an agreed price. His 1913 novel Sons and Lovers drew on this heritage. Frances Wilson's new biography focuses on the decade following, when The Rainbow had been subject to an obscenity trial, he travelled to Cornwall and Mexico and then the discovery that he had tuberculosis. In a non-Covid year, this weekend would have seen the Durham Miners' Gala take place. Poet Jake Morris-Campbell writes a postcard about the traditions of this annual gathering of banners and brass bands. Prabhakar Pachpute's family worked in the coal mines of central India for three generations. For his contribution as one of the artists taking part in Artes Mundi 9, he's drawn on this shared cultural heritage with the Welsh mining community to create an installation of paintings, banners and objects that comment on protest and collective action. Matthew Sweet presents.
Burning Man: The Ascent of DH Lawrence by Frances Wilson is out now. Artes Mundi is on show at the National Museum Cardiff, Chapter and g39 Dr Jake Morris-Campbell teaches at the University of Newcastle and is a visiting Lecturer at the University of Chester. He is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. You can find a collection of programmes from the past ten years of the scheme on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Lawrence's dad was a butty - a contractor who put together a team to mine coal for an agreed price. His 1913 novel Sons and Lovers drew on this heritage. Frances Wilson's new biography focuses on the decade following, when The Rainbow had been subject to an obscenity trial, he travelled to Cornwall and Mexico and then the discovery that he had tuberculosis. In a non-Covid year, this weekend would have seen the Durham Miners' Gala take place. Poet Jake Morris-Campbell writes a postcard about the traditions of this annual gathering of banners and brass bands. Prabhakar Pachpute's family worked in the coal mines of central India for three generations. For his contribution as one of the artists taking part in Artes Mundi 9, he's drawn on this shared cultural heritage with the Welsh mining community to create an installation of paintings, banners and objects that comment on protest and collective action. Matthew Sweet presents.
Burning Man: The Ascent of DH Lawrence by Frances Wilson is out now. Artes Mundi is on show at the National Museum Cardiff, Chapter and g39 Dr Jake Morris-Campbell teaches at the University of Newcastle and is a visiting Lecturer at the University of Chester. He is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. You can find a collection of programmes from the past ten years of the scheme on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35
Producer: Luke Mulhall
A horoscope from 1411, a portrait of a woman blowing bubble gum and a gold griffin-headed armlet: art collector Ina Sarikhani Sandmann, historian Ali Ansari and New Generation Thinker Julia Hartley join Rana Mitter to look at Epic Iran, an exhibition exploring 5,000 years of art, design and culture at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Author Annalee Newitz discusses the rise and fall of four 'lost' cities and we have a postcard exploring the author Marcel Proust's fascination with Iran ahead of the 150th anniversary of his birth on July 10th 1871.
Epic Iran exploring 5,000 years of art, design and culture runs at the Victoria and Albert Museum until September 12th 2021. Four Lost Cities by Annalee Newitz is out now. It explores the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Central Turkey, the Roman vacation town of Pompeii on Italy’s southern coast, the medieval megacity of Angkor in Cambodia, and the indigenous metropolis Cahokia, which stood beside the Mississippi River where East St. Louis is today. Annalee is also founder of the popular io9 science and science fiction blog.
Dr Julia Hartley is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Warwick, where her project is called ‘West-Eastern Encounters: Iran in French Literature (1829-1908)’. She is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. You can find more discussions in a playlist on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35
Marcel Proust (10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was the author of novels including À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time). A Free Thinking discussion about Proust brought together Jane Smiley, Jane Haynes and Christopher Prendergast and insights from French author Marie Darrieussecq https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04lpxj2
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
It’s sixty years since the house party at Cliveden where Christine Keeler encountered Minister of War, John Profumo and the Soviet Naval attaché, Yevgeny Ivanov. The events of that weekend, a heady mix of sex, politics and espionage have filled newspapers, books, films and TV dramas. But that weekend was just one in a long line of intrigue and scandal at Cliveden. In fiction and reality, a weekend in the country has often involved far more than a simple retreat - from the appeasement talks imagined in Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day to a formal invitation from the Prime Minister to Chequers. Anne McElvoy explores the social history of the grand country house gathering and its hold on the English imagination.
Julie Gottlieb is Professor of Modern History at the University of Sheffield and the author of ‘Guilty Women’, Foreign Policy, and Appeasement in Inter-War Britain and Feminine Fascism: Women in Britain's Fascist Movement, 1923-1945
Natalie Livingstone is a journalist and historian and the author of The Mistresses of Cliveden: Three Centuries of Scandal, Power and Intrigue.
Kate Williams is a broadcaster, historian and Professor of Public Engagement with History at the University of Reading. She is the author of Rival Queens and her trilogy of novels about the De Witt family.
Producer: Ruth Watts
The Oscar winning Midnight Cowboy was followed up by this drama about an artist who has relationships with a female job consultant and a male doctor. Director John Schlesinger, writer Penelope Gilliatt, actors Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch were all nominated for Academy Awards but it performed poorly at the box office. Was the film - released on July 1st 1971, ahead of its times? Matthew Sweet re-watches it with guests including Glenda Jackson, playwright Mark Ravenhill, film historian Melanie Williams and BFI archivist Simon McCallum. They discuss the different elements of the film, including the score, which features the trio Soave sia il vento from Mozart's opera Così fan tutte, the very precise decor and evocation of late '60s London and filming inside a Jewish synagogue.
Producer: Fiona McLean
Sunday Bloody Sunday is available on Blu-ray
You can find Matthew Sweet discussing other classics of British Cinema in the Free Thinking archives including British New Wave Films of the 60s - Joely Richardson and Melanie Williams evaluate the impact and legacy of Woodfall Films, the company behind Look Back in Anger, A Taste of Honey and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09ysnl2 An extended interview with Mike Leigh, recorded as he released his historical drama Peterloo, but also looks back at his film from 1984 Four Days in July https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000tqw Early Cinema looks back at a pioneer of British film Robert Paul and at the work of Alice Guy https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dy2b Philip Dodd explores the novel and film of David Storey's This Sporting Life with social historian Juliet Gardiner, journalist Rod Liddle, writer Anthony Clavane and the author's daughter Kate Storey https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09j0rt6 Samira Ahmed convenes a discussion about British Social Realism in Film https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pz16k
HIV's origins and colonial history have inspired the collection of poems by Kayo Chingonyi, which has been nominated for the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2021. Paisley Rekdal is currently the Poet Laureate of Utah. Her latest collection of poems was inspired by Ovid. She's been thinking about where stories come from and what we mean by appropriation. Dr Nasser Hussain is interested in ‘lost’ fragments of language and in what we notice and what we ignore. New Generation Thinker Florence Hazrat studies punctuation. They join host Sandeep Parmar for a conversation about experimentation ahead of the Ledbury Poetry Festival.
Sandeep Parmar is a poet and Professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. She has been running the Ledbury Poetry Critics scheme alongside Sarah Howe. This project encourages diversity in poetry reviewing culture, aimed at new critical voices. Ledbury Poetry Festival runs from 2 - 11 July 2021.
Kayo Chingonyi's book is called A Blood Condition.
You can find the full list of poets shortlisted for the Forward Prize at https://www.forwardartsfoundation.org/
Paisley Rekdal's collection of poems, Nightingale, re-writes many of the myths in Ovid's The Metamorphoses. She has published an Essay Appropriate: A Provocation https://www.paisleyrekdal.com/
Dr Nasser Hussain teaches poetry at Leeds Beckett University. He published ‘SKY WRI TEI NGS’, a book of conceptual writing that composes poetry from IATA airport codes, and is working on an autobiographical poetic project Playing with Playing with Fire and The Life of Form.
Dr Florence Hazrat is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Sheffield studying rhetoric, punctuation and Shakespeare's use of music. She is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select academics to turn their research into radio.
This episode was made in partnership with the AHRC, part of UKRI. You can find a playlist exploring New Research on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
You can find more discussions in playlists on the Free Thinking programme website, featuring Prose and Poetry, and Ten Years of the New Generation Thinker Scheme.
Producer: Emma Wallace
Cities produce more than half the world’s carbon emissions and are home to more than half the world’s population. So what role might cities play in tackling the climate emergency and how can their inhabitants be inspired to help design their own solutions? Des Fitzgerald asks Nicole Metje and Andy Gouldson how engineering, finance and local projects might combine to make city living greener and more sustainable.
Professor Nicole Metje is Head of Enterprise, Engagement and Impact and Head of the Power and Infrastructure Research Group in the School of Engineering at the University of Birmingham. She is also Deputy Director for Sensors of the UKCRIC National Buried Infrastructure Facility at Birmingham.
Professor Andy Gouldson is one of the directors of the Centre for Climate Change, Economics and Policy at the University of Leeds and founder of the Place-based Climate Action Network.
Professor Des Fitzgerald is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Exeter.
You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: https://www.ukri.org/our-work/responding-to-climate-change/ or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Marcus Smith
Bait depicted Cornish second-home owners in a tense relationship with local fishermen. The 2019 film's director Mark Jenkin is one of Laurence Scott's guests along with author Wyl Menmuir, and Joan Passey, from the University of Bristol, where she is researching ideas about the sea as a monstrous space. Their conversation ranges from The Jewel of the Seven Stars by Bram Stoker via Wyl's novel The Many, centred on a derelict home in a coastal village and ideas about outsiders, to Celtic Cornish Breton connections.
In our archives and available to download, you can find a Free Thinking discussion about ideas of Revenge and Daphne du Maurier's My Cousin Rachel - about a young man brought up in Cornwall and the widow of his cousin who comes to the county. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08slx9w
Our Green Thinking playlist includes programmes exploring oceans, rising UK sea levels and the insights gained from new research. The Green Thinking podcast is 26 episodes 26 minutes long for COP 26 hearing from a range of academics looking at challenges facing the planet.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
What role do museums and heritage organisations have to play in the climate emergency? How do we stop cultural and historical landmarks from falling into the sea, or is it time to learn to say goodbye? Rodney Harrison and Caitlin DeSilvey share their expertise, from lost lighthouses to net-zero carbon museums, and their work on a shared project, Heritage Futures www.heritage-futures.org.
Rodney Harrison is Professor of Heritage Studies at University College London and AHRC Heritage Priority Area Leadership Fellow (2017-2021). He co-leads the project ‘Reimagining Museums for Climate Action’ – which includes an exhibition opening on 25 June at the Glasgow Science Centre for COP26 which aims to inspire radical change in museums to address the climate crisis. This project included an international design competition where people were invited to submit concepts around how museums might adapt to and address the challenges of climate change. You can read more about the exhibition and see the design proposals here: https://museumsforclimateaction.org
And, you find out more about AHRC’s Heritage Priority Area here: https://heritage-research.org
Caitlin DeSilvey is Professor of Cultural Geography at the University of Exeter and together with Rodney Harrison, was on the research team for the AHRC-funded project, Heritage Futures. She is currently leading the AHRC-funded follow on project, Landscape Futures and the Challenge of Change: Towards Integrated Cultural/Natural Heritage Decision Making. You can read more about the project here: https://www.exeter.ac.uk/esi/research/projects/landscape-futures/ She also supervises an AHRC-funded collaborative doctoral partnership with Historic England on coastal archaeology and climate change, which you can learn about here: www.tinyurl.com/tventure
Dr Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Durham.
You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2 For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: https://www.ukri.org/our-work/responding-to-climate-change/ or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Sofie Vilcins
From the Great Exhibition of 1851 to Shanghai 2010, Owen Hatherley, Emily MacGregor and Paul Greenhalgh explore visions of the future offered by world's fairs and expos with Matthew Sweet. Emily MacGregor describes the row which blew up over music commissioned by William Grant Still for the 1939/40 New York World's Fair. Paul Greenhalgh tells us about world's fairs from London and Paris to Shanghai. Owen Hatherley describes visiting an expo in Kazakhstan.
Owen Hatherley's new book is called Clean Living Under Difficult Circumstances: Finding a Home in the Ruins of Modernism. He has made a film about the modernism represented in the buildings which house the London Czech and Slovak embassies as part of the London Festival of Architecture https://www.londonfestivalofarchitecture.org/
Paul Greenhalgh is the author of Fair World: A History of World's Fairs and Expositions from London to Shanghai 1851-2010. His latest book is Ceramic, Art & Civilisation. He is Director of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich and a Professor of Art History.
Dr Emily MacGregor is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Music Department at King's College, London and is currently working on a project exploring The Symphony in 1933. You can hear more about the composer William Grant Still if you look up Composer of the Week
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
You can find other programmes hearing from architects and exploring architecture on BBC Radio 3 this week including Words and Music and a Music Matters report on Bold Tendencies, who host concerts in a former car park in Peckham.
Poets Yvonne Reddick and John Wedgewood Clarke are using poetry and creative writing to explore our, and their, relationships with the environment. John is focusing on a small polluted river in Cornwall, while Yvonne explores her family relationships. And they aren’t the first poets to do so - she also shares her research into how previous poets, including Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney, were concerned about the climate emergency.
Dr Yvonne Reddick is Research Fellow at the University of Central Lancashire and an AHRC Leadership Fellow specialising in poetry of the Anthropocene. You can read here poetry here: https://yvonnereddick.org/poems/ She researches writers’ engagement with environmental issues, and edits Magma poetry magazine https://magmapoetry.com/
Dr John Wedgewood Clarke is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Exeter and an AHRC Leadership Fellow. His current project, Red River: Listening to a Polluted River (AHRC-funded), uses poetry and writing to explore our relationship with the environment and pollution: https://redriverpoetry.com/ The project involves a number of local walks in Cornwall which you can join here: https://redriverpoetry.com/events
Dr Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Durham. We hear Maya Chowdhry’s poem ‘It’s Official: Drought Spell Doom For Mango Trees’. You can find this poem, and others, in Magma magazine.
You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2 For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: https://www.ukri.org/our-work/responding-to-climate-change/ or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Sofie Vilcins
Peace, prosperity and formica - that's one way of describing the vision on show at the Festival of Britain in 1951. But domesticity had a radical side and in this Free Thinking conversation, Shahidha Bari talks to researchers Sophie Scott-Brown and Rachele Dini and looks at the domestic appliances selected for display in the newly re-opened Museum of the Home, talking to Director Sonia Solicari about how ideas about home, homelessness and home-making have shaped what is on show.
Museum of the Home, previously the Geffrye Museum re-opened on June 12th 2021 https://www.museumofthehome.org.uk/
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Part of BBC Radio 3's programming tying into the London Festival of Architecture. Madeleine Bunting recorded a series of Essays considering different ideas about home, homesickness, homelessness and Homelands which is being broadcast this week on BBC Radio 3 and available on BBC Sounds.
You might be interested in a Free Thinking discussion called Fiction in 1946 recorded at London's Southbank Centre with Lara Feigel, Kevin Jackson and Benjamin Markovits https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07wrq03
Enid Marx, Edward Bawden and Charles Rennie Mackintosh are discussed in this episode called Designing the Future https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b2mgpl
Stew, the name for brothels in London. A townhouse set to become luxury flats in the centre of Soho is the focus of the new novel Hot Stew from Fiona Mozley, who was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for her debut book Elmet. SI Martin founded the 500 Years of Black London walks nearly 20 years ago. In his novel Incomparable World he depicts a bustling eighteenth century London which offers a refuge for the many black Americans who fought for liberty on the side of the British. Plus pianist and composer Belle Chen on her six original new pieces exploring London - each composition with its genesis in a field recording in the city from both before and during the pandemic. They join architects Eric Parry and Alison Brooks, and presenter Laurence Scott, for a conversation about the development of London, as part of the London Festival of Architecture. Alison Brooks is one of the judges for this year's Davidson Prize Exhibition: a digital showcase of architects’ solutions to ways of living in a post-pandemic world. Eric Parry has been thinking about the changing city skyline.
Fiona Mozley's novel called Hot Stew is out now, as is Incomparable World by SI Martin - part of the Black Britain: Writing Back series of books chosen by Bernadine Evaristo for republishing.
You can find out more about the music of Belle Chen here - https://www.bellechen.com/
The London Festival of Architecture runs throughout June with events online and around the city https://www.londonfestivalofarchitecture.org/ https://www.alisonbrooksarchitects.com/ https://www.ericparryarchitects.co.uk/
On BBC Radio 3 Essential Classics is broadcasting five classic choices of music composed for particular buildings. Words and Music inspired by architecture features readings by Marilyn Nnadebe and Henry Goodman, from writers including Caleb Femi, Marwa al-Sabouni, Susanna Clark, Thomas Hardy, Andrew Marvell, Adrienne Rich, and music from Hildegard of Bingen to Iain Chambers. Music Matters explored buildings, acoustics, and music, looking at Bold Tendencies and the former car park they use as a venue in Peckham, in London.
Producer: Emma Wallace
From Greek tragedy to Covid conspiracies via LGBTQI activism in Uganda, artist Leilah Babirye, classicist Natalie Haynes and BBC correspondent Marianna Spring join Matthew Sweet to explore the many roles of masks.
Leilah Babirye's first solo exhibition in Europe - Ebika Bya ba Kuchu mu Buganda (Kuchu Clans of Buganda) II - is at the Stephen Friedman Gallery, London until 31st July. Pandora's Jar: Women in Greek Myths by Natalie Haynes is now out in paperback. You can hear Natalie sharing her musical choices with Michael Berkeley on Private Passions on BBC Radio 3. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tnv3 And Natalie discusses the legacy of the Trojan War in this episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000bg2k
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Are you coming back? That is what potter Edmund de Waal was asked by readers when he published his best-selling book about his family's refugee history The Hare with Amber Eyes. It's not a question he had easy answers for. In Refugee Week, Anne McElvoy and her guests, Edmund de Waal, Frances Stonor Saunders and Fariha Shaikh look at what it means to have to move your family and belongings - from the Jewish people who fled from central Europe to the colonial settlers of Charles Dickens's novels.
Edmund de Waal's latest book is called Letters to Camondo. You can find a recent series of Radio 3's The Essay De Waal's Itinerant Pots available on BBC Sounds. If you want to hear the conversation between him and Nobel prize winning author Orhan Pamuk in the Free Thinking studio - check out our archives all available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p033cmt3
Frances Stonor Saunders has published a history of her family's travels from Romania, to Turkey, Egypt and then Britain in The Suitcase: Six Attempts to Cross a Border You can hear Frances Stonor Saunders discussing American Abstract Expressionist Art with novelist William Boyd in the Free Thinking archives https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p048m2v5
Dr Fariha Shaikh is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which choses ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. She is a senior lecturer in Victorian Literature at the Department of English Literature at the University of Birmingham.
Producer: Ruth Watts
A Somali man arrested for murder in 1950s Cardiff inspired the latest novel from Nadifa Mohamed. She talks to Rana Mitter about uncovering this miscarriage of justice in a newspaper cutting with the headline, "Woman Weeps as Somali is Hanged". On stage at the National Theatre in London, Michael Sheen, Karl Johnson, and Siân Phillips lead the cast in a production of Under Milk Wood, so we look at the craft of Dylan Thomas's writing and talk to Siân Owen about her framing of the story for the National Theatre stage. And we hear about the links between art and community demonstrated by the Cardiff collective called Gentle/Radical who've been nominated for this year's Turner Prize, and look at the work on show in Artes Mundi 9 at the National Museum, Cardiff, Chapter Arts Centre, and g39.
Nadifa Mohamed's novel, out now, is called The Fortune Men. You can find her discussing the writing life alongside Irenosen Okojie in the Free Thinking playlist called Prose and Poetry - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vh
Under Milk Wood runs at the National Theatre in London from 16 June–24 July 2021.
An exhibition of work by Gentle/Radical will be held at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in Coventry from 29 September 2021 - 12 January 2022, as part of the UK City of Culture 2021 celebrations. The Turner Prize winners will be announced on 1 December 2021.
The Artes Mundi 9 Prize exhibition is now open at the National Museum Cardiff, Chapter Arts Centre, and g39 until 5 September. The prize winner is announced on 17 June 2021.
BBC Cardiff Singer Of The World 2021 is taking place between 12 and 19 June in Cardiff, with broadcasts on BBC Radio 3.
Producer: Emma Wallace
Does climate change force people to flee their homes and livelihoods? Does it cause wars that create refugees? Dr Helen Adams and Professor Michael Collyer explain how various factors are at play, from resources, to politics, to family ties.
Dr Helen Adams is an environmental social scientist based at King’s College, London. Her research looks at the interactions between humans and climate change, well-being and resources.
Professor Michael Collyer is Professor of Geography at the University of Sussex. He works on the relationships between people and places, migration and displacement. Collyer is a member of the ESRC network ‘Urban Transformations’ which showcases research on cities, you can read their blog posts here: https://urbantransformations.ox.ac.uk/news-debate/
Professor Des Fitzgerald is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Exeter.
You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2 For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: https://www.ukri.org/our-work/responding-to-climate-change/ or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Marcus Smith
"Tunnel vision is deadly. We need lateral vision. That is what anthropology can impart: anthro-vision." So says renowned economist GillianTett, who trained as an anthropologist. She joins Anne McElvoy along with Tulsi Menon, who trained in anthropology and now works in advertising, for a debate about what the discipline offers business. We look back at the history of anthropology with Frances Larson, author of a new book about forgotten women anthropologists, and a previous book which looked at the West's obsession with severed heads. And we explore the way the discipline of anthropology is changing, talking to Faye Harrison - Professor of Anthropology at Illinois and the editor of Decolonising Anthropology.
Anthrovision: How Anthropology Can Explain Business and Life by Gillian Tett, Editor-at-Large at the Financial Times, is out now. Frances Larson's books are titled Undreamed Shores: The Hidden Heroines of British Anthropology and Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found.
In the Free Thinking archives you can find a discussion about Family Ties and reshaping history - hearing about Joseph Henrich's work on WEIRD - Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic and ideas about kinship https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mjt2
In the Nayef Al Rodhan 2020 discussion with shortlisted authors Rana Mitter talks to Charles King about his history The Reinvention of Humanity: A Story of Race, Sex, Gender and the Discovery of Culture which tracks the work of Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, Ella Deloria and Zora Neale Hurston https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000n0bv
The Free Thinking Festival discussion 20 Words for Joy ... Feelings around the world brought together Veronica Strang, Aatish Taseer and Thomas Dixon https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004ds4
Producer: Eliane Glaser.
"Tunnel vision is deadly. We need lateral vision. That is what anthropology can impart: anthro-vision." So says renowned economist GillianTett, who trained as an anthropologist. She joins Anne McElvoy along with Tulsi Menon, who trained in anthropology and now works in advertising, for a debate about what the discipline offers business. We look back at the history of anthropology with Frances Larson, author of a new book about forgotten women anthropologists, and a previous book which looked at the West's obsession with severed heads. And we explore the way the discipline of anthropology is changing, talking to Faye Harrison - Professor of Anthropology at Illinois and the editor of Decolonising Anthropology.
Anthrovision: How Anthropology Can Explain Business and Life by Gillian Tett, Editor-at-Large at the Financial Times, is out now. Frances Larson's books are titled Undreamed Shores: The Hidden Heroines of British Anthropology and Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found.
In the Free Thinking archives you can find a discussion about Family Ties and reshaping history - hearing about Joseph Henrich's work on WEIRD - Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic and ideas about kinship https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mjt2
In the Nayef Al Rodhan 2020 discussion with shortlisted authors Rana Mitter talks to Charles King about his history The Reinvention of Humanity: A Story of Race, Sex, Gender and the Discovery of Culture which tracks the work of Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, Ella Deloria and Zora Neale Hurston https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000n0bv
The Free Thinking Festival discussion 20 Words for Joy ... Feelings around the world brought together Veronica Strang, Aatish Taseer and Thomas Dixon https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004ds4
Producer: Eliane Glaser.
From Bitcoin mines to green investment bonds: how easy is it to change the way finance works to make it greener? Professor Yu Xiong and Professor Nick Robins share their research, knowledge and concerns of these high-tech financial systems with Professor Des Fitzgerald.
Professor Yu Xiong is Associate Dean International and director of the Centre for Innovation and Commercialization at the Surrey Business School, University of Surrey. His research focuses on sustainability and technological issues with global supply chains, as well as cryptocurrencies and blockchain.
Professor Nick Robins is Professor in Practice – Sustainable Finance at the London School of Economics. His work focuses on how to mobilise finance for climate change, and how financial systems can support the restoration of nature. You can read blog posts by Nick Robins on his research here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/profile/nick-robins/#news
Professor Des Fitzgerald is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Exeter.
You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2 For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: https://www.ukri.org/our-work/responding-to-climate-change/ or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Marcus Smith
From Frankie Howerd to Sherlock: Beryl Vertue is the producer of some classic TV shows including Men Behaving Badly. She took Steptoe and Son to America, negotiated for writer Terry Nation to retain some of the rights for his Dr Who Daleks creation, and back when she began in the 1960s, worked with a Who's Who of comedy writing talent at Associated London Scripts as well as representing Tony Hancock and Frankie Howerd as their agent. As chairman of the family firm Hartswood Films, her more recent projects have included revamping Dracula and Sherlock for TV. She discusses the successes and failures she has had in her six decade career with Matthew Sweet and shares with him what it was like working with Ken Russell and Tina Turner on Tommy and what she thinks makes a good deal.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
You can find other conversations about classic TV in the Free Thinking archives including Quatermass: Nigel Kneale's groundbreaking 1950s TV sci-fi series with Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat, Una McCormack , Claire Langhamer and Matthew Kneale https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b03y The Goodies: Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden, and Bill Oddie talk to Matthew Sweet about how humour changes and the targets of their TV comedy show which ran during the '70s and early '80s https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000hcb British TV and film producer Tony Garnett talks to Matthew Sweet about a career which encompassed the Wednesday Play for the BBC, This Life and Undercover. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07h6r8l
A Bouillabaisse soup inspired hat paraded by the surrealist artist Eileen Agar in 1948 caused raised eyebrows to the passers-by captured in the Pathé news footage on show in the Whitechapel Gallery's exhibition exploring her career. It's just one of many displays showcasing women's art open this summer at galleries across the UK, so today's Free Thinking looks at what it means to put women's art back on the walls and into the way we look at art history. Shahidha Bari is joined by Whitechapel curator Lydia Yee, by Frieze editor-at-large and podcaster Jennifer Higgie, by New Generation Thinker Adjoa Osei, who specialises in studying the contribution of Afro Latin-American women artists, and by the artist Veronica Ryan. Her work runs from a neon crocheted fishing line, to bronze and clay sculptures, and work made from tea-stained fabrics.
Veronica Ryan: Along A Spectrum runs at Spike Island, Bristol, from 19 May 19 to 5 September 2021. Her sculptures responding to the work of Barbara Hepworth feature in Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life at the Hepworth Wakefield 21 May 2021 – 27 Feb 2022, and in Breaking The Mould: Sculpture By Women Since 1945 - An Arts Council Collection Touring Exhibition, which opens at the Longside Gallery at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park 29 May–5 Sep 2021.
Eileen Agar: Angel Of Anarchy runs at the Whitechapel Gallery 19 May - 29 Aug 2021, alongside another focus on women artists in Phantoms of Surrealism 19 May - 12 Dec 2021.
Jennifer Higgie's book The Mirror And The Palette: Rebellion, Revolution And Resilience - 500 Years Of Women's Self Portraits is out now, and she presents a podcast, Bow Down: Women In Art.
Adjoa Osei is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to work with academics to put their research on radio.
You can also find exhibitions of The Life And Legacy of Constance Spry at the Garden Museum; Ellen Harvey and Barbara Walker at Turner Contemporary; Infinity Mirror Rooms by Yayoi Kusama at Tate Modern; Charlotte Perriand - The Modern Life at the Design Museum; Paula Rego at Tate Britain; Karla Black at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh; Sophie Tauber-Arp coming to Tate Modern; and Joan Eardley's centenary marked at the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh.
Producer: Emma Wallace
Image: Veronica Ryan Courtesy: Alison Jacques, London, and Create, London; photo: Lisa Whiting
How real are flooding dangers in Britain and Ireland? Two researchers who have been working with local communities in Wales, Norfolk and Ireland tell Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough about the impact of changing landscapes, how sand dunes beat concrete, and how audio postcodes can help the people of Norfolk reflect on their with local wildlife along the longest protected coast in Europe.
Dr Emma McKinley is a research fellow at the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Cardiff University, and her research focuses on understanding the connections and emotions between society and the sea. Emma is also Manager of the Severn Estuary Partnership which brings people together to protect and benefit the Severn Estuary. You can read more about the partnership and get involved here: https://severnestuarypartnership.org.uk
Professor George Revill is part of the School of Social Sciences and Global Studies at the Open University. His project ‘Listening to Climate Change’ is focusing on North Norfolk, using sound and music to encourage local people to think about their relationship with the sea landscape. You can read more about the project and watch some of the project videos here: https://heritage-research.org/case-studies/sounding-coastal-changelistening-climate-change-experiments-sonic-democracy/
Dr Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Durham.
You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2 For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: https://www.ukri.org/our-work/responding-to-climate-change/ or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Sofie Vilcins
Is climate change to blame for global conflicts and disputes over resources? Or is this rush to blame water shortages just post-Colonial thinking? Dr Ayesha Siddiqi and Professor Jan Selby talk to Professor Des Fitzgerald talk about their research, where geography and politics collide.
Dr Ayesha Siddiqi is a development and postcolonial geographer at the University of Cambridge. She shares her expertise in natural disasters and politics, security and development in the Global South.
Professor Jan Selby is Professor of Politics and International Relations at the University of Sheffield. His work focuses on climate change, water, and politics, with a focus on the Israeli-Palestinian confict.
Professor Des Fitzgerald is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Exeter.
You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit https://www.ukri.org/our-work/responding-to-climate-change/ or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Marcus Smith
How green is office working? Have changes since Covid helped us plan for a more environmentally friendly way of working?
Philosopher Dr Alexander Douglas and Dr Jane Parry, who works on Work after Lockdown, talk to Des Fitzgerald about the future of work in a post-Covid-19 world and the implications for our environment.
Dr Alexander Douglas is a Lecturer in Philosophy in the School of Philosophical, Anthropological and Film Studies at the University of St Andrews. He is a founder and co-director of the Future of Work and Income Research Network (funded by AHRC) at the Centre for Ethics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs.
Dr Jane Parry is a Lecturer and Director of Research for HRM and Organisational Behaviour within Southampton Business School at the University of Southampton. She is the Principal Investigator on the project, Work after Lockdown, which is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (part of UKRI). You can read more about the project and contribute to their worker wellbeing survey at https://www.workafterlockdown.uk/participate.
Professor Des Fitzgerald is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Exeter.
You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: Responding to climate change – UKRI or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Marcus Smith
Is encouraging action still art? What does it mean to make art about the environment? Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough brings together a curator, researchers and artists to discuss these questions. She hears about suggestions from artists, inspired by the forward thinking Gustav Metzger (1926 - 2017), collated by curator Hans Ulrich Obrist. These include the idea from Futurefarmers that we "make an unannounced visit to a farm and take a good long look at the farmer's bookshelf" or Forensic Architecture's call for us to "Look at an air bubble" or Olafur Eliasson's "Look down, look up" and a poetic call to action inspired by the writer Audre Lorde (1934-1992): you can find an episode all about her work in the Free Thinking archives. Lucy Neal describes a project that has involved a forest camp in Coventry looking back at the ideas of the suffragettes. Wayne Binitie shares his experiences of taking photographs of melting ice sheets, recreating them in a gallery and making sound and music. Dr Jenna C. Ashton describes her work with communities in Manchester thinking about how they face up to changes in the climate and reflect those in a pageant planned for next year.
140 Artists' Ideas for Planet Earth edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Kostas Stasinopoulos is published now - and draws on the environmental programme Back to Earth run by the Serpentine Gallery where Obrist is an Artistic Director https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/art-and-ideas/ You can find out more about his paintings and photographs at http://waynebinitie.com/ and an exhibition of his work is due to open later this year. Walking Forest by the artists Ruth Ben-Tovim, Anne-Marie Culhane, Lucy Neal and Shelley Castle, commissioned by Coventry 2021 City of Culture is one of the 15 Season For Change arts commissions ahead of COP 26 https://www.seasonforchange.org.uk/ Dr Jenna C. Ashton is a Lecturer in Heritage Studies at the University of Manchester and co-founded CIWA, the Centre for International Women Artists, a collective artist studio and gallery in Manchester, UK https://creative-climate-resilience.org/
You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Dr Des Fitzgerald and Dr Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion. They're all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
Producer: Sofie Vilcins
"Before there were books there were stories". Salman Rushdie's opening words in his collected Essays from 2003-2020. In one of them he reveals that Alice in Wonderland made such an impression on him as a child that he can still recite Jabberwocky. So Free Thinking brought him together with the literary historian Lucy Powell and with Mark Blacklock, who has studied literature about the fourth dimension, for a conversation about the power of dreams, the place of logic and irrationality and the truth of maths - inspired by the new exhibition about Alice in Wonderland on at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Matthew Sweet hosts the discussion.
Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser runs at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London from 22nd May 2021 Salman Rushdie's Essay Collection is called Languages of Truth. You can find him discussing Uncertainty and his novel The Golden House in a previous Free Thinking. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09784ld Lucy Powell is a New Generation Thinker whose research has included looking at birds in fiction. You can find her discussing birds with Helen MacDonald and Professor Tim Birkhead in a Proms Plus discussion https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06fw7db Mark Blacklock is the author of a novel called Hinton which explores the thinking of Charles Hinton about the fourth dimension. You can find him discussing that in a Free Thinking episode called Alternative Realities https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hftd He also shares his knowledge about HG Wells in a programme called Wells' Women https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04b4r1x
Late Junction on BBC Radio 3 has been asking people to send in their dreams to the artist Sam Potter. He's created an AI programme dream machine which morphs these into texts which composers have then worked on. If you tune into Late Junction on Friday nights BBC Radio 3 11pm throughout June you can hear the dreamlike results https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tp52
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Should Kew re-label its plants? What do you see when you study a still life painting on the gallery walls? How do nineteenth century authors depict deadly plants? New Generation Thinker Christienna Fryar discusses new ways of understanding British history through horticulture with her four guests: Lauren Working, is one of the 2021 New Generation Thinkers. She has studied the Jamestown colony, and delivers a postcard about still life painting and its connection to the exotic luxuries of early empire building. Her book is called The Making of an Imperial Polity: Civility and America in the Jacobean Metropolis. Katie Donington, has worked on a British botanist and plant collector George Hibbert who made his money from the plants on the sugar plantations, and then paid for specimens to be brought back to England from one of James Cook's expeditions. Daisy Butcher, has edited a collection called The Botanical Gothic, which brings together 19th century stories about deadly plants, mostly plants brought back to the UK from far-flung parts of the world that turn out to be threatening. Sharon Willoughby, head of interpretation at Kew Gardens, is looking at the way Kew presents its collections, starting for example, to use Chinese names for Chinese plants which were well known to Chinese scholars before the plant collectors arrived from countries including Britain to bring specimens to display here.
You might be interested in the Free Thinking discussion looking at Darwin's The Descent of Man https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000s31z Napoleon the gardener and art thief is discussed by guests including biographer Ruth Scurr https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000vr1w Trees of Knowledge hears from Peter Wohlleben and Emanuele Coccia https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001nj1 And an upcoming episode of The Verb with Ian McMillan on June 11th will hear more from Peter Wohlleben and from poet Jason Allen-Paisant We are also launching a podcast made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council - Green Thinking - which features academic research into the issues linking the climate challenge and society. You can find that on the Green Thinking playlist on our programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2 and available to download as the Arts & Ideas podcast.
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to work with academics to share their research on the radio. This episode was made in partnership with the AHRC, part of UKRI. You can find a playlist exploring New Research on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
Image: The Temperate House at The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Credit: Paul Kerley / BBC
'What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence'. Thus ends the only book the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein published in his lifetime. But it's a book that's had people talking ever since it was published a century years ago. In an event hosted by the Austrian Cultural Forum, and in collaboration with the British Wittgenstein Society, Shahidha Bari discusses the contexts and contents of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus at 100 with Wittgenstein's biographer Ray Monk, the philosophers Juliet Floyd and Dawn Wilson, and Wittgenstein's niece Monica Nadler Wittgenstein.
In the Preface to his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein claims to have solved all the problems of philosophy. The youngest son of one of the wealthiest families in Europe, based in Vienna, Ludwig moved to England in 1908 to study the then cutting edge-topic of flight aerodynamics. From there he developed an interest in pure mathematics, which led him to philosophy, and to the revolutionary work of the logician Gottlob Frege. Frege recommended he went to Cambridge to study with Bertrand Russell, who quickly recognised him as "perhaps the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived".
The work that Wittgenstein began in Cambridge eventually led to the composition of the Tractatus, but not before the intervention of the First World War, during which he signed up to the Austro-Hungarian Army and fought in some of the fiercest battles on the Eastern Front, even volunteering for an observation post in no-man's-land. Finished whilst he was still in military service, the Tractatus combines an innovative account of the nature of logic with searching investigation of personhood and mysticism. Written in an aphoristic style that seems to conceal as much as it reveals, it is a major work of Viennese Modernism as well as a foundational text of analytical philosophy.
You can find a playlist of conversations about philosophy on the Free Thinking website which include Wolfram Eilenberger, David Edmonds, Esther Leslie with Matthew Sweet looking at the different philosophical schools current in the 1920s Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman on reclaiming the role of women in British 20th century philosophy Stephen Mulhall and Denis McManus, and the historian and New Generation Thinker Tiffany Watt Smith on Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07x0twx
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Wearing denim, workwear, or sharp tailoring makes a statement about how we think of ourselves. Charlie Porter has been exploring the relationship between artists and clothes. He joins writer Olivia Laing and Ekow Eshun for a conversation about clothing, bodies, and our expression of our sexuality, hosted by Shahidha Bari.
Olivia Laing's latest book is called Everybody: A Book About Freedom
Charlie Porter has published What Artists Wear. A former Turner prize judge, he writes and curates and is a visiting Fashion lecturer at the University of Westminster.
British-Ghanaian photographer James Barnor's work is on show at the Serpentine Gallery in London from 19 May - 22 October 2021.
Ekow Eshun has curated An Infinity of Traces, which runs at the Lisson Gallery in London from 13 April – 5 June 2021, featuring UK-based established and emerging Black artists whose work explores notions of race, history, being, and belonging.
Jade Montserrat, one of the artists featured in Ekow's show, talked to Free Thinking in a programme about collage and Dada https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k9ws
Producer: Emma Wallace
You can find more conversations in the Free Thinking archive and available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts, including;
Olivia Laing on her novel inspired by Kathy Acker, and a discussion of Alison Bechdel's Fun Home - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b7mryz The body past and present, discussed by painter Chantal Joffe, historian Catherine Fletcher, and philosopher Heather Widdows - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b7my7k Fashion stories in museums, with guests including V&A curator Claire Wilcox - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000s2by JJ Bola, Derek Owusu, and Ben Lerner on the changing image of masculinity - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b0mx How do we build a new masculinity? Sunil Gupta, CN Lester, Tom Shakespeare, and Alona Pardo - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gm6h The politics of fashion and drag with Scrumbly Koldewyn, and a report from the Royal Vauxhall Tavern - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09zcjch
Image Credit: Getty Images/Jonathan Knowles
The Startup Wife is the title of Tahmima Anam's latest novel. Anne McElvoy talks to her about writing about the work/life balance and ideas about risk. New Generation Thinker Mirela Ivanova, from the University of Oxford, is researching Balkan history. She writes us a postcard about the strangely changing look of the main museum in Sofia, Bulgaria and why it's significant. And we look back at Roman history as the British Museum opens an exhibition Nero: the man behind the myth, talking to curator, Dr Thorsten Opper and historian, Tom Holland.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Tahmima Anam is taking part in the Hay Festival. Her novel The Startup Wife is being read on BBC Radio 4 from June 6th at 22.45 You can hear her on Free Thinking comparing notes about the writing life with crime author Ian Rankin in a conversation organised in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature and Bradford Lit Fest https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000khk6 She also discusses writing about love in her novel The Bones of Grace in a conversation with Alain de Boton and AL Kennedy https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b078xlft And she's written a Radio 3 Essay about her place of refuge https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hwzc
Nero: the man behind the myth runs at the British Museum in London from May 27th 2021 to October 24th 2021.
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who turn their research into radio.
You can find information about Hay Festival at hayfestival.com
Image: Tahmima Anam Credit: Abeer Y. Hoque
Is Gogglebox the main place on TV where you now find criticism? What does that tell us about the role of the critic today? Suzi Feay, Arifa Akbar and Charlotte Mullins join Matthew Sweet to review a new art exhibition at the Barbican showcasing the art and ideas of Jean Dubuffet and to reflect on what being a critic means. Matthew pays tribute to the thinking of Kevin Jackson (3 January 1955 – 10 May 2021) who took part in many critical discussions on BBC Radio 3. New Generation Thinker Vid Simoniti teaches philosophy and art at Liverpool University and he's written us a postcard reflecting on what it means when algorithms dictate the culture we consume.
Jean Dubuffet: Brutal Beauty runs at the Barbican, London from May 17th 2021 to August 22nd 2021. Dubuffet (1901-1985) collected artwork made by people outside the arts establishment and in his own work he incorporated butterfly wings, sand, lava, collages of cut up paintings and graffiti. Talking about the portraits he made he said, ‘Funny noses, big mouths, crooked teeth, hairy ears, I’m not against all that’.
You can find a playlist focusing on the Visual Arts on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p026wnjl
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
A ghostly Franco visits an elderly man in the latest novel by Patrick McGrath. He joins historian Duncan Wheeler and the makers of a prize winning documentary Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar, as Rana Mitter's guests for a discussion of the Spanish Civil War, the ghosts and silences that remain and how history is now being written.
The Silence of Others, backed by Pedro Almodóvar and directed by Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar has been screened at festivals across the world and has picked up many prizes. https://thesilenceofothers.com/
Duncan Wheeler is Chair of Spanish Studies at the University of Leeds and has published Following Franco: Spanish Culture and Politics in Transition.
Patrick McGrath is the author of novels including Spider which was filmed by David Cronenburg, Asylum which was adapted by Patrick Marber and short stories collected under the title Writing Madness. His new novel depicting Francis McNulty, a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, has the title Last Days in Cleaver Square.
Producer: Ruth Watts
On the Free Thinking website you can find past episodes with Rana Mitter discussing history and Pakistan, War in fact and fiction from World War I to African conflicts; What does a black history curriculum look like? and Deep Time and Human History. All episodes are available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts. New Generation Thinker Anindya Raychaudhuri's postcard about aerial bombardment and the Spanish Civil War is on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p046wn7w
Image: Valley of the Fallen from above which shows the Benedictine Abbey, near Madrid, Spain Credit: BBC/Craig Hastings
Toussaint Louverture's revolutionary leadership in Haiti; Ravenna's place as a hub of culture and a meeting point of East and West; how motherhood and work have changed from Victorian Manchester factories to the modern boardroom; a 3,000 year history of attacks on libraries and book burnings; battles in the Atlantic from the Vikings to conflicts over slavery in the Caribbean and on the North American coast; recovering the voices of children who experienced the Holocaust: Rana Mitter looks at how the six authors shortlisted for the UK's most prestigious history prize have tackled these topics.
The books shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize 2021 are:
Survivors: Children’s Lives after the Holocaust by Rebecca Clifford Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture by Sudhir Hazareesingh Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe by Judith Herrin Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood by Helen McCarthy Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack by Richard Ovenden Atlantic Wars: From the Fifteenth Century to the Age of Revolution by Geoffrey Plank
The winner will be announced on Wednesday 9 June 2021 in a virtual ceremony. The winner will be awarded £40,000 and each of the shortlisted authors receives £4,000.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
In the Free Thinking archives you can find interviews with the authors shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize in previous years and a host of discussions about history looking at topics including Napoleon, John Henry Newman, Adnam Menderes and Turkish history, Northern Ireland, what we can learn from the upheavals of industrial revolution and empires ending, war in fact and fiction, Churchill, family ties and reshaping history with guests including Margaret McMillan, Tom Holland, Jared Diamond, Priya Atwal, Camilla Townsend, Ruth Scurr, Roy Foster and David Reynolds amongst others.
Singer Umm Kulthum, Mounira al-Mahdiyya, Badia Masabni. These are the names of the pioneering performers working in Cairo's dance halls and theatres in the 1020s whom Raphael Cormack has written about in his new book. From that period of cosmopolitan culture to the uprising in 2011 - how has Egypt shifted ? New Generation Thinker Dina Rezk lectures at the University of Reading and she's been reading the new novel by Alaa Al Aswany - The Republic of False Truths. Edmund Richardson researches Alexander the Great and he's written about a Victorian pilgrim, spy, doctor, archaeologist Charles Masson who found a lost city in Afghanistan. Anne McElvoy presents.
Raphael Cormack's book is called Midnight in Cairo: The Female Stars of Egypt's Roaring '20s
Dina Rezk is a New Generation Thinker and Associate Professor of History at the University of Reading. Her recent research has focused on the upheavals of the 'Arab Spring' across the Middle East.
Edmund Richardson is a New Generation Thinker and Associate Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Durham. His book is called Alexandria: The Quest for the Lost City
Producer: Ruth Watts
Image: People celebrate at Tahrir Square, Cairo on 3rd July 2013 Credit: BBC (Abdel Khalik Salah)
What stories are being uncovered by people working behind the scenes at museums and institutions? Lisa Mullen finds out talking to Tessa Jackson – Conservator; David Beavan – Senior Research Software Engineer, Turing Institute and Matt Harle – Archivist and curator at the Barbican.
Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life runs at the Hepworth Wakefield from 21 May 2021 to 27 Feb 2022. The gallery also runs a Hepworth Research Network in partnership with the Department of History of Art at the University of York and the School of Art, Design and Architecture at the University of Huddersfield. https://hepworthwakefield.org/our-story/hepworth-research-network/people/
Matthew Harle is an archivist working with the Barbican as it prepares for its 40th anniversary so is assembling an archive alongside the Guildhall School of Music and Drama https://www.barbican.org.uk/our-story/our-archive/about-the-archive https://matthewharle.com/Barbican-Archive
The Alan Turing Institute https://www.turing.ac.uk/ is the national institute for data science and artificial intelligence running a host of research projects into topics including AI, Public Policy and Living with Machines - a project that rethinks the impact of technology on the lives of ordinary people during the Industrial Revolution. https://livingwithmachines.ac.uk You can hear more from historian Emma Griffin in this conversation about Understanding the Industrial Revolution https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p081y7h4
This episode was made in partnership with the AHRC, part of UKRI. You can find a playlist exploring New Research on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
Producer: Sofie Vilcins
From the appeal of trickster gods Anansi and Loki to the joy of comics and fantasy: Booker prize winner Marlon James and Neil Gaiman, author of the book American Gods which has been turned into a TV series, talk writing and reading with Matthew Sweet in a conversation organised in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature and the British Library.
Neil Gaiman is an author of books for children and adults whose titles include Norse Mythology, American Gods, The Graveyard Book, Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett), Coraline, and the Sandman graphic novels. He also writes children's books and poetry, has written and adapted for radio, TV and film and for DC Comics. Marlon James is the author of the Booker Prize winning and New York Times bestseller A Brief History of Seven Killings, The Book of Night Women, John Crow's Devil and his most recent - Black Leopard, Red Wolf - which is the first in The Dark Star Trilogy in which he plans to tell the same story from different perspectives.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod.
You can find a playlist called Prose and Poetry featuring a range of authors including Ian Rankin, Nadifa Mohamed, Paul Mendez, Ali Smith, Helen Mort, Max Porter, Hermione Lee, Derek Owusu, Jay Bernard, Ben Okri on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vh
The Bechdel test asks whether two women are having a conversation which doesn't relate to a man. Many films, books and plays fall foul of the measure which first appeared in the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, created by Matthew Sweet's guest today Alison Bechdel. Her memoir Fun Home became a Tony Award-winning musical and she has now published The Secret to Superhuman Strength which considers her relationship with exercise so she and Matthew go on an imaginary walk discussing topics including mushrooms, drinking, the response of her mum to being depicted in fiction, the lingering impact of a Catholic childhood and going to confession, the writing of Adrienne Rich and Coleridge and Bechdel's exploration of ideas about transcendence.
Producer: Caitlin Benedict
You can find Matthew in conversation with other guests including Spike Lee, Sarah Perry, Jimmy Carter's former drugs tsar Peter Bourne and Michael Lewis in a playlist on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04ly0c8
The day before Napoleon's death on May 5th 1821, the willow tree he liked to sit under on St Helena was felled by tempestuous winds. Ruth Scurr has written Napoleon: A Life in Gardens and Shadows. Natasha Pulley's novel The Kingdoms imagines a history with Napoleon victorious in England, Emma Rothschild has traced a family in France over three centuries. Rana Mitter chairs a discussion about how looking at Napoleon as gardener, collector of art and founder of an institution dedicated to the arts and sciences in Egypt adds to our understanding of him as a military man and the panel consider alternative histories of France.
Ruth Scurr's book Napoleon: A Life in Gardens and Shadows is out now. You can hear her discussing her book about John Aubrey in this episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06rwvrf Natasha Pulley's novel The Kingdoms is published May 25th 2021. You can hear her discussing the Japanese novel and film Rashomon https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b01vwk and the writing of Angela Carter https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p038jdb7 Emma Rothschild has published An Infinite History: The Story of a Family in France over Three Centuries
Producer: Ruth Watts
You might be interested in another Free Thinking discussion about Napoleon in Fact and Fiction hearing from actor/director Kathryn Hunter, biographer Michael Broers historians Oskar Cox Jensen and Laura O'Brien, journalist Nabila Ramdani https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09s2nml and Radio 3's weekly curation of Words and Music features an episode focusing on authors and composers inspired by the life of Napoleon with readings from Jane Austen, Wordsworth, Anthony Burgess and Thackeray and music from Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev.
"We suffer from Johnson" - those words come in a poem written by his friend, the diarist Hester Thrale Piozzi (who died May 2nd 1821). Patience Agbabi's new novel time travels back to eighteenth century London and takes its teenage heroes to a tea party at Samuel Johnson's house. Thomas Lawrence sketched his biographer Boswell. His Jamaican servant Francis Barber inherited his watch. So Laurence Scott convenes his own virtual tea party to look at Samuel Johnson's world.
New Generation Thinker Sophie Coulombeau is co-organiser of the first international conference on Hester Thrale Piozzi and will share her findings from her research into Piozzi's life and works. As an exhibition of Lawrence's portraits prepares to open at the Holburne Museum in Bath, we hear from curator, Amina Wright, about the young artist. Patience Agbabi's novel is called The Time-Thief and she explains why she was drawn to depict Samuel Johnson. And, New Generation Thinker Jake Subryan Richards writes a postcard reflecting on ideas about slavery, abolition and the law in eighteenth century England.
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn academic research into radio. You can find a playlist of discussions, features and Essays on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35
Producer: Ruth Watts
Image: Patience Agbabi Credit: Lyndon Douglas
A Northern Irish writer - what does that label mean? Lucy Caldwell compares notes with Caroline Magennis about the way authors are charting change and setting down experience - from working class memoirs of life in Derry to the poetry of Seamus Heaney, Sinéad Morrissey and others. And as we approach the centenary of the creation of Northern Ireland, Anne McElvoy talks to Roy Foster and Charles Townshend about the history and legacy of partition.
Charles Townshend is Professor Emeritus of International History at Keele University, and Roy Foster is Professor and Honorary Fellow at Hertford College, University of Oxford. Amongst other titles, Roy Foster is the author of Vivid Faces: The Revolutionary Generation in Ireland, 1890-1923, and Charles Townshend's new book is The Partition: Ireland Divided, 1885-1925.
Lucy Caldwell's new book is called Intimacies and is published in May, and she has also edited Being Various: New Irish Short Stories. In the interview she recommends books including the writing of Mary Beckett, The Glass Shore: Short Stories by Woman Writers from the North of Ireland edited by Sinéad Gleeson, and Inventory: A River, A City, A Family by Darran Anderson.
Caroline Magennis is Reader in 20th and 21st Century Literature at the University of Salford, and her upcoming publication, Northern Irish Writing After the Troubles: Intimacies, Affects, Pleasures, will be available in August.
Producer: Emma Wallace
If you want more conversations with writers from Northern Ireland you can find the following episodes on the Free Thinking website: Sinéad Morrissey on winning the TS Eliot Prize in 2014 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03pdf10 Michael Longley talks about his poetry and winning the PEN Pinter prize - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b098hz1m Bernard MacClaverty talks to Anne McElvoy about depicting love and loss in a long relationship in his novel Midwinter Break - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09525cn Ruth Dudley Edwards looks at ideas about belonging - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000h2g4 Roy Foster and Paul Muldoon are in conversation - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b050xpsd
Eight churches were set on fire, and a taste for occult rituals and satanic imagery spiralled into suicide and murder in the Norwegian Black metal scene of the 1990s. Lucy Weir looks at the lessons we can take from this dark story about the way we look at mental health and newspaper reporting.
Producer: Emma Wallace
Dr Lucy Weir is a specialist in dance and performance at the University of Edinburgh. You can hear her discussing the impact of Covid on dance performances in this Free Thinking discussion about audiences - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nvlc, and her thoughts on dance and stillness - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k33s
She is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to work with academics to turn their research into radio.
Darragh McGee takes the long view of the risk-based games we have played throughout history. He explores the experiences of their losers and the moral censure that their losses have attracted; from the eighteenth century gentry who learned to lose their fortune with good grace at the gaming tables of Bath to the twenty-first century smartphone user, facing an altogether more lonely ordeal. He considers the cultural history gambling - and, what the games we have staked our money on through the centuries, tell us about ourselves and society.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Dr Darragh McGee teaches in the Department for Health at the University of Bath. He is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. You can hear him talking about gambling in this Free Thinking episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000khhq
From the Jewishness of the New Testament to attempts by 19th- and early 20th-century British Jews to blend in to Christian England, Giles Fraser shows how the two religions have a vexed history but are also surprisingly interconnected in his new book called Chosen. He also looks back at 2011, when the Occupy London took over the steps and surroundings of St Pauls and the resulting division in the church about how to react to this protest movement led him to leave his job and to a crisis of confidence.
Miri Rubin, Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History at Queen Mary, University of London, and David Feldman, Professor of History and Director of the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism at Birkbeck, University of London, join Giles Fraser and Matthew Sweet to explore the degree to which you can emphasise similarities between Christianity and Judaism - what do you gain and what do you lose?
Producer: Eliane Glaser
You can find a playlist of programmes exploring religious belief on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03mwxlp which includes Jonathan Freedland, Hadley Freeman, Howard Jacobson and Bari Weiss on Jewish Identity in 2020 Simon Schama and Devorah Baum on Jewish history and jokes and Frank Skinner, Jeet Thayil and Yaa Gyasi on Writing about Faith
Was Marx wrong when he said that philosophers can only interpret the world in various ways, and contrasted that with actually changing it?
Epistemology, or the theory of knowledge, was once considered one of the more abstract areas of philosophy, far removed from the concerns of every-day life. Now, philosophers like Miranda Fricker have developed epistemological concepts that can help us recognise, understand, and address areas where disparities in knowledge feed into wider social and political disadvantages, for example indigenous people articulating their relationship with land using Western legal concepts like ‘ownership’ or patients trying to describe symptoms not addressed by medical text books. Shahidha Bari talks with Miranda Fricker, Havi Carel and Constantine Sandis.
You can find a playlist of conversations about philosophy on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07x0twx
Producer: Luke Mulhall
The First Congress of Black Writers and Artists in Paris 1956 staged debates about colonial history which are still playing out in the protests of the Gilets Noirs. New Generation Thinker Alexandra Reza leafs through the pages of the journal Présence Africaine, and picks out a short story by Ousmane Sembène, tracing the dreams of a young woman from Senegal. Her experiences are echoed in a new experimental patchwork of writing by Nathalie Quintane called Les Enfants Vont Bien. And what links all of these examples is the idea of papers, cahiers, and identity documents.
Producer: Emma Wallace
Alexandra Reza researches post-colonial literature at the University of Oxford. You can hear her in a Free Thinking discussion about Aimé Césaire https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nmxf
She also appears alongside Tariq Ali and Kehinde Andrews in a discussion Frantz Fanon's Writing https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000tdtn And in a Free Thinking episode looking at the fiction of Maryse Condé https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v86y
She is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select academics to turn their research into radio.
Gold fob seals, Sheffield silver, Mesolithic stone tools - these were some of the discoveries detailed in the 28 papers, books and pamphlets published by a soldier turned archaeologist who began looking at what you might find in the soil in the middle of a World War One battlefield. In her Essay, Seren Griffiths traces the way Francis Buckley used his training for military intelligence to shape the way he set about digging up and recording objects buried both in war-torn landscapes of France and Belgium and then on the Yorkshire moors around his home.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Dr Seren Griffiths teaches at Manchester Metropolitan University and is involved in a project to use new scientific dating techniques to write the first historical narrative for two thousand years of what was previously 'prehistoric' Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain and Ireland. She has also organised public events at the excavations she co- directs at Bryn Celli Ddu in North Wales and you can hear her talking about midsummer at a Neolithic monument in an episode of Free Thinking. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to choose ten academics each year to turn their research into radio.
Chinatown, New York, in 1890 was described by photo-journalist Jacob Riis as "disappointing." He focused only on images of opium dens and gambling and complained about the people living there being "secretive". But could withholding your emotions be a deliberate tactic rather than a crass stereotype of inscrutability? Xine Yao has been reading short stories from the collection Mrs. Spring Fragrance, published in 1912 by Sui Sin Far and her Essay looks at what links the Asian American Exclusion Act of 1882, the first American federal law to exclude people on the basis of national or ethnic origin, to writings by the Martinican philosopher Édouard Glissant.
Producer: Caitlin Benedict.
Xine Yao researches early and nineteenth-century American literature and teaches at University College London. She hosts a podcast PhDivas and you can hear her in Free Thinking discussions about Darwin's Descent of Man, Mould-breaking Writing and in a programme with Ian Rankin and Tahmima Anam where she talks about science fiction. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to choose ten academics each year to turn their research into radio programmes. You can find more in this playlist on the Free Thinking website featuring discussions, essays and features from 10 years of the New Generation Thinkers scheme https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35
Vivian Maier left over 150,000 negatives when she died in 2009. Her boxes and boxes of unprinted street photographs were stacked alongside shoulder-high piles of newspapers in her Chicago home. The artist Francis Bacon's studio has been painstakingly recreated in the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin complete with paint-spattered furniture and over 7,000 items. New Generation Thinker Diarmuid Hester's research looks at ideas about waste and in this Essay he considers what the difference might be between hoarding and collecting and between the stuff assembled by these artists and his own father's shelves of matchday programmes.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Dr Diarmuid Hester is radical cultural historian of the United States after 1950, and he teaches on sexually dissident literature, art, film, and performance at the University of Cambridge. He has published a critical biography of Dennis Cooper called Wrong and you can find his Essay for Radio 3 about Cooper in the series Books to Make Space For on the Bookshelf and his postcard about Derek Jarman's garden in the Free Thinking archives. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who turn their research into radio.
The potato famine saw a Dublin barracks turned into place where starving people were given six minutes to eat their soup in silence. Tom Scott-Smith researches humanitarian relief and his Essay takes us from the father of the modern soup kitchen in 1790 Bavaria and the meaning of "to rumfordize" to Boston, America a hundred years later and a recipe developed by an MIT Professor, Ellen Swallow Richards, which dunked meat in condensed milk and flour. What lessons about society's values can we take from their different recipes for soup?
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Tom Scott-Smith is Associate Professor of Refugee Studies and Forced Migration at the University of Oxford. He has published a book called On an Empty Stomach: Two Hundred Years of Hunger Relief, and taken part in a film project Shelter without Shelter which was the winner of one of the 2020 AHRC Research in Film Awards. This research was featured in an exhibition staged by the Imperial War Museum which you can hear about in the Free Thinking episode called Refugees.. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to chose ten academics each year who use their research to make radio programmes.
Friendship, domestic violence, power dynamics in the home, and debates about the ethics of war - all topics we can find in the dramas of Shakespeare. Scholars Emma Smith, Patrick Gray, and Emma Whipday share insights from their research, with Lisa Mullen.
Professor Emma Smith is the author of This is Shakespeare. She has presented the Radio 3 Documentary, First Folio Road Trip - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03s4jm7 - and an Essay called The Art of Storytelling https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07cypjl
Dr Patrick Gray teaches at Durham University, is the author of Shakespeare And The Fall Of The Roman Republic and has co-edited Shakespeare And Renaissance Ethics.
Dr Emma Whipday teaches at the University of Newcastle and has published Shakespeare's Domestic Tragedies: Violence In The Early Modern Home.
You can find a playlist with other discussions about Shakespeare on the Free Thinking programme website - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06406hm Plus a podcast series with productions of the plays recorded for radio: The Shakespeare Sessions -https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0655br3/episodes/downloads
This episode was made in partnership with the AHRC, part of UKRI. You can find a playlist exploring New Research on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
Producer: Emma Wallace
Blousy chrysanthemums pattern the cotton dress, designed for wearing indoors, that a pregnant Sophie Oliver found herself owning. It helped her come to terms with motherhood. In this Essay, the New Generation Thinker reflects upon the daydreams of Jean Rhys, the way she tried to connect with her daughter Maryvonne through clothes and examples from her fiction where fashion allows dissatisfied female characters to express and transform themselves.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Dr Sophie Oliver lectures in English at the University of Liverpool and curated an exhibition at the British Library in 2016 - Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea and the Making of an Author. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who use their research to make radio programmes. You can find Sophie discussing a novel based on the actress Ingrid Bergman, and the writing of Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath in episodes of Free Thinking available on the programme website and BBC Sounds.
Claude Mackay the Haarlem poet wrote about his experiences of an earthquake in Kingston in 1907. Twenty years earlier the city was putting itself back together following a devastating fire set off by a disgruntled employee. New Generation Thinker Christienna Fryar has been reading through diaries and archives and her Essay suggests that there are lessons we can take about the way societies rebuild after disasters.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Dr Christienna Fryar is Lecturer in Black British History at Goldsmiths London and convenor of the MA in Black British History, the first taught masters' programme of its kind in the UK. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Council to select ten academics each year to make radio programmes based on their research. You can find a playlist of discussions, documentaries and other Essays featuring New Generation Thinkers on the Free Thinking programme website which include Christienna hosting discussions about women and slavery, and talking with Professor Olivette Otele.
16 April 1746, the Jacobite rising was quelled by the Duke of Cumberland's army at the Battle of Culloden. Marking this anniversary here's a chance to hear Matthew Sweet discussing portrayals of Scotland's Highlands in the Peter Watkins' film Culloden and in the Outlander series of books which have become a successful TV series. His guests in a conversation recorded at the Edinburgh Festival in 2014 are Outlander author Diana Gabaldon, historian Tom Devine and media expert John Cook. They explore how Watkins's film Culloden was received in 1964 and the way it gave birth to the television form of docudrama and shaped the early development of Dr Who. They also ask why the emotional imagining of Culloden continues to be so strong - the TV series of Outlander is now in its seventh series and you can find a series of online events marking Culloden 275.
Producer: Jacqueline Smith
Monsieur Hulot is a car designer who takes a chaotic journey to an auto-show in Amsterdam to show off his prototype in this comic film from 1971. It's the last of Jacques Tati's films to feature Hulot, whose name is said to be inspired in part by the French name for Charlie Chaplin's character in The Tramp - Charlot, and whom Rowan Atkinson has cited as an influence on his comic creation Mr Bean. Matthew Sweet discusses Jacques Tati with fellow film historians Adam Scovell, Muriel Zagha and Phuong Le.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
In the Free Thinking archives you can find Matthew discussing other classics such as Charlie Chaplin's City Lights https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03vd853 the career of Billy Wilder and his film Fedora https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000p1dx Laurel and Hardy's The Music Box https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001xwd A long interview with Kevin Brownlow about restoring silent film classics https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07z7bn4
"A hermit in the middle of Los Angeles" is one way she described herself - born in 1947, Butler became a writer who wanted to "tell stories filled with facts. Make people touch and taste and know." Since her death in 2006, her writing has been widely taken up and praised for its foresight in suggesting developments such as big pharma and for its critique of American history. Shahidha Bari is joined by the author Irenosen Okojie and the scholar Gerry Canavan and Nisi Shawl, writer, editor, journalist – and long-time friend of Octavia Butler.
Irenosen Okojie's latest collection of short stories is called Nudibranch and she was winner of the 2020 AKO Caine Prize for Fiction for her story Grace Jones. You can hear her discussing her own writing life alongside Nadifa Mohamed in a previous Free Thinking episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k8sz Gerry Canavan is co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to American Science Fiction. Nisi Shawl writes about books for The Seattle Times, and also contributes frequently to Ms. Magazine, The Cascadia Subduction Zone, The Washington Post.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You might be interested in the Free Thinking episode Science fiction and ecological thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000h6yw and on Ursula Le Guin's The Word for World is Forest https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b6yb37 and a playlist exploring Landmarks of Culture including Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks and the writing of Audre Lorde, and of Wole Soyinka https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44
Capitalism and Schizophrenia is a major text of French poststructuralist thought by Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Made up of the two volumes Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, it articulates a new way of doing both philosophy and psychoanalysis that insists on the concrete relevance and transformative potential of the disciplines for day-to-day life. Matthew Sweet is joined by Henry Somers-Hall, Reader in Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London and editor of A Thousand Plateaus and Philosophy; Claire Colebrook, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English, Philosophy, and Woman's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Penn State University; and Ian Parker, practicing psychoanalyst and managing editor of the Annual Review f Critical Psychology.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can find a playlist exploring philosophy on the Free Thinking programme website with episodes looking at Michel Foucault, Derrida, the Vietnamese thinker Tran Duc Thao who influenced Derrida, as well as editions on Hegel and on the quartet of female philosophers who helped shaped British philosophy in the twentieth century https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07x0twx
Blind, and with his hair cut and his strength shorn - in Milton's dramtic poem Samson has already been betrayed by Delilah. It goes on to explore ideas about violence , revenge and tragedy. Published on May 29th 1671 alongside Paradise Regained, Milton's notes show that he started thinking of ideas for this work 30 years earlier. In 1741 Handel finished writing his version - a three act oratorio called Samson. Rana Mitter is joined by New Generation Thinker Islam Issa, music expert Professor Suzanne Aspden, poet Nuala Watt and classics expert Simon Goldhill to look at the poetic language of Samson Agonistes, the politics it was reflecting, the imagery of blindness and what Handel took from Milton's writing.
Dr Islam Issa from Birmingham City University is a New Generation Thinker and author of Milton in the Arab-Muslim and Milton in Translation and Digital Milton. You can hear him presenting this recent Radio 3 Sunday Feature on The Balcony from Shakespeare to these Covid times https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0972325
Professor Suzanne Aspden from the University of Oxford is the author of The Rival Sirens: Performance and Identity on Handel’s Operatic Stage and co-editor of the Cambridge Opera Journal.
Professor Simon Goldhill from the University of Cambridge is the author of How to Stage Greek Tragedy Today and Love, Sex & Tragedy
Dr Nuala Watt has written on the role of partial sight in poetics. Her poems have appeared in Magma and Gutter and her work is included in the anthology Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (2017).
Producer: Ruth Watts
Blind, and with his hair cut and his strength shorn - in Milton's dramtic poem Samson has already been betrayed by Delilah. It goes on to explore ideas about violence, revenge and tragedy. Published on May 29th 1671 alongside Paradise Regained, Milton's notes show that he started thinking of ideas for this work 30 years earlier. In 1741 Handel finished writing his version - a three act oratorio called Samson. Rana Mitter is joined by New Generation Thinker Islam Issa, music expert Professor Suzanne Aspden, poet Nuala Watt and classics expert Simon Goldhill to look at the poetic language of Samson Agonistes, the politics it was reflecting, the imagery of blindness and what Handel took from Milton's writing.
Dr Islam Issa from Birmingham City University is a New Generation Thinker and author of Milton in the Arab-Muslim and Milton in Translation and Digital Milton. You can hear him presenting this recent Radio 3 Sunday Feature on The Balcony from Shakespeare to these Covid times https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0972325
Professor Suzanne Aspden from the University of Oxford is the author of The Rival Sirens: Performance and Identity on Handel’s Operatic Stage and co-editor of the Cambridge Opera Journal.
Professor Simon Goldhill from the University of Cambridge is the author of How to Stage Greek Tragedy Today and Love, Sex & Tragedy
Dr Nuala Watt has written on the role of partial sight in poetics. Her poems have appeared in Magma and Gutter and her work is included in the anthology Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (2017).
Producer: Ruth Watts
Slavery and empire building shaped Liverpool's development. Can art works help give a new understanding of the city's history? In a discussion organised in partnership with the Liverpool Biennial, Anne McElvoy is joined by the Festival curator Manuela Moscoso, by the artist Xaviera Simmons, the historian Dr Diana Jeater and the composer Neo Muyanga. The Biennial runs from 20 March to 6 June 2021 with art works sited around the city.
Neo Muyanga is a composer and sound artist whose work traverses new opera, jazz improvisation, Zulu and Sesotho idiomatic songs. His project A Maze in Grace is a 12'' vinyl record and a video installation at the Lewis’s Building, inspired by the song “Amazing Grace”, composed by English slaver-turned-abolitionist John Newton, who lived in Liverpool. The piece was co-commissioned by Fundação Bienal São Paulo, echoing some of the trading links which operated in the transatlantic slave trade.
Xaviera Simmons has previously spent two years on a walking pilgrimage retracing the transatlantic slave trade with Buddhist monks. Her installation at the Cotton Exchange Building uses images and texts set against backdrops of the American landscape to explore ideas about "whiteness". It's co-presented by Liverpool Biennial and Photoworks
Curator Manuela Moscoso has worked at the Tamayo Museo in Mexico City and has come up with a framework for the Biennial -The Stomach and the Port- that uses the body as an image to think about the city
Historian Diana Jeater, from the University of Liverpool, is also Emeritus Professor of African History at the University of the West of England, Bristol, and teaches themes that help understand African history such as witchcraft and territorial cults, healing systems, nationalist movements and religious institutions.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
You can find a playlist of programmes exploring the visual arts on the Free Thinking website, include discussions with museum curators held in partnership with Frieze Art Fair and interviews with artists including Michael Rakowitz, Taryn Simon, William Kentridge and Sonia Boyce amongst others https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p026wnjl
And our 2021 New Generation Thinker Vid Simoniti is hosting a podcast talking to some of the Biennial artists called Art Against the World which you can find here https://www.biennial.com/
One Cold War spy has his story retold by journalist Simon Kuper, while the granddaughter of another - Charlotte Philby - writes novels that explore the human side and cost of espionage. Nigel Inkster, former MI6 director of operations and intelligence, looks at the role of spying in present day relations between China and the US, while journalist Margaret Coker explains how old school intelligence gathering without any hi-tech bells and whistles has been reaping rewards in Iraq. Rana Mitter hosts a conversation about spying fact and fiction.
The Happy Traitor: Spies, Lies and Exile in Russia - The Extraordinary Story of George Blake by Simon Kuper is out now. Charlotte Philby's most recent novel is A Double Life. The Great Decoupling: China, America and the Struggle for Technological Supremacy by Nigel Inkster is out now. Margaret Coker's book Spymaster of Baghdad is out now. Penguin Classics is re-issuing Len Deighton's novels.
In our archives you can find Stella Rimington in discussion with Alan Judd https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b048ngpw John le Carré in conversation with Anne McElvoy https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b039q13n The links in the world of French philosophy and spies https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b2mfh3 And a playlist of programmes on War and Conflict https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06kgbyb
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Hanif Abdurraqib, the American poet and essayist, has written a book in praise of black performance challenging stereotypes and recovering figures including the magician Ellen Armstrong who performed along the Atlantic seaboard in the 1900s, the dancer William Henry Lane described by Dickens and Merry Clayton, the gospel singer who performed on the Rolling Stones song Gimme Shelter. He joins New Generation Thinker Adjoa Osei and Dawn Walton, founder of Eclipse Theatre Company for a conversation with Matthew Sweet looking at how attitudes towards black performance have changed - or not.
Hanif Abdurraqib's book is called A Little Devil in America: In Praise of Black Performance.
Dawn Walton is directing The Death of a Black Man by Alfred Fagon at the Hampstead Theatre 28 May – 10 July. It premiered at that theatre in 1975.
Adjoa Osei is a 2021 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to make radio from academic research. She researches at the University of Liverpool and her postcard looks at the Brazilian TV series on Netflix Coisa Mais Linda or Girls from Ipanema.
You can find a playlist on the Free Thinking website exploring identity from speakers including Eddie Glaude Jr and Nadia Owusu on James Baldwin; the writers JJ Bola and Derek Owusu in an episode about masculinity; novelist Paul Mendez in a discussion about Queer Bloomsbury; a quartet of artists on the Black British Art movement, Le Gateau Chocolat in a discussion about the subversion of Cabaret and Suzan-Lori Parks on her play Father Comes Home from the Wars https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06jngzt and a second playlist offers other discussions exploring Black History https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbp
The Lights Up festival of performance is running across BBC Radio 3 and 4 and BBC TV. The opening drama Giles Terera's The Meaning of Zong is available now on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000tdk4
Producer: Caitlin Benedict
In Frank Skinner's A Comedian's Prayer Book the broadcaster presents a series of prayers which read like a stand-up routine exploring questions of belief. A practising Roman Catholic, Skinner's questions include the correct way of addressing God, what it means to be humble, and an unpicking of some of the metaphors used in the Bible.
Jeet Thayil was born into a Syrian Christian family in Kerala, and his latest novel, Names of the Women, imagines the New Testament from the viewpoint of the women who became followers of Jesus Christ - from Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, to Lydia of Thyatira, who is regarded as the first documented convert to Christianity in Europe.
Yaa Gyasi’s second novel is called Transcendent Kingdom and it tells the story of a woman working in science who is negotiating her relationship both with her mother and with her beliefs and background.
Laurence Scott talks to these three authors about how they approached writing about faith in fiction and for a mass audience.
Producer: Emma Wallace
You can find a playlist exploring religious belief on the Free Thinking website, with speakers including Ziauddin Sardar, Richard Dawkins, Karen Armstrong, Rabbi Sacks, Marilynne Robinson, and Rowan Williams. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03mwxlp
Wartime saviour or the symbol of nostalgic imperialism ? David Reynolds, Priya Satia, Richard Toye and Allen Packwood join Anne McElvoy to look at the ways Churchill's story and legacy are being written now by both historians and in the press. How can we untangle the culture war that is raging over his reputation and what can we learn if we look at the research coming out of the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge?
Richard Toye is Professor of History at the University of Exeter co-author of The Churchill Myths (2020) and author of Winston Churchill: A Life in the News (OUP, 2020) Priya Satia is Professor of International History at the University of Stanford, author of Time's Monster: How History Makes History (2020) and Empire of Guns: The Violent Making of the Industrial Revolution (2018) David Reynolds is Professor of International History at the University of Cambridge and author of One World Divisible: a Global History since 1945 (2000) and In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War (2004) which was the winner of the Wolfson Prize Allen Packwood is Director of the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge
Producer: Ruth Watts
As lockdowns have forced us to forgo the delights of the outside world, have we developed a taste for simple pleasures? Many have reported enjoying cooking and eating more than usual, or appreciating simple treats such as a walk in nature. Has the grey monotony of this period caused music to sound more vibrant, and colours to appear more vivid? And what is the science, philosophy and psychology behind the enjoyment of simple pleasures? Matthew Sweet asks taste and wine expert Barry Smith; colour expert Kassia St Clair; Lisa Appignanesi an author of books exploring psychology and memory; and historian of luxury Seán Williams to share their ideas about pleasure.
Kassia St Clair is the author of The Secret Lives of Colour and The Golden Thread. Barry C Smith is a Professor of philosophy and Director of the Institute of Philosophy at the University of London's School of Advanced Study. He researches the multisensory nature of perceptual experience, focusing on taste, smell and flavour and also writes on wine. Seán Williams is a New Generation Thinker who teaches on German culture and history at the University of Sheffield considering topics ranging from the Alps, Spas and ideas about luxury, to a history of hairdressing. Lisa Appignanesi's books include Everyday Madness, All About Love: Anatomy of an Unruly Emotion, Memory and Desire and many others.
You can find a whole playlist of programmes exploring different emotions from our Free Thinking Festival 2019 including 20 Words for Joy ... Feelings Around the World hearing from Thomas Dixon, Aatish Taseer and Veronica Strang; Does My Pet Love Me? Why We Need Weepies, and the Way we Used to Feel https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p036y2hb
Producer: Eliane Glaser
Irrational feelings of dread, fear, and hate in a subject whose threat is often exaggerated or "phobogenesis" - one of the psychological terms explored in Frantz Fanon's 1952 book Black Skin, White Masks, which sets out the way black people have been affected by colonial subjugation. Matthew Sweet, Tariq Ali, New Generation Thinker Alexandra Reza and Kehinde Andrews re-read Fanon's arguments and look at the influence of his thinking outlined in his books Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the Earth (1961).
Tariq Ali is a journalist, historian, filmmaker, and public intellectual whose books include The Islam Quintet; The Extreme Centre and The Dilemmas of Lenin. You can hear Rana Mitter in an extended Free Thinking conversation with him https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09qgt57 Kehinde Andrews is a Professor of Black Studies in the School of Social Sciences at Birmingham City University. His books include The New Age of Empire: How Racism and Colonialism Still Rule the World and Back to Black: Retelling Black Radicalism for the 21st Century. You can find him in conversation at the Free Thinking Festival 2019 discussing the emotions of now https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00040wd anger in politics https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003t1t and looking at Black British History with Bernadine Evaristo, Miranda Kaufmann and Keith Piper https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b081tkr9 Alezandra Reza is a BBC and Arts and Humanities Research Council New Generation Thinker who studies at the University of Oxford. You can hear her in a Free Thinking discussion about Aimé Césaire https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nmxf
Producer: Luke Mulhall
The dangerous world of an explosives factory is the setting of Inez Holden’s 1944 novel There’s No Story There. A bohemian figure who went on to write film scripts for J Arthur Rank, to report on the Nuremberg Trials, and produce articles published in Cyril Connolly's magazine Horizon - Holden campaigned for workers’ rights and was close friend of George Orwell, and though she published ten books in her lifetime, she fell out of fashion - until now. New Generation Thinker Lisa Mullen re-reads her writing and finds a refreshingly modern mind.
Lisa Mullen is the author of Mid-Century Gothic: The Uncanny Objects of Modernity in British Literature and Culture after the Second World War. She teaches at the University of Cambridge and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which selects ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. You can hear Lisa writing on George Orwell and the contribution of his wife in a Radio 3 Essay called Who Wrote Animal Farm? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000413q She has presented short features about Mary Wollstonecraft as a single mother https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00061ly On the blackthorn in Sloe Time https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000n6bx She has contributed to Free Thinking discussions about Contagion and Viruses https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gbq6 and Weimar and the Subversion of Cabaret https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b7r7 She has presented episodes of Free Thinking looking at eco-criticism https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rw8t and Panto and magic https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000q376
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Drugs, sex, violence and thinking about death are at the core of the George Miles cycle of five novels. New Generation Thinker Diarmuid Hester draws the links between the author Dennis Cooper and the radicalism of the Marquis de Sade. Now 68, Cooper's books have been praised for his non naturalistic writing and the texture of teenage thought that he captures in the series, which begins with Closer, and condemned for depravity. George Miles was his childhood friend and then lover, who ended up committing suicide.
Diarmuid Hester teaches at the University of Cambridge and is a 2020 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which selects ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. He has published WRONG: A Critical Biography of Dennis Cooper, and is now working on Nothing Ever Just Disappears: A New History of Queer Culture Through its Spaces You can hear him talking about Derek Jarman's garden in this Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jgm5
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Two years of staying inside her own home in Homs, whilst 60 per cent of her neighbourhood was turned into rubble hasn't deterred architect Marwa al-Sabouni. She talks to Anne McElvoy about rebuilding and hope. Adélie Chevée researches the use of media by the Syrian opposition, and Kareem James Abu-Zeid is an Egyptian-American translator, editor, and writer who spent 16 years working on a version of Songs of Mihyar the Damascene by Adonis, a poem which has been compared to TS Eliot's The Wasteland.
Marwa al-Sabouni published The Battle for Home: The Vision of a Young Architect in Syria in 2016 and you can hear her talking to Free Thinking about Syrian Buildings https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b076b15v Since then she's recorded a TED talk How Syria's architecture laid the foundation for a brutal war, advised the World Economic Forum, written for the Wall St Journal and is now publishing Building for Hope: Towards and Architecture of Belonging.
Adonis was born into a farming family who couldn't afford the cost of a formal education but after reciting a poem to the president of Syria visiting his region, the teenager was supported by the president and enrolled in a French high school. He is now a leading Arabic poet based in Paris, who uses free verse, and a variety of forms to explore themes of migration and exile. His book Songs of Mihyar the Damascene, with translations by Kareem James Abu-Zeid and Ivan Neubanks is a 200 page collection which has taken Kareem 16 years of work to bring to print.
Adélie Chevée is a political scientist and a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute. She has studied the use of media by the Syrian opposition and is now looking at the impact of fake news in Middle Eastern societies.
You can find a playlist called Belonging, Home, Borders and National Identity on the Free Thinking website which includes conversations about Pakistan, Turkey, Hong Kong, France, India, Sweden and more https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03mb66k
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The rights of tribal people, the lives of ordinary workers and the depiction of female desire were amongst the themes explored by the writer Mahasweta Devi. Born in Dhaka in 1926, she attended the school established by Rabindranath Tagore and before her death in 2016 she had published over 100 novels and 20 collections of short stories. Sindhubala is one such story, which traces the tale of a woman made to become a healer of children and for New Generation Thinker Preti Taneja, Mahasweta's writing offers a way of using language to explore ideas about power, freedom and feminism.
Preti Taneja is the author of the novel We That Are Young. She teaches at Newcastle University and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio. You can find other Essays by Preti available on the Radio 3 website including one looking at Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001kpc Creating Modern India explores the links between Letchworth Garden City and New Delhi https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08j9x3h You can also find her discussing Global Shakespeare and different approaches to casting his plays in this Free Thinking playlist on Shakespeare https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06406hm And a Free Thinking interview with Arundhati Roy about translation https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b5hk01
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
From clues in paintings to colonial trade to letters sent between Australia and England; the links between a Durham based poet and India to the female singers and dancers from Latin America who were contemporaries of Picasso and Josephine Baker; the significance of the Cyrillic alphabet in building nations to why we should pay attention to brackets, commas and colons: African film and ideas about empire to depictions of Iran in nineteenth century French literature and art; how activism affects our view of art to law and the transatlantic slave trade: New Generation Thinker Lisa Mullen talks to the ten academics whose ideas will become programmes for BBC Radio 3 as we introduce the 2021 New Generation Thinkers on the scheme run in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Dr Julia Hartley, University of Warwick Dr Florence Hazrat, University of Sheffield Dr Mirela Ivanova, University of Oxford Sarah Jilani, University of Cambridge Dr Jake Morris-Campbell, Newcastle University Adjoa Osei, University of Liverpool Dr Jake Richards, London School of Economics Dr Fariha Shaikh, University of Birmingham Dr Vid Simoniti, University of Liverpool Dr Lauren Working, University of Oxford
Producer: Ruth Watts
You can find a playlist featuring discussions, essays and features made by the hundred New Generation Thinkers over ten years of the scheme on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35
Dinah Mulock Craik achieved fame and fortune as the author of the 1856 bestselling novel John Halifax, Gentleman. New Generation Thinker Clare Walker Gore reads this rags-to-riches tale of an orphan boy who rises in the world through sheer hard work and sterling character and her essay looks at the way it encapsulates the most cherished values of its period – but, she argues, both it and the author are more subversive than they first appear. Though she was seen as an icon of the self-improving, respectable middle-classes, Craik had a colourful, often unconventional private life. She supported her husband through her writing and adopted a foundling, but was dogged by her father, who was a dissenting preacher put into debtor's prison more than once, whilst her novels explore disability, forbidden desire, familial dysfunction, and the dark side of her culture’s celebration of self-made success.
Clare Walker Gore is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio programmes. She teaches at the University of Cambridge and is the author of Plotting Disability in the Nineteenth Century Novel.
You can hear Clare talk about this research in the Free Thinking episode Depicting Disability https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000p02b
She contributed to Radio 3's Essay Series Women Writers to Put Back on the Bookshelf profiling the author Margaret Oliphant https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fws4
She has also written an Essay about a 19th-century tiger-hunting MP, who was born without hands and feet - Politician and Pioneer: Writing the Life of Arthur Kavanagh https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06ns10g
Producer: Emma Wallace
Everyday lives from the past are often hard to reconstruct. As we prepare for the Census 2021, what stories can we tell from past censuses and the records held at Kew at the National Archives? John Gallagher is joined by four researchers whose work sheds light on women entrepreneurs, the health of residents in Brighton and Hastings, and the story of a house in a suburb of York - Tang Hall.
Dr Carrie Van Lieshout from the Open University is working on a project called A Century of Migrant Businesswomen comparing census figures from 1911 to 2011.
Audrey Collins is Records Specialist in Family History at the National Archives and the author of guides to tracing family history. Dr Deborah Madden from the University of Brighton looks at nineteenth century life writing, at public records and health, and is involved in a project which explores medical archival sources about the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, including oral history interviews with descendants of families affected by that pandemic, and interviews with NHS key workers.
Professor Krista Cowman at the University of Lincoln is researching women’s lives in a number of different contexts: as ‘war brides’ in France during World War One, as campaigners for post-war reconstruction in and out of Parliament in Britain, and in a number of community campaigns for safe play areas in the inter-and post-war period. She has worked on the history of a house in York's Tang Hall.
This episode was made in partnership with the AHRC, part of UKRI.
You can find more conversations about New Research in a playlist on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
Producer: Emma Wallace
Edogawa Rampo's stories give us a Japanese version of Sherlock Holmes. New Generation Thinker Christopher Harding traces the way detective fiction chimed with the modernising of Japan, when the ability to reason and think problems through logically was celebrated, when cities were changing and other arts mourned a lost rural idyll. In The Black Lizard, the hero Akechi Kogorō plays a cat and mouse game with a female criminal who has kidnapped a businessman's daughter.
Christopher Harding is the author of The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives and Japan Story: In Search of a Nation, 1850 - the Present (published in the US as A History of Modern Japan: In Search of a Nation, 1850 – the Present). He teaches at the University of Edinburgh. He is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can use their research to make radio programmes.
You can find him discussing other aspects of Japanese history in the playlist Free Thinking explores Japanese culture https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0657spq He presented an Archive on 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b064ww32 and a series about Depression in Japan also for Radio 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07cv0y4 and a series of 5 Essays for BBC Radio 3 called Dark Blossoms about Japan's uneasy embrace of modernity https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b01kb2
Producer: Ruth Watts
Orientalism was his book, published in 1978, which outlined Said's view that imperialism and a romanticised version of Arab Culture clouded the way the East was depicted by Western scholars. In 1981 he published Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World (revised in 1997). Timothy Brennan puts these books and other initiatives, such as the founding of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra with Daniel Barenboim; and his advocacy for the establishment of a Palestinian state, into context in the first biography since Said's death from leukemia in 2003. Rana Mitter talks to Timothy Brennan and the writers Ahdaf Soueif, Pankaj Mishra and Marina Warner about Said's life and legacy. Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said by Timothy Brennan is out now.
Dame Marina Warner - author of many books about figures including Joan of Arc, the Virgin Mary and fairy tales including the Arabian Nights. She has just published Inventory of a Life Mislaid: An Unreliable Memoir which pieces together of her parents' lives from journals, photos and mementoes and looks at her own childhood in 1950s Cairo.
Ahdaf Soueif is an Egyptian novelist and author of books including In the Eye of the Sun, The Map of Love, Cairo: My City our Revolution; and she founded the Palestine Festival of Literature.
Pankaj Mishra is the author of books including Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan and Beyond; A History of Indian Literature in English; Age of Anger: A History of the Present and Bland Fanatics: Liberals, Race, and Empire. You can find him discussing Global Anger with Elif Shafak in the Free Thinking archives https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08c32c3
You can find other programmes exploring key books and ideas in a playlist called Landmarks of Culture on the Free Thinking website. Recent episodes include Foucault, John Rawls and Hegel https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44 They are all available to download as Arts&Ideas podcasts.
Producer: Eliane Glaser
Viet Thanh Nguyen's novel The Sympathizer won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Its follow-up takes the lead character to Parisian salons and an underworld of drug dealing so Free Thinking tracks the French connection through film, history and philosophy as Matthew Sweet is joined by Viet Thanh Nguyen, by film critic Phuong Le and by Peter Salmon - author of a biography of Derrida - he's been investigating the ideas of the Vietnamese thinker Tran Duc Thao who inspired some of Derrida's work.
The Sympathizer and the new novel The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen are out now. You can hear Phuong Le in a Free Thinking discussion about Marlene Dietrich https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000q8cq and about Billy Wilder https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000p1dx Peter Salmon's biography of Derrida is called An Event, Perhaps. You can hear him talking about that in a Free Thinking called Derrida and post truth https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nc7t Free Thinking also has a playlist exploring different takes on the idea of Home and Belonging https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03mb66k
Producer: Harry Parker
Mars is the focus of current space exploration but how far back does this interest go? Dr Joshua Nall tells Seb Falk about the Mars globe held at the Whipple Science Museum in Cambridge. Hannah Smithson explains her research into the way we see colour and explains the different perceptions of that blue/black/gold/white dress. Timothy Peacock has been studying the fears about Skylab falling to earth, looking at government files and the media reporting of the 1979 re-entry and distintegration of the first United States space station.
Dr Joshua Nall is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker and the Curator of Modern Sciences at the Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge. His book News from Mars: Mass Media and the Forging of a New Astronomy, 1860–1910 was awarded the Philip Pauly Prize by the History of Science society. Hannah Smithson is Professor of Experimental Psychology and a fellow of Pembroke College at the University of Oxford Dr Timothy Peacock is a lecturer in Modern History at the University of Glasgow and co-director of the University's Games and Gaming Lab (GGLab)
Seb Falk is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and Arts and Humanities Research Council to put research on the radio. He is the author of the book The Light Ages: The Surprising Story of Medieval Science. You can hear more from him in a Free Thinking episode called Ancient Wisdom and Remote Living https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000q3by and his short feature for BBC Radio 3 about why we shouldn't compare Covid to the Black Death https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nkzr
You can find a playlist exploring New Research on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
This episode was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
From prejudice against accents to early attempts to create an artificial voice - Matthew Sweet is joined by the academics Sadie Ryan, Allison Koenecke and Lynda Clark.
Sadie Ryan hosts a podcast Accentricity and is part of the Manchester Voices project team https://www.manchestervoices.org/project-team/ You can find a New Thinking podcast episode looking in more detail at that project https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07h30hm
Lynda Clark is part of the InGAME (Innovation in Games and Media Enterprise) project at the University of Dundee. She's interested in interactive fiction and AI storytelling. She's been researching the experiments of Joseph Faber who created Euphonia in 1846 and created her own take working with games and digital experiences.
Allison Koenecke works in the Stanford University Computational Policy Lab and the Golub Capital Social Impact Lab
You might also be interested in these programmes from the Free Thinking archives - all available to download as BBC Arts & Ideas podcasts What is Speech? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b1q2f3 What is Good Listening? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000djtd The pros and cons of swearing https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09c0r4m Language and Belonging https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006fh9 AI and creativity: what makes us human? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005nml Robots https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08chbpc
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Paranoia, the collateral damage on his family and the investigations he makes into drugs used to treat such a breakdown: Horatio Clare talks to Laurence Scott about his Journey through Madness, Mania and Healing. Plus the poetry of Stevie Smith (20 September 1902 – 7 March 1971). Author of the much quoted lines Not Waving but Drowning; Stevie Smith suffered from depression and acute shyness. New Generation Thinker Noreen Masud looks at her writing.
Horatio Clare has recorded a series of different walks for BBC Radio 3. His books include The Light in the Dark: A Winter Journal; A Single Swallow; Down the Sea in Ships and his new memoir Heavy Light. Dr Noreen Masud teaches on twentieth century fiction at Durham University. You can hear her talking about nonsense writing in this episode of Free Thinking about Dada https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k9ws and in this Sunday Feature she looks at aphorisms https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rtxb
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The films Cuties and Rocks present a contemporary image of girlhood. What do they tell us about what it is to be a girl and to negotiate growing up? We hear from three researchers who look at: the influence of such films made by female directors; the role of aunties in giving advice about health and the body; and the portrayal of female friendship in boarding school novels by authors like Enid Blyton. Shahidha Bari is joined by Chisomo Kalinga, Tiffany Watt Smith, and Elspeth Mitchell.
Chisomo Kalinga is researching the way storytelling informs concepts of health and wellbeing in Malawi, and has written about fictional portrayals and the idea of stereotypes. She is a Wellcome Trust Medical Humanities Fellow at the University of Edinburgh.
Elspeth Mitchell's Phd looked at ‘the girl’ and the moving image in work by Simone de Beauvoir, Chantal Akerman, and Eija-Liisa Ahtila. She is now researching feminine identities, costume and burlesque at the University of Leeds.
Tiffany Watt Smith is the author of books including The Book of Human Emotions, and Schadenfreude, and she is now researching women and friendship. She is Director of the Centre for the History of the Emotions at Queen Mary University London and is a New Generation Thinker - the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), turning research into radio.
You can find a range of programming for International Women's Day on 8 March on BBC Radio 3, including a Words and Music playlist of readings and music exploring the idea of Women Walking Alone, and a series of broadcasts featuring the work of women composers - part of an ongoing project BBC Radio 3 is running with the AHRC to record more music written by women past and present.
In the Free Thinking archives there is a playlist which includes discussions about women in academia, the woman writer and reader, discrimination and British justice, women and war, and women’s bodies, and hearing from guests including Helena Kennedy, Layla AlAmmar, Kiley Reid, Helen Lewis, and Maaza Mengiste. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p084ttwp
This episode was made in partnership with the AHRC, part of UKRI. You can find more about New Research in a playlist on the Free Thinking programme website - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90 - where you’ll find other episodes in the New Thinking strand, showcasing academic research.
Producer: Emma Wallace
Catherine Pepinster, Kate Kennedy, Tim Stanley and New Generation Thinker Dafydd Mills Daniel join Rana Mitter to look at the poet, theologian and now Saint John Henry. The programme marks 175 years since Newman's conversion from the high church tradition of Anglicanism and the Oxford Movement to the Catholic faith on 23 Feb 1846, with a conversation exploring his thinking and poetic writing.
Catherine Pepinster is former editor of the Tablet and the author of The Keys and the Kingdom: The British and the Papacy Dafydd Mills Daniel is McDonald Departmental Lecturer in Christian Ethics at the University of Oxford and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. His book is called Ethical Rationalism and Secularisation in the British Enlightenment Tim Stanley is a columnist and leader writer for the Daily Telegraph who studied history at Cambridge and who is a contributing editor for the Catholic Herald https://www.timothystanley.co.uk/index.html Dr Kate Kennedy is Oxford Centre for Life-Writing Associate Director and a music specialist who has written on Ivor Gurney, and co-edited The Silent Morning: Culture and Memory after the Armistice and The First World War: Literature, Music, Memory.
You can find a playlist Free Thinking explores religious belief https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03mwxlp including contributions from Ziauddin Sardar, Richard Dawkins, Karen Armstrong, Rabbi Sacks, Marilynne Robinson and Simon Schama.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Shahidha Bari is joined by Lisa Downing, Stuart Elden, and Stephen Shapiro to read volume 4 of Foucault's History of Sexuality, translated into English for the first time, which examines beliefs and practices among the early Christians in Medieval Europe. Although he had specified in his will that his works shouldn't be published after he died (in 1984), the rights holders of Foucault decided that these ideas could now be made public. So what do they tell us and how influential has his approach to sexuality been?
Lisa Downing, Professor of French Discourses of Sexuality at the University of Birmingham. She writes about gender and sexuality and she’s the author of The Cambridge Introduction to Michel Foucault and editor of After Foucault.
Stuart Elden's books include The Early Foucault, which will be published in June 2021. This continues the work in his earlier books Foucault’s Last Decade and Foucault: The Birth of Power. He is Professor of Political Theory and Geography at the University of Warwick.
And Stephen Shapiro, Professor of English and Comparative Literature also at the University of Warwick. He is co-author of how to Read Foucault's Discipline and Punish.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
You can find other episodes on philosophical themes in a Free Thinking playlist https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07x0twx
Joanna Bourke is an historian whose previous work has looked at fear, pain, sexual violence and dismemberment. Her new book is a history and examination of bestiality and zoophilia, tracing our changing understandings from Leviticus, to modern psychiatry, the animal rights movement, and beyond.
Anna Tsing's book The Mushroom at the End of the World was an examination of human interactions with fungi and their environments, and vice versa, in post-industrial landscapes. Her new online project Feral Atlas charts the complex and shifting relationships between humans, animals, plants, bacteria and other natural phenomena.
Loving Animals: On Bestiality, Zoophilia and Post-Human Love by Joanna Bourke is out now. Her lecture series Exploring the Body for Gresham College is available online https://www.gresham.ac.uk/series/exploring-the-body/
Anna Tsing's book The Mushroom at the End of the World is out now. You can find her online project at https://feralatlas.org/ It is made in conjunction with Stanford University curated and edited by Anna L. Tsing, Jennifer Deger, Alder Keleman Saxena and Feifei Zhou
Matthew Sweet hosts a Free Thinking discussion Fungi: An Alien Encounter https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dr46 and looks at the ideas in Darwin's Descent of Man 1871 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000s31z Other discussions about animals include Should We Keep Pets? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09hzj3y Does My Pet Love Me? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004dr9 Animals: Watching Us Watching Them Watching Each Other https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04nqv0n
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Overcoming long term illness, controlling her money and eloping to revolutionary Italy: Fiona Sampson's new biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning focuses on her as someone interested in inventing herself - not as an ailing romantic heroine. Peggy Reynolds began her academic career studying Browning's long poem Aurora Leigh. She's been reading about motherhood in literature and psychology books as preparation for adopting a child and her new book traces the pain and pitfalls involved in navigating the adoption process. They talk to Anne McElvoy and they're joined by Jane Aitken who's publishing new English language translations of books by Renée Vivien & Violette Leduc.
Two Way Mirror: The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning by Fiona Sampson is out now. You can also find her presenting series of the Essay for Radio 3 exploring her favourite fictional character Mother Courage https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p068jrch and her biography of Mary Shelley in this episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09m1dvh
The Wild Track by Margaret Reynolds is out now. She is also the editor of The Sappho Companion In the Free Thinking archives you can find her discussing Mill on the Floss https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000bf70 and the poetry of Sappho https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0586k6n You can find a Free Thinking discussion about motherhood hearing from Jessie Greengrass, Sheila Heti and Jacqueline Rose Motherhood in fiction, memoir and on the analyst's couch https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b3fjvg Sylvan Baker discusses children in care and the Verbatim Formula in this Free Thinking exploration of Kindness https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000j9cd
The Woman of the Wolf and Other Stories by Renée Vivien translated by Karla Jay and Yvonne M Klein and Violette Leduc's Asphyxia translated by Derek Coltman are out now in English from Editions Gallic.
Producer: Robyn Read
Turkey and 50s Prime Minister Menderes, Erdogan today, and how history is used for political power. Matthew Sweet is joined by Jeremy Seal, Ece Temelkuran, Michael Talbot & Nilay Ozlu.
Before his execution in 1961, the Turkish prime minister Adnan Menderes saw Turkey admitted to NATO, investment in agriculture, education and health care, but also conflict with the Greek community. On 17 February 1959 he was involved in a plane crash near Gatwick on his way to a conference about Cyprus. Jeremy Seal traces his story and looks at the parallels with President Erdogan's Turkey now in a new book. He talks with journalist and author Ece Temelkuran and presenter Matthew Sweet. Plus new research on the Ottoman Empire from Michael Talbot and Nilay Ozlu.
Jeremy Seal's book A Coup in Turkey: A Tale Of Democracy, Despotism & Vengeance In A Divided Land is out now.
Ece Temelkuran is the author of How To Lose A Country: The 7 Steps From Democracy To Dictatorship; Turkey - The Insane & The Melancholy; novel The Time Of Mute Swans; and a forthcoming book, Together: 10 Choices For A Better Now.
Michael Talbot is an historian at the University of Greenwich and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker.
Nilay Ozlu is an architectural historian and Chevening Postdoctoral Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.
Matthew Sweet's journey on London's 29 bus route with researchers looking at the history of the Greek Cypriot Community in London: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00014qk
Ece Temelkuran on Dictators, alongside Francesca Santoro L'hoir who acted alongside Chaplin as a child, Peter Pomerantsev and Frank Dikotter: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0009bf3
Interviews with Turkish author Elif Shafak: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00066qd; and at the Free Thinking Festival https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04nqtrt
Alev Scott and Michael Talbot on the Ottoman Empire: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000qj7
Producer: Emma Wallace
In Karachi Vice, journalist Samira Shackle tracks the lives of a Karachi ambulance driver, street school teacher and crime reporter amongst others - and uses their story to map a history of different political groupings across the city and the recent decades. New Generation Thinker Majed Akhter from Kings College, London researches water shortages and dam building. Ejaz Haider is a journalist based in Lahore. They share their views of Pakistan with Rana Mitter.
Karachi Vice: Life and Death in a Contested City by Samira Shackle is out now from Granta and has been a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week available to listen on BBC Sounds. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p034wrq4 Majed Akhter is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which turns research into radio. You can hear more about his work in a conversation with Dustin Garrick in an episode of Free Thinking called Rivers and Geopolitics https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00051hb Ejaz Haider is one of Pakistan’s most prominent journalists, writing for the Friday Times independent paper and presenter of a TV show.
In the Free Thinking archives we hear from novelists Neel Mukherjee, Preti Taneja, Mohsin Hamid and Nadeem Aslam about their view of Partition https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b090tnyp Kamila Shamsie discusses her novel Home Fire https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b095qhsm Philip Dodd explores Islam, Mecca and the Qur'an with professor of Islamic and interreligious studies Mona Siddiqui, and scholars Ziauddin Sardar and Navid Kermani https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04tcc1l
Producer: Harry Parker
From minting coins to digital currencies, Anne McElvoy is joined by Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff, British Museum coin curator Tom Hockenhull, historian of science Patricia Fara and political economist Ann Pettifor to explore the physical and virtual life of money as we approach the fiftieth anniversary of Decimal Day in the UK. The discussion ranges from the symbolism of images we find stamped on individual coins to the cashless society, and whether or not there is a magic money tree. February 15th 1971 was the date when the old British system of pounds, shilling and pence changed, following earlier unsuccessful attempts and the founding of a Decimal Association in 1841. But what is our relationship with money at the moment in a world of bitcoin, and paying by credit cards not loose change ?
Patricia Fara's books include Life after Gravity: Isaac Newton's London Career; Pandora's Breeches - Women, Science and Power; Science: A Four Thousand Year History Tom Hockenhull is Curator of Modern Money in the Coins and Medals department at the British Museum which was built upon the various collections of Hans Sloane - amongst them were 20,000 coins. His books include Making Change: The decimalisation of Britain's currency and Symbols of Power : Ten Coins That Changed the World. Kenneth Rogoff is a Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics at Harvard University. From 2001-2003, he was Chief Economist and Director of Research at the International Monetary Fund. His books include The Curse of Cash; This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly co-authored with Carmen Reinhart Ann Pettifor is the author of books including The Green New Deal, and The Production of Money. https://www.annpettifor.com/
Producer: Eliane Glaser.
You might be interested in the episode of Radio 3's Words and Music broadcasting on Sunday February 21st at 5.30pm which features a series of readings and music exploring the idea of money. In the Free Thinking archives: "new money" and the wealth gap depicted in Edith Wharton's 1920 novel The Age of Innocence https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000c4ln Does Growth Matter? Anne McElvoy talks with demographer Danny Dorling and economists Richard Davies and Petr Barton https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gbtl Economics: Anne McElvoy talks to Juliet Michaelson, Liam Byrne, John Redwood and Luke Johnson https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03qbv3q Linda Yueh gives the Free Thinking Festival Lecture on Globalisation and restoring faith in the free market https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p062m7mj
Matthew Sweet is joined by Xine Yao, Joe Cain, and Ruth Mace, who've been re-reading Charles Darwin's 1871 book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. The book offered a radical reinterpretation of what it means to be human by situating us completely within the natural world as a product of natural selection. But it is also a book of its times, as reflected in the language Darwin uses to talk about race and gender. University College, London where our speakers are based - holds the papers of Francis Galton, the Victorian polymath and eugenicist who was Darwin's half cousin and the conversation considers both the positive and the negative ways of interpreting Darwin's book.
You will hear a discussion about some of the racial language used in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Dr Xine Yao is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker whose main research at University College London focuses on nineteenth century American literature and histories of science and law at Professor Joe Cain is UCL Professor of History and Philosophy of Biology. Ruth Mace is Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology
On the Free Thinking website you can find a playlist exploring works which are Landmarks of Culture - these include discussions about Karl Marx, George Orwell, Machiavelli, Rachel Carson, Lorraine Hansberry https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44 And there are discussions about animals including Should We Keep Pets? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09hzj3y Does My Pet Love Me? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004dr9
Producer: Luke Mulhall
What we learn from the tattered costumes of actress Ellen Terry, the couture created by Alexander McQueen, and the everyday wardrobe of American women at the turn of the 20th century.
V&A fashion curator Claire Wilcox has curated exhibitions on Frida Kahlo and Alexander McQueen, and has written a memoir, called Patch Work. She talks to Shahidha Bari about the pleasures and the challenges of conserving fashion and using it to tell bigger stories in museum displays. They're joined by Veronica Isaac from the University of Brighton, who researches theatre costumes of the 19th and early 20th century, including those of Ellen Terry, and by Cassandra Davies-Strodder from the University of the Arts London, who curated the V&A’s Balenciaga exhibition in 2018 and researches the wardrobes of two American women from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
This episode was made in partnership with the AHRC, part of UKRI. You can find more about New Research in a playlist on the Free Thinking programme website - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90 - where you’ll find other episodes in the New Thinking strand showcasing academic research.
You can find other conversations about New Research in a playlist on the Free Thinking website - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90. This includes researchers from the University of Leeds and Huddersfield involved in the Future Fashion project -https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07nhbrd, and a discussion about the display of history in Museums - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08v3fl5
You can see TV programmes going behind the scenes at the V&A on BBC iPlayer https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m000f1xt/secrets-of-the-museum
And in this episode of Free Thinking Shahidha Bari looks at the Politics of Fashion and Drag; Scrumbly Koldewyn remembers the '60s San Francisco theatre scene; drag at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern in London; and Jenny Gilbert and Shahidha look at environmentalism and fashion at the V&A - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09zcjch
Producer: Emma Wallace
How easy is it to climb out of the working class in Britain? Have attitudes to social mobility changed at all? Matthew Sweet talks to Professor Selina Todd about her latest book, Snakes and Ladders, which explores the myths and realities of the past century. They're joined by an accents specialist, a policy thinker and journalist, and a data analyst.
Professor Selina Todd is author of Snakes and Ladders: The Great British Social Mobility Myth; The People: The Rise and Fall of the Working Class 1910-2010; Tastes of Honey The Making of Shelagh Delaney and a Cultural Revolution
David Goodhart is the author of Head, Hand, Heart: The Struggle for Dignity and Status in the 21st Century (2020). He is Head of Policy Exchange's Demography, Immigration, and Integration Unit; and, he is also one of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) board commissioners.
Timandra Harkness is the author of Big Data: Does Size Matter and presents Radio 4 series including Divided Nation and Future Proofing
Dr Sadie Ryan is part of the Manchester Voices project https://www.manchestervoices.org/project-team/ and presents a podcast https://www.accentricity-podcast.com/ You can hear more about the Manchester project in this episode of New Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07h30hm
You might also be interested in Free Thinking programmes exploring The council estate in culture with artists George Shaw and Kader Attia , drama specialist Katie Beswick and writer Dreda Say Mitchell https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003596 City Life, estate living and lockdown with poet Caleb Femi, Katie Beswick, and urban researchers Julia King and Irit Katz https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nvk2 Class in Britain - a review of Shelagh Delaney's play; Lindsay Johns, Douglas Murray and the former headmaster of Eton Tony Little https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02twczj Philip Dodd with Douglas Murray, author of The Madness of Crowds, the commentator David Goodhart, the writer and campaigner Beatrix Campbell, and the academic Maya Goodfellow, author of Hostile Environment - How Immigrants Became Scapegoats, reflect on the role of culture and identity in politics in Europe and post election Britain https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000cb2f
Producer: Ruth Watts
Patricia Lockwood and André Aciman share their sense of the way digital media, and the layers of history press in on our sense of the present moment as they talk about their new books with presenter Laurence Scott.
Patricia Lockwood is a poet and author of the memoir Priestdaddy. Her new novel No One is Talking About This considers the way a world saturated by social media memes, 24/7 news and doom scrolling can become fractured by a health emergency. André Aciman, author of Call Me By Your Name and editor of the Proust Project – looks at writers including WG Sebald and Constantine Cavafy and the films of Eric Rohmer and what the present tense means to writers who can't grasp the here and now in his new Essay collection Homo Irrealis.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
You can find a playlist of Prose and Poetry on the Free Thinking programme website featuring interviews with authors including Olivia Laing https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b7mryz Umberto Eco https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06qmcqn Rebecca Solnit https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008wc1 Ben Lerner, Derek Owusu and J J Bola https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b0mx Teju Cole https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07yb85h
From Bessie Head to Keats, Rachel Carson to Lorine Niedecker, Lisa Mullen and guests analyse links between literature and nature as an increasing number of university departments offer eco-criticism courses focusing on the way writers past and present have thought about the environment.
Samuel Solnick specialises in environmental humanities at the University of Liverpool, and is particularly interested in the relationship between literature and science. His books include Poetry and the Anthropocene: Ecology, biology and technology in contemporary British and Irish poetry (Book - 2018) Samantha Walton is an academic and poet at Bath Spa University, specialising in ecological feminism and the relation between nature and mental health. Her books include The Living World: Nan Shepherd and Environmental Thought (2020), Bad Moon (poetry - 2020), and Everybody Needs Beauty: In Search of the Nature Cure (2021). Harriet Tarlo, is both a poet and a critic at Sheffield Hallam University, where she practices and preaches the importance of radical nature writing. Published work includes On Ecopoetics: Harriet Tarlo and Jonathan Skinner in Conversation and Off path, counter path: contemporary walking collaborations in landscape, art and poetry and a Shearsman Press book Poems 2004-2014.
This episode was made in partnership with the AHRC, part of UKRI. You can find more about New Research in a playlist on the Free Thinking programme website - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90 - where you’ll find other episodes in the New Thinking strand showcasing academic research.
You might also be interested in the Green Thinking playlist on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2 which includes Amitav Gosh https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00066px on his most recent novel and on his arguments about the need for literature to engage with the climate https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07z7bnd Poet Elizabeth Jane Burnett sharing her Soil Stories https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08fj505 A discussion of the influential writing of Rachel Carson https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005gwk There's more on researching Wordsworth from the directors of Lancaster University's Wordsworth Centre for the Study of Poetry https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p087kr4n Bessie Head is discussed in this Free Thinking episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001dt8
Ian McMillan on Radio 3's The Verb has been speaking to a whole host of writers and poets about nature, the environment and our changing times https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tnsf/episodes/downloads
Radio 3 is also part of a Soundscapes for Wellness project where you can find mixes involving natural sounds on BBC Sounds. https://canvas-story.bbcrewind.co.uk/soundscapesforwellbeing/ On this link you can find out how to take part in a Virtual Nature Experiment organised by the University of Exeter co-created by sound recordist Chris Watson and film composer, Nainita Desai.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Mary Beard, Homi Bhabha and Seán Williams join Shahidha Bari to look at the etiquette of talks on zoom and the history of lectures. Lecturing someone can be a negative: you’re patronising or boring or telling them what to think. And yet, today we have TED talks, university staff are routinely recording lectures using video conferencing technology, and the history of thought is a history of persuasive speakers setting out their ideas before audiences.
Dr Seán Williams is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker who lectures in German intellectual and cultural history at the University of Sheffield. Mary Beard is a Dame and Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge and has given various lectures at universities, the British Museum and the London Review of Books, the Society for Classical Studies, the Gifford Lecture Series. She also presents on TV and has authored many books. Homi Bhabha is a Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University and is the author of many books. He considers Memory and Migration in this Free Thinking Lecture recorded in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005gt9
Readings: Ewan Bailey
Other programmes exploring aspects of language: What is Speech : Matthew Sweet's guests include Trevor Cox and Rebecca Roache https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b1q2f3 The Impact of Being Multi-Lingual: John Gallagher talks to Katrin Kohl, Rajinder Dudrah and Wen-chin Ouyang https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mq6k Language and Belonging: Preti Taneja's guests include Michael Rosen, Guy Gunaratne and Momtaza Mehri https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07fvbhn The Free Thinking Festival Lecture on Feelings from Professor Thomas Dixon https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003rsw The Free Thinking Festival Lecture on Knowledge from Karen Armstrong https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02tw41j
Producer: Eliane Glaser
Discovering his family's Nazi links is what happened to historian Martin Puchner when he set out to explore the use of a secret language by Jewish people and other travellers in middle Europe. He joins author and language expert Michael Rosen for a conversation with Matthew Sweet about Yiddish, Rotwelsch, codes and graffiti. Plus as we mark Holocaust Memorial Day hearing about new research into the takeover of railways and civic buildings in occupied France from historians Ludivine Broch and Stephanie Hesz-Wood.
Martin Puchner's book is called The Language of Thieves. He teaches English and Comparative Literature at Harvard University Michael Rosen is the author of books including On the Move: Poems about Migration; The Missing - The True Story of My Family in World War II; Mr Mensh and So They Call You Pisher!: A Memoir. Ludivine Broch teaches at the University of Westminster and is an Associate Fellow of the Pears Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism and has written Ordinary Workers, Vichy and the Holocaust. Stephanie Hesz-Wood is researching a PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London called A Spatial History of Drancy: Architecture, Appropriation and Memory
You can hear Ludivine talking to Matthew Sweet about the Gratitude Train - a project of thanks given by ordinary people in France to America for their part in World War II in this episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hwz9 A discussion about Jewish Identity in 2020 featuring guests at last year's Jewish Book Week Howard Jacobson, Bari Weiss, Hadley Freeman and Jonathan Freedland https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fwqd A discussion about Remembering Auschwitz https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dq00 Rabbi Baroness Julia Neuberger and New Generation Thinker Brendan McGeevor from the Pears Institute discussing stereotypes and also anti-Semitism https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00050d2 Past programmes for Holocaust Memorial Day hearing from the late David Cesarani, Richard J Evans and Jane Caplan https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0506lp0 Monica Bohm Duchen, Daniel Snowman and Martin Goodman on Art and Refugees from Nazi Germany https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00027m6
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Lab meat and robot bees: how veganism and tech can solve the climate crisis. Anne McElvoy considers how food impacts on the environment with guests Anthony Warner, Cassandra Coburn, and Alasdair Cochrane. Plus Man Booker Prize winning novelist Richard Flanagan on his new novel, The Living Sea of Waking Dreams – about a dying planet and a dying mother.
Anthony Warner is author of Ending Hunger: The Quest To Feed The World Without Destroying It.
Cassandra Coburn is the author of Enough: How Your Food Choices Will Save The Planet.
New Generation Thinker Alasdair Cochrane, from the University of Sheffield, is the author of Should Animals Have Political Rights?
Novelist Richard Flanagan's latest book, The Living Sea of Waking Dreams, recalls the devasting fires in Australia and Tasmania, and against this dying world depicts a dying woman and her three children in a magical realist fable. In 2014 he won the Man Booker Prize for The Narrow Road To The Deep North, which considered the experiences of a Far East prisoner of war during the construction of the Burma Railway.
You can find more conversations in a playlist on the Free Thinking website called Green Thinking, which includes a discussion of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring - a consideration of the soil, dams, and deserts - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2
Producer: Emma Wallace
In his 1971 book, A Theory of Justice, John Rawls argued that just societies should allow everyone to enjoy basic liberties while limiting inequality and improving the lives of the least well off. He argued that "the fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they did not know how much power they would have". Anne McElvoy discusses how his case for a liberal egalitarianism has fared since.
Teresa Bejan is Associate Professor of Political Theory and Fellow of Oriel College at the University of Oxford. Her current work focuses on equality. Her first book, Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration was published in 2017.
Jonathan Floyd is Senior Lecturer in Political Theory at the University of Bristol. His work focuses on he way in which we justify political principles and reflective equilibrium - the relationship between political theory and practical reason. His book include: Political Philosophy versus History? (2011); and, Is Political Philosophy Impossible? (2017); What's the point of political philosophy? (2019).
Rupert Read is Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia. He has written about environmental ethics, scientism and the precautionary principle. In addition to his academic work he is an environmental activist and a former national spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion. His latest book is Parents for a Future.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Eddie Glaude Jr and Nadia Owusu compare notes on the relevance of James Baldwin's writing to understanding Donald Trump's America. Michael Burleigh gives his take on populism.
Eddie S Glaude Jr has just published Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and its Urgent Lessons for Today. His previous books include Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul. He is the chair at the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. Nadia Owusu has published Aftershocks: Dispatches from the Frontlines of Identity. She is an associate director at Living Cities an economic racial justice organisation. Populism: Before and After the Pandemic by Michael Burleigh is published on 9th February.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Harlots - the TV series about 18th century female sex workers - and translating historical fact into onscreen drama. Shahidha Bari is joined by Hallie Rubenhold, Moira Buffini, and Laura Lammasniemi in a conversation organised in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature.
Harlots depicts the stories of working women detailed in 1757 in Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies. Historian Hallie Rubenhold has researched their history and Moira Buffini has translated that into TV scripts. They join Shahidha Bari alongside legal historian Laura Lammasniemi to look at the opportunities and pitfalls in creating historical dramas and what we know and don't know about the lives of sex workers in the 18th century.
Hallie Rubenhold’s book The Covent Garden Ladies is about Harris’s List and inspired the series Harlots, to which she was historical consultant. She is author of The Five: The Untold Lives of The Women Killed By Jack The Ripper, which won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction and has also been optioned as a drama series; and she is author of Lady Worsley's Whim, which became the TV drama The Scandalous Lady W.
Scriptwriter Moira Buffini is writer of Harlots, new the film The Dig, which reimagines the events of the 1939 excavation of Sutton Hoo, and Jane Eyre. Her plays include wonder.land, Handbagged, and Dinner.
Laura Lammasniemi is Assistant Professor at the University of Warwick Law School. She is currently a Leverhulme Fellow working on a project called Narratives Of Sexual Consent In Criminal Courts, 1870-1950, which looks at how the concept of consent has been understood historically in contexts, such as rape, age of consent, and BDSM.
Producer: Emma Wallace
The devil's daughter features in a new novel from Jenni Fagan; Salena Godden's debut novel imagines Mrs Death. To discuss conjuring fear, they join Shahidha Bari alongside a pair of historians - Tabitha Stanmore, who researches magic from early modern royal courts to village life, and Daniel Ogden, who has looked at werewolf tales in ancient Greece and Rome.
Jenni Fagan's latest novel is called Luckenbooth, and her first book, The Panopticon, has been filmed. Fagan was listed by Granta as one of the 2013 Granta Best of Young British Novelists. There is more information about her drama and poetry collection, There’s A Witch In The Word Machine, on her website - https://jennifagan.com/
Salena Godden's novel is Mrs Death Misses Death, published on 28 January 2021, and she's been made a new Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. You can find more about her poetry and her radio show, Roaring 20s, on her website - http://www.salenagodden.co.uk/
Tabitha Stanmore is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, working on witchcraft.
Daniel Ogden is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Exeter. His book is called The Werewolf In The Ancient World.
You might be interested in other episodes looking at witchcraft:
Author Marie Dariessecq - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000qkl
The relevance of magic in the contemporary world - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kvss
Historians Marina Warner and Susannah Lipscomb look at Witchfinding - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06kckxk
Novelists Zoe Gilbert, Madeline Miller and Kirsty Logan compare notes on Charms - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b1q0xc
Producer: Emma Wallace
New research on female slave owners in Britain, women on Caribbean plantations, and the daughter of a prominent slave trader. Christienna Fryar talks to researchers Katie Donnington, Meleisa Ono-George, and Hannah Young.
We hear about the daughter of Thomas Hibbert - one of the most prominent slave traders in Kingston, Jamaica - and the revelation that before she died she had intended to ask her mother to free the enslaved people she held; the risks taken by women who had children with their owners and who fought for the rights of those children; and female absentee slave owners in Britain.
Katie Donnington lectures in history at London South Bank University. She has published a book called The Bonds Of Family: Slavery, Commerce And Culture In The British Atlantic World. She was an historical advisor for the BBC2 documentary Britain’s Forgotten Slave-Owners (2015), and co-curated Slavery, Culture, and Collecting at the Museum of London Docklands (2018-2019).
Dr Meleisa Ono-George is at the University of Warwick. She has researched the ways in which women of African descent in Jamaica were discussed in relation to prostitution, concubinage, and other forms of sexual-economic exchange in legal, political, and cultural discourses in nineteenth century Jamaica and Britain.
Hannah Young is at the University of Southampton, where she focuses on late eighteenth and early 19th century Britain, with a particular interest in exploring the relationship between Britain and empire and absentee slave ownership.
This episode was made in partnership with the AHRC, part of UKRI. You can find more about New Research in a playlist on the Free Thinking programme website - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90 - where you’ll find other episodes in the New Thinking strand showcasing academic research.
You might also be interested in this conversation featuring Katie and Christienna and a novelist and dramatist who have considered slavery history: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000f7d5
This episode looks at the law on modern slavery: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jnmc
Producer: Emma Wallace
If, and, then are the 3 words which underpin Simon Baron-Cohen's exploration of how humans reason and develop solutions to problems in his latest book The Pattern Seekers. He joins author Michelle Gallen, film historian Andrew Roberts and Bonnie Evans whose research includes the history of childhood and developmental science in a discussion about how we understand autism presented by Matthew Sweet.
Michelle Gallen's novel Big Girl, Small Town is available now. Simon Baron-Cohen is clinical psychologist and professor of developmental psychopathology at the University of Cambridge where he runs the Autism Research Centre. His book is called The Pattern Seekers - A New Theory of Human Invention. Bonnie Evans has written The Metamorphosis of Autism: A History of Child Development in Britain and is Senior Researcher at Queen Mary, University of London on the collaborative Wellcome Trust project https://www.autism-through-cinema.org.uk/ You might be interested that the winner of the Royal Society Science Books Prize 2020 was Camilla Pang's memoir Explaining Humans: What Science Can Teach Us about Life, Love and Relationships
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
From spy to one of the first professional woman writers in Britain - Aphra Behn was a prolific playwright, poet, translator and fiction writer in the Restoration period. Claire Bowditch has spent years comparing different printed versions of her dramas to work out what were printer errors and how involved was Aphra Behn in the printing process. Annalisa Nicholson is researching a French salon in London created by the French noblewoman Hortense Mancini - whom Behn dedicated a play to. Is this evidence of a relationship between them? Tom Charlton looks at the politics of the period and Behn's loyalty to the Stuart crown. John Gallagher hosts the conversation.
Claire Bowditch is an AHRC Post-Doctoral Research Associate at Loughborough University working on this project https://www.aphrabehn.online/front-page/ Tom Charlton is a New Generation Thinker, and a Stirling Research Fellow, working at Dr Williams's Library and one of the editorial team for the Oxford University Press edition of the Reliquiae Baxterianae https://dwl.ac.uk and http://www.baxterianae.com/home.html AnnaLisa Nicholson is working on her PDH at the University of Cambridge https://profiles.ahrcdtp.csah.cam.ac.uk/directory/anna-lisa-nicholson
John Gallagher is a New Generation Thinker who lecture in Early Modern History at the University of Leeds https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/history/staff/774/dr-john-gallagher
This episode was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find a playlist focused on New Research on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90 or sign up for the Arts & Ideas podcast and look out for New Thinking episodes https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02nrvk3/episodes/downloads
Producer: Ruth Watts
From exile in Siberia to the novels which set a template - Rana Mitter and his guests Alex Christofi, Muireann Maguire, Claire Whiteheadand Viv Groskop look at the life and writing of Fyodor Dostoevsky (11 November 1821 – 27 January 1881).
Crime and Punishment published in 1886 was the second novel following Dostoevsky's return from ten years of exile in Siberia. It examined ideas about rationality, morality and individualism which Dostoevsky also examined in Notes from the Underground in 1864 - sometimes called the first existentialist novel. In his career he published 12 novels, four novellas, 16 short stories, and numerous other pieces of writing.
Alex Christofi's new biography out at the end of January is called Dostoevsky in Love: An Intimate Life Dr Muireann Maguire is Senior Lecturer in Russian at the University of Exeter. She has published a collection of Russian 20th-century ghost stories, Red Spectres and Stalin's Ghosts: Gothic Themes in early Soviet literature and is working on a project called RusTRANS: The Dark Side of Translation: 20th and 21st Century Translation from Russian as a Political Phenomenon in the UK, Ireland, and the USA Claire Whitehead is a Reader in Russian Literature at the University of St Andrews and has written The Poetics of Early Russian Crime Fiction, 1860-1917: Deciphering Tales of Detection and is working on a project with an author illustrator https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~lostdetectives/ Viv Groskop is a comedian and writer whose 2018 book The Anna Karenina Fix is a bestseller in Russia
In the Free Thinking archives you can find conversations about Russia and Fear https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006fl6 Soviet history featuring the authors Svetlana Alexievich and Stephen Kotkin https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09d3q93 Tarkovsky's 1979 film Stalker hears research into tourism in Chernobyl https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0775023 Cundill Prize winning historian Daniel Beer, Masha Gessen and Mary Dejevsky consider Totalitarianism and Punishment https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09h659t
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Mildred Pierce, James M Cain's 1941 novel was turned into a noir film starring Joan Crawford which earnt her an Academy Award. Matthew Sweet and his guests crime writers Denise Mina & Laura Lippman + academics Sarah Churchwell & Lizzie Mackarel have been re-watching the film and comparing it with the novel as they consider how the social realism and depiction of suburban female life differs from his other books which became hit films The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity.
Laura Lippman's novels include the PI Tess Monaghan series and stand alone titles such as Lady in the Lake, Sunburn and After I'm Gone. Denise Mina's crime novels have won many prizes and her latest The Less Dead has been shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award. Sarah Churchwell is Professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities at the University of London and the author of books including The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe and Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby
You can find other Free Thinking discussions of film and the relationship between novels and film on the programme website including Jonathan Coe's recent novel looking at Billy Wilder and his late films https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000p1dx Michael Caine in the film Get Carter made by from Ted Lewis's 1970 novel Jack's Return Home https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mt05 Tarkovsky's Stalker https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0775023 Rashomon and the writing of Akutagawa, which led to the film by Kurosawa https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b01vwk Marnie and Winston Graham's novel https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b098n4j4 Many are in this playlist called Landmarks https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Marlene Dietrich: sensual screen siren, political radical, 20th-century sex symbol, and - eventually - septuagenarian cabaret star. Cabraret legend Le Gateau Chocolat, film historian Pamela Hutchinson, writer Phuong Le, and academic Lucy Bolton join Matthew Sweet to delve into a life fully lived.
From her formative collaborations with Josef von Sternberg, to entertaining the troops throughout World War II, to a late blossoming live performance career and touring as a cabaret artist into her seventies, Dietrich's life traces the line of western history throughout almost the whole twentieth century. What did she mean, and what did she become? Matthew and his guests follow the story through films including The Blue Angel, Shanghai Express, and Touch of Evil.
Pamela Hutchinson is the curator of The BFI's Marlene Dietrich: Falling in Love Again, which runs at BFI Southbank throughout December.
Le Gateau Chocolat’s work spans drag, cabaret, opera, musical theatre, children’s theatre and live art.
Lucy Bolton is the editor of Lasting Stars: Images that Fade and Personas that Endure and Reader in Film Studies at Queen Mary University London.
Phuong Le is a Paris-based film writer. She writes for publications including Music Mezzanine, Vague Visages and Film Comment magazine.
You can find Le Gateau Chocolat discussing Weimar the subversion of cabaret culture in an episode recorded at the Barbican centre https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b7r7
And you might be interested in other discussions of film stars and directors including Billy Wilder, Cary Grant, Betty Balfour and Early Cinema and director Alice Guy-Blaché which are all available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts from the Free Thinking programme website.
Producer: Caitlin Benedict
Brian Cox on the stars and planets. Archaelogist Susan Greaney on Stonehenge and Maes Howe at solstice, the shadowy paintings of Wright of Derby and Artemisia Gentileschi and the candlelight of Hanukkah in art and literature picked out by Alexandra Harris and the philosophy of Plato and light giving ideas from Sophie-Grace Chappell: Shahidha Bari and guests look at light as BBC Radio 3 broadcasts a series of music programmes, concerts, walks and features looking at Light in Darkness.
Physicist Professor Brian Cox joins the BBC SO and Principal Guest Conductor Dalia Stasevska to explore the questions raised by music and the Cosmos concerning eternity, death, rebirth and meaning in a concert being broadcast by BBC Radio 3 on the afternoon of December 23rd. In Autumn 2021 he will be embarking on another Horizons Arena Tour around the UK making the latest thinking about the Cosmos accessible to the wider public.
Professor Alexandra Harris is the author of books including Weatherland and Romantic Moderns and was one of the first BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinkers.
Professor Sophie-Grace Chappell is the author of many philosophy books and is currently considering the idea of epiphanies.
Susan Greaney works with English Heritage at Stonehenge, is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker.
Producer: Ruth Watts
You might also be interested in Free Thinking conversations about Ice https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001jzq Ancient wisdom and remote living https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000q3by Antartica https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04p5267 Diving Deep https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09k8kqr Archaeology https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03xpn5p
What links Beethoven & Hegel's philosophy of freedom? Anne McElvoy talks to New Generation Thinker Seán Williams, Christoph Schuringa, Gary Browning, and Alison Stone about Hegel's discussion of freedom, law, family, markets and the state in his Principles of the Philosophy of Right 1820.
Dr Christoph Schuringa is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the New College of the Humanities in London Gary Browning is Professor in Political Thought at Oxford Brookes University Alison Stone is Professor of European Philosophy in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University Seán Williams is Senior Lecturer in German and European Cultural History at the University of Sheffield
You can find a playlist of programmes examining various philosophical themes on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07x0twx
Producer: Luke Mulhall
The solitude of remote lands and medieval monks; mapping and navigating by the stars and the survival strategies of Indigenous Peoples living around the Arctic circle as the ice melts are all part of today's conversation as Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough is joined by British Museum curator Amber Lincoln, author and GP Gavin Francis and historian and New Generation Thinker Seb Falk.
Gavin Francis is the author of Island Dreams: Mapping an Obsession; Shapeshifters: On Medicine and Human Change Adventures in Human Being which won the Saltire Prize for non-fiction and was a BMA book of the year and True North: Travels in Arctic Europe. Arctic Climate and Culture is an exhibition at the British Museum running until 21 Feb 2021 with a catalogue which details artefacts and skills such as making a bag of fish skin, sleds carved from wood and bone, soapstone kettles and decorated ivory needle cases. Seb Falk is the author of The Light Ages - a history of Medieval Science which follows the life of medieval monk John of Westwyck - an inventor and astrologer who was exiled from St Albans to a clifftop priory at Tynemouth. He lectures at Cambridge University and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio.
You can find Gavin Francis in conversation about his book ShapeShifters in a Free Thinking Festival discussion Can There be Multiple Versions of Me https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09wvlxs and in a discussion about Thomas Browne https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05sy6qv Seb Falk delivers a Radio 3 Essay on John Gower https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b7hvgy and shows how to use your hands to count to 9,999 https://www.sebfalk.com/post/medieval-finger-counting-on-the-bbc And Eleanor Barraclough presents a series of Radio 3 features exploring topics including The Pine Tree, the Apocalypse, the Supernatural North in this playlist featuring New Generation Thinkers https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Magic in medicine, surgery, and business; cross-dressing on the panto stage; and the history of pantomime and magic. Lisa Mullen is joined by Kate Newey, Will Houston, and Naomi Paxton.
Naomi Paxton is a researcher at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, a magician and performer as Ada Campe, and is a member of the Magic Circle and their first Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Officer. Her research includes popular entertainment and the suffragettes, and she has performed as a magician's assistant. Her recent book is Stage rights! The Actresses’ Franchise League, activism and politics 1908–58, and she is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker - http://www.naomipaxton.co.uk/
Will Houston of Imperial College London is a magician and historian of magic, who looks at how magic can be used in medicine, surgery, business and accountancy. He is Honorary Research Associate in the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London, and is the Imperial College London/Royal College of Music Centre for Performance Science's Magician in Residence. He is also a member of the Magic Circle - http://drhoustoun.co.uk/
Kate Newey is Professor in Drama at the University of Exeter who has been researching pantomime and is also involved in a project looking at theatre and visual culture in the nineteenth century - https://theatreandvisualculture19.wordpress.com/
You can find more conversations about New Research in this playlist - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
And this playlist, focused on discussions, essays, and features involving New Generation Thinkers, including Naomi Paxton's exploration of Suffragette Punch and Judy - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35
A Free Thinking discussion about Playing God in medieval drama - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000v24
A Free Thinking discussion about Ice, including the use of stage effects in seventeenth century drama - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001jzq
This episode was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI.
Producer: Emma Wallace
Des Fitzgerald talks to the winners of the AHRC and Wellcome Trust Medical Humanities Awards 2020. Each has looked at how the arts can help our understanding of health and wellbeing - and, includes research into how the stigma surrounding obesity contributes to the obesity crisis and innovative art therapy techniques with long term mental health benefits for patients.
AHRC and Wellcome Trust Medical Humanities Awards 2020 • Best Research Award: The Hearing the Voice team at Durham University • Best Early Career Research Award: Dr Oli Williams, The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at Kings College London • Best International Award: Dr Dora Vargha, Senior Lecturer in Medical Humanities, University of Exeter • Best Community Research Award: Laura Drysdale, Director of Restoration Trust • Leadership Award: Dr Victoria Bates, Senior Lecturer in Modern History (University of Bristol)
Angela Woods is Associate Professor of Medical Humanities at Durham University. Over the last eight years, her Hearing the Voice team has looked to help those who are distressed by their voices, to find out what those voices are like and why they happen, and to explore how hearing voices is an important and meaningful part of human experience.
Oli Williams is a postdoctoral fellow based at King’s College London. His doctoral research joins the dots between inequality, health, and everyday life. It demonstrates how the ‘war on obesity’ promotes stigma among people living in one of the most deprived areas in England.
Victoria Bates is Senior Lecturer in Modern History at Bristol University. Her research expertise ranges from nineteenth-century forensic medicine to current-day sensory studies. She has recently focused on developing partnerships with creative professionals in healthcare settings.
Laura Drysdale is Director of the Restoration Trust. Since 2015 The Restoration Trust has partnered Norfolk Record Office and local mental health providers to run Change Minds, an archives and mental health programme. Over 15 three-hour sessions, a facilitated group of around 10 people investigate case records of patients in local 19th century asylums. They use this research as the basis for creative writing, art and theatre, leading to a shared public event.
And, Dora Vargha is Senior Lecturer in Medical Humanities at the University of Exeter. Her research on the Cold War politics of polio epidemics in the 1950s places a crucial moment in global health history in its geopolitical context.
This episode was put together in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI as part of our series New Thinking focusing on new research at UK universities.
Wittgenstein changed his mind, Heidegger revolutionised philosophy (and the German language), and both the Frankfurt School and the Vienna Circle were in full swing. Matthew Sweet is joined by Wolfram Eilenberger, David Edmonds and Esther Leslie. Plus, a report on the plight of the Lukacs Archive in Budapest.
Wolfram Eilenberger's book Time of the Magicians, translated by Shaun Whiteside, is a group portrait of four young philosophers in the aftermath of World War I. He is the founding editor of Philosophie Magazin and broadcasts regularly in Germany.
David Edmonds is co-author with John Eidinow of Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers. He produces the podcast series Philosophy Bites with Nigel Warburton
Esther Leslie is the author of Walter Benjamin: Overpowering Conformism. Her translations include Georg Lukacs, A Defence of History and Class Consciousness. She is Professor in Political Aesthetics at Birkbeck University of London.
You can find conversations about Mary Midgely, Boethius, French philosophy and spies and Kierkegaard if you delve into our playlist of Free Thinking on Philosophy:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07x0twx
Producer: Luke Mulhall
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Jared Diamond, Camilla Townsend, Tom Holland and Emma Griffin talk to Rana Mitter. What lessons for the pandemic are there in looking back at times of upheaval in history from the rise and fall of the Aztec Empire to the move from rural to urban living in Britain's Industrial Revolution.
Tom Holland's books include Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic; Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind; Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West.
Camilla Townsend is the author of the book Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs, which is one of the books shortlisted for the 2020 Cundill History prize.
Emma Griffin is the author of books including Liberty's Dawn: A People's History of the Industrial Revolution and Bread Winner: An Intimate History of the Victorian Economy. She was chosen as a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker in 2012.
Jared Diamond is the author of books including The World until Yesterday, Upheaval: How Nations Cope with Crisis and Change and Natural Experiments of History
Producer: Luke Mulhall
From surrealism and science fiction to inspiration drawn from historic objects in stately homes and the painting of Francis Bacon: Shahidha Bari hosts a conversation with Will Harris, who has written long-form poems; new Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Max Porter and Chloe Aridjis, who have written poetic novels which play with form; and academic Xine Yao, who looks at speculative fiction.
Max Porter is the author of Grief Is The Thing With Feathers and Lanny. He has also collaborated with the Indie folk band Tunng and has a book out in January called The Death of Francis Bacon.
You can hear dramatizations of Lanny at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000pqdc and Grief Is The Thing with Feathers on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000plzl
Chloe Aridjis is a London-based Mexican writer who has published the novels Book of Clouds, Asunder and Sea Monsters, and was awarded the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 2020. She was co-curator of a Leonora Carrington exhibition at Tate Liverpool and writes for Frieze.
They have been announced as Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature to mark the 200th anniversary of the RSL https://rsliterature.org/
Will Harris is a writer of Chinese Indonesian and British heritage who won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2020 and is shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2021 for his collection RENDANG. He co-edited the spring 2020 issue of The Poetry Review with Mary Jean Chan.
Xine Yao is one of the 2020 New Generation Thinkers on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the AHRC to turn research into radio. She teaches at UCL on American Literature in English to 1900, with an interest in literatures in English from the Black and Asian diasporas, science fiction, the Gothic, and comics/graphic novels.
You can find more conversations in the playlist Prose and Poetry on the Free Thinking website, which includes Max Porter discussing empathy, Christine Yao looking at science fiction and the experimental writing of the Oulipo group, and a whole series of conversations recorded in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vh
Producer: Emma Wallace
April 1916. By the Nile, the foremost poets of the Middle East are arguing about Shakespeare. In 2004, Egyptian singer Essam Karika released his urban song Oh Romeo.
Reflecting on his travels and encounters around the Arab world, New Generation Thinker Islam Issa, from Birmingham City University, discusses how canonical English writers (Shakespeare and Milton) creep into the popular culture of the region today. Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival in 2018.
Islam's Issa's book, Milton in the Arab-Muslim World, won the Milton Society of America's 'Outstanding First Book' award. His exhibition Stories of Sacrifice won the Muslim News Awards 'Excellence in Community Relations' prize.
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio. There are now 100 early career academics who have passed through the scheme.
Producer: Fiona McLean.
From Tudor courts to plantations to the Arab Spring and modern political philosophy: a debate in partnership with Bristol Festival of Ideas hosted by Shahidha Bari.
Jeffrey Howard is an Associate Professor of Political Theory at University College London. He writes and teaches about the moral obligations of democratic citizens and political leaders, focusing on the topics of counter-extremism, crime and punishment, and free speech. Joanne Paul, Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at University of Sussex, has studied the advice given to monarchs and statesmen in the Tudor period, seeking to understand the inner workings of power in the court and the ways in which ordinary people could hope to make their own voices heard. Dina Rezk is an Associate Professor at the University of Reading teaching on intelligence, 20th Century Middle Eastern history, popular culture and terrorism/insurgency, reform and revolt. Christienna Fryar was Lecturer in the History of Slavery and Unfree Labour at the University of Liverpool and now leads the MA in Black British History at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research looks at Britain's centuries-long imperial and especially post emancipation entanglements with the Caribbean.
Shahidha Bari is the author of Dressed: The Secret Life of Clothes and Professor of Fashion Cultures and Histories at London College of Fashion at the University of the Arts London. She is a Fellow of the Forum for Philosophy at the London School of Economics and was chosen as a New Generation Thinker in the first year of the scheme.
You can find more Bristol Festival of Ideas events https://www.ideasfestival.co.uk/
You can find more information about the New Generation Thinkers scheme on the website of the AHRC https://ahrc.ukri.org/ and a playlist of discussions, essays and short features showcasing the different research topics of New Generation Thinkers on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0144txn From beer to Vegetarian pioneers, dams in Pakistan to gangs in Glasgow, disabled characters in Dickens to remembering Partition, the Japanese Stonehenge to a Medici prince.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The colourful life of Arthur MacMurrough Kavanagh overturns everything we think we know about disabled people’s lives in the 19th century. Born without hands and feet, he was an adventurous traveller and a Member of Parliament, a tiger-hunting landowner whose attempts to resist the rising tide of Irish nationalism were ultimately defeated, and whose amazing career has been largely forgotten. But how did his first biographer meet the challenge of writing his life?
New Generation Thinker Clare Walker Gore of the University of Cambridge discusses the gaps in his published biography and what attitudes they reflect.
The New Generation Thinkers scheme is ten years old in 2020. Jointly run by BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, each year it offers ten academics at the start of their careers a chance to bring fascinating research to a wider public. This week we hear five essays from this last decade of stimulating ideas.
This Essay was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead in 2015.
Producer: Zahid Warley
From pension schemes for police force dogs to political rights - can other animals be regarded as members of our democratic communities, with rights to political consideration, representation or even participation? New Generation Alasdair Cochrane, from the University of Sheffield, believes that the exclusion of non-humans from civic institutions cannot be justified, and explores recent attempts in court to re-imagine a political world that takes animals seriously.
The Essay was recorded in front of an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas at Sage Gateshead in 2014. The court case referred to in the Essay was ruled on by a court in New York in 2017 when it was judged that in the case of caged adult male chimps Tommy and Kiko that there is no precedent for apes being considered people.
The New Generation Thinkers scheme is ten years old in 2020. Jointly run by BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, each year it offers ten academics at the start of their careers a chance to bring fascinating research to a wider public. This week we hear five essays from this last decade of stimulating ideas.
You can find a playlist of other Essays, Documentaries and Discussions featuring New Generation Thinkers from across the different years on the Free Thinking website.
Producer: Jacqueline Smith
From sleeping space to work space? Matthew Sweet is joined by historian of emotions Tiffany Watt Smith, expert on the suffragettes and a history of sex Fern Riddell, author of The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World Laurence Scott and Tudor historian Joe Moshenska.
Matthew Sweet's guests recording in their bedrooms are all New Generation Thinkers, which now has 100 early career academics on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio.
Fern Riddell's books include Death in Ten Minutes Kitty Marion: Activist, Arsonist, Suffragette; The Victorian Guide to Sex. She presents the history channel podcast Not What You Thought You Knew. Tiffany Watt Smith is the author of The Book of Human Emotions, Schadenfreude: The Joy of Another’s Misfortune. She is Director of the Centre for the History of the Emotions at Queen Mary, University of London.
Laurence Scott has written Picnic Comma Lightning and The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World, which was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction and was a winner of the Jerwood Prize.
Joe Moshenska is the author of A Stain in the Blood: The Remarkable Voyage of Sir Kenelm Digby and Iconoclasm as Child’s Play. He teaches at the University of Oxford and presented a BBC Radio 4 documentary about Milton's Paradise Lost.
You can find more information about the New Generation Thinkers scheme on the website of the AHRC:
https://ahrc.ukri.org/
and a playlist of discussions, essays and short features showcasing the different research topics of New Generation Thinkers on the Free Thinking website:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0144txn
From beer to Vegetarian pioneers, dams in Pakistan to gangs in Glasgow, disabled characters in Dickens to remembering Partition, the Japanese Stonehenge to a Medici prince.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Corin Throsby looks at the extraordinary fan mail received by the poet Lord Byron. The New Generation Thinkers scheme is ten years old in 2020. Jointly run by BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, each year it offers ten academics at the start of their careers a chance to bring fascinating research to a wider public. This week we hear five essays from this last decade of stimulating ideas.
We think of fan mail as a recent phenomenon, but in the early 19th century the poet Byron received hundreds of letters from lovesick admirers. Cambridge academic Corin Throsby takes us on a journey into Byron's intimate fan mail and shows what those letters reveal about the creation of a celebrity culture that has continued into the present.
This essay was recorded in front of an audience at the BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking Festival 2011 at Sage Gateshead. You can hear Corin Throsby presenting Radio 3's Sunday Feature series Literary Pursuits on Truman Capote https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gl43 and find another Essay from her recorded at the York Festival of Ideas A Romanticist Reflects on Breast Feeding https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08wn2rm
Producer: Craig Smith
Would you don a diving suit or take a drug in a quest to understand the life of someone else? "Following in the footsteps" is an obsession for biographers as they travel the world to bring their subjects to life, sometimes with dangerous consequences.
Hull University Professor of Creative Writing Martin Goodman, biographer of the sorcerer Carlos Castaneda, the Indian mystic Mother Meera and the scientist John Scott Haldane, draws on visits to high peaks, the seabed, coal mines and monasteries to reveal the challenges of the biographer's art. This episode was recorded at Sage Gateshead at the Free Thinking Festival in 2012.
The New Generation Thinkers scheme is 10 years old in 2020. Jointly run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, each year it offers ten academics at the start of their careers a chance to bring fascinating research to a wider public. This week we hear five essays from this last decade of stimulating ideas. You can also find a playlist of Documentaries, Discussions and other Essays by New Generation Thinkers on the Free Thinking website and over the weekend of November 28th and 29th they will appear across a variety of Radio 3 music programmes.
You can find Martin Goodman discussing his most recent novel J SS Bach in an episode of Free Thinking called Art and Refugees from Nazi Germany https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00027m6
Producer: Adrian Washbourne
Democracy, Hong Kong and USA Free Thinking
Hong Kong has seen elections postponed, pro-democracy protesters arrested and a sweeping new national security law imposed by Beijing this year outlawing sedition and subversion. Rana Mitter asks whether Hong Kong can retain its unique identity and how the city's culture can help us make sense of these turbulent times. And, is there Trumpism without President Trump? Following the fortunes of the Republican Party in the US elections, we consider where the ideas associated with the 45th president sit in the history of conservative political thought.
Tammy Ho is Associate Professor of English at HK Baptist University, and a specialist on Hong Kong identity in literature
Zuraidah Ibrahim is deputy executive editor of the South China Morning Post, the main English-language newspaper in the city, and she is the co-author of Rebel City: Hong Kong’s Year of Water and Fire
Jeffrey Wasserstrom is Professor of Chinese history at the University of California and the author of Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink, based on meetings with many of the Hong Kong protestors
Colleen Graffy is Professor of International Law at Pepperdine University's Caruso School of Law. She served in the George W Bush administration as deputy assistant secretary of state for diplomacy
Henry Olsen is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Centre and a regular columnist for the Washington Post, as well as the conservative journal National Review. His recent book is The Working Class Republican: Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue-Collar Conservatism
Producer Ruth Watts
Teaching writing - mentors Helen Mort and Blake Morrison compare notes. Plus as Georges Perec's memoir I Remember is published in English for the first time, we look at the rules of writing proposed by the Oulipo group which was founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais. Georges Perec (1936 – 1982) came up with a "story-making machine" and created a novel in which the letter 'e' never appears. Queneau's Exercices de Style recounts a bus journey ninety-nine times. Shahidha Bari talks to Adam Scovell and Lauren Elkin about Oulipo.
Helen Mort's books include poetry collections Division Street and No Map Could Show Them and a debut novel Black Car Burning and she is a Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University https://www.helenmort.com/
Blake Morrison's books include poetry collections Dark Glasses and Pendle Witches, And When Did You Last See Your Father? which won the JR Ackerley Prize for Autobiography and a study of the murder of James Bulger, As If. He is Professor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London. http://www.blakemorrison.net/
Their conversation is part of the series Critical Friends organised in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature https://rsliterature.org/ You can find more writerly conversations in the Free Thinking playlist Prose and Poetry https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vh
Adam Scovell is the author of novellas including How Pale the Winter Has Made Us and Mothlight
Lauren Elkin is the author of The End of Oulipo? An Attempt to Exhaust a Movement and Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London
George Perec's I Remember translated into English by David Bellos and Philip Terry has just been published by Editions Gallic.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Melting glaciers, cacophonous refugee camps, voices in heads, bathroom altercations and indigenous communities in crisis are the subjects of this year's AHRC Research In Film Awards.
Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough talks to researchers and filmmakers from the winning films, which are:
Inspiration Award: ‘To Be A Marma’ - Ed Owles Best Doctoral of Early Career Film: ‘Voices Apart’ - David Heinemann Best Climate Emergency Film: ‘A Short Film About Ice’ - Adam Laity Best Animated Film: ‘Bathroom Privileges’ - Ellie Land Best Research Film: ‘Shelter without Shelter’ - Mark E Breeze
You can hear Tom Scott Smith discussing his research into refugee shelters in this episode of New Thinking called Refugees https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k37n
This episode of Free Thinking is put together in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI as one of a series of discussions focusing on new academic research also available to download as New Thinking episodes on the BBC Arts & Ideas podcast feed. You can find the whole collection here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
Would you change your nose if you could? What about an entire face transplant? Des Fitzgerald speaks to researchers investigating the past and future of facial difference and medical intervention and looks at videos from participants in the AboutFace project, which are being launched as part of the Being Human Festival this November.
Emily Cock, from the University of Cardiff, looks at our relationship with our noses throughout history – from duels and sexual diseases to racial prejudice.
Fay Bound Alberti, from the University of York, talks about a project called AboutFace, which she is running to look at the emotional impact of face transplant surgery, investigating the moral questions it raises, looking at the impact of facial difference in the age of the selfie, and the emergence of facial transplantation as a response to severe trauma. There have been fewer than 50 face transplants globally since the first was performed in 2005 and none in the UK to date. You can find more at https://aboutfaceyork.com/ @AboutFaceYork
Fay is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow from the Department of History at the University of York and is working with Sarah Hall on the launch of new videos as part of the 2020 Being Human Festival https://beinghumanfestival.org/ The BBC has a series of programmes reflecting the anniversary of the Disability Discrimination Act UK
Emily Cock is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, undertaking a three-year project Fragile Faces: Disfigurement in Britain and its Colonies (1600–1850). Her book is called Rhinoplasty and the nose in early modern British medicine and culture
She and host Des Fitzgerald, from the University of Exeter, are New Generation Thinkers on the scheme run by the BBC with the AHRC to work with academics to put research onto radio.
You can find a playlist called New Research on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
This episode was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI.
What connects a "double elephant" sized map, an academy of dissenters and Daniel Defoe? Shahidha Bari makes a virtual visit to the University of Derby's hub for the Being Human Festival 2020. Today the East Midlands city of Derby is often overlooked, but it was one of the powerhouses of the industrial revolution. Historians and archivists have been exploring Derby as a postcolonial city and uncovering its hidden past. We hear how an intricate set of world maps by the 18th-century cartographer Hermann Moll may have arrived in Derby and what they tell us about the city's relationship with the world. What light can the Mexican silver coins Arkwright used to pay his mill workers at Cromford shed on 19th-century global trade and piracy? And how did Derby's little theatre club formed after the Second World War give rise to a star of the British cinema, Alan Bates?
Shahidha Bari speaks to historians from the University of Derby; Dr Cath Feely, Professor Paul Elliot and Dr Oliver Godsmark. And we hear from Laura Phillips, Head of Interpretation and Display at Derby Museums. and Mark Young, Librarian at Derby Local Studies Library.
Being Human Festival: https://beinghumanfestival.org/
Other programmes in our Free Thinking New Research playlist includes: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09fnz6t Lost and Found in the Archives https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b6hk Love Stories https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b082kwts What the Archives reveal
Producer: Ruth Watts
What does it mean to make art to commemorate histories of conflict? Anne McElvoy's guests are artists Es Devlin and Machiko Weston, Art Fund director Jenny Waldman, chair of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group Ekow Eshun and Paris Agar from the IWM as Radio 3 joins with the Imperial War Museum for the 2020 Remembrance Debate.
Es Devlin and Machiko Weston worked together on a digital artwork commission to mark the 75th anniversary of Hiroshima. What images and words were appropriate to use? https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/i-saw-the-world-end
1,600 volunteers, all men, dressed in replica World War I British army uniforms, and appeared on station platforms and public spaces across the UK in Jeremy Deller's artwork We're Here Because We're Here. That was on of the many projects commissioned by Jenny Waldman as part of 14-18 NOW, the UK's official arts programme for the First World War Centenary.
Ekow Eshun is chair of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group and creative director of the Calvert 22 Foundation.
Paris Agar is an art curator on the Cold War and Late 20th Century team at the IWM who worked on the What Remains, Culture Under Attack programming and projects to mark the Fall of the Berlin Wall anniversary.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Matthew Sweet and guests discuss the history and ideas behind the charity shop, our relationship with 'stuff', and musical typewriters - aspects of November's Being Human Festival.
Matthew talks to researchers whose work is featured in the festival, which showcases research from a series of UK universities. His guests are anthropologist and soprano Jennifer Cearns from University College London; George Gosling, a historian at the University of Wolverhampton; Georgina Brewis of University College London's Institute of Education; plus Vaibhav Singh from the University of Reading, who shares his research into typewriters and plays a tune on a musical typewriter.
https://beinghumanfestival.org/
You can find conversations about love stories, researching archives, beer and buses, and haunted houses in previous episodes related to Being Human Festivals, alongside other new academic research in the Free Thinking playlist called New Research
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
Producer: Emma Wallace
Mr Wilder & Me is the title of the new novel from Jonathan Coe, who won the Costa Prize for his book Middle England. He is one of Matthew Sweet's guests in a programme exploring the life and work of the Austrian born director behind Hollywood hits including Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity and Some Like it Hot. They are joined by film critics Phuong Le and Melanie Williams and Paul Diamond, the son of Billy Wilder's long time writing partner I.A.L. Diamond who worked on scripts for Some Like It Hot; The Apartment (which won an Academy Award for Best Screenplay); Irma la Douce; and The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.
Jonathan Coe's Mr Wilder & Me is out now.
In the Free Thinking archives and available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts you can find Matthew Sweet discussing films including Tarkovksy's Stalker https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0775023 the career of Cary Grant https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hn1z Silent Film Star Betty Balfour https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04007l1 Laurel and Hardy's The Music Box https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001xwd
You can also find him discussing the stage adaptation of Jonathan Coe's novel The Rotters' Club in an event recorded at the Birmingham Rep Theatre https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b076b15h
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
This November sees the 25th anniversary of the UK Disability Discrimination Act. As we consider what contemporary progress has been made we'll uncover the long history of disabled people’s political activism, look back at the treatment of disabled people in Royal Courts and at fictional portrayals of disability in 19th-century novels from Dickens and George Eliot to Charlotte M Yonge and Dinah Mulock Craik. Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough presents.
Professor David Turner is the author of Disability in Eighteenth-Century England: Imagining Physical Impairment which won the Disability History Association Outstanding Publication Award for the best book published worldwide in disability history. He teaches at Swansea University and was advisor on the BBC Radio 4 series Disability: A New History. His latest book is Disability in the Industrial Revolution: Physical Impairment in British coalmining 1780-1880 (co-authored with Daniel Blackie). Dr Clare Walker Gore has just published Plotting Disability in the Nineteenth-Century Novel. She teaches English at the University of Cambridge and is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker.
This episode of Free Thinking is put together in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI as one of a series of discussions focusing on new academic research also available to download as New Thinking episodes on the BBC Arts & Ideas podcast feed. You can find the whole collection here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
Jessica Secmezsoy-Urquhart is at the University of St Andrews. They look at the disabled history of the royal court in Renaissance England and Scotland and the role of the Court Fool. They also make films and broadcasts for The Social on BBC Scotland.
From East Africa to Arabia, the First World War to Mozambique, Rana Mitter discusses the impact of war on society and culture. Margaret MacMillan's most recent book is called War: How Conflict Shaped Us and takes a deep dive into the history of conflict. Rob Johnson considers what we gain by exploring the overlooked side of Lawrence of Arabia - his thoughts on warfare and military strategy. And, the end of the Gaza empire, and the clash in East Africa between Belgian, German, British and French forces are explored in novels by Mia Couto and Abdulrazak Gurnah. They compare notes about the way fiction can trace changes in relationships due to war.
Producer: Ruth Watts
From online dance, pavement performances of plays, and the part played by audiences in Greek theatres and Shakespeare's Globe - how is performance adapting in the Covid era, and how are we rethinking what an audience is? Shahidha Bari hosts a discussion, with Kwame Kwei-Armah of the Young Vic; Kirsty Sedgman from the University of Bristol, who looks at theatre from Ancient Greece on; Lucy Weir, who teaches dance at the University of Edinburgh and is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker; and Ted Hodgkinson, who programmes literary events at the Southbank Centre in London.
This episode is part of the programming for BBC Radio 3's residency at London's Southbank Centre and their Inside Out Season of Music and Literary Events, which include concerts broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and available to catch up with via BBC Sounds, and a series of author interviews and discussions.
The Young Vic is marking its 50th anniversary with a series of events, including Twenty Twenty - 3 plays centred around the themes of Home, Heritage, and History which mark the culmination of a year-long community project with Blackfriars Settlement, Certitude, and Thames Reach, and various online films.
You can find discussions about how Covid has affected classical and musical audiences and programming on BBC Radio 3's Music Matters programmes https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tnvx
Producer: Emma Wallace
From carers and refugees, New Deal America in the 30s back to Enlightenment values - Anne McElvoy explores the intersections between community and the individual, care and conscience with: Robert D. Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett, authors of The Upswing, arguing for a return to the communitarian American values of the New Deal-era1920s Madeleine Bunting, whose book Labours of Love looks at the crisis of care in the UK today New Generation Thinker Dafydd Mills Daniel, whose book Conscience and the Age of Reason traces the history of the idea of conscience from the 18th century Enlightenment to today. Novelist Jenny Erpenbeck, whose past work has included a novel Go, Went, Gone, exploring the integration of asylum seekers into German society and whose new work is a collection of essays called Not A Novel.
You might also be interested in the playlist called The Way We Live Now on the Free Thinking website which includes Rutger Bregman on Kindness, discussions about modern slavery, refugees, gambling and narcissism https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p072637b
This episode is tied into Radio 3's residency at London's Southbank Centre and their Inside Out programme of talks and concerts which have included interviews with social reformers and campaigners - and an installation of images and poetry called Everyday Heroes marking the work of carers.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
How has the pandemic changed our experience of urban space and what is the future for cities like London? Caleb Femi was young people's poetry laureate for London. Katie Beswick and Julia King research the way we use our streets. Irit Katz studies how the urban environment is shaped by crisis.
Caleb Femi's Poor - a collection of poetry and photographs of the lives of young black men in Peckham - is published in November 2020. Katie Beswick is the author of Social Housing in Performance: The English Council Estate on and off Stage and teaches at the University of Exeter. Julia King is a Research Fellow at LSE Cities looking at "Streets for All" https://www.lse.ac.uk/cities . Irit Katz lectures in Architecture and Urban Studies at the University of Cambridge.
This episode is part of the programming for BBC Radio 3's Residency at London's Southbank Centre which is broadcasting live concerts and tying into their talks and literature series of online events Inside Out.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
His stinging critique of European colonial racism and hypocrisy Discours sur le Colonialisme was first published in 1950. How does it resonate today? A founder of the Négritude movement, Aimé Césaire (26 June 1913 – 17 April 2008) also wrote poetry and a biography of Haitian revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture. To discuss the influence of Césaire's writing, Rana Mitter is joined by Sudhir Hazareesingh, who has just published his own biography of Toussaint; New Generation Thinker Alexandra Reza, from the University of Oxford; and Jason Allen-Paisant who lectures in Caribbean Poetry and Decolonial Thought at the University of Leeds.
Black Spartacus: The Epic Life Of Toussaint Louverture by Sudhir Hazareesingh is out now and will be read as a Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4 from 16 November. Dr Sudhir Hazareesingh, who teaches the University of Oxford, has also written How the French Think. You can hear him in this Free Thinking episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b060zryk
Alexandra Reza teaches post-colonial literature at the University of Oxford and is a New Generation Thinker - a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council that selects ten academics each year to turn their research into radio.
Writing by Jason Allen-Paisant has been published in Granta, PN Review, Callaloo, and Carcanet’s New Poetries Series VIII, among other places
This episode is linked to BBC Radio 3's residency at London's Southbank Centre and the BBC Culture in Quarantine initiative https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts
You can find other episodes devoted to influential books, plays, films, and art in a Free Thinking playlist called Landmarks of Culture, which includes the writing of Wole Soyinka, Audre Lorde, Susan Sontag, and Rachael Carson. You can find it on the Free Thinking programme website and all are available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0144txn
Producer: Emma Wallace
Sunil Gupta says his photographs ask what does it mean to be a gay Indian man? Shahidha Bari looks at his work and talks to the winners of the 2020 Polari Prize, which usually takes place at London's Southbank Centre, and to Paul Burston, founder of the salon. https://www.polarisalon.com/
Amrou Al-Kadhi's memoir Life as a Unicorn deals with their life growing up as a queer Arab Muslim drag queen through stories of tropical aquariums, quantum physics and Egyptian divas. They are the winner of the Polari First Book Prize 2020.
Kate Davies's In at the Deep End is a novel that charts a twenty-something civil servant's introduction to lesbian sex, the queer community and complicated, toxic relationships. She is the winner of the Polari Overall Book Prize 2020.
From Here to Eternity: Sunil Gupta a Retrospective runs at the Photographers' Gallery until 24th Jan 2021, including images from his street photography, the 1970s New York Gay Liberation scene, his series The New Pre-Raphaelites and newer digital works.
This episode is part of BBC Radio 3's residency at London's Southbank Centre and the BBC Culture in Quarantine initiative https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts
You might also be interested in the Free Thinking playlist of discussions called Culture Wars and Identity Discussions which includes a debate about new masculinities hearing from Sunil Gupta and others https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06jngzt
Main image: Sunil Gupta, Untitled #13, 2008, From the series The New Pre-Raphaelites, Courtesy the artist and Hales Gallery, Stephen Bulger Gallery and Vadehra Art Gallery © Sunil Gupta. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2020
Producer: Caitlin Benedict
How a Croydon housewife baffled a 1930s ghost hunter - the author of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, Kate Summerscale, talks to Matthew Sweet about her discovery of a dossier of interviews about a poltergeist "terrorising" Alma Fielding which made headlines in the 1938 Sunday Pictorial newspaper.
30 artists interested in seances and spirituality are on show in an exhibition co-curated by Simon Grant and the Drawing Room Gallery in partnership with Hayward Touring.
Plus we return to a radio experiment in telepathy and a 1920s on air seance with psychologist Richard Wiseman, author of Paranormality amongst many other books. Can you sense what card he is holding?
Kate Summerscale's latest book The Haunting of Alma Fielding is out now and is being read as Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4 from October 24th.
The Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition Not Without My Ghosts: The Artist as Medium developed in partnership with Drawing Room, London runs there until Nov 1st, then it is at Millennium Gallery, Museums Sheffield 19th Nov - 7 March 2021, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea 20 March - June 13 2021, Grundy Art Gallery Blackpool.
The 1927 BBC telepathy experiment with Sir Oliver Lodge described by Richard Wiseman was listed in the Radio Times and you can read about it here: https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/1a8b7f91de874debaa392671d7542ea3#
This episode is part of BBC Radio 3's residency at the Southbank Centre and the BBC Culture in Quarantine initiative https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts
In the Free Thinking archives and available as Arts & Ideas podcasts are episodes in which Matthew Sweet goes ghost hunting in Portsmouth https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09dynj0 Shahidha Bari discusses ghost stories and Halloween with curator Irving Finkel, writers Jeremy Dyson, Kirsty Logan, Nisha Ramayya and Adam Scovell https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0009t19 Matthew Sweet looks at the history of magic https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kvss and at Piranesi and disturbing architecture hearing from guests including Susanna Clarke and Lucy Arnold https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mlgh and at mystics and reality hearing about spiritualist Daniel Dunglas Home from New Generation Thinker Edmund Richardson https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07f6r54
Producer: Alex Mansfield
Jacques Derrida was the superstar philosopher of the 1980s and 90s. Often associated with the philosophical movement known as 'poststructualism', he made the enigmatic statement that 'There is nothing outside the text'. Today, one conspiracy theorist has commented that he studied poststructualism in college and learned from it that everything is narrative. Is Derrida and his style of thought a pathway to the 'post-truth' age? Or is that a crude distortion of an important body of philosophical work? Matthew Sweet discusses Derrida and his legacies with biographer Peter Salmon, philosopher Stella Sandford, and translator and friend of Derrida Nicholas Royle.
You can find other discussions of philosophy on the Free Thinking playlist which includes discussions about Boethius, Aristotle, panpsychism, marxism, Mary Midgley https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07x0twx This includes Stella Sandford, Professor at Kingston University, in conversation with Bernard-Henri Lévy and Homi K Bhabha looking at the impact of Covid https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jq87
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Poet Daljit Nagra and crime writer Val McDermid discuss capturing different forms of speech, a sense of place, and politics - in a conversation organised with the Royal Society of Literature and Durham Book Festival, and hosted by presenter Shahidha Bari.
Plus, how the medieval fable of Reynard the Fox has lessons for us all today. As a new translation and retelling by Anne Louise Avery is published, she joins Shahidha to discuss the book with Noreen Masud - a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker from Durham University. Based on William Caxton's translation of the medieval Flemish folk tale, this is the story of a wily fox - a subversive, dashing, and anarchic character - summoned to the court of King Noble the Lion. But is he the character you want to emulate, or does Bruin the Bear offer us a better template?
Reynard the Fox, a new version with illustrations, is published by the Bodleian Library, and is translated and retold by Anne Louise Avery.
Daljit Nagra is the author of British Museum; Ramayana - A Retelling; Tippoo Sultan's Incredible White-Man-Eating Tiger Toy-Machine!!!; and, Look We Have Coming to Dover.
Val McDermid is the author of several crime fiction series: Lindsay Gordon; Kate Brannigan; DCI Karen Pirie; and, beginning in 1995, the Tony Hill and Carol Jordan series, which was televised as Wire in the Blood. Her latest book - a Karen Pirie thriller - was published in August 2020 and is called Still Life.
Details of events for Durham Book Festival https://durhambookfestival.com/ One of the events features Durham academic Emily Thomas talking about travel and philosophy - you can hear her in a Free Thinking episode called Maths and philosophy puzzles https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fws2
Crime writer Ian Rankin compared notes on writing about place with Bangladeshi born British author Tahmima Anam in an RSL conversation linked to the Bradford Literature Festival https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000khk6
You can find more book talk on the website of the Royal Society of Literature https://rsliterature.org/
There are more book interviews on the Free Thinking playlist Prose and Poetry https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vh This includes: Anne Fine with Romesh Gunesekara; Irenosen Okojie with Nadifa Mohamed; and Paul Mendez with Francesca Wade.
Producer: Emma Wallace
From a VR version of Viking life and what you can learn from gaming, to describing collections in military museums, to the range of independent museums and the passions of their founders for everything from old engines to bakelite, witchcraft to shells. Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough looks at new research into a range of collections, why more are opening and what is missing.
Fiona Candlin is Professor of Museology at Birkbeck, University of London. She leads the MAPPING MUSEUMS research project and has so far documented over 4,200 of the UKs independent museums, all opened in the last 60 years. She gives us a glimpse into the rich variety of topics covered by small museums around the UK, and discusses how they chart social change. http://museweb.dcs.bbk.ac.uk/home
Henrietta Lidchi is Chief Curator at the National Museum of World Cultures in the Netherlands and principal investigator on the AHRC-funded project Baggage and Belonging: Military Collections and the British Empire, 1750 – 1900 with National Museums Scotland. She tells us what makes the collections of Military museums unique. https://www.nms.ac.uk/collections-research/our-research/featured-projects/collecting-practices-of-the-british-army/
And Sarah Maltby is Director of Attractions at the York Archaeological Trust. She’s leading research aimed at taking the JORVIK VIKING CENTRE online. How does a museum famed for recreating the physical realities of the Viking world using smells and re-enactment re-imagine itself virtually? https://www.jorvikvikingcentre.co.uk/
Edward Harcourt talks about the project to create a virtual museum of objects and ideas suggested by the public. The Museum of Boundless Creativity will launch fully later this Autumn. https://ahrc.ukri.org/innovation/boundless-creativity/museum-of-boundless-creativity/
This episode of Free Thinking is put together in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI as one of a series of discussions focusing on new academic research also available to download as New Thinking episodes on the BBC Arts & Ideas podcast feed. You can find the whole collection here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
Producer: Helen Fitzhenry.
Directors of the Hermitage, the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the National Gallery, Singapore explain how they are dealing both with the challenge of Covid-19 and the greater accountability demanded by worldwide social justice movements. Anne McElvoy hosts a discussion organised in collaboration with Frieze Masters and Frieze London, talking to:
Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky, Director of the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. Kaywin Feldman, Director of the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. Chong Siak Ching, CEO of the National Gallery of Singapore.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod.
You can find previous discussions recorded with Frieze on the Free Thinking website and available to download as BBC Arts & Ideas podcasts. And this episode is part of the #MuseumPassion series of programmes being broadcast by the BBC in early October 2020
Biographers of Tom Stoppard, Sylvia Pankhurst and a little known SS soldier compare notes. How does the process differ if your subject is alive, if their story has already been enshrined in history, if they were active in the Nazi regime? Anne McElvoy talks to three authors about researching and writing a life history and the journeys it has taken them on from a Nazi letter discovered in an armchair, to the play scripts by a living dramatist who fled Nazi occupation in Czechoslovakia and has become part of the British arts establishment to the campaigning travels of a suffragette to Soviet Russia, Scandinavia, Europe & East Africa.
Professor Dame Hermione Lee's latest biography is called Tom Stoppard: A Life. It's Book of the Week from October 5th on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. She has previously written on Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf and Penelope Fitzgerald. Rachel Holmes is the author of Sylvia Pankhurst: Natural Born Rebel. Her previous book was Eleanor Marx: A Life Daniel Lee has written The SS Officer's Armchair: In Search of a Hidden Life. He teaches at Queen Mary, University of London and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn academic research into radio.
Delve into our website and you can find episodes exploring Suffrage history with Fern Riddell and Helen Pankhurst amongst the guests https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09th2dt Programmes about German history including Neil Mcgregor and Philip Sands https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b079mcgf or Sophie Hardach and Florian Huber https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006sjx A debate about Jewish identity in 2020 with guests including Howard Jacobson and Bari Weiss https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fwqd And there's Hermione Lee looking at Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zt79p You can find more in the Prose and Poetry collection on the Free Thinking website.
Producer: Ruth Watts
From Roman emperor Septimius Severus to Senegal's Signares to the ten days in Harlem that Fidel Castro used to link up with African leaders at the UN, through to the missed opportunity to enshrine racial equality in post war negotiations following World War I; Olivette Otele, Simon Hall and Jake Hodder share their research findings with New Generation Thinker Christienna Fryar.
Olivette Otele is Professor of the History of Slavery at the University of Bristol and Vice-President of the Royal Historical Society. Her book African Europeans: An Untold History is published on 29 October 2020. Simon Hall is Professor of Modern History at the University of Leeds. His book Ten Days in Harlem: Fidel Castro and the Making of the 1960s is out now. Jake Hodder is Assistant Professor in the School of Geography at Nottingham University and has published articles on Black Internationalism and the global dynamics of race. New Generation Thinker Christienna Fryar runs the MA in Black British History at Goldsmiths, University of London
You can find Catherine Fletcher talking about Alessandro de Medici in this Essay for Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06nrv7k Robin Mitchell discusses her researches into Ourika, Sarah Baartman and Jeanne Duval in a Free Thinking episode called How we talk about sex and women's bodies https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000f5n6 The Early Music Show on Radio 3 looks at the life of Joseph Boulogne de Saint Georges https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0801l4g The Shadow of Slavery discussed by Christienna Fryar, Katie Donington, Juliet Gilkes Romero and Rosanna Amaka https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000f7d5 Slavery Stories in the fiction of Esi Edugyan and William Melvin Kelley https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001bch What Does a Black History Curriculum Look Like ? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kpl5 Johny Pitts looks at Afropean identities with Caryl Phillips https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005sjw
This episode of Free Thinking is put together in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI as one of a series of discussions focusing on new academic research also available to download as New Thinking episodes on the BBC Arts & Ideas podcast feed. You can find the whole collection here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
Producer: Karl Bos
New critical biographies of Sylvia Plath and Seamus Heaney and a reissue of Anne Sexton's poems prompt a conversation for National Poetry Day about our image of a poet. Is it possible to separate a poet's life from their work? Shahidha Bari is joined by New Generation Thinkers Sophie Oliver and Peter Mackay, and by Plath biographer Heather Clark. And she talks to Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi about her new novel, The First Woman – a coming of age story of a young girl in Uganda, mixing modern feminism and folk beliefs against a backdrop of Idi Amin’s regime.
The First Woman is out now. Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi teaches creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University, and her other books are Kintu and the short story collection Manchester Happened.
Mercies: Selected Poems by Anne Sexton is being issued in the Penguin Modern Classics series in November 2020
On Seamus Heaney by Roy Foster is published by Princeton University Press
Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark is published in October by Vintage.
Sophie Oliver teaches at the University of Liverpool and researches women and modernist writers, including Jean Rhys. She also writes for the TLS, Burlington Magazine, and The White Review.
Peter Mackay teaches at the University of St Andrews and has published writing on Sorley MacLean; an anthology, An Leabhar Liath: 500 years of Gaelic Love and Transgressive Verse; and his own collection of poems Gu Leòr / Galore.
Free Thinking has a playlist of conversations about prose and poetry on the website - all available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vh
If you have been affected by the mental health issues in this programme, you can find details of support organisations from the BBC Action Line website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4WLs5NlwrySXJR2n8Snszdg/emotional-distress-information-and-support
Producer: Emma Wallace
From Cuyp's paintings, to Wordsworth's wanderings to modern dairy management and soil fertility via Victorian Industrial farming and talking Swiss satirical cows - Cumbrian farmer James Rebanks joins Matthew Sweet in a programme marking the anniversary of the poet Wordsworth, who helped shape attitudes to landscape. Other guests include New Generation Thinker Seán Williams from the University of Sheffield and Professor Karen Sayer from Leeds Trinity University who is writing Farm Animals in Britain, 1850-2001 and is part of a team of academics working on the project https://field-wt.co.uk/
James Rebanks is the author of English Pastoral: An Inheritance; The Shepherd's Life and The Illustrated Herdwick Shepherd. An exhibition of paintings by Cuyp (1620–1691) at the Dordrechts Museum in Holland will now run from 3 October 2021– 6 March 2022
Sean read his own translation from the 1850 Novel "The Cheese Dairy in Cattlejoy" by Jeremias Gotthelf.
The contemporary cow-art Karen mentions is in an online exhibition at Reading's Museum of English Rural Life https://merl.reading.ac.uk/explore/online-exhibitions/sire/
Producer: Alex Mansfield
You might also be interested in the Free Thinking Collection of episodes Green Thinking which includes discussions about soil, Rachel Carson's influential book Silent Spring, a Free Thinking festival discussion with James Rebanks and anthropologist Veronica Strang, Peter Wohlleben on trees, George Monbiot on the Green Man myth, Chris Packham on music https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2 Our Woolly episode looks at sheep from medieval wool merchants and images of the lamb of God to Sean the Sheep on screen https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0009bw4
You can find a discussion about Wordsworth with the directors of Lancaster University's Wordsworth Centre for the Study of Poetry https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p087kr4n
Radio 3 is broadcasting new writing from the 2020 Contains Strong Language Festival in Cumbria on The Verb and as the Radio 3 Drama.
The tribe of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, having a Jamaican Welsh identity, the idea of freedom and anti-colonial resistance, the alarming rise of youth suicide among Indigenous people in Canada and how a group of pioneering cultural anthropologists – mostly women – shaped our interpretation of the modern world: these are the topics tackled in the shortlist for the 2020 prize for a book fostering global understanding. Rana Mitter talks to the authors.
Imperial Intimacies: A Tale of Two Islands by Hazel V. Carby Insurgent Empire – Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent by Priyamvada Gopal Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power by Pekka Hämäläinen The Reinvention of Humanity: A Story of Race, Sex, Gender and the Discovery of Culture by Charles King All Our Relations: Indigenous trauma in the shadow of colonialism by Tanya Talaga
The international book prize, worth £25,000, and run by the British Academy, rewards and celebrates the best works of non-fiction that have contributed to global cultural understanding, throwing new light on the interconnections and divisions shaping cultural identity worldwide. Over 100 submissions were received and the winner is announced on Tuesday 27 October.
Producer: Karl Bos
The winner in 2019 was Toby Green for A Fistful of Shells – West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution and other previous winners include Kapka Kassabova, Neil MacGregor and Karen Armstrong. You can find interviews with the winenrs and the other shortlisted authors for the 2019 prize (Ed Morales, Julian Baggini, Julia Lovell, Aanchal Malhotra and Kwame Anthony Appiah in this Free Thinking collection https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07p3nxh
Edmund Fawcett's latest book focuses on the historic and contemporary conflicts in Conservatism. He describes how the constant tensions within the Conservative political thought have been exposed and what it might mean for the continuation of the tradition.
Paul Vallely argues that philanthropy is about more than mere altruism. It is always an expression of power, regardless of any desire to make the world a better place. He discusses the contradictions at the heart of philanthropy from the Greeks to modern philanthrocapitalists - and how philanthropy might still do good.
Ian Dunt and Grace Blakeley have written about the challenges facing Liberals and Socialists respectively. They discuss how these big intellectual traditions might survive contact with the current moment.
Conservatism: The Fight for a Tradition by Edmund Fawcett is published by Princeton University Press
Philanthropy: From Aristotle to Zuckerberg by Paul Vallely is published by Bloomsbury
How to be a Liberal: Thinking for Yourself in a Populist World by Ian Dunt is published by Canbury Press
Socialist Futures: The Pandemic and the Post-Corbyn Era edited by Grace Blakeley is published by Verso
The Corona Crash: How the Pandemic Will Change Capitalism by Grace Blakeley is published by Verso
Producer: Ruth Watts
How German argument differs from English, the links between Arabic and Chinese and different versions of The 1001 Nights to the use of slang and multiple languages in the work of young performers and writers in the West Midlands: John Gallagher looks at a series of research projects at different UK universities which are exploring the impact and benefits of multilingualism.
Katrin Kohl is Professor of German Literature and a Fellow of Jesus College. She runs the Creative Multilingualism project. https://www.creativeml.ox.ac.uk/about/people/katrin-kohl https://www.creativeml.ox.ac.uk/creative-multilingualism-manifesto
Wen-chin Ouyang is a professor of Arabic literature and comparative literature at SOAS, University of London. Her books include editing an edition for Everyman's Library called The Arabian Nights: An Anthology and Politics of Nostalgia in the Arabic Novel: Nation-State, Modernity and Tradition. You can hear more from Wen-chin in this Free Thinking discussion of The One Thousand and One Nights https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b052gz7g
Rajinder Dudrah is Professor of Cultural Studies & Creative Industries at Birmingham City University. His books include the co-edited South Asian Creative and Cultural Industries (Dudrah, R. & Malik, K. 2020) and Graphic Novels and Visual Cultures in South Asia (Dudrah, R. & Dawson Varughese, E. 2020).
Saturday, 26 September is the European Day of Languages 2020 and Wednesday, 30 September is International Translation Day 2020 which English PEN is marking with a programme of online events https://www.englishpen.org/posts/events/international-translation-day-2020/
You might also be interested in this Free Thinking conversation about language and belonging featuring Preti Taneja with Guy Gunaratne, Dina Nayeri, Michael Rosen, Momtaza Mehri and Deena Mohamed. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07fvbhn
Here is a Free Thinking episode that looks at the language journey of the 29 London bus https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00014qk Steven Pinker and Will Self explore Language in this episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04hysms Arundhati Roy talks about translation and Professor Nicola McLelland and Vicky Gough of the British Council look at language learning in schools https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b5hk01
This episode of Free Thinking is put together in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI as one of a series of discussions focusing on new academic research also available to download as New Thinking episodes on the BBC Arts & Ideas podcast feed. You can find the whole collection here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
Producer: Karl Bos
The film starring Michael Caine was adapted from a 1970 Ted Lewis novel set in an underworld of gangsters and teenage pornography. Mike Hodges, Nick Triplow, Pamela Hutchinson and John Gray talk with Matthew Sweet about the influence of the book and film.
Originally set in Scunthorpe, Lewis' novel Jack's Return Home was relocated to Newcastle/Gateshead for the film which Mike Hodges adapted and directed. A series of events marking what would have been Ted Lewis's 80th birthday are taking place at Scunthorpe, Newcastle, Barton-upon-Humber and Hull.
Jack's Return Home (1970) was published in 1971 as Carter and later re-published as Get Carter after the film was made. Nick Triplow is the author of a biography Getting Carter: Ted Lewis and the Birth of Brit Noir
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
From the influential part played by Sikh queens, through the ties of marriage and religion which helped shape the Western world, back to the links between Neanderthals and early man: Rana Mitter talks to Priya Atwal, Joseph Henrich, and Rebecca Wragg Sykes about family ties, power networks, and history.
Priya Atwal has published Royal and Rebels: The Rise and Fall of the Sikh Empire. Dr Atwal is a Teaching Fellow in Modern South Asian History at King's College London. Joseph Henrich is a Professor in the department of Human and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and the author of The Weirdest People in the World: How the West became psychologically peculiar and particularly prosperous. Rebecca Wragg Sykes is an Honorary Fellow at University of Liverpool and Université de Bordeaux. She is the author of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art and is one of the founders of https://trowelblazers.com/
You might be interested in other Free Thinking conversations with Rutger Bregman author of Human Kind https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08d77hx Penny Spikins speaking about Neanderthal history at the 2019 Free Thinking Festival https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003zp2 Tom Holland on his history of the impact of Christianity on Western thinking in a programme called East Meets West https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00093d1
Producer: Robyn Read
From fancy dress parties using native American head-dresses to the continuing significance of Wampum belts made of shells - how do particular objects help us tell the story of the colonisation of America and what is the legacy of the ideas brought by Puritan settlers who left English port cities like Plymouth and Southampton 400 years ago? Eleanor Barraclough talks to 3 academics whose research helps us answer these questions - Sarah Churchwell, Kathryn Gray and Lauren Working - and we hear contributions from the Wampanoag Advisory Committee who have worked with curators at The Box museum in Plymouth on a touring exhibition.
Professor Sarah Churchwell's books include Behold, America: A History of America First and the American Dream. She is Director of the Being Human Festival which puts on public events focusing on research taking place at universities across the UK. This year's festival (Nov 12th - 22nd) includes Mayflower related events. https://beinghumanfestival.org/us/
Dr Kathryn Gray from the University of Plymouth has consulted on exhibitions commissioned for https://www.mayflower400uk.org/ Wampum: Stories from the Shells of Native America is on tour to SeaCity Museum, Southampton (to 18 October 2020), Guildhall Art Gallery, London (8 January to 14 February 2021) and The Box Plymouth (15 May to 19 July 2021) . Mayflower 400: Legend and Legacy runs at The Box Plymouth 29 September 2020 to 18 September 2021
Lauren Working is the author of The Making of an Imperial Polity: Civility and America in the Jacobean Metropolis and works as a researcher on the TIDE project which explores Travel, Transculturality and Identity in England c1550 - 1700. http://www.tideproject.uk/
This episode of Free Thinking is put together in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI as one of a series of discussions focusing on new academic research also available to download as New Thinking episodes on the BBC Arts & Ideas podcast feed. You can find the whole collection here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
You might also be interested in this conversation with Nandini Das and Claudia Rogers on their research into First Encounters: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kpgp
Producer: Robyn Read
Susanna Clarke, Adam Scovell, Lucy Arnold and Anton Bakker are Matthew Sweet's guests. Susanna Clarke talks about the inspiration behind the follow up to her best-selling first novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Piranesi is the springboard for a discussion about haunted spaces and mind-bending architecture in film, fiction and art from MC Escher to Christopher Nolan's Inception, Shirley Jackson to Mervyn Peake. The print maker Giovanni Battista Piranesi, who was born 300 years ago on Oct 4th 1720, became known for his etchings of Rome and images of imagined prisons.
Piranesi drawings: visions of antiquity is an exhibition planned by the British Museum now due to open early in 2021. Susanna Clarke's novel Piranesi is out now. Adam Scovell writes on film for Sight and Sound and is the author of books including Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange and two novellas: Mothlight and How Pale the Winter Has Made Us. Dr Lucy Arnold researches contemporary literature at the University of Worcester and is the author of Reading Hilary Mantel: Haunted Decades. Anton Bakker's virtual exhibition Alternative Perspective at the National Museum of Mathematics in NYC can be visited via the MoMath website.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The BBC Radiophonic workshop was founded in 1958 by Desmond Briscoe and Daphne Oram. This group of experimental composers, sound engineers and musical innovators provided music for programmes including The Body in Question, Horizon, Quatermass, Newsround, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Chronicle and Delia Derbyshire's iconic Doctor Who Theme before being shut down by Director General John Birt in 1998. Tying into the 2020 celebration of classic Prom concerts, this episode of Free Thinking is being rebroadcast
It was recorded in 2014, as the Workshop prepared to release an album, and tour the UK, Matthew Sweet brought together Radiophonic Workshop members Dick Mills, Paddy Kingsland, Roger Limb, Peter Howell, and Mark Ayres to reflect on the days and nights they spent in the workshop, coaxing ageing machines into otherworldly life, and pioneering electronic music. Also in the programme, producer and former drummer with The Prodigy Kieron Pepper, Oscar winning Gravity composer Steven Price, Vile Electrodes, and Matt Hodson, on the influence the Radiophonic Workshop had on them.
Producer: Laura Thomas
Classicists Edith Hall and Barry Cunliffe explore the importance of the sea in the classical world in a discussion hosted by Rana Mitter. Pat Barker and Giles Fraser look at Tolstoy's War and Peace and Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and the depiction of faith in those novels with presenter Ian McMillan.
The Ancient Greeks often preferred to take sea journeys rather than risk encounters with brigands and travelling through mountain passes inland and colonised all round the Black Sea and Mediterranean. In the writings of Xenophon and Homer, Greek heroes show skills at navigating and fighting on sea and the sea shore is a place people go to think.
Sir Barry Cunliffe is Emeritus Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford and the author of books including Facing the Ocean - the Atlantic and its peoples; Europe Between the Oceans; By Steppe, Desert and Ocean - the Birth of Eurasia. Edith Hall is Professor in the Department of Classics and Centre for Hellenic Studies at King's College, London. Her books include Introducing The Ancient Greeks: From Bronze Age Seafarers to Navigators of the Western Mind; Aristotle's Way - How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Mind; A People's History of Classics. You can find her discussing her campaign for schools across the UK to teach classics in a Free Thinking discussion called Rethinking the Curriculum https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08hq0ht
Pat Barker is the author of novels including her Regeneration Trilogy, Life Class, The Silence of the Girls and Noonday. Giles Fraser is an English Anglican priest, journalist and broadcaster.
Novelist Ben Okri, playwright Oladipo Agboluaje and academic Louisa Egbunike join Matthew Sweet to look at the influential writing of Nigerian playwright and author Wole Soyinka - and specifically at his play 1975 Death and the King's Horseman. In 1986 he became the first African author to be given the Nobel Prize in Literature. He has worked teaching at many universities in the USA, and began playwriting after studying at University College Ibadan, and then at Leeds University and working as a play reader for the Royal Court Theatre.
You can find a playlist of discussions devoted to Landmarks of Culture on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44 A BBC TV documentary about the African novel presented by David Olusoga is screening in August.
Extract from Death and the King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka features Danny Sapani as Elesin. Produced by Pauline Harris for the BBC. First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 13th July 2014
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy has written a philosophical take on the current pandemic and what it tells us about society. He talks with Stella Sandford, Director of the Society for European Philosophy in the UK and author of How to Read Beauvoir, whose own research looks at sex, race and feminism, and with Homi Bhabha, the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. The Virus in the Age of Madness by Bernard-Henri Lévy is out now. You can find a philosophy playlist on the Free Thinking programme website featuring discussions including panpsychism, Boethius, Isaiah Berlin, the quartet of C20th British women philosophers https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07x0twx You can also find Prof Homi K Bhabha giving a lecture on memory and migration recorded in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005gt9 Producer: Ruth Watts
Anne Applebaum's new book The Twilight of Democracy has the subtitle The failure of democracy and the parting of friends. She talks to Anne McElvoy about what happened when she tried to connect up with past friends whose politics are now different to her own. The American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman is most famous now for her short story The Yellow Wallpaper. Will Abberley tells us about her view of fashion and why women should not seek to stand out because a focus on their appearance was counterproductive to them gaining more public power. Gilman conjured a female utopia in her 1915 book Herland. And 2020 New Generation Thinker Sophie Oliver from the University of Liverpool writes us a postcard about the actress Ingrid Bergman and the way she and her would-be biographer Bessie Breuer tried to carve out a different public image for a female star in a novel Breuer published in 1957 called The Actress.
Will Abberley's book is called Mimicry and Display in Victorian Literary Culture You might be interested in the Essay Series Women Writers to Put Back on the Bookshelf which looked at Yolande Mukagasana, Storm Jameson, Margaret Oliphant, Lady Mary Wroth and Charlotte Smith https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fwff and this Essay about another feminist utopia in the writing of Sarah Scott https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b7hrw4
You can find previous Free Thinking conversations with Anne Applebaum to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts on Marxism https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b0x6m0 and Russian Nationalism https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b094f9p0
Producer: Ruth Watts
Subversion in art and writing and a project to re-imagine Dada. Curator Jade French, artist Jade Montserrat, writer Lottie Whalen and 2020 New Generation Thinker Noreen Masud are in conversation with Shahidha Bari.
You can find more about today's guests and their research at https://jademontserrat.com/ https://www.jadefrench.co.uk/research http://www.takedadaseriously.com/ http://lucywritersplatform.com/author/lottie-whalen/ https://www.dur.ac.uk/english.studies/staff/?id=17758
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to use their research to make radio.
In the Free Thinking archives you can find a playlist featuring artist interviews and discussions https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p026wnjl Radio 3 broadcast a ten part series looking at the life of Arthur Cravan called The Escape Artist https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000djhy
Producer: Robyn Read
Former musician and record producer Daniel Levitin is now a leading neuroscientist and best selling author. In this year marking the anniversary of the birth of Beethoven, Rana Mitter introduces a Proms Lecture called "Unlocking the Mysteries of Music in Your Brain", which uses Beethoven's compositions to set the Proms audience it was recorded with, in 2015, a series of challenges which reveal the relationship between memory and music.
You can also find Daniel Levitin talking to Rana Mitter about his latest research into ageing, and debating race and scientific evidence with Adam Rutherford in a Free Thinking episode called Genes, Racism, Ageing and Evidence https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fpj2
Gilbert White was born on July 19th 1720 at his grandfather's vicarage in Hampshire. His Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789) influenced a young Charles Darwin and he's been called England's first ecologist. Dafydd Mills Daniel from the University of Oxford tracks his influence on contemporary debates about the impact of man on the planet and the beginnings of precise and scientific observations about birds and animals. Dr Pippa Marland from the University of Leeds runs the Landlines project https://landlinesproject.wordpress.com/ and researches the way farming has been depicted in British literature. She has co-edited a collection of Essays for Routledge called Walking, Landscape and Environment. And Lucy Jones is the author of Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild. She talks about research into health and nature and women writers including Christiane Ritter. Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough hosts.
This conversation is part of a series showcasing new academic research which are made available as New Thinking podcasts on the BBC Arts & Ideas stream. They are put together with assistance from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UK research and innovation. https://ahrc.ukri.org/favouritenaturebooks/
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to work with early career academics and find opportunities in broadcasting to share their research. Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough and Dafydd Mills Daniel have both come through the scheme.
The Green Thinking playlist on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2 includes a re-reading of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005gwk and interviews with Elizabeth Jane Burnett about her poems about soil, an Essay about Charlotte Smith and an interview with Chris Packham
Producer: Robyn Read
Matthew Sweet delves into the deep history of magic, its evolution into religion and science and its continuing relevance in the 21st century. Joining his coven are novelist and historian Kate Laity, Professor of European Archaeology at Oxford University Chris Gosden, Jessica Gossling who's one of the leaders of the Decadence Research Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London and John Tresch, Professor of the History of Science and Folk Practice at the Warburg Institute.
The History of Magic - From Alchemy to Witchcraft, from the Ice Age to the Present by Chris Gosden is out now.
Chastity Flame by K.A. Laity is available now.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Artist and photographer Sunil Gupta, authors CN Lester (Trans Like Me) and Tom Shakespeare (The Sexual Politics of Disability), and Barbican curator Alona Pardo join Matthew Sweet in a discussion inspired by the Barbican exhibition called Masculinities: Liberation Through Photography which has this week re-opened to visitors. They debate whether the old construct of masculinity in our culture is broken? As new ideas and thinking enter the debate, what is essential and what we can do away with as we look to build a new masculinity?
The exhibition now runs until August 23rd.
Producer: Caitlin Benedict Web image credits: Sunil Gupta, Untitled 22 from the series Christopher Street, 1976. Courtesy the artist and Hales Gallery. © Sunil Gupta. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2019
You can find other Free Thinking discussions looking at identity and masculinity The Changing Image of Masculinity discussed by JJ Bola, Derek Owusu & Ben Lerner https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b0mx Beards, Listening, Masculinity https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0833ypd Jordan B Peterson https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b3fk63 Can there be multiple versions of me https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09wvlxs TV presenter and campaigner June Sarpong, performer Emma Frankland, GP and author Gavin Francis and philosopher Julian Baggini discuss the changing self with Anne McElvoy
Dina Rezk from the University of Reading looks at politics and the role of humour as she profiles Bassem Youssef “the Jon Stewart of Egyptian satire”. As protests reverberate around the world she looks back at the Arab Spring and asks what we can learn from the popular culture that took off during that uprising and asks whether those freedoms remain. You can hear her in a Free Thinking discussion about filming the Arab Spring https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005sjw and in a discussion about Mocking Power past and present https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dzww
You can find of Dina's research https://egyptrevolution2011.ac.uk/
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Robyn Read
New Generation Thinker Brendan McGeever traces the links between anti-semitism now and pogroms in the former Soviet Union and the language used to describe this form of racism. Brendan McGeever lectures at the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism at Birkbeck University of London. You can hear him discussing an exhibition at the Jewish Museum exploring racial stereotypes in a Free Thinking episode called Sebald, anti-semitism, Carolyn Forché https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00050d2
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten early career academics each year to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Robyn Read
The Roman statesman Boethius wrote The Consolation of Philosophy around the year 524 when he was incarcerated. It advises that fame and wealth are transitory and explores the nature of happiness and belief. Former Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway has been wrestling with the way we understand belief. He joins Professor Seth Lerer and New Generation Thinker Kylie Murray in a discussion chaired by Matthew Sweet.
Richard Holloway's new book is called Stories We Tell Ourselves: Making Meaning in a Meaningless Universe. Dr Kylie Murray, Fellow in English and Scottish Literature at Cambridge who has identified a Boethius manuscript as Scotland's oldest non-biblical book. Her own book The Making of the Scottish Dream-Vision is out shortly. Seth Lerer is Distinguished Professor and as Dean of Arts and Humanities at UC, Sand Diego and his books include Shakespeare's Lyric Stage, Inventing English A Portable History of the Language, Childrens' Literature A Reader's History from Aesop to Harry Potter and Boethius and Dialogue.
You can find more conversations about religious belief from guests including Mona Siddiqui, Karen Armstrong, Richard Dawkins, Rabbi Sachs in this playlist https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03mwxlp And a Free Thinking playlist on Philosophy includes discussions about St Augustine, Nietzsche, Camus, Isiah Berlin, Bryan Magee, Mary Midgely and Iris Murdoch https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000r9b
Producer: Robyn Read
Whose life stories are missing from the British history we write and teach? How do we widen the way we look at episodes which are on the syllabus?
Rana Mitter's panel comprises Kimberly McIntosh Senior Policy Editor from the Runnymede Trust, Lavinya Stennett founder of the Black Curriculum & New Generation Thinker Christienna Fryar, who runs the Black British History MA at Goldsmiths, University of London. Plus Hester Grant has just published a history of the Sharp family. Granville Sharp was instrumental in securing a definitive legal ruling on the question of whether a slave could be compelled to leave Britain. How does a group biography retell this story?
The Good Sharps by Hester Grant is out now. The Runnymede Trust and TIDE report can be found here https://www.runnymedetrust.org/projects-and-publications/education/runnymede-tide-project-teaching-migration-report.htm https://www.theblackcurriculum.com/our-work
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Prison breaks loom large in both literature and pop culture. But how should we evaluate them ethically? New Generation Thinker Jeffrey Howard asks what a world without prison would look like. His essay explores whether those unjustly incarcerated have the moral right to break out, whether the rest of us have an obligation to help -- and what the answers teach us about the ethics of punishment today. Jeffrey Howard is an Associate Professor in the Political Science Dept at University College, London whose work on dangerous speech has been funded by the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust. You can find him discussing hate speech in a Free Thinking Episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006tnf
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics who can turn their research into radio.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Earlier periods of history have seen more people with scarring to their faces from duelling injuries and infectious diseases but what stopped this leading to a greater tolerance of facial difference ? Historian Emily Cock considers the case of the Puritan William Prynne and looks at a range of strategies people used to improve their looks from eye patches to buying replacement teeth from the mouths of the poor, whose low-sugar diets kept their dentures better preserved than their aristocratic neighbours. In portraits and medical histories she finds examples of the elision between beauty and morality. With techniques such as ‘Metoposcopy’, which focused on interpreting the wrinkles on your forehead and the fact that enacting the law led to deliberate cut marks being made - this Essay reflects on the difficult terrain of judging by appearance.
Emily Cock is a Leverhulm Early Career Fellow at the University of Cardiff working on a project looking at Disfigurement in Britain and its Colonies 1600 – 1850. You can hear her discussing her research with Fay Alberti, who works on facial transplants, in a New Thinking podcast episode of the Arts & Ideas podcast called About Face https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p080p2bc
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Alex Mansfield
Anne McElvoy looks at leadership lessons from past US presidents, the parallels between the betting industry and fears over gambling in 1945 and now and she asks who are the key economic thinkers. Her guests are Callum Williams, senior economics writer at The Economist, 2020 New Generation Thinker Darragh McGee from the University of Bath and ahead of July 4th and Independence Day in the USA she revisits her interview with Doris Kearns Goodwin about her book called Leadership in Turbulent Times.
Callum Williams' book The Classical School: The Turbulent Birth of Economics in Twenty Extraordinary Lives is out now.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The screenwriter and novelist talks to Matthew Sweet about teaching creative writing to children in lockdown, attending mass on zoom, the changing meaning of community and the importance of family and he looks back to the image of Britain he created with Danny Boyle for the opening of the London 2012 Olympics.
Frank Cottrell-Boyce is the author of books including Millions, Framed, Runaway Robot and a sequel to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, He has worked on screenplays including The Two Popes, collaborations with Michael Winterbottom on films including 24 Hour Party People and scripts for Coronation Street and Doctor Who.
You can find Matthew Sweet talking to the author Sarah Perry https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08dmn6l and the actor Robin Askwith https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08fgxjp about their careers and this current moment in the Free Thinking archives.
And Frank Cottrell-Boyce giving the 2016 Proms Lecture on the importance of the arts https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p041vxwh
Producer: Karl Bos
New Generation Thinker Majed Akhter explores how large dam projects continue to form reservoirs of hope for a sustainable future. Despite their known drawbacks, our love affair with dams has not abated – across the world more than 3,500 dams are in various stages of construction. In Pakistan this has become entwined with nationalism, both inside the community and in the diaspora - but what are the dangers of this “dam fever” ? This Essay traces the history of river development in the region, from the early twentieth century “canal colonies” in Punjab, to Cold War mega-projects, to the contemporary drive to build large new dams. Previously an engineer and a resource economist, Majed Akhter now lectures in geography at King’s College London. you can hear him discussing the politics of rivers in a Free Thinking episode called Rivers and geopolitics https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00051hb
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten early career academics each year to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Alex Mansfield
Jade Halbert lectures in fashion but has never done any sewing. She swaps pen and paper for needle and thread to create a dress from a Jean Muir pattern. In a diary charting her progress, she reflects on the skills of textile workers she has interviewed as part of a project charting the fashion trade in Glasgow and upon the banning of pins on a factory floor, the experiences of specialist sleeve setters and cutters, and whether it is ok to lick your chalk. Jade Halbert is a Lecturer, Fashion Business and Cultural Studies at the University of Huddersfield. You can find her investigation into fashion and the high street as a Radio 3 Sunday Feature https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gvpn
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten early career academics to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
There is fascinating evidence that 5,000 years ago, people living in Britain and Ireland had a deep and meaningful relationship with the underworld seen in the carved chalk, animal bones and human skeletons found at Cranborne Chase in Dorset in a large pit, at the base of which had been sunk a 7-metre-deep shaft. Other examples considered in this Essay include Carrowkeel in County Sligo, the passage tombs in the Boyne Valley in eastern Ireland and the Priddy Circles in the Mendip Hills in Somerset. If prehistoric people regarded the earth as a powerful, animate being that needed to be placated and honoured, perhaps there are lessons here for our own attitudes to the world beneath our feet.
Susan Greaney is a New Generation Thinker who works for English Heritage at Stonehenge and who is studying for her PHD at Cardiff University. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which selects ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. You can hear her journey to Japan to compare the Jomon civilisations with Stonehenge as a Radio 3 Sunday Feature https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hgqx
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
This Essay tells a story of political marches and everyday acts of radical care; of sledgehammers and bags of rice; of the struggles for justice waged by migrant domestic workers but it also charts the realisation of Ella Parry-Davies, that acknowledging publicly for the first time her own condition of epilepsy – or “coming out crip” – is part of the story of our blindness to inequalities in healthcare and living conditions faced by many migrant workers.
Ella Parry-Davies is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London working on an oral history project creating sound walks by interviewing migrant domestic workers in the UK and Lebanon.
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten early career academics each year who can turn their research into radio. You can find playlists of programmes involving New Generation Thinkers on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0144txn
Producer: Robyn Read
Advances in robotics and virtual reality are giving us ever more 'realistic' ways of representing the world, but the quest for vivid visualisation is thousands of years old. This essay takes the guide to oratory and getting your message across written by the ancient Roman Quintilian and focuses in on a wall painting of The Judgment of Solomon in an Elizabethan house in the village of Much Hadham in Hertfordshire. Often written off as stiff, formal and artificial with arguments that the Reformation fear of idolatry stifled Elizabethan art, New Generation Thinker Christina Faraday argues that story telling and conveying vivid detail was an important part of painting in this period as art was used to communicate messages to serve social, political and religious ends. Christina Faraday is a New Generation Thinker who lectures in the History of Art at the University of Cambridge.
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten early career academics each year to turn their research into radio. You can find more programmes involving New Generation Thinkers on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0144txn and a series of podcasts hosted by them under the playlist New Research https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
Producer: Luke Mulhall
When Tom Smith sets out to research allegations of racism in Berlin’s club scene, he finds himself face to face with his own past in techno’s birthplace: Detroit. Visiting the music distributor Submerge, he considers the legacy of the pioneers Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, the influence of Afro-futurism and the work done in Berlin to popularise techno by figures including Kemal Kurum and Claudia Wahjudi. But the vibrant culture which seeks to be inclusive has been accused of whiteness and the Essay ends with a consideration of the experiences of clubbers depicted in the poetry of Michael Hyperion Küppers.
Tom Smith is a New Generation Thinker who lectures in German at the University of St Andrews.
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC with the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who turn their research into radio.
Producer: Robyn Read
Crime writer Ian Rankin talks with Tahmima Anam in a conversation organised in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature and the Bradford Literature Festival. Plus New Generation Thinker Xine Yao looks at the depiction of East Asian figures in science fiction films and writing. Shahidha Bari presents.
Ian Rankin's latest Inspector Rebus novel A Song For the Dark Times comes out in October. His cat-and-mouse espionage thriller Westwind was republished last September. Tahmima Anam's first novel debut novel, A Golden Age, was inspired by her grandparents' experiences of war in Bangladesh. It was followed in 2011 by The Good Muslim and the final book in the Bangladesh trilogy The Bones of Grace.
You can hear her discuss this in more detail in this Free Thinking conversation with Alain de Botton and AL Kennedy exploring writing about love https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b078xlft Ian Rankin can be found in the Free Thinking archives discussing Muriel Spark's novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09qdpj5
Bradford Literature Festival has a series of digital events running this year https://www.bradfordlitfest.co.uk/ You can find more conversations about literature including several past Free Thinking episodes on the Royal Literature Society website https://rsliterature.org/
Xine Yao is one of the 2020 New Generation Thinkers on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which selects academics to turn their research into radio. The book mentioned in the discussion is called Severance by Ling Ma. You can find a longer discussion about Fu Manchu in this Free Thinking programme called Neel Mukherjee, Images of China https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04jjnlx
Producer: Robyn Read Technical Producer: Craig Smith
Arundhati Roy, the Man Booker prize winning author and campaigner, is in conversation with Philip Dodd about a life in the public eye and the novel she published 20 years after The God of Small Things. She discusses the politics of Kashmir, the influence of architecture and why she chose a graveyard setting for her novel and how writing a transgender character Anjum, who is a Hijra, helped her tell the story. Her second novel is called The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.
The virtual Women of the World Festival takes place June 27-28 2020 https://thewowfoundation.com/wow-global-24/ You can find a playlist of Free Thinking conversations called Women in the World https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p084ttwp
Producer: Zahid Warley.
From a greater focus on Black history and poetry to classics in state school classrooms and an understanding of the history of science - Rana Mitter & guests debate the syllabus. Jade Cuttle is Arts Commissioning Editor at The Times, and a poet who both reviews and writes her own work https://www.jadecuttle.com Sandeep Parmar is Professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. She is hosting an online conversation at the 2020 Ledbury Poetry Festival and since 2017 she has worked on the Ledbury Emerging Poetry Critics which she co-founded with Sarah Howe in 2017. A report into the effects of this scheme shows that it has more than doubled the total number of BAME poetry reviewers writing for national publications in the last two years. You can find more on the Ledbury website about events they are running https://www.poetry-festival.co.uk/
Edith Hall is a Professor in the Classics Department at King's College London http://edithhall.co.uk/ Her latest book A People’s History of Classics co-written with Henry Stead examines the working class experience of classical culture in Britain.
Seb Falk is a historian at the University of Cambridge who previously worked as a teacher. He is a New Generation Thinker and his book about medieval science The Light Ages will be published in September. https://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/directory/dr-sebastian-falk
This conversation is part of a wider BBC Radio project Rethink which is looking at how we might change attitudes and approaches to a wide range of subjects https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08gt1ry
There is a playlist of Free Thinking discussions about maths, economics, sociology, archaeology, Black British history https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90 You can find Claudia Rankine giving the Free Thinking Festival Lecture here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06nbghv
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The writing life of two authors who should have been sharing a stage at the Bare Lit Festival. Irenosen Okojie and Nadifa Mohammed talk to Shahidha Bari in a conversation organised with the Royal Society of Literature. And 2020 New Generation Thinker Seren Griffiths describes a project to use music by composer at an archaeological site to mark the summer solstice and the findings of her dig.
The Somali-British novelist Nadifa Mohamed featured on Granta magazine's list "Best of Young British Novelists" in 2013, and in 2014 on the Africa39 list of writers under 40. Her first novel Black Mamba Boy won a Betty Trask Award. Her second novel The Orchard of Lost Souls won the Somerset Maugham Award and contributed poems to the collection edited by Margaret Busby in 2019 New Daughters of Africa.
Irenosen Okojie's debut novel, Butterfly Fish, won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Edinburgh First Book Award. Her short story collection, Speak Gigantular was shortlisted for the Edgehill Short Story Prize, the Jhalak Prize, the Saboteur Awards and nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award. Her most recent book is called Nudibranch.
You can find more information about the Bare Lit Festival http://barelitfestival.com/ and about the Royal Society of Literature https://rsliterature.org/ Irenosen is one of the voices talking about Buchi Emecheta in this programme https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09r89gt Caine Prize 2019 winner Lesley Nneka Arimah is interviewed https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006mtb Caine Prize 2018 winner Makena Onjerika https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b89ssp Billy Kahora a Caine nominee https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02tw6fg
The music used by Seren Griffiths is by https://jonhughesmusic.com/ and you can find out about the dig https://bryncellidduarchaeology.wordpress.com/the-bryn-celli-ddu-rock-art-project/ and the minecraft https://mcphh.org/bryn-celli-ddu-minecraft-experience/
New Generation Thinkers is the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Robyn Read
Francesca Wade and Paul Mendez talk to Shahidha Bari about Queer Bloomsbury in a conversation run in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature who set up events in mid-June to mark Dalloway Day, inspired by the 1925 novel from Virginia Woolf. Claudia Tobin from the University of Cambridge looks at Woolf's writing on art and the vogue for still lives and compares notes with 2020 New Generation Thinker Lucy Weir from the University of Edinburgh, who has written a postcard exploring dance, stillness and movement in lockdown.
Claudia Tobin's book is called Still Life and Modernism: Artists, Writers, Dancers. She was awarded a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. Francesca Wade is the author of Square Haunting. You can hear her focusing on the academics Jane Harrison and Eileen Power in a Free Thinking episode called Pioneering women: academics and classics https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dj0g Paul Mendez's novel is called Rainbow Milk Lucy Weir is a Teaching Fellow, Modern and Contemporary Art, History of Art at the University of Edinburgh and is one of the 2020 New Generation Thinkers on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the AHRC to select academics who can turn their research into radio.
You can hear a discussion of the novel Mrs Dalloway featuring the writers Hermione Lee, Alison Light and Margaret Drabble with Philip Dodd https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zt79p and you can find a host of conversations for Dalloway Day on the website of the Royal Society of Literature https://rsliterature.org/
Producer: Robyn Read
Two hundred years ago, Antarctica was discovered by Russian explorers and throughout this year the the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust is marking that anniversary. As we approach the date in June which is celebrated as midwinter with a special meal on the research stations - here's a chance to hear Rana Mitter and guests discussing the lure of this polar region both in our imaginations and as an aid to understanding what is happening to the planet.
Rana Mitter's guests are: writer Meredith Hooper, who has visited Antarctica under the auspices of three governments, Australia, UK and USA and is currently curating an exhibition about Shackleton and the Encyclopedia Britannica he took with him on Endurance. Polar explorer Ben Saunders completed the longest human-powered polar exploration in history to the South Pole and back, retracing Captain Scott’s Terra Nova expedition. Architect Hugh Broughton is the designer behind Halley VI, the UK's scientific base on the Brent Ice Shelf Jonathan Bamber is one of the world's leading experts on ice and uses satellite technology to monitor the mass of Antarctica's ice sheets; his work is central to predictions of ice melt and rising sea levels. He is head of the Bristol Glaciology Centre.
Recorded in front of an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas at Sage Gateshead in November 2014
You might also be interested in this discussion of Ice with Kat Austen, Michael Bravo, Jean McNeil and Tom Charlton https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001jzq You can find further information from the British Antarctic Survey https://www.bas.ac.uk/ and the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust https://www.ukaht.org/
Producer: Jacqueline Smith
What are the best shelters? the right language? how does our view of hosting families change if we look at refugee self help schemes and experiences in camps in Palestine and Syria ? A trio of researchers share their findings with John Gallagher as we mark Refugee Week 2020.
Dr Rebecca Tipton, from the University of Manchester, works on Translating Asylum - an ongoing research project looking at language and communication challenges common to individuals displaced by conflict both past and present https://translatingasylum.com/about/
Professor Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, from University College London, leads Refugee Hosts - an ongoing research project examining local community experiences of and responses to displacement from Syria: Views from Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. https://refugeehosts.org/
Associate Professor, Tom Scott-Smith, at the University of Oxford, is a 2020 New Generation Thinker and works on Architectures of Displacement - an ongoing research project exploring temporary accommodation for refugees in the Middle East and Europe. It is a partnership between the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University and the Pitt Rivers Museum. https://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/research/architectures-of-displacement
All of their work features in the Imperial War Museum London exhibition Refugees: Forced to Flee. You can find more on the website https://www.iwm.org.uk/ and on the website of the AHRC, part of UKRI, which helped put this programme together as part of a series focusing on the latest academic research from UK univerisites https://ahrc.ukri.org/ You can find all the conversations available as Ne w Thinking podcasts on the BBC Arts & Ideas feed and as a playlist here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
Producer: Karl Bos
Can our theatrical landscape survive financially, and how might it need to creatively adapt to survive post pandemic? As part of the Lockdown Theatre Festival, Anne McElvoy's panel features: Bertie Carvel - actor and executive producer of Lockdown Theatre Festival, whose roles include Rupert Murdoch in Ink, Miss Trunchbull in Matilda The Musical, and Simon in BBC One drama Doctor Foster. Amit Lahav – founder of Gecko, the internationally-touring physical theatre company based in Ipswich. Eleanor Lloyd – theatre producer, whose West End hits include Emilia, Nell Gwynn, and 1984. Roy Alexander Weise – Joint Artistic Director of Manchester Royal Exchange, awarded an MBE for services to drama. The discussion also include playful, thoughtful contributions from theatre makers including Inua Ellams, Tamara Harvey, Emma Rice, Dominic Cavendish, Bertrand Lesca, Tim Etchells, David Lockwood and Selina Thompson and an interview with Caroline Dinenage MP
Production: Jack Howson and Robyn Read
Lockdown Theatre will feature four plays that had their runs cut short: The Mikvah Project by Josh Azouz and originally showing at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, Love Love Love by Mike Bartlett recently revived for Lyric, Hammersmith Theatre, Rockets And Blue Lights by Winsome Pinnock - sadly suspended before its world premiere planned at Manchester’s Royal Exchange, and Shoe Lady by E.V. Crowe - cut short into its run at the Royal Court Theatre - Produced by Jeremy Mortimer, a Reduced Listening production for Radio 3 and Radio 4 and available on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08fw06m
In the Free Thinking archives you can find discussions including Dramatising Democracy with James Graham, Paula Milne Michael Dobbs and Trudi-Ann Tierney https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04yb7k6 Meera Syal and Tanika Gupta on dramatising Anita and Me https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06gt257 Is British Culture Getting Weirder? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000346m
How do you cope with a sense of failure? Michèle Roberts has been Booker shortlisted and has 12 novels under her belt but her latest book is a clear eyed account of a year spent rewriting after having a novel rejected. What sustained her in part were her female friends and cooking. Lara Feigel is the author of acclaimed non fiction books and her first novel takes the template of Mary McCarthy's 1963 novel about female friendship and examines the lives of women now set against the backdrop of the publishing world. Alexandra Reza has been thinking about the place of the kitchen in novels such as Maryse Condé’s Morsels and Marvels, Marie N’Diaye’s The Cheffe, Calixthe Beyala’s How to cook your husband the African way, and Sarah Maldoror’s Pudding for Constance. Shahidha Bari presents.
Michèle Roberts's latest book is called Negative Capability. You can find her talking to Free Thinking about smell and her novel The Walworth Beauty https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08n24f5
Lara Feigel's novel is called The Group. You can hear her in Free Thinking discussions about Doris Lessing https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09tml77 and a debate about Fiction of 1946 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07wrq03
Alexandra Reza is a 2020 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Robyn Read
Mathew Sweet with Linda Grant, Laurence Scott & Lucy Whitehead. Dickens died on June 9th 1870. In 1948, the critic FR Leavis published the Great Tradition and included only one Dickens novel but that same year saw the film of Oliver Twist by David Lean. Our panel have been re-reading novels including Bleak House, Martin Chuzzlewit and Great Expectations, looking at a form of Dickens fan fiction following his death, the changes in literary fashion and the way his work connects with the present day.
Linda Grant is the author of books including A Stranger City, The Dark Circle and When I Lived in Modern Times. Laurence Scott is the author of The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World and Picnic Comma Lightning. He is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. Lucy Whitehead is at the University of Cardiff studying biographies of Dickens and the art of Graingerising.
You might be interested in this conversation about Our Mutual Friend in which Philip Dodd talks with Iain Sinclair, Sandy Welch, Rosemary Ashton & Jerry White https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b0180f5k and a special edition of Radio 3's curated selection of Words and Music featuring readings from Dickens' diaries and letters by Sam West is being broadcast on Sunday June 14th and available for 28 days on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006x35f
Producer: Robyn Read
Naomi Paxton looks at the impact of the 2015 Modern Slavery Act, talking to researchers Katarina Schwarz and Alicia Kidd who are trying to measure and improve its effectiveness.
Katarina Schwarz from the Rights Lab at Nottingham University works with the Wilberforce Institute at the University of Hull on a project looking into what makes people from particular countries vulnerable to being trafficked and exploited, including in the UK.
Over the past five years, over 75% of people identified as potential victims of modern slavery in the UK represent only ten nationalities. The top 20 nationalities make up over 90% of referrals to the authorities. Rights Lab and Wilberforce Institute are working on research that interrogates the legal, policy, economic and social situation in these top 20 countries.
The Wilberforce Institute at the University of Hull, together with partners, is working on a project to develop a package of workshops targeted at front line practitioners, businesses, recruitment agencies and NGOs in local areas across the UK. Rather than relying on often dry and theoretical traditional workshops raising awareness on forms of modern slavery, the workshops will be based on real life situations. Alicia Kidd is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute working on this training project.
These projects are part of the work done through the Modern Slavery Policy and Evidence Centre. This episode of Free Thinking is put together in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI as one of a series of discussions focusing on new academic research also available to download as New Thinking episodes on the BBC Arts & Ideas podcast feed. You can find the whole collection here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90
Producer: Robyn Read