Free Thinking

The ideas shaping our lives today - with artists and thinkers in debates and interviews.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with artists and thinkers in debates and interviews.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with artists and thinkers in debates and interviews.

Norman S Poser, Emeritus Professor at Brooklyn Law School, is the author of Lord Mansfield: Justice in the Age of Reason.

Antonia Hodgson's first novel is called The Devil in the Marshalsea.

Dr Lucy Powell is a former BBC Radio 3 and AHRC New Generation Thinker.

Geoffrey Robertson QC is a civil liberties barrister and author.

Producer: Harry Parker.

Philip Dodd explores 18th-century attitudes to the law, crime and punishment.

Amanda Foreman is the author of books including Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and A World on Fire.

Jeremy Black's publications include: Debating Foreign Policy in Eighteenth Century Britain and Parliament, and Foreign Policy in Eighteenth Century Britain.

Stella Tillyard is an author of a novel, the Tides of War, set in the Peninsular War and historical biography of the Georgian period including the three sisters of George III, the 4 daughters of the Duke of Richmond and the Irish revolutionary, Lord Edward Fitzgerald.

Desmond Shawe-Taylor has written widely on art, including Georgian portraiture, and is the curator of the exhibition 'The First Georgians, Art and Monarchy 1714 -1760' running at the Queen's Gallery Buckingham Palace from the 11th April.

Producer: Harry Parker.

With Anne McElvoy. Historians including Amanda Foreman on 18th-century monarchy and power.

Aatish Taseer is a writer and journalist who was born in London, grew up in New Delhi and now lives in Manhattan. His first novel, The Temple-Goers was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award. His latest book is The Twice Born: Life and death on the Ganges. Among other publications he has written for Time Magazine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times.

Thomas Dixon was the first director of Queen Mary University of London's Centre for the History of the Emotions, the first of its kind in the UK. He is currently researching anger and has explored the histories of friendship, tears, and the British stiff upper lip in books Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears and The Invention of Altruism: Making Moral Meanings in Victorian Britain. You can hear his Free Thinking Festival Lecture here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0756nqp

Veronica Strang is an environmental anthropologist at Durham University who has researched with indigenous communities in Australia for many years. Her book Uncommon Ground: Landscape, Values and the Environment is about understanding people's emotional and imaginative attachments to places. She recently assisted the United Nations with research exploring cultural and spiritual values in relation to water.

Hear a Free Thinking discussion of ecstasy with Jules Evans, Hetta Howes, Roman Krznaric and Canon Angela Tilby https://bbc.in/2uIoPXb

Producer: Zahid Warley

Aatish Taseer, Veronica Strang and Thomas Dixon at the Free Thinking Festival.

The panellists are: Maria Balshaw Director, The Whitworth; Deborah Shaw, Head of Creative Programming and Interpretation, HM Tower of London; Diane Lees Director General, IWM London; Hugh Mulholland, Lead Curator, The MAC Belfast; Simon Murray Senior Director of Strategy, Curatorship and External Affairs, National Trust and Paul Smith Director, Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

Anne McElvoy chairs the 2015 Museum of the Year directors' debate at Tate Modern in London

TV dramatist Russell T Davies discusses his new projects for Channel 4, E4 and 4OD. Respectively titled Cucumber, Banana, and Tofu, they explore the passions and pitfalls of 21st century gay life.

Cucumber is a drama which screens Thursdays on Channel 4 at 9pm from Jan 22nd for 3 weeks

Banana screens Thursdays on E4 at 10pm from Jan 22nd for 3 weeks

Tofu is an online documentary series available on 4OD

And as another icon of British Brutalist architecture - Birmingham's Central Library - faces the bulldozers, Dr Barnabas Calder, the author of the forthcoming book Raw Concrete, examines our love-hate relationship with the grey stuff.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

Matthew Sweet discusses the 2015 Oscar nominations and talks to dramatist Russell T Davies

Ancient and Modern by Renee So is at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill until 12th January

Digging up Britain: Ten discoveries, a million years of history by Mike Pitts is available now

Vassa by Gorky in a new version by Mike Bartlett runs at the Almeida Theatre in London until November 23rd.

You can hear Booker prize winner Bernadine Evaristo talking about her depiction of 12 characters aged 12 to 93 in Girl, Woman, Other on the Free Thinking we broadcast back in May when the novel was published https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004s6n . You can find it in the Free Thinking Prose and Poetry playlist on the programme website.

Our podcast series New Thinking, which focuses on new research from UK universities, has an episode called Neolithic Revelations: A lack of Neolithic dental floss proves to be a boon for archaeologists. Penny Bickle and Jim Leary share some surprising findings. Find that on the podcasts tab on the Free Thinking website or sign up for the Arts and Ideas podcasts and never miss an episode. A direct link to it is here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07jwntx

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Anne McElvoy talks prehistory with archaeologist Mike Pitts and artist Renee So.

Building Anglo-Saxon England by John Blair

Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice by Mary Fulbrook

Trading in War: London's Maritime World in the Age of Cook and Nelson by Margarette Lincoln

Birds in the Ancient World: Winged Words by Jeremy Mynott

Oscar: A Life by Matthew Sturgis

Empress: Queen Victoria and India by Miles Taylor

The winner of the Wolfson History Prize 2019 was Mary Fulbrook. You can find Free Thinking discussions with the 2020 shortlisted historians being broadcast on Radio 3 and available as Arts & Ideas podcasts and there is a playlist showcasing new academic and historical research here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Rana Mitter and the six shortlisted historians with an audience at the British Academy.

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

Shahidha Bari looks at some of the best recent LGBTQ+ writing and photography.

Reading List:

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

Moniza Alvi, Europa

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

Voltaire, Candide

Sun Tzu, The Art Of War

Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, Barbarians At The Gate

Ali Smith, Autumn

Hannah Arendt, Men In Dark Times

Producer:Luke Mulhall.

Edith Hall, Chris Kissane and Matthew Sweet on what might be on a Brexit reading list.

Alicia Spencer-Hall is an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Language, Linguistics and Film at Queen Mary, University of London and the author of Medieval Saints and Modern Screens: Divine Visions as Cinematic Experience

Elizabeth Robertson is Professor at the University of Glasgow and the author of Early English Devotional Prose and the Female Audience and, with Christine M. Rose, the editor of Representing Rape in Medieval and Early Modern Literature.

Hetta Howes is a Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern Literature at City University, London. She is working on a book called Transforming Waters in Medieval Devotional Literature.

This programme was made with the assistance of the AHRC - the Arts and Humanities Research Council which funds research into the humanities and works with BBC Radio 3 on the New Generation Thinkers scheme to make academic research available to a wider audience. You can find more conversations about New Research on this playlist on the Free Thinking programme website where they are all available to download as episodes of the Arts & Ideas podcast https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90

Producer: Luke Mulhall

How does Chaucer write on rape and consent? What links Kim Kardashian and Margery Kempe?

Malika Booker co-founded Malika's Poetry Kitchen in 2001 to create a nourishing and encouraging community of writers dedicated to the development of their writing.She is currently the Douglas Caster Cultural Fellow at the University of Leeds. Her first poetry collection was called Pepper Seed and she also writes dramas.

Jake Arnott is the author of six novels including The Long Firm and The Fatal Tree. He took part in the tenth anniversary tour of the Polari LGBT literary salon.

Dr Katherine Cooper teaches at the University of East Anglia and is researching the PEN archive and gatherings involving authors including H.G.Wells, Graham Greene and Margaret Storm Jameson. She is a BBC Radio 3 and AHRC New Generation Thinker.

Neil Brand is a composer, dramatist and author and regular silent film accompanist at the BFI National Film Theatre and at the Barbican in London.

David Aaronovitch is a journalist, broadcaster and author of books including his memoir Party Animals: My Family and Other Communists;

Producer: Zahid Warley

Main image: Literary salon - illustration of Victor Hugo being introduced to Mme Recamier by Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand. Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images.

With guests Malika Booker, Neil Brand, Katherine Cooper, David Aaronovitch and Jake Arnott

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

From needlework to marriage portraits to depicting music on the page.

The Friendly Ones by Philip Hensher is published on March 8th.

Nick Hunt's book Where the Wild Winds Are: Walking Europe's Winds from the Pennines to Provence is out now.

Alas, Poor Yorick!': A Sterne 250-Year Anniversary Conference takes place at Cambridge 18 - 21 March and an Essay Collection is being published called 'A Legacy to the World': New Approaches to Laurence Sterne's 'A Sentimental Journey' and other Works to be edited by W.B Gerard, Paul Goring, and M-C. Newbould.

A new edition of A Sentimental Journey, illustrated by Martin Rowson, has been published by the Laurence Sterne Trust

An evening of music and readings to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the funeral of Laurence Sterne in the church where the original service took place.

St George's, Hanover Square, London W1S 1FX on 22 March 2018 features David Owen Norris, Susanne Heinrich, The Hilliard Ensemble, Patrick Hughes, Carmen Troncoso et al.

Producer: Robyn Read

(Image: Laurence Sterne circa 1760: English divine and writer, Laurence Sterne (1713 - 1768). Original Artwork: Engraved from a portrait by Joshua Reynolds. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images).

Sean Williams rereads Laurence Sterne's subjective travel book and talks to Philip Hensher

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 new videos are being launched as part of the 2020 Being Human Festival https://beinghumanfestival.org/ Sarah Hall is working on the launch of the new films.

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

Producer: Robyn Read

What would you change about your nose if you could? What about an entire face transplant?

Producer: Ella-mai Robey.

Zoe Wanamaker, David Suchet and Antony Sher talk about interpreting Arthur Miller's work.

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 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)

From the East India Company to Silicon Valley: the big ideas in his tercentennial year.

Listen out for a Words and Music episode that 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

Image: poet and playwright Liz Lochhead

Liz Lochead is one of Anne McElvoy's guests discussing how to update Moli\u00e8re.

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

Sylvan Baker discusses children in care and the Verbatim Formula in this Free Thinking programme about Kindness https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000j9cd

You can find a discussion of Motherhood in fiction, memoir and on the analyst's couch with Sheila Heti, Jessie Greengrass and Jacqueline Rose https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b3fjvg

The Woman of the Wolf and Other Stories by Ren退e 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

Fiona Sampson, Peggy Reynolds and Anne McElvoy talk poetry and writing personal stories

Catherine Fletcher's new book about the Italian Renaissance peels back the glittering art of the period to discover the political and military turmoil beneath while Jonathan Jones tells the story of Artemesia Gentileschi who channeled the trauma of her rape at 17 into a body of powerful and challenging work. Cho Nam-Joo's novel, translated by Jamie Chang, raises questions about misogyny and discrimination in today's Korea.

Rana visits the Art of Advertising exhibition at the Bodleian Library with curator Julie-Ann Lambert and Selina Todd, professor of modern history at Oxford University, where he explores how female buying power and social mobility transformed the consumer market.

Catherine Fletcher's book is called The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance.

Jonathan Jones has written a biography called Artemisia Gentileschi (Lives of the Artists).

An exhibition of her work runs at the National Gallery in London from 4th April to 26th July.

The Art of Advertising runs at the Bodleian Library in Oxford until August 31st. Admission is free.

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo is translated by Jamie Chang.

Selina Todd's books include The People: The Rise and Fall of the Working Class, and Tastes of Honey: the making of Shelagh Delaney and a cultural revolution.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put academic research on the radio. You can find a collection of programmes and podcasts on the Free Thinking programme website called New Research https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90

Also in the archives you can download a Free Thinking Landmark on The Prince with Catherine Fletcher with Sarah Dunant, Gisela Stuart and Erica Benner debating Machiavelli's ideas https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08h0l9j

and Breaking Free - Martin Luther's Revolution is debated by Peter Stanford, Ulinka Rublack and Diarmaid MacCulloch hosted by Anne McElvoy at LSE https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08nf02y

Producer: Paula McGinley

Historians Catherine Fletcher, Selina Todd and art critic Jonathan Jones join Rana Mitter.

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

Teju Cole, Noo Saro-Wiwa and Tate curator Osei Bonsu talk to Laurence Scott.

A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave trade to the Age of Revolution by Toby Green is out now

The Promise: Tales of Love and Loss by Xue Xinran is out now

Babel: Adventures in Translation 5 February 2019 — 2 June 2019 at Bodleian Libraries, ST Lee Gallery, Weston Library, Oxford

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Histories of West Africa, 20th-century China, and the art of translation.

Petina Gappah's novel is called Out of Darkness Shining Light - Being a Faithful Account of the Final Years and Earthly Days of Doctor David Livingstone and His Last Journey from the Interior to the Coast of Africa, as Narrated by His African Companions, in Three Volumes.

Sarah LeFanu's book is called Something of Themselves: Kipling, Kingsley, Conan Doyle and the Anglo-Boer War.

Laleh Khalilis' book, Sinews of War and Trade - Shipping and Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula is published in May.

Recent programmes on The Thirty-Nine Steps is https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02twj9g

And on The East India Company is https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000c0f7

Producer: Alex Mansfield.

Petina Gappah and Sarah LeFanu on Livingstone, Kipling and Mary Kingsley in Africa.

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 and Caryl Phillips discuss Afropean identities https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005sjw

A collection of episodes of New Thinking in the Arts & Ideas podcast feed is here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90

Image copyright Olivette Otele taken by Adrian Sherratt

Producer: Karl Bos

Professors Olivette Otele and Simon Hall on understanding connections in black history

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

Teju Cole, Noo Saro-Wiwa and Tate curator Osei Bonsu talk to Laurence Scott.

Teju Cole, Noo Saro-Wiwa and Tate curator Osei Bonsu discuss African culture, both at home and around the world, with Laurence Scott.

Johny Pitts is one of the team behind https://afropean.com/ an online multimedia, multidisciplinary journal exploring the social, cultural and aesthetic interplay of black and European cultures. He runs this with Nat Illumine. Johny Pitts has just published a book Afropean: Notes from Black Europe

Caryl Phillips' most recent novel A View of the Empire at Sunset is inspired by the travels of the writer Jean Rhys who moved from Dominica to Edwardian England and 1920s Paris and his first play Strange Fruit (1980) is being re-staged at the Bush Theatre in London until July 27th 2019.

Mari by Georgia Parris is at selected cinemas from June 21st 2019.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio. You can hear more from the 2019 Thinkers in this launch programme https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004dsv

Dina Rezk teaches at the University of Reading.

You can find extended conversations with Claudia Rankine, Teju Cole, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Spike Lee and Paul Gilroy included in our playlist on the Free Thinking website and available as BBC Arts&Ideas podcasts https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04ly0c8

Producer: Fiona McLean

Johny Pitts and Caryl Phillips discuss the idea of Afropean identity with Matthew Sweet.

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.

Finding meaning in the moment when the length of day and night is equal.

Art historian and biographer Frances Spalding offers her verdict on a new ballet from Wayne McGregor. Woolf Works takes its cue from 3 novels of Virginia Woolf - Mrs Dalloway, Orlando and The Waves. It features a new score by Max Richter.

And ahead of receiving an honorary Palme D'Or at Cannes this year, octogenarian Agnes Varda discusses her double life as celebrated filmmaker and artist.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

Tim Spector's The Diet Myth: The Real Science Behind What We Eat is published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson.

Alistair Campbell's Winners: And How They Succeed is published by Penguin.

Woolf Works is in rep at the Royal Opera House until the 26th of May.

Agnes Varda's installation 'Beaches, Beaches' at the University of Brighton Gallery is open until the 24th of May, as part of the Brighton Festival.

Image: Woolf Works

(c)ROH, 2015. Photographed by Tristram Kenton.

Matthew Sweet on the idea of 'gut instinct'. Plus the ballet Woolf Works and Agnes Varda.

Graham Caveney's book 'On Agoraphobia' is available now.

Kate Summerscale is the author of 'The Book of Phobias and Manias'.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Writer Graham Caveney joins Matthew Sweet and guests.

AI: More Than Human runs at the Barbican Gallery until August 26th 2019.

Part of a week-long focus Free Thinking the Future. You can find more interviews and discussions to download and catch up with on the playlist on our website

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zwn4d

Producer: Luke Mulhall

A playlist of videos on BBC Ideas Are You Robot Ready is here https://www.bbc.com/ideas/playlists/are-you-robot-ready

Main image: ©Sony Corporation

Credit Tristan Fewings/Getty Images

A discussion hosted by Matthew Sweet at the Barbican's exhibition AI More Than Human.

Choreographer Akram Khan talks to Anne McElvoy about curating a festival at the Lowry, the relationship between dance and visual art and his interest in flamenco. And a look at the impact of big data and algorithms on the business of recruitment.

The Witch of Edmonton is directed by Gregory Doran and performed as part of the repertoire by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford until November 29th.

Witches and Wicked Bodies is a free display at the British Museum showing until January 11th.

Diane Purkiss is the author of The Witch in History: Early Modern and Twentieth Century Representations published by Routledge.

Akram Khan: One Side to The Other is at The Lowry, Salford from November 15th to February 1st.

Akram Khan and Israel Galvan perform the new dance work Torobaka - which fuses kathak and flamenco -at Sadlers Wells November 3rd - 8th

Akram Khan performs Sacred Monsters with Sylvie Guillem at Sadlers Wells November 25th - 29th.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

WIth conversation from choreographer Akram Khan, plus witchcraft on stage and in prints.

Joseph Stiglitz was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 2001. His new book called The Great Divide explores income inequality.

Producer: Neil Trevithick

Image: Alain Mabanckou.

With novelist Alain Mabanckou on growing up in the Republic of Congo. Plus Joseph Stiglitz

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

You can find a playlist exploring different approaches to Philosophy on the Free Thinking programme website.

Other episodes looking at aspects of French culture include:

Jacques Tati's films https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v2zq

Sudhir Hazareesingh on French thought and Patrick Baert on existentialism https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b060zryk

Leila Slimani and Emile Chabal on French writing and politics https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09m1byr

Alain Mabanckou on experiences of the African diaspora in France https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05vh8sw

Ludivine Broch and Daniel Lee on World War II, gratitude and propaganda https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hwz9

Alain Finkielkraut and Karim Miske on Patriotism https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08583zx

Guests including author Tom McCarthy join Matthew Sweet to discuss the French 'new novel'.

Ken Loach pays tribute to Barry Hines, the Yorkshire writer behind one of his most memorable films, Kes.

The American cartoonist Daniel Clowes talks about his latest graphic novel, Patience.

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The Alan Clarke BFI retrospective runs from March 28th to April 30th and includes the newly discovered director's cut of The Firm, David Bowie in Baal, three previously-thought-lost TV episodes from 1967-68 and footage from an unfinished documentary project. It includes screenings and events at London's South Bank, at 9 mediatheques around the UK and DVD releases.

Patience by Daniel Clowes is out now.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

Phil Davis, Clio Barnard and Molly Clarke on the TV career of director Alan Clarke.

Recorded last month as a Proms Extra event with an audience at Imperial College.

Producer: Zahid Warley.

Alan Hollinghurst talks to Anne McElvoy about his new novel The Sparsholt Affair.

As Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland turns 150 and a new exhibition opens at the Museum of Childhood in London, New Generation Thinker Naomi Paxton, and curator Kiera Vaclavik, consider the cultural impact of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party.

And as Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd gets another big screen outing in a version starring Carey Mulligan, we ponder the Victorian writers who fall in and out of fashion in the modern era.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

Alberto Manguel talks to Matthew Sweet about curiosity and a lifetime of reading.

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.

Military leader, city founder, underwater explorer?! Rana Mitter on images of Alexander.

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 H G 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

Image: Salman Rushdie

Credit: Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Salman Rushdie is one of Matthew Sweet's guests for a conversation about the imagination.

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

American graphic novelist Alison Bechdel talks mushrooms, therapy and Adrienne Rich.

Jennifer Evans and Sara Read reveal how the story impacted on mothers and would-be mothers over centuries through their reading of 16th and 17th century medical textbooks. Garlic was one interesting diagnostic of pregnancy while menstrual periods played their part in murder trials.

Professor Stephen Greenblatt is the author of The Rise and Fall of Adam & Eve

Islam Issa is a New Generation Thinker and author of Milton in the Arab-Muslim World.

Jennifer Evans is a director of the Perceptions of Pregnancy research network, author of Aphrodisiacs, Fertility and Medicine in early modern England and editor of Perceptions of Pregnancy from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century .

Sara Read is author of Maids, Wives, Widows: Exploring Early Modern Women's Lives, 1540-1740 ; Maladies and Medicine: Exploring Health and Healing, 1540-1740 co-authored with Jennifer Evans. (2017)

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Image: Imperial Cathedral Of Speyer Paintings, Expulsion From Eden. Photo credit: BSIP / UIG via Getty Images.

Catherine Fletcher with Stephen Greenblatt, Islam Issa, Jennifer Evans and Sara Read.

Mark Blacklock has written a novel called Hinton which traces the life and ideas of Charles Howard Hinton (1853 - 1907) who wrote an article in 1880 called What is the Fourth Dimension.

Jeffrey Kripal holds the J Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University and his book The Flip: Who You Really Are and Why It Matters has just been published in the UK. It includes the experiences of figures including AJ Ayer,, Hans Berger, Huxley, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Michael Shermer.

Lisa Mullen is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker and author of a book called Mid-century gothic: The uncanny objects of modernity in British literature and culture after the Second World War.

Lisa recommends Powell and Pressburger's Second World War film A Matter of Life and Death. Mark recommends Edwin Abbott Abbott's satirical novella Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions published in 1884.

Producer: Robyn Read

You might also be interested in the Free Thinking playlist on philosophy on the website which includes programmes about pansychism https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0144txn

or in Shahidha's discussion about the new biography of Maths professor Frank Ramsey https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fws2

Shahidha Bari explores the impact of life-changing experiences and the fourth dimension.

Jos退 Lingna Nafaf退 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.

Ant　nio Tomကs is the author of several publications in Portuguese and English, namely Am퀀lcar 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 Watts

You 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/p08t2qbp

They include a conversation about the writing of Aim退 C退saire and the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nmxf

A discussion of Frantz Fanon https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000tdtn

Rana Mitter and guests discuss the pan-Africanist poet and anti-colonial leader.

Jesmyn Ward's novels include Salvage the Bones, Where the Line Bleeds and Sing, Unburied Sing - and a memoir called Men We Reaped. She has received a MacArthur Genius Grant and won two National Book Awards for Fiction. She has edited a collection of Essays called The Fire This Time which takes its inspiration from James Baldwin's 1963 examination of race in America, The Fire Next Time.

Professor Sarah Churchwell is the author of books including Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby and Behold America: A History of America First and the American Dream

John Edgar Wideman's work includes the novels The Cattle Killing and Philadelphia Fire and the memoir Brothers and Keepers. His new collection of short stories - American Histories - weaves real characters including Frederick Douglass and Jean-Michel Basquiat into imaginary narratives.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Jesmyn Ward, John Edgar Wideman and Sarah Churchwell talk to Christopher Harding.

Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3) by Suzan-Lori Parks is at the Royal Court Theatre in London 15 Sep - 22 Oct

Abstract Expressionism is on show at the Royal Academy of Arts in London from September 24th to January 2nd.

Gary Younge's book is called Another Day In The Death of America

Frances Stonor Saunders is the author of Who Paid the Piper?: CIA and the Cultural Cold War

William Boyd is the author of many novels including one which presents a fictional biography Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928-1960

(Image: Suzan-Lori Parks / Credit: Helen Murray).

With dramatist Suzan-Lori Parks, plus gun culture and abstract expressionism at the RA.

Kevin Powers' prize winning novel The Yellow Birds explored the experience of soldiers and their lack of control. His new novel A Shout in the Ruins looks at the long shadows cast by the American Civil War and slavery.

Gary Lachman discusses non-rational or pre-Enlightenment thinking in contemporary politics and culture as he publishes his latest book called Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump. He is joined by Professor Christine Ferguson from Stirling University who researches the influence of the occult on popular culture and politics in the UK.

Psychologist Kevin Dutton and broadcaster and psychotherapist Lucy Beresford

discuss the idea that psychopaths are drawn to certain careers, including radio journalism.

Kevin Dutton's books include The Wisdom of Psychopaths. Lucy Beresford is the host of LBC's Sex and Relationships phone-in show.

Iraq vet and novelist Kevin Powers, Gary Lachman, and the careers picked by psychopaths.

Also, we explore one of the philosophical techniques informing Srinivasan's work: genealogy. First named by Friedrich Nietzsche (although arguably practised 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 Novaes and Christoph Schuringa.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

The Right to Sex is the title of Amia Srinivasan's new book. Christopher Harding hosts.

Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh weaves the ancient legend about the goddess of snakes, Manasa Devi into a journey between America, the Sundarbans and Venice. You can also find Amitav Ghosh talking to Free Thinking about the need for fiction to reflect climate change here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07z7bnd

The emotional epic that is Layla and Majnun is the subject of events at the Bradford Literature Festival https://www.bradfordlitfest.co.uk/ which runs until July 7th and the Shubbak Festival which runs until July 14th https://www.shubbak.co.uk/ Film maker Soraya Syed and story-teller and producer Alia Alzougbi discuss the story's eternal attraction and ability to speak to contemporary issues.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio. Islam Issa teaches at Birmingham City University. His books include Milton in the Arab-Muslim World.

~Free Thinking Landmarks on Paradise Lost https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08nf037

One Thousand and One Nights https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b052gz7g

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Image: Amitav Ghosh © Ivo Van Der Bent

Her new book, written with her husband, is called The Triple Package: What Really Determines Success.

Versailles, Peter Gill's new play at the Donmar Theatre in London takes its inspiration from the peace negotiations at the end of the First World War. We have a first night review.

Producer: Neil Trevithick.

Writers Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld talk to Anne McElvoy about what determines success.

Elliot Ackerman has written Places and Names.

Emma Sky has written In a Time of Monsters.

Shiromi Pinto has written Plastic Emotions

You can hear a Free Thinking discussion about Why We Fight with Former army officer Dr Mike Martin and Priya Satia https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b1pyn4

How Terrorism Works https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08v8y00

Diplomacy https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b094sxfh

Catch 22 https://bbc.in/2XFtIvU

Producer: Fiona McLean

Ex-marine and journalist Elliot Ackerman on al-Qaeda and the Iraq War.

Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia by David Graeber has been published posthumously in 2023.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

You can find discussions exploring The Way We Live Now on the Free Thinking programme website - all available on BBC Sounds and as the Arts & Ideas podcast https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p072637b There are conversations about existential risk, mind altered states, the glitch, breathe, perfecting the body to John Rawl's Theory of Justice

Matthew Sweet and guests look at the ideas of the American anthropologist (1961-2020)

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

From medieval science to the ingenuity of Arctic peoples and the resilience of island life

The Sugar-Coated Bullets of the Bourgeoisie by Anders Lustgarten runs at the Arcola Theatre in London 7 - 30 April before opening the 10th High Tide festival of new writing in Suffolk in September.

The Arab of the Future by Riad Sattouf is out now.

With Rana Mitter. Including playwright Anders Lustgarten and Saki's satirical stories.

In the film Still Life Eddie Marsan plays a council worker who searches for the next of kin when someone is found dead and alone in a house. Eddie Marsan talks about creating this character and how much we know about a person's identity.

Still Life certificate 12A is showing at cinemas in key cities around the UK.

Critic Charlotte Mullins considers artists' obsession with capturing their image and that of their friends, as the National Portrait Gallery hosts a series of paintings by John Singer Sargent documenting his celebrity acquaintances.

Sargent: Portrait of Artists and Friends runs at the National Portrait Gallery in London from 12th Feb to 25th May curated by Richard Ormond the co-author of John Singer Sargent's catalogue raisonn退.

Andrew O'Hagan talks to Matthew Sweet about his new novel which looks at memory and war.

Salom退 is at the National Theatre from May 2nd to July 15th with an NT live broadcast around the UK on June 22nd.

Angels in America: part one Millennium Approaches is an NT live broadcast on July 20th and runs in rep until August 19th.

Angels in America: part two Perstroika is an NT live broadcast on July 27th and runs in rep until August 19th.

Queer British Art 1861-9167 runs at Tate Britain until October 1st 2017.

A Gay History of Britain: Love and Sex Between Men Since the Middle Ages by Matt Cook is out now.

Tony Kushner's drama Caroline, or Change is at the Chichester Theatre until June 3rd in a production starring Sharon D. Clarke

The Russell-Cotes Museum in Bournemouth opens Refracted: Collection Highlights, which has been co-curated with members of the local LGBT+ community May 13th which runs until September 8th and includes a photograhy exhibition opening in August.

Desire Love Identity: exploring LGBTQ histories is a free display in Room 69a which runs at the British Museum until October 15th.

Producer: Fiona McLean

(Image: Andrew Garfield (Prior) in Angels in America - Millennium Approaches © Helen Maybanks)

Philip Dodd looks at desire and politics as Angels in America runs at the National Theatre

Pause for a moment and you realise it's impossible to ignore the Black Lives Matter protests or the urgent polemics of the writer and activist Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose passionately angry new book about race in the US, The Beautiful Struggle, comes out this week. It's difficult to turn a blind eye to the rearguard action that's being fought by Indian writers and intellectuals such as Arundhati Roy, targeted by Hindu nationalists determined to seize control of the political agenda on the Subcontinent.

Who is angry with whom and why; and what about the populist anger that seems to be propelling Donald Trump towards the Republican presidential nomination and the White House. Join Philip Dodd and his guests as they search for the answers.

Sunil Khilnani is the author of Incarnations: India in 50 Lives. He is currently presenting a series based on the book on BBC Radio 4.

Pankaj Mishra is the author of several books including From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia.

The Beautiful Struggle by Ta-Nehisi Coates is out now.

Philip Dodd considers rage in the politics of the US and India.

From Cape Town the South African man of the theatre Athol Fugard pays tribute to his late friend and fellow activist the author Nadine Gordimer.

And Matthew asks David Wilson and Gerard Lemos, commentators on the penal system, whether there is an alternative to prison or if prison is the alternative.

Matthew Sweet discusses prisons and anthropomorphism.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

You 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 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vh

Matthew Sweet looks at the writer of a dystopian psychodrama, Ice, who died in 1968.

As arguments about whether the statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College, Oxford should be allowed to remain in place continue to divide students and alumni, journalist Nick Cohen and former Rector of Exeter College, Oxford Dame Frances Cairncross discuss how present day funding of colleges and universities can also be a contentious issue.

New Generation Thinker Peter Mackay explores the contrasting folk traditions in Irish and Scottish poetry as Radio 3 begins a weekend exploring folk connections.

Anna Pavord's Landskipping: Painters, Ploughmen and Places is out now.

Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse runs at the Royal Academy in London from January 30th to April 20th.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Main Image: Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, c1880 - the gardens were designed by Capability Brown. Taken from: A Series of Picturesque Views of Seats of the Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland, edited by Reverend FO Morris, Volume I, William Mackenzie, London, c1880. Wood-engraved plates after paintings by Benjamin Fawcett and Alexander Francis Lydon.

Anna Pavord visits Painting the Modern Garden the Royal Academy and talks to Anne McElvoy.

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

Anne Applebaum, and the lives of Ingrid Bergman and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

The labour economist Richard Layard and David M. Clark, Professor of Psychology at Oxford and leading expert on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, discuss the economics of psychological therapy - the subject of their book Thrive: The Power of Psychological Therapy. The authors are giving a talk at The Royal Institution in London, on Wednesday 13 May at 7pm.

Playwright and screenwriter Christopher Hampton explains his approach to translating the plays of contemporary French dramatist Florian Zeller whose play The Mother won the Moliere prize in 2011.

The Theatre Royal Bath stages the UK premiere of The Mother from May 21st to June 20th. And the Theatre Royal production of The Father is being performed at The Tricycle Theatre in London from May 7th to June 13th.

Anne McElvoy is joined by novelist Anne Enright and playwright Christopher Hampton.

Anne Enright's novels include The Gathering; The Forgotten Waltz and The Green Road.

Emily Butterworth works on early modern literature and thought, with a particular interest in Montaigne and in deviant speech and language.

Her book The Unbridled Tongue: Babble and Gossip in Renaissance France, looks at forms of excessive speech - babble, gossip and rumour - and why they were considered so personally and politically dangerous in the sixteenth century.

Daisy Black researches medieval history at the University of Wolverhampton and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to put academic research on the radio. She writes about women in performance in The Routledge History of Women in Early Modern Europe. Her book Play Time: Gender, Anti-Semitism and Temporality in Medieval Biblical Drama is out this year.

Marie Le Conte is a political journalist who has worked for the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mirror, the Evening Standard and BuzzFeed. Her book Haven't You Heard? Gossip, power, and how politics really works explores the potency of gossip in the Westminster bubble.

You can find Matthew Sweet and guests discussing What is Speech? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b1q2f3

Producer: Paula McGinley

The Irish novelist talks to Laurence Scott, plus a discussion of gossip past and present.

Plus a postcard from 2020 New Generation Thinker Diarmuid Hester on the saving of Derek Jarman's house and garden - also the subject of Sunday's Words and Music which you can find on BBC Sounds and here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jdz0

The Norfolk and Norwich Festival which would have featured the meeting of Romesh and Anne has more author interviews on its website https://nnfestival.org.uk/

Romesh Gunesekera's latest book is Suncatcher. You can hear him discussing it in more detail with William Dalrymple and Susheila Nasta in an episode of Free Thinking called The Shadow of Empire and Colonialism https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000c0f7

Anne Fine's books include Goggle Eyes, The Granny Project, The Jamie Angus Stories, The Tulip Touch, Battle of Wills and her latest Blood Family. You can hear her discussing family life along with Tobias Jones, Tom Shakespeare and Professor Sarah Cunningham Burley in a Free Thinking Festival discussion called The Family is Dead, Long Live the Family https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06pswsk

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who turn their research into radio. You can find a series of Essays and postcards from them in playlists on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0144txn

Producer: Robyn Read

Shahidha Bari hosts a conversation recorded with the Royal Society of Literature.

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 out October 2020 from Vintage.

Sophie Oliver teaches at the University of Liverpool researching women and modernist writers including Jean Rhys. She also writes for TLS, Burlington Magazine and The White Review.

Peter Mackay teaches at the University of St Andrews and has published on Sorley MacLean, an anthology An Leabhar Liath: 500 years of Gaelic Love and Transgressive Verse and his own collection of poems Gu Le r / 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

Producer: Emma Wallace

Links between biography and poetry. Telling modern Ugandan stories. With Shahidha Bari.

Two great german artists go head to head; Anselm Kiefer is at the Royal Academy until December 14th whilst the late Sigmar Polke has a huge retrospective called Alibis at Tate Modern. Tim Marlow, Head of the R.A. together with art historian, Karen Lang, and experienced Germany-watcher and Standpoint Editor, Daniel Johnson discuss reading history through the paintings of Kiefer and Polke ahead of next month's 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall.

And the man often touted as France's greatest writer has just won this year's Nobel prize for Literature. Anne talks the contribution of Patrick Modiano to film as well as literature with Ian Christie and Akane Kawakami.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

Anne McElvoy discusses Phyllida Lloyd's all-female production of Shakespeare's Henry IV.

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

Ben Saunders, Meredith Hooper, Hugh Broughton and Jonathan Bamber join Rana Mitter.

But why bother to grow up at all? Matthew ponders this question and more with academics Susan Neiman and Robert Pogue Harrison, both of whom have just published books shining a spotlight on our modern day obsession with youth.

And as a major retrospective of the late French director, Eric Rohmer, begins at the British Film Institute, critics Jonathan Romney and Ginette Vincendeau look at the auteur's fascination with characters in the summer of their lives.

Additional information:

Robert Pogue Harrison's book is called Juvenescence.

Susan Neiman's book is called Why Grow Up.

The BFI's Eric Rohmer season runs until the 27th of January.

Image Credit: Sue Greenhill.

Antonia Fraser talks to Matthew Sweet about her Memoir of Growing Up.

Sher has just published his account of playing Falstaff in Gregory Doran's 2014 RSC production of the two parts of Henry IV - Year of the Fat Knight: The Falstaff Diaries.

Another RSC production, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, also directed by Doran, is about to transfer from Stratford to the Noel Coward Theatre in London, with Sher in the role of Willy Loman.

Producer: Torquil Macleod

Image: Antony Sher in Death of a Salesman

Photo Credit: Ellie Kurttz.

Philip Dodd is in extended conversation with actor Antony Sher.

On Edge: Living in an Age of Anxiety is a new exhibition at Science Gallery London until 19th January 2020 which combines art, design, psychology and neuroscience drawing on research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King's College London.

Comedian Sofie Hagen has explored her experience of anxiety in many of her shows notably Shimmer Shatter which described with brutal honesty what she calls her outsider status and why she's been known to hide public toilets so she doesn't have to deal with other people. Her new show The Bumswing runs until June 14th 2020. Tour details and her podcast Made of Human Podcast on https://www.sofiehagen.com

Political journalist Isabel Hardman has written about going through a severe bout of anxiety 2 years ago which forced her to take a lengthy break from her job at the Spectator. As she puts it herself, 'my mind was full of words flying angrily around like startled gulls.' She argues that Government policy should do much more to tackle the issue of mental health care. Her latest book is called Why We Get the Wrong Politicians.

Born and brought up in Colombia, journalist and novelist H退ctor Abad has written a memoir called Oblivion about his late father who was killed by right wing paramilitaries in 1987.

In the Free Thinking archives - Anxiety and the Teenage Brain hears a student, university counsellor and psychologist Stephen Briers from TV's Teen Angels give their take on anxiety https://bbc.in/2D4WPRV

Producer: Paula McGinley

Comedian Sofie Hagen, Colombian novelist Hector Abad & Isabel Hardman join Shahidha Bari.

Caroline Dower is a psychotherapist and currently Head of the Counselling Service at Durham University. She has a special interest in the experience of psychological distress, and the experience of anxiety in young adults.

Ceyda Uzun is a student at Kings College London, currently in her final year studying English Literature. She is a former Into Film Reporter and Head Editor of The Strand Magazine who has written on topics including mental health, identity and youth culture.

Stephen Briers is a British clinical psychologist who took part in BBC Three's Little Angels and Teen Angels, working with Tanya Byron. He has presented the Channel 4 series, Make Me A Grownup, The 10 Demandments for Channel Five and appeared on GMTV. He has written a parenting book called Superpowers for Parents, Help your Child to Succeed in Life and contributes frequently to the Times Educational Supplement.

BBC Action Line 08000 155 998 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/actionline

Producer: Debbie Kilbride

Stephen Briers, Caroline Dower and Ceyda Uzun join Anne McElvoy at Sage Gateshead.

Producer: Ruth Watts

John Gallagher's guests decode changes in Behn's loyalties from her plays and dedications.

The Rover runs in rep at The Swan Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon from September 8th until February 11th 2017.

The Root 1066 festival runs until October 16th at a variety of venues. http://www.1066contemporary.com/

Mark Thompson is the author of Enough Said: What's Gone Wrong with the Language of Politics

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Anne McElvoy discusses Aphra Behn at the RSC and a festival marking 1066.

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

Image: Neville Chamberlain at the BBC in 1937

How does Neville Chamberlain's capitulation to Hitler in 1938 affect politics in 2022?

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Catriona Byers is completing a PhD at King's College London on the nineteenth-century morgues of Paris and New York

Dr 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 Sounds

Dr Harriet Soper is Lecturer in Medieval Literature at the University of Bristol

Pauline Harding is working on a PhD at UCL's Institute of Archaeology, about spirits and approaches to cultural heritage in Uganda

Archaeologists Marianne Hem Eriksen, Pauline Harding: historians Cat Byers, Harriet Soper

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

From the Arabian nights to refugee stories - female voices fictional and real.

Joining them to discuss the changing story of archaeology itself in this country and abroad, Raimund Karl, Professor of Archaeology and Heritage at Bangor University who has done two continent-wide surveys on the state of the profession in Europe while continuing to dig, study and develop the ever changing story of the Celts, and Susan Greaney, who works for English Heritage presenting interpretations of sites from Stonehenge to Tintagel to the public when she's not digging in Orkney and pursuing her phd on Neolithic ceremonial complexes.

Storms, War and Shipwrecks: Treasures from the Sicilian Seas is at the Ashmolean Museum 21 June 2016 - 25 September 2016

Sunken Cities: Egypt's Lost Worlds is at the British Museum from May 19th - November 27th 2016.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Guests: Alexandra Sofroniew, exhibition curator Storms, War and Shipwrecks, Ashmolean Museum

Damian Robinson, Director, Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology

Raimund Karl, Professor Archaeology and Heritage, Bangor University

Susan Greaney, English Heritage

Main image: A warship ram raised from the seabed (detail) (c/o the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford - (c) RPM Nautical Foundation).

Rana Mitter on underwater archaeology at home and abroad, discussing two new exhibitions.

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

Producer: Sofie Vilcins

Image: Hepworth Wakefield Art Gallery

Credit: BBC (Ian Youngs)

Behind the scenes at the Hepworth Wakefield, the Barbican and the Alan Turing Institute.

As this year's Turner Prize comes to Margate for the first time, Philip Dodd looks at whether the arts are a successful driver of regeneration, with Turner Contemporary Director Victoria Pomery and the social artist Dan Thompson, who has looked at people, place and change throughout his career.

We reflect on the Turner Prize exhibition itself, and the work of shortlisted artists Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Helen Cammock, Oscar Murillo and Tai Shani. The exhibition runs at Turner Contemporary until January 12th and the winner is announced on December 3rd.

The author Maggie Gee's new novel Blood is set in Margate and the surrounding area of Thanet. A darkly comic crime thriller set in Brexit Britain East Kent where the political atmosphere bleeds into the action. Her imposing protagonist Monica is accused of murdering the tyrannical patriarch of her family - a situation complicated by the fact she's armed with an axe ready to do just that, when she finds her father's body. Maggie tells us about Blood and how the local area is a perfect canvas for the story.

Margate is hosting several events as part of Being Human, the UK's national festival of the humanities which runs from November 14th to the 23rd - you can find more information on their website https://beinghumanfestival.org/

Literary historian Professor Carolyn Oulton is hosting a Murder Mystery trail in Margate for Being Human, amongst other things, and has been studying seaside towns in literature during the railway age. She gives us a view of Margate from the Victorian era - a bustling, promiscuous, populist place full of tourists - and the kind of stories set there. Crime and romance reads for the beach did particularly well for the holiday market, with works like Love in a Mist and Death in a Deckchair key tomes in the Margate canon.

Producer: Karl Bos

Philip Dodd finds out about the Turner Contemporary's impact. Plus writer Maggie Gee.

Producer: Zahid Warley

Quassim Cassam is professor of philosophy at Warwick University. He is the author of Self Knowledge for Humans and his new book, Vices of the Mind will be published next year.

Gustav Kuhn teaches psychology at Goldsmiths College, University of London. His book Experiencing the Impossible : The Science of Magic will be published next year.

Sarah Marks is a post doctoral researcher at Birkbeck College in London where she is one of the team involved in the Hidden Persuaders project.

Poppy Noor is a journalist and contributes to The Guardian newspaper.

Robert Colvile is the director of the Centre for Policy Studies.

Who's pulling your strings? Matthew Sweet and guests track down today's hidden persuaders.

Philip Dodd brings together the MP and author Kwasi Kwarteng, historians Helen Berry, Jerry White and AN Wilson and playwright April De Angelis for a discussion which is part of BBC Radio 3's eighteenth century season of programming .

Kwasi Kwarteng's books include Ghosts of Empire and War and Gold

AN Wilson is a newspaper columnist and the author of London A Short History and a series of histories of England including Our Times.

Helen Berry is Professor of British History at Newcastle University and the author of The Castrato and His Wife.

Jerry White has spent 15 years writing a trilogy of books about London including his most recent London In The Eighteenth Century. He is Visiting Professor of London History at Birkbeck, The University of London.

April De Angelis has written plays including Jumpy, Gastronauts, Catch and A Laughing Matter.

Produced by Harry Parker.

Philip Dodd explores the parallels between the 18th-century London and now.

Also, looking at stress in business and the nature of leadership, are the Deputy Chairman of Saatchi and Saatchi Worldwide, Richard Hytner, and Kerrie Fleming, Director of The Ashridge Leadership Centre. Richard's book Consiglieri: Leading from the Shadows considers the role of the second in command in an organisation.

Anne talks to author Zia Haider Rahman whose debut novel In the Light of What We Know contains elements of his own Bangladeshi background, a scholarship to Oxford and time spent as an investment banker on Wall Street.

And Anne pays tribute to the late Maya Angelou's influence and humour.

Arianna Huffington talks to Anne McElvoy about measuring success using 'The Third Metric'.

Martin Goodman's novel J SS Bach is published in March 2019.

Daniel Snowman's books include The Hitler Emigr退s: The Cultural Impact on Britain of Refugees from Nazism.

Monica Bohm-Duchen has edited a book Insiders/Outsiders: Refugees from Nazi Europe and their contribution to British visual culture and initiated a festival which is working with 60 nationwide partners including Tate Britain, National Portrait Gallery, London Transport Museum, Pallant House Gallery and Glyndebourne.

More information can be found at https://insidersoutsidersfestival.org/

~Free Thinking past programmes include a debate about historical understandings of the holocaust and interviews with survivors https://bbc.in/2U86TzP

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Main image - Holocaust Memorial, Berlin, Germany

Writing about the Holocaust and the shock of Modernism in 1930s Britain.

Rana is also joined by the reggae poet and recording artist, Linton Kwesi Johnson 'Writing was a political act and poetry was a cultural weapon', as well as the film director H O Nazareth to talk about the artists and intellectuals who made up the British Black Panther leadership. Also joining in the conversation, Sandeep Parmar, a prize-winning poet and New Generation Thinker who argues that a new generation of critics and reviewers must be found to highlight the work of poets of colour in the UK.

Also, Rana Mitter talks to intellectual historian Ibram X Kendi as his award-winning account of racist ideas in the United States comes out in the UK.

Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power at London's Tate Modern 12/07/2017 - 22/10/2017

Pres: Rana Mitter

Guests: Linton Kwesi Johnson

Sandeep Parmar 'Eidolon', Winner of the inaugural Ledbury Forte Prize for Second Collections, is out now.

Ibram X Kendi 'Stamped from the Beginning: A Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America' is out now.

Photo: Ibram X Kendi Credit: Penguin Random House.

Including the art of the black power movement and the history of racist ideas in the US.

Wordless! Art Spiegelman + Phillip Johnston is at the Barbican in London on 11 November 2016 / 19:30

It's part of the London Jazz Festival. You can find more events on BBC Radio 3 and on the BBC Music Jazz pop-up station which will run from 10am on Thursday 10th November until 10am on Monday 14th November on digital radio, online and the iPlayer Radio app

Marina Abramovic's memoir is called Walk Through Walls.

American Pastoral is out in cinemas across the UK

Producer: Zahid Warley.

(Image: Art Spiegelman, Phillip Johnston & Band / Credit: Maggie Moore).

Graphic novelist Art Spiegelman and jazz composer Phillip Johnston on their collaboration.

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 L　pez 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 2024

Jade 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.

Artist Mat Collishaw, composer Jimmy L\u00f3pez Bellido, academics Vid Simoniti and Sarah Casey

Amitav Ghosh argues that fiction writers need to be bolder in tackling the big themes of today's world and why thinking about Climate Change is proving a challenge.

Harriet Walter has played Brutus and the King in Phyllida Lloyd's all-female Shakespeare productions of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Henry IV; now she takes on Prospero in The Tempest. She talks to Anne McElvoy about giving herself permission to take on roles still normally given to men and the never-ending wonder of Shakespearian verse as the entire trilogy opens in London.

Plus - ahead of the American Presidential election, New Generation Thinker and historian, Ed Richardson pops up with the mesmerising story of how Hillary Clinton is very far from being the first ever female Presidential candidate.

Artes Mundi 7 runs at the National MuseumWales: Cardiff 21.10.16 - 26.02.17

The Shakespeare Trilogy: The Tempest, Henry IV and Julius Caesar are at the Donmar's King's Cross Theatre in London Sept 23rd - 17th December 2016

Amitav Ghosh has published his arguments about fiction in The Great Derangement.

Presenter: Anne McElvoy

Guests: Harriet Walter 'Brutus and Other Heroines: Playing Shakespeare's Roles for Women

Amitav Ghosh 'The Great Derangement: Climate Change and Thinking the Unthinkable'.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

(Image: Harriet Walter / Credit: Georgia Oetker).

With a review of the 2016 Artes Mundi show, actress Harriet Walter and author Amitav Ghosh

2017 New Generation Thinker Eleanor Lybeck from the University of Oxford on the artist Edward Seago and running away to the circus.

What if globalisation isn't as unstoppable as once thought? As manufacturing technology advances will the push for cheap labour abroad cease? How will that change the location of factories? And how might that affect you? We consider the idea of deglobalisation with Finbarr Livesey, author of From Global To Local, and Stephanie Flanders, former BBC Economics Editor, now Chief Market Strategist for UK and Europe at J P Morgan.

Taryn Simon's art work is on show as part of Photo London at the Embankment Gallery East in Somerset House.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC with the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio and television. You can find more information, films and broadcasts on the Free Thinking website.

From Global To Local: The making of things and the end of globalisation by Finbarr Livesey is published 18 May 2017.

Producer: Zahid Warley

(Main image: Portrait: ©Taryn Simon)

With artist Taryn Simon, a discussion about circuses and a debate about 'deglobalisation'.

Plus, as scientists and policymakers gather at Kew to take stock of the world's plant diversity, Philip is joined by botanist Pippa Greenwood, conservationist Murphy Westwood, and the 'Plant Messiah' Carlos Magdalena to consider the lilies.

The Plant Messiah: Adventures in Search of the World's Rarest Species by Carlos Magdalena is published on the 1st of June.

Connected Works by Tom Phillips runs at the Flowers Gallery, Kingsland Road, London from May 26th to July 1st. The South London Gallery hosts the world premiere performance and an audio-visual installation of his opera Irma on the 16 and 17 September 2017, drawn from his Victorian novel artwork A Humument.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

Producer: Harry Parker.

With Matthew Sweet. Mike Leigh on his new film, plus an exhibition of artists' mannequins.

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

Image: James Abbott McNeil Whistler, Purple and Rose: the Lange Leizen of the Six Marks, 1864. Oil on canvas.

Image credit The John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Egon Schiele's women, Whistler's Woman in White, new radio ballads. Shahidha Bari hosts.

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.

The Man Booker Prize-winning author and campaigner is in conversation with Philip Dodd.

You can find other conversations with writers on the Free Thinking programme website in a collection called Prose, Poetry and Drama

AS Byatt discussed her writing life with Matthew Sweet as she published a novel in 2009.

The Booker prize winning author AS Byatt (24 August 1936-16 November 2023) wrote stories inspired by Icelandic myth and fairy tales, painting, DH Lawrence, insects and Darwin.

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 Attach退.

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.

Matthew Sweet and guests look at the Danish star of androgynous early romcoms and Hamlet.

Recorded with an audience at Hull Truck Theatre as part of Radio 3's Uproot festival for Hull 2017.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Author David Mark and poet Adelle Stripe join Matthew Sweet and an audience at Hull Truck.

Two books published this month include the idea of 'the death of God' in their titles: Terry Eagleton's 'Culture And The Death Of God' and Peter Watson's 'The Age Of Nothing: How We Have Sought to Live Since the Death of God'.

Both authors join Philip Dodd to discuss what 'the death of God' could mean, along with theologian ELaine Storkey and Roger Scruton, whose forthcoming book 'The Soul Of The World' discusses how we can make sense of ideas of 'the sacred' in the modern world.

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Philip Dodd discusses religious belief with Terry Eagleton, Peter Watson and Roger Scruton

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 being 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

A director, event programmer and theatre & dance historians on making work without a crowd

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

You 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/m00131ml

Bette Davis https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000y068

Asta Nielsen https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0013t59

Cary Grant https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hn1z

Matthew Sweet marks the 30th anniversary of the death of this icon of film and fashion.

Peter Carey's latest novel is called A Long Way Home.

Josephine Quinn has published In Search of the Phoenicians.

Natalie Haynes most recent novel is called The Children of Jocasta. Radio 3's The Essay this week consists of five retellings of Ovid.

Ocean Vuong's Night Sky with Exit Wounds is out now.

Producer: Debbie Kilbride.

Peter Carey talks to Rana Mitter about race and racing, on the subject of his latest novel

Jamie Bartlett is writer and technology industry analyst at the think tank Demos.

Mary Kaldor is Professor of Global Governance at LSE.

Louise Casey is former head of the Respect Task Force, the UK's first Victims' Commissioner, director general of Troubled Families.

Heather Rabbatts is former chief executive of the London boroughs of Lambeth, Merton, and Hammersmith and Fulham.

Rupert Reid is Director of Research and Strategy at the centre-right think tank Policy Exchange

The London School of Economics Festival New World Disorders runs from February 25th to 2nd March http://www.lse.ac.uk/Events/LSE-Festival/NewWorldDisorders

Producer: Eliane Glaser

Louise Casey, Mary Kaldor, Jamie Bartlett, Heather Rabbatts, Rupert Reid and Anne McElvoy.

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 Rain Man to Atypical. Matthew Sweet looks at autism on screen and in everyday life.

Gillian Tett is managing editor of the New York office of The Financial Times. She reported on the financial crisis of 2007-8 in close detail, but before she became a journalist Tett trained as an anthropologist. Her latest book, The Silo Effect, combines reportage with anthropology to identify the deep structure in our thinking that contributed to the crisis: the tendency to organize things into discrete silos.

Steve Silberman is a Wired reporter and author of an article on 'The Geek Syndrome' which went viral. He talks to Anne McElvoy about why we need to think about autism in a new way, along with Matthew Smith, an historian of psychiatry at the University of Strathclyde and former Radio 3 New Generation Thinker.

The Fallen Woman runs at the Foundling Museum from 25 Sep 2015 - 03 Jan 2016.

Gillian Tett's book is The Silo Effect

Steve Silberman's book is Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity

Main Image:

G F Watts (1817-1904), Found Drowned, c 1848-1850, oil on canvas -® Watts Gallery.

Presenter: Anne McElvoy

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Steve Silberman on autism, Gillian Tett on silos and Lynda Nead on 'fallen women'.

On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe by Caroline Dodds Pennock is out now and can also be found serialised on BBC Sounds.

The Museum of Other People: From Colonial Acquisitions to Cosmopolitan Exhibitions by Adam Kuper is published next week.

You might also be interested in conversations available as Arts & Ideas downloads asking What language did Columbus speak ? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0d0tk22

What kind of history should we write ? with Peter Frankopan and Maya Jasanoff https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06sfl58

The Mayflower and Native American history with Sarah Churchwell, Kathryn Napier Gray & Lauren Working https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08r76kl

First Encounters: Nandini Das and Claudia Rogers share their research https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kpgp

Producer in Salford: Ruth Thomson

Caroline Dodds Pennock discusses how Aztecs, Inuit, Mayans and others discovered Europe.

Second Sight The Selected Film Writing of Adam Mars-Jones is out now.

The Film of My Beautiful Launderette has been reissued on DVD by the BFI and a theatrical version by Hanif Kureishi opens at the Curve Leicester Sept 20th and travels to Cheltenham, Leeds, Coventry, Birmingham.

Alexei Sayle's books include Thatcher Stole My Trousers. During the 1980s he performed with the Comic Strip, in the Secret Policeman's Other Ball, The Young Ones and various other TV series and movies including Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Revelation Of The Daleks. Doctor Who and Whoops Apocalypse. His series Alexei Sayle's Imaginary Sandwich Bar can currently be heard on BBC Radio 4.

Janet Ellis presented TV series Blue Peter and Jigsaw between 1979 and 1987. Her second novel How It Was is out now.

Dr Iain Smith teaches film at Kings College, London and is the author of The Hollywood Meme: Transnational Adaptations in World Cinema. He is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which selects academics to share their research on radio.

Applications are open for the 2020 New Generation Thinker Scheme until early October. Details available from the AHRC website ahrc.ukri.org

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

From Stranger Things to Stephen King's It - Matthew Sweet and guests revisit '80s culture.

Professor Margaret MacMillan is the author of The War That Ended Peace.

Jonathan Powell was Chief of Staff for Tony Blair 1997-2007

Professor Adam Tooze is the author of The Deluge: The Great War and The Remaking of the Global Order.

Professor Orlando Figes is the author of numerous books on Russian history.

Anne McElvoy, Margaret MacMillan and Jonathan Powell explore the Great Powers in WWI.

Journalist Laurie Penny writes for the New Statesman, Vice, Salon and The Guardian on a range of issues including feminism and activism.

They join Samira Ahmed in the Free Thinking Studio.

Tying in with the commemoration of World War 1 on Radio 3 and Radio 4 we talk to author and cartoonist Posy Simmonds about the role of cartoonists responding to politics and international affairs as she unveils a commission from 14-18 NOW which will go on show at the Cartoon Museum and accompany '1914: Day by Day' on Radio 4.

And we have another column from one of Radio 3 and the AHRC's 2014 New Generation Thinkers. Will Abberley from the University of Oxford reflects on the minds of molecules.

Laurie Penny's new book is Unspeakable Things: Sex Lies and Revolution

Barbara Kruger's work is on show at Modern Art Oxford June 28th - August 31st.

1914 Day by Day runs at The Cartoon Museum June 26th - October 19th.

Producer: Georgia Catt

Image: Barbara Kruger, (Untitled) Talk is Cheap, 1985

Courtesy Sprüth Magers Berlin London.

Samira Ahmed talks to American artist Barbara Kruger and journalist Laurie Penny.

Plus, Matthew travels to the Florence Nightingale Museum in London to meet New Generation Thinker and historian of beards, Alun Withey, who reveals why the current craze for male facial hair is not a patch on the Victorian age.

And do you think you're a good listener? Do you think you're being listened to? In a year of political upheaval that's rapidly reshaping a new world order, the head of the Government's 'nudge unit' David Halpern, and communications professor Jim Macnamara, consider the importance of listening when it comes to a functioning democracy.

The New Man by Josh Appignanesi and Devorah Baum is in selected cinemas.

Being a Man runs at London's Southbank centre from November 25th - 27th

Florence Nightingale Museum: The Age of the Beard: Putting on a Brave Face in Victorian Britain, runs from 18th November 2016 to 30th.

Jim Macnamara is the author of Organizational Listening: The Missing Essential in Public Communication. He is conducting a public lecture, The Lost Art of Listening: the missing key to democratic and civil society participation, on Wednesday 23rd November at the London School of Economics.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

(Image: Brighton Man by Henry Steel, c1895 (c) Sussex PhotoHistory).

Alun Withey on beards, Josh Appignanesi and Devorah Baum on fatherhood. With Matthew Sweet

Katherine Rundell's The Golden Mole and Other Living Treasure and Stella Sandford's Vegetal Sex: Philosophy of Plants are both out now.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Shahidha Bari investigates the human invention of animals.

Dame Fiona Reynolds' book is called The Fight For Beauty: Our Path to a Better Future

English Rose Feminine Beauty from Van Dyck to Sargent runs at the Bowes Museum from 14 May - 25 September 2016 and if you're in Liverpool there's still a couple of weeks to catch the Walker Gallery show of Pre Raphaelite beauties Pre-Raphaelites: Beauty and Rebellion which runs until June 5th

David Willetts is the author of The Pinch.

David Barnes' book is called The Venice Myth: Culture, Literature, Politics, 1800 to the Present.

Naomi Alderman's imagining of the story of Jessica from the Merchant of Venice is being broadcast on Sunday night on Radio 3 at 10pm and there's an introductory animation on the Radio 3 website and a link to Professor Jerry Broton's Sunday Feature investigating the Venice Ghetto.

Dame Fiona Reynolds talks to Anne McElvoy about preserving beauty in the countryside.

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.

You can also find Professor Russell Foster giving the Free Thinking Festival Lecture about sleep habits https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08hz9yw

Producer: Luke Mulhall

From the most private space to office: Matthew Sweet, Tiffany Watt Smith and Fern Riddell.

Producer Luke Mulhall

The Paul Mellon Lectures run from on 5 Wednesday nights at the V&A Museum between 18 October to 15 November 2023

https://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.

Matthew Sweet and Professor Lynda Nead explore links between Diana Dors and Ruth Ellis.

Matthew Sweet discusses attitudes to British blondeness in with art historian Lynda Nead, film critics Phuong Le and Christina Newland, and philosopher Heather Widdows.

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.

In the world of international affairs, the overriding philosophy for global professionals has been one of restraint and rationality - whether you are negotiating, mediating or observing. So how is this traditional idea of `being diplomatic` and even-handed faring in a more emotional and expressive age?

Psychotherapist Gabrielle Rifkind works in conflict resolution in the Middle East. She directs The Oxford Process, a conflict prevention initiative specialising in managing radical disagreement. Her books include The Psychology of Political Extremism: What would Sigmund Freud have thought about Islamic State and The Fog of Peace: How to Prevent War.

William J Burns' book The Back Channel - American Diplomacy in a Disordered World charts his career as an American diplomat for over 3 decades. involved in negotiations with President Putin and secret nuclear talks with Iran. He is now President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Gabriel Gatehouse is a BBC reporter whose work includes the Panorama programme Marine Le Pen: Who's Funding France's Far Right? (2017) and Our World A Tale of Two Swedens. His reporting has included investigations in East Africa, the Ukraine and Russia, Libya and Iraq and the BBC Radio 4 series The Puppet Master

Crossing Divides is a season of BBC programmes looking at the people, organisations and techniques being used to bring us closer together. https://www.bbc.com/ideas/playlists/crossing-divides and https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-43160365

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Anne McElvoy talks to Gabrielle Rifkind, William J Burns and Gabriel Gatehouse.

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.

You can find other programmes reflecting on research showcased in the Being Human Festival in our New Research playlist on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90

Main image: Professor Matthew Rubery with the machine used to project books on ceilings

Reseach into covid comics, codes in Dickens, projecting books onto hospital ceilings.

From a best friend to a tasty snack or something we must carefully husband to a threat we must eradicate, we humans think about animals in lots of ways. But how has our thinking about animals changed over time, and what does that tell us about our shifting attitudes toward the natural world and our place in it? Hear the views of a medievalist who studies bestiaries and mermaids, a French scholar who explores the history of the 'human zoo', and a political theorist who argues that we should extend human rights to animals, a zookeeper, and an expert on human-robot relations.

Recorded with the University of Liverpool as part of the Being Human Festival show casing research at universities around the UK, supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. You can find further programmes about the Being Human Festival and new academic research which are downloadable or available to listen again via the Free Thinking website collection The Getting of Knowledge.

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

From Fact in Liverpool, Rana Mitter and guests debate mermaids, robots, humans and animals

The Great Yiddish Parade was on 19 November 2017, Whitechapel High St, London

Katsha'nes: Don't Ask Silly Questions Album launch is on 22nd November, Stamford Hill BALABAM, London N15

Whitechapel Noise: Jewish Immigrant Life in Yiddish Song and Verse, London 1884-1914 is forthcoming

Storytelling from Conflict - Lost and Found Stories is on 21 November 12:30-3:30pm at the Public Records Office, Belfast

Queerseum - is from 22-25 November at Senate House, University of London

Finding Mr Hart - is at Blackburn's Cotton Exchange on 24 November at 5.30pm

Switchboard III is at the Wired Caf退 Bar, Nottingham on 23 November from 6-7:30pm

Producer: Debbie Kilbride

Shahidha Bari and Laurence Scott report on the Being Human Festival.

Dr Cordelia Beattie from the University of Edinburgh has unearthed two new manuscripts by the 17th-century woman Mrs Alice Thornton, which put her life, loves and relationship with God in a new light. Now they're becoming a play in collaboration with writer and performer Debbie Cannon.

Dr Jo　o Florꀀncio is from the University of Exeter and his research on pornography, sex and dating in post-AIDS crisis gay culture is being transformed into a performance at The Glory in London.

Another queer performance space, London's Royal Vauxhall Tavern, is the venue for a drag show based on research into LGBTQ+ personal ads from a 1920s magazine done by Victoria Iglikowski-Broad as part of her work at the National Archives.

Professor Lucy Bland of Anglia Ruskin University has created Being Mixed Race: Stories of Britain's Black GI Babies, an exhibition in partnership with the Black Cultural Archives, which features photography and oral histories from the children, now in their 70s.

Dr Erin Maglaque of the University of Sheffield explores the meanings of dreams in the Renaissance, and the strange erotic dreamscapes of a 1499 book written by a Dominican Friar.

A list of all the events at universities across the UK for the 2019 Being Human Festival can be found at their website: https://beinghumanfestival.org/

The festival runs from Nov 14th - 23rd but if you like hearing new ideas you can find our New Research playlist on the Free Thinking website, from death cafes to ghosts in Portsmouth to the London Transport lost luggage office: https://bbc.in/2n5dakT

Producer: Caitlin Benedict

New research taking love stories out of the vaults and into the gay bar.

How can the reflections of a warrior-poet from the distant past and the adventures of an Iron Age tribesman from the far future help us rethink our relationship with a city centre in the Britain of today? Matthew Sweet travels to Canterbury to find out.

The Transport for London lost property office is a labyrinthine cornucopia hidden away under the streets of central London. A visit there leads to reflections on our complicated relationships with things in a consumer society dominated by mass-produced goods, and the history of the concept of lost property casts a revealing light on the development of the city as an ordered space.

And, some say that Wymering Manor in Portsmouth is one of the most haunted houses in the country. Whether that's true or not, Matthew goes there to examine the ways in which the past of a building intrudes into its present.

Matthew's guests include:

Michael Bintley and Sonia Overall in Canterbury

Kate Smith and Paul Cowan at the TFL Lost Property Office

Karen Fielder and Benjamin Ffrench in Portsmouth

Producer Luke Mulhall.

Matthew Sweet goes to Canterbury, Portsmouth and TFL offices for stories of lost and found

Part of a week of programmes on BBC Radio 3 exploring new academic research.

Being Human festival of the humanities runs from 17-25 Nov 2016 at universities across the UK. It is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) which works with Radio 3 on the New Generation Thinkers scheme to find academics who can turn their research into radio.

Producer: Robyn Read.

With a profile of writer Vernon Lee, what it means to lie and popular ideas of the 'coma'.

The Cross Bones Graveyard in Southwark was used in the Middle Ages to bury sex workers and others living on the fringes of respectable society. We visit the site with Sondra Hausner, an anthropologist of religion who's studied modern practices for memorializing the women buried at the site.

Vicky Iglikowski and Rowena Hillel are researchers at the National Archives at Kew investigating records that shed light on LGBT history in the Capital. We'll leaf through the records to see what they've uncovered.

New Generation Thinker Naomi Paxton and her colleague Ailsa Grant Ferguson have identified a moment when Shakespeare, radical politics, and the roots of the National Theatre all converged, in a building in Bloomsbury used to house Anzac soldiers during the First World War.

And we join Peter Guillery, an editor of the Survey of London, to investigate the work of this ongoing project to document the streets of London in all their complexity.

Part of a week of programmes on BBC Radio 3 focusing on new research. The Being Human Festival which takes place at universities across the UK from November 17th - 25th will feature events linked to these research projects. Both this and the New Generation Thinkers scheme are supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Producer Luke Mulhall.

Matthew Sweet visits the London Survey, Kew, a cemetary and a hut used by Anzac soldiers.

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

If you want more conversations like this on the Free Thinking programme website on BBC Radio 3 - you can find a collection Free Thinking explores religious beliefs

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03mwxlp

Rana Mitter discusses religion, evolution, neuroscience and history.

2017 New Generation Thinker Daisy Fancourt researches the effect of the arts on immune response and public health.

New Generation Thinker Will Abberley has curated an exhibition exploring birds in British literature.

Director, screenwriter and composer Mike Figgis encourages writers to rethink plotting in his new book, The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations.

Sound: Stories of Hearing Lost and Found by Bella Bathurst is available now.

Stories on the Wing: British Birds in Literature runs at the Booth Museum in Brighton from 19 May to 21 September 2017. Free admission.

The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations by Mike Figgis is published on 1 June 2017.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC with the Arts and Humanities Research Council to work with academics to turn their research into radio and television. You can find more broadcasts and films on the Free Thinking website.

Producer: Karl Bos

Matthew Sweet explores deafness, plot twists, birds in books & how music is good for you

Writer Rosamund Bartlett has a first night review of Brian Friel's stage version of Turgenev's Fathers and Sons which opens at London's Donmar Warehouse tonight.

Andrew Pendleton of Friends of the Earth and Ryan Bourne of the Institute of Economic Affairs debate the relationship of globalisation with the environment.

And Matthew Sweet introduces the first column from the 2014 Radio 3 New Generation Thinkers. Tom Charlton wonders what is meant by a 'proper' library.

With Matthew Sweet. Includes Belle, Fathers and Sons, globalisation and a 'proper' library

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Ruth Dudley Edwards' books include The Seven — The Lives and Legacies of the Founding Fathers of the Irish Republic and her latest crime fiction title Killing The Emperors

You can hear Christopher Eccleston in BBC Radio 3's Drama Schreber by Anthony Burgess https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000gl45

see him in the RSC Macbeth production as part of the BBC Culture in Quarantine season https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts

and in the latest series of the TV drama the A Word.

Philip Dodd talks to actor Christopher Eccleston and historian Ruth Dudley Edwards.

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

A teacher's view, a Frankenstein-inspired ballet, outsider status and circus paintings.

Anne also hears from Catherine Nixey, a young historian with a tale to tell of who did for the pagans. Nixey claims that the old story of Roman paganism dying of its own accord and Christianity moving into a void is one told by the victors. The Christians in fact annihilated belief systems across the Empire in a concerted attack on their philosophy, buildings and artworks.

Midwinter Break by Bernard MacLaverty is out now in hardback.

Clair Wills's book is called Lovers and Strangers: An Immigrant History of Post-War Britain.

William Jones, Centre of International Public Policy, Royal Holloway University of London

The Darkening Age by Catherine Nixey is out now in hardback.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

Author Bernard MacLaverty talks to Anne McElvoy about his new novel Midwinter Break.

Shahidha Bari talks to each of them about bringing philosophy out of the academy.

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Shahidha Bari talks to three philosophers about how their work applies outside university.

The Virus in the Age of Madness by Bernard-Henri L退vy 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

How philosophy helps us understand the world reshaped by Covid-19. Shahidha Bari presents.

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 that encompassed the Wednesday Play for the BBC, This Life and Undercover.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07h6r8l

Matthew Sweet meets the Sherlock producer and ex-agent of Tony Hancock who has turned 90.

Black Earth Rising, Hugo Blick's serial on the Rwandan Genocide and the fraught and fractured nature of justice, is one of the dramas of the year. Zoe Norridge explores the drama's reception within Rwandan cultural politics and Phil Clark discusses his research on the impact of the International Criminal Court on African politics.

As her award-winning debut play, Nine Night, comes to London's West End, Natasha Gordon tells Anne what it's like to star in her own work.

Audrey Brown is a South African journalist, curator and cultural commentator based in London

Louisa Uchum Egbunike, specialist in African literature, School of Arts and Social Sciences of City, University of London and New Generation Thinker

Phil Clark, School of Oriental and African Studies; his book Distant Justice: The Impact of the International Criminal Court on African Politics is out now.

Zoe Norridge, Kings College London, teaches Comparative literature. Her current research focuses on cultural responses to the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Zoe is also Chair of the Ishami Foundation. She is a New Generation Thinker

Nine Night at Trafalgar Studios, London, until February 23rd

When Rain Clouds Gather & Maru introduced by Helen Oyeyemi is out now

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.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Anne McElvoy looks at the career of Botswana's most influential writer.

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

As the BFI prepares a season of films, Matthew Sweet and guests discuss the Hollywood star

Betty Balfour

Comedian Lucy Porter and British Film Institute Curator Bryony Dixon reflect on the short-lived stardom of Betty Balfour, whose 1923 film Love, Life and Laughter has just been rediscovered in Holland, after decades in which it was thought lost. Called 'Britain's Mary Pickford' and 'the world's greatest film comedienne', she was a much loved silent film actress in the 1920s, making the popular Squibs series with director George Pearson and Champagne with Alfred Hitchcock, before the coming of sound relegated her to a disappointed retirement in the home counties.

There's also a chance to hear the Life, Love and Laughter Overture, by Haidee de Ranse, played live in studio by pianist Stephen Horne.

Peter Buwalda: Bonita Avenue

The Dutch novelist joins Matthew live in studio to discuss his multi-award-winning fictional debut, about a liberal Dutch academic pushed towards insanity by the discovery that certain vices that he might tolerate in the public sphere have roots close to home.

Bonita Avenue, by Peter Buwalda, is published by Pushkin Press.

James Lovelock

Inventor, scientist, and writer James Lovelock has had a profound impact on our understanding of climate change. In the 1960s he invented a device that detected CFCs in the atmosphere, proving beyond doubt for the first time that pollution was global, not local. His Gaia theory, meanwhile, postulated that the earth should be seen as a single self-regulating organism, in which the living and non-living elements interact. In tonight's programme he talks to Matthew about whether humans face the same fate as the dinosaurs.

Unlocking Lovelock: Scientist, Inventor, Maverick, is at the Science Museum in London until next year.

A Rough Ride to the Future, by James Lovelock, is out now, published by Allen Lane.

Producer: Laura Thomas.

Lucy Porter and Bryony Dixon profile silent film star Betty Balfour with Matthew Sweet.

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).

Lara Feigel's books include The Bitter Taste of Victory: In the Ruins of the Reich; The Love Charm of Bombs: Restless Lives in the Second World War and most recently Look! We Have Come Through! Living with DH Lawrence. She is a Professor of English at Kings College London

Lisa Mullen's books include Mid-Century Gothic: The Uncanny Objects of Modernity in British Literature and Culture after the Second World War. She is Bye Fellow at Queens' College, Cambridge and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker

Howard Jacobson is the author of books including The Finkler Question, The Mighty Walzer, Live a Little and most recently a non-fiction book Mother's Boy: A Writer's Beginnings

You can find a series of discussions about Poetry, Prose and Drama on the Free Thinking website including previous discussions featuring Howard Jacobson, Lara Feigel and Lisa Mullen.

Howard Jacobson, Lara Feigel and Lisa Mullen with Matthew Sweet.

Also, Saskia Sassen, Jane Morris, David Anderson and Pat Kane discuss the emergence of London as a global city and what the economic and cultural ramifications might be for the rest of the UK.

Bhupen Khakhar is on show at Tate Modern from June 1st to September 6th.

Main image: Man Leaving (Going Abroad), 1970 by Bhupen Khakhar

Courtesy of Tapi Collection, India

(c) Estate of Bhupen Khakhar.

Philip Dodd explores the art of Bhupen Khakhar as a retrospective opens at Tate Modern.

More information about the new research project into what digital research can tell us about the Industrial Revolution can be found at Living With Machines https://livingwithmachines.ac.uk/

Emma Griffin's new book Bread Winner: An Intimate History of the Victorian Economy is out now. It uses hundreds of autobiographies from the Victorian period to put together a study the way women and children were often left behind as the economy boomed. She is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker.

William Ashworth has published The Industrial Revolution: The State, Knowledge and Global Trade

This episode is one of a series of conversations produced in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UK Research & Innovation.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Emma Griffin and William Ashworth share new research on Victorian industry.

Jonathan Coe's Mr Wilder & Me is out now.

In the Free Thinking archives and availble 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

Matthew Sweet, novelist Jonathan Coe and others discuss the director of Some Like It Hot.

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 History

https://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.

Artist Jaqueline Bishop and curator of an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge.

Kehinde Andrews is at Birmingham City University where his research includes looking at black activism. He is series editor of Blackness in Britain with Rowman and Littlefield International

Miranda Kaufmann is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. Her book Black Tudors will be published by Oneworld in autumn 2017.

Bernardine Evaristo is the author of prose and poetic novels including The Emperor's Babe and Mr Loverman. She teaches creative writing at Brunel University.

Keith Piper's exhibition Unearthing the Banker's Bones, in partnership with Iniva, is at Bluecoat in Liverpool and runs until 22 January 2017.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Main Image: Soldiers from a British colonial regiment at Chelsea Barracks in London prior to Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations, June 1897. Credit: London Stereoscopic Company / Hulton Archive / Getty Images).

Bernardine Evaristo, Keith Piper, Miranda Kaufmann and Kehinde Andrews on black Britain.

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 Beyonc退 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

Producer: Tim Bano

Image: Trinidadian actor and playwright Errol John records his radio play Small Island Moon at the BBC in 1958

From an 18th-century Black Juliet to Ira Aldridge's daughter Amanda. Plus, Rita Montaner.

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

Image: Gabriel Akuwudike as Harold Webber in Mark Ravenhill's Blackmail

Image credit: Pamela Raith

Mark Ravenhill on staging the play on which Hitchcock based Blackmail.

Blade Runner 2049 directed by Denis Villeneuve starring Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling is in cinemas now.

Susan Owens has written The Ghost: A Cultural History

Karl Bell is a history lecturer at the University of Portsmouth who is involved in DarkFest Portsmouth - celebrating the darker corners of Portsmouth's imagination October 26th - November 30th

Stuart Evers has written a story for Eight Ghosts: The English Heritage Book Of Ghost Stories. His was inspired by Dover Castle.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Matthew Sweet watches a vision of Los Angeles 2049 and visits haunted places in Portsmouth

Angela Lansbury has returned to the London stage to star in Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit. Free Thinking has a first night review from theatre critic Susannah Clapp and novelist Nicola Upson.

As the international community debates the ongoing situation in Ukraine and Syria, kremlinologist and historian, Archie Brown, and military expert and author, Frank Ledwidge discuss whether strong leaders undermine rather than enhance the possibility of good leadership.

Finally to the operating theatre when the neurosurgeon Henry Marsh talks about the distance between the doctor's oath to do harm and the realities of brain operations where decisions have to be taken fast and often under conditions of great uncertainty

If you're in the area, visit the Radio 3 studio and performance space in the Royal Festival Hall Riverside Caf退 to listen to Radio 3, ask questions and enjoy the special events.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

Samira Ahmed discusses Blithe Spirit, military intervention and brain surgery.

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

Shahidha Bari looks at the writing of Woolf and Joyce and what was really popular in 1922.

Malcolm Gladwell's The Bomber Mafia: A Story Set in War is out now.

Jessie Greengrass's novel is The High House. You can hear her discussing a previous book Sight in the Free Thinking discussion on Motherhood.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b3fjvg

Sarah Jilani researches post-colonial 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.

You might also be interested in Tariq Ali discussing the Satyajit Ray film Pather Panchali with Rana Mitter.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b060zmjs

Ray was born on 2nd May 1921.

Producer Sofie Vilcins

Image: Malcolm Gladwell

Credit: Jerome Favre/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Malcolm Gladwell, Satyajit Ray's film Jalsaghar and Jessie Greengrass. Rana Mitter hosts.

Plus, New Generation Thinker Jeffrey Howard discusses hate speech.

Jeffrey Howard lectures in political theory at University College London and is a 2019 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put academic research on the radio.

On Difficulty: https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/english/research/research-projects/on-difficulty-in-early-modern-literature

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Image Credit: Hazel Wilkinson

Matthew Sweet looks at frontispieces, titles and marginalia, and hard texts.

The Rule of the Land: Walking Ireland's Border by Garrett Carr looks at a landscape which has hosted smugglers, kings, runaways, soldiers, peacemakers, protesters and terrorists

Border: A journey to the Edge of Europe, Kapka Kassabova explores the rich human history in the wild borderlands of Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece.

Nikolas Ventourakis Project: Defining Lines

Frank Ledwidge barrister, writer, Losing Small Wars and Investment in Blood

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Writers and an artist talk borders from Ireland to Turkey with Anne McElvoy.

Josh Cohen is the author of Not Working: Why We Have to Stop.

Lisa Baraitser is Professor of Psychosocial Theory at Birkbeck, University of London and co-creator of Waiting Times, a research project on waiting in healthcare http://waitingtimes.exeter.ac.uk/

Madeleine Bunting is a novelist and journalist

Rachel Long is a poet

New Generation Thinker Sam Goodman from Bournemouth University has been studying the drinking culture in Colonial India.

You might also be interested in BBC Radio 3's Words and Music exploring the idea that we are Creatures of Habit https://bbc.in/2E72xV0

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Shahidha Bari, Josh Cohen and Sam Goodman explore the value of doing nothing.

Suzanne Fagence Cooper is the author of Ruskin, Turner and the Storm Cloud; To See Clearly: Why Ruskin Matters and Effie: The Passionate Lives of Effie Gray

Stephen Halliday is the author of The Great Stink of London - Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Cleansing of the Victorian Metropolis

Kevin Jackson is the author of Worlds of John Ruskin

Gregory Tate is the author of The Poet's Mind: The Psychology of Victorian Poetry 1830-1870

Producer: Zahid Warley

Ruskin, Bazalgette and Clough: Laurence Scott examines three of Victoria's class of 1819.

1819 was the year that Herman Melville, Walt Whitman and Julia Ward Howe were born. Whitman's Leaves of Grass, Melville's novels Moby Dick and The Confidence Man and Julia Ward Howe's passionate opposition to slavery and her advocacy of women's suffrage gave birth to the idea of America. But these authors also have a connection with England - a reading group in Bolton dedicated to Whitman, Melville's visit to Liverpool and Julia Ward Howe's encounters with Browning, the Wordsworths and Oscar Wilde.

Katie McGettigan is the author of Herman Melville: Modernity and the Material Text

Peter Riley's most recent book is Whitman, Melville, Crane and the Labours of American Poetry

Elaine Showalter is the author of the biography The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe

Michael Schmidt is one of the founders of Carcanet Press

You can find more information about research and events @Born1819

Listen back to or download the Free Thinking/BBC Arts& Ideas discussion about Ruskin, Bazalgette and Arthur Hugh Clough https://bbc.in/2TLoOfA

Producer: Zahid Warley

Main image: L-R Peter Riley, Katie McGettigan, presenter Laurence Scott and Michael Schmidt in the Free Thinking studio (Elaine Showalter was in Washington).

Elaine Showalter, Michael Schmidt, Peter Riley and Katie McGettigan with Laurence Scott.

Botticelli Reimagined runs at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London from 5 March - 3 July 2016.

Hitler by Volker Ullrich is now published in English.

Catherine Fletcher is the author of The Black Prince of Florence: The Spectacular Life and Treacherous World of Alessandro de' Medici which is published in April.

Anne McElvoy explores German historians' view of Hitler and reviews Botticelli at the V&A.

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 children's 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

Chris Harding with Luke Turner, Jeffrey Boakye and Lisa Sugiura discuss growing up now.

Artist Cory Arcangel talks about his book composed from tweets and working in digital media. He also explores the themes explored in Digital Revolution at the Barbican Centre, which brings together film-makers, artists, game developers and musicians.

As state schools across England prepare for the introduction of coding to the curriculum, journalist Aleks Krotoski and Benjamin Southworth - digital entrepreneur and former deputy chief executive of the government's Tech City initiative, join Matthew to discuss how - if at all - we should be preparing for the 'digital age'.

Matthew Sweet presents. Toby Litt reviews Boyhood and Cory Arcangel on digital art.

Rio de Janeiro: Extreme City by Luiz Eduardo Soares published by Allen Lane is out now.

Digital Technologies in Argentine and Brazilian Culture by Edward King explores the use of science fiction in literature and graphic fiction from Argentina and Brazil.

The Biology of Desire: why addiction is not a disease by Marc Lewis published by Scribe is out now

Fall of the Kingdom, Rise of the Foot Soldier' runs from 27th July at the RSC in Stratford

Raqib Shaw's self portraits are at the White Cube in Bermondsey until 11th September 2016.

Producer: Ruth Watts.

Anne McElvoy looks ahead to the Rio Olympics, discussing Brazilian culture.

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 20th-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

(photo: James Bedford)

Horatio Clare talks to Laurence Scott about mania and healing. Plus Stevie Smith.

You can find the book Matthew recommends Round About a Pound a Week by Maud Pember Reeves here https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58691

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

Literally 'breaking the fast' - Matthew Sweet moves from the Full English to Tiffany's.

Beyond Faith: Muslim Women Artists Today which includes work by Usarae Gul is at the Whitworth, Manchester from Friday 14th June until October 2019

John Keane's exhibition If you knew me. If you knew yourself. You would not kill me. is at Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh as part of the Aldeburgh Festival until Sunday 23rd June.

Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are Old And Wise by Katherine Rundell is published on 13th June.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio. You can hear more from the 2019 Thinkers in this launch programme https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004dsv

Majed Akhter teaches at King's College London.

You find hear the discussion about representations of Rwanda on TV and how the country has moved on from the conflict here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001dt8

Taryn Simon https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08q2pkg

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Photograph: Antonio Parente, courtesy of Flowers Gallery.

The cultural contribution of Muslim women, and Rana Mitter talks to artist John Keane.

Alec Ryrie, Professor in Religion and Theology at the University of Durham and author of: Protestants: The Faith that Made the Modern World 201;

Tom Charlton, New Generation Thinker is currently studying the history of Protestant nonconformity at Dr Williams's Library, London

Elizabeth Goodwin from the University of Sheffield and Birmingham is an expert on Nuns in the Reformation

Tara Hamling from the University of Birminghamb is the author of Decorating the Godly Household: Religious Art in Protestant Britain c.1560-c.1660.

Producer Jacqueline Smith.

Rana Mitter discusses research into the way life changed in Britain after the Reformation.

The discussion was recorded in front of an audience at the LSE Literary Festival for Radio 3's Breaking Free series of programmes exploring Martin Luther's Revolution.

500 years ago Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation when he nailed a sheet of paper to the door of a church in a small university town in Germany. That sheet and the incendiary ideas it contained flared up into religious persecution and war, eventually burning a huge hole through 16th century Christendom. And yet the man who sparked this revolution has somehow been lost in the glare of events.

Peter Stanford is the author of a new biography of Luther

Ulinka Rublack is the author of Reformation Europe

Diarmaid MacCulloch's most recent book is All Things Made New - Writings on the Reformation

Producer Zahid Warley.

Peter Stanford, Ulinka Rublack and Diarmaid MacCulloch discuss Martin Luther.

In 1915 Kraus began writing a satirical play about World War One called The Last Days of Mankind which mixes dialogue drawn from contemporary documents with fantasical expressionist scenes of apocalypse. A dramatisation featuring actors Giles Havergal and Paul Schofield was broadcast by BBC Radio 3.

Part of Radio 3's Breaking Free series of programmes exploring music and culture in Vienna.

Producer: Zahid Warley

(Karl Kraus archive clip courtesy of the Austrian Mediathek).

Philip Dodd and guests discuss the satire and contemporary relevance of writer Karl Kraus.

Dr Islam Issa from Birmingham City University has written Milton in the Arab-Muslim World

Professor John Carey has written The Essential Paradise Lost. He is an Emeritus professor at Merton, Oxford - an Honorary Professor of Liverpool University, a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Literature.

Dr Joe Moshenska is the author of A Stain In The Blood: The Remakable Voyage of Sir Kenelm Digby and teaches at the University of Cambridge.

Dr Mandy Green from Durham University is the author of Milton's Ovidian Eve.

Reader: Kerry Gooderson

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

John Carey, Mandy Green, Islam Issa and Joe Moshenska discuss Milton's Paradise Lost.

One of the acknowledged masterpieces of European fiction - it has been compared to Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End, Proust's In Search of Lost Time and Joyce's Ulysses. Left unfinished by the Austrian author at his death in 1942, The Man Without Qualities is one of the first comprehensive accounts of a truly modern sensibility and examines a world perched on the brink of catastrophe - about to fall headlong into the turmoil and anguish of the Great War.

The programme is being repeated as part of Radio 3's Breaking Free season of programmes.

Producer: Zahid Warley.

William Boyd, Margaret Drabble and Matthew Sweet discuss Musil's The Man Without Qualities

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' takes place on 19th November at Keswick Museum at 11am.

‘Putting on a Show with the Kenwood Chef' is at The Spring Arts & Heritage Centre in Havant on 11th November at 1.30pm and 18th November at 10am.

‘A Lightbulb Idea: Lewis Latimer's Scientific Breakthroughs' is at the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton on the 12th and 19th November from 11am and 1pm.

‘Ganzflicker: art, science, and psychedelic experience' is on at The Atkinson in Southport on November 11th at 5pm, 12th at 4pm, 18th at 7pm, and 19th at 6pm.

Producer in Salford: Ruth Thomson

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

New research on Benjamin Franklin in Cumbria, the Kenwood, lightbulbs and ganzflicker.

Cloud Studies is the first part of an investigation by Forensic Architecture commissioned by MIF. It runs at the Whitworth in Manchester 2 July-17 October and 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 performs 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

Writer James Nestor, musician Soweto Kinch, Forensic Architecture's Imani Jacqueline Brown

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 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

Shahidha Bari with Ian Kelly, Hannah Greig, Sophie Coulombeau, Brianna Kirkland-Robertson.

Will Hutton's new book offers a diagnosis of where we are now and offers suggestions about where we should go next. Wendy Carlin is Professor of Economics and Macroeconomics at UCL, and claims it's time for a thorough overhaul of the way her subject is taught. Richard Davies is Economics Editor at The Economist, and has studied how new ideas in economics are being made to work for business. Luke Johnson is the Chairman of Risk Capital Partners and the former Chairman of Channel 4 Television. He is an entrepreneur who argues it's risk, not textbooks, that keeps the economy going.

They'll discuss the state of economics today, from the seminar room to the trading floor.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Editor: Robyn Read.

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 J䀀hner

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 Zerကn

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

Rana Mitter meets six authors shortlisted for the prize for Global Cultural Understanding.

Richard Nisbett is Theodore M. Newcomb Distinguished Professor of Social Psychology and Co-director of the Culture and Cognition programme at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He is cited by Malcolm Gladwell as an influence and is the author of a book called 'Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking

Conceptual Art in Britain 1964-1979 runs at Tate Britain from 12 April - 29 August 2016

The exhibition includes works by Keith Arnatt, Art & Language, Conrad Atkinson, Victor Burgin, Michael Craig-Martin, Hamish Fulton,Margaret Harrison, Susan Hiller, John Hilliard, Mary Kelly, John Latham, Richard Long, Bruce McLean, David Tremlett and Stephen Willats.

(Main Picture: Bruce McLean, Pose Work for Plinths 3, 1971. Tate. Purchased 1981. © Bruce McLean. Courtesy Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin)

Philip Dodd and artist Bruce McLean on the history and politics of British conceptual art.

Producer: Harry Parker

You can download this programme by searching in the Arts and Ideas podcasts for the broadcast date.

Philip Dodd and a panel including Deborah Orr and Philip Ziegler explore British monarchy.

The BFI is having a season focusing on Woodfall films, which are also being released on DVD.

Daniel Kalder's book is published as Dictator Literature in Britain and as The Infernal Library in the US.

Producer: Zahid Warley

Main image: Richard Burton And Claire Bloom in the film 'Look Back In Anger', 1959. (Photo by Warner Brothers/Getty Images).

Matthew Sweet evaluates the legacy of the film company behind A Taste of Honey & The Knack

David Hendy is a historian of the BBC and Professor of Media and Cultural History at the University of Sussex.

Glyn Maxwell is a poet and librettist who has traced the journey of Auden and MacNeice to Iceland.

Kate Kennedy is a biographer and editor of the forthcoming 'Literary Britten',

Lucy Walker is Director of Programmes and Learning at the Britten-Pears Foundation.

Recorded in front of an audience as part of the Britten on the Radio weekend at the Britten Studio at Snape Maltings.

Producer: Fiona McLean.

BBC Historian David Hendy and others discuss Britten and radio at Aldeburgh.

Like any other religion, Buddhism has had to negotiate a relationship with secular sources of power. In the 20th century Japanese Buddhism had to contend with a particularly violent form of militarist nationalism in the run-up to the Second World War. Rana is joined by a sociologist who has studied the relationship between religion and politics in Japan, Anne Mette Fisker-Nielsen, and by the historian of Japanese Buddhism and Radio 3 New Generation thinker, Christopher Harding.

Finally, Buddhism has meant many things to many people: at some times it has been touted as the exemplar of a 'rationalist' religion that depends upon experience and argument; at others it has been presented as an antidote to overly-rationalistic 'Western' thought. Are these just different ways outsiders have appropriated the religion for their own purposes? What role does rationality play in Buddhist thinking?

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Rana Mitter explores Buddhism in therapy and politics.

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 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 explores buildings, accoustics and music, looking at Bold Tendencies and the former car park they use as a venue in Peckham.

Producer: Emma Wallace

Eric Parry and Alison Brooks; writers Fiona Mozley and SI Martin and pianist Belle Chen.

Another Burns night and Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough discusses the new radical ways in which Scotland's artists and writers are approaching and getting inspired by the man who almost invented the term National Bard. Burns Unbroke is a festival designed to showcase how Robert Burns speaks to Scotland's creators today and two of the featured artists are David Mach, sculptor, installation artist and poet, and Kevin Williamson of Neu! Reekie! Williamson has been exploring how Robert Burns might have performed his own poetry while David Mach reflects on why he's still in two minds about a poet who was also a tax collector who still speaks powerfully to a Scottish present.

Graham Robb's book The Debatable Land is out in February.

Maren Meinhardt's book A Longing For Wide and Unknown Things: The Life of Alexander Humboldt is published in January.

Natasha Pulley The Bedlam Stacks is out now.

Burns Unbroke - contemporary arts inspired by Robert Burns - 25 January - 10 March 2018 at Summerhall, Edinburgh

Independent Minds: New Poetry by HMP Kilmarnock ed. Kevin Williamson published by Luath Press.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Main Image: Alexander von Humboldt, *1769-1859+, German naturalist and geographer - by Joseph Stieler, c1843 Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images.

Humboldt as Ecuadorian explorer, plus the territory between Scotland and England.

Petros Karatsareas and Athena Mandis guide Matthew through the moves made by the Greek Cypriot diaspora in London along the 29 bus route.

Carenza Lewis and Ian Waites of the University of Lincoln explain why they've organised an archaeological dig on a 1960s council estate.

Nadia Valman and Karen Crosby are organising a slide projection onto the walls of the Royal London Hospital

Living Zoroastrianism is an exhibition on show at the Brunei Gallery at SOAS (until December 15th) in which Virtual Reality allows visitors to experience a 3,000-year-old ritual from pre-Islamic Iran, stages by Almut Hintze and Anna Sowa

You can find events around the UK in the Being Human Festival of research into the Humanities here https://beinghumanfestival.org/

Producer: Luke Mulhall

From ancient religion to London's Greek Cypriot community and the 29 bus route.

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 now

Streetwise 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

The early 19th century street performer Billy Waters, Streetwise Opera and street ballads.

Hogarth and Europe runs at Tate Britain from November 3rd to 20th March 2022. You can find an article about Hogarth on BBC.com https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20211020-why-william-hogarth-is-britains-greatest-artist

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

Image: Mary Beard

Rana Mitter talks to Professor Mary Beard, artist Ali Cherri and looks at Hogarth's art.

The Fountainhead runs at MIF July 10th - 13th performed by Ivo van Hove's Internationaal Theater Amsterdam ensemble.

You can read all the stories shortlisted for the Caine Prize here http://caineprize.com/ and hear interviews with past winners on Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b89ssp

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p040rr3n

Louise Egbunike looks at Afrofuturism in this Radio 3 Sunday Feature https://bbc.in/2LkSmR9

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo is out now.

Irenosen Okojie's film on Black Joy is here https://bbc.in/2Nx5IeY

~Free Thinking on Consent https://bbc.in/2XCH5St

~Free Thinking on Women, relationships and the law https://bbc.in/2C3svH1

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Image Credit: Juliette Harvey

Shahidha Bari looks at staging Ayn Rand's ideas and meets the 2019 Caine Prize winner.

Matthew Parris has written an updated version of Scorn: The Wittiest and Wickedest Insults in Human History

Margaret Hodge has written Called To Account: How Corporate Bad Behaviour and Government Waste Combine to Cost Us Millions.

Bronwen Maddox is Director of the Institute for Government

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

Anne McElvoy asks if public enquiries are good government. Plus Matthew Parris on scorn.

Prime Minister David Cameron was accused of sexism when he put-down an impassioned female MP. But what is the role of anger in politics and campaigning - from suffragism and black activism to Brexit? What does it mean to feel that your political position is righteous? At a time of rising tempers among electorates, should we all `calm down - or harness our rage?

Kehinde Andrews is Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University. His books include Back to Black: Retelling Black Radicalism for the 21st Century and Resisting Racism: Race, Inequality and the Black Supplementary School Movement. He writes for The Guardian, Independent and Ebony Magazine.

Dr Fern Riddell is a historian and New Generation Thinker whose latest book Death In Ten Minutes, is about the Suffragette bomber and birth control activist, Kitty Marion. She writes for The Guardian, Huffington Post, Times Higher Education, The Telegraph and BBC History Magazine and was a consultant for BBC's Ripper Street, Decline and Fall and ITV2's TimeWasters.

Will Davies is a political economist at Goldsmiths, University of London and co-director of the Political Economy Research Centre. His books include Nervous States: How feeling Took Over the World and The Happiness Industry: How the government & big business sold us well-being. He has written for The Guardian, The New Statesman and The Atlantic.

Jo Anne Nadler is a political journalist and former producer/reporter on BBC Political Programmes. She has been a Conservative councillor in the London borough of Wandsworth and her books include William Hague - In His Own Right and Too Nice to be a Tory.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Suffragism, black activism & Brexit. Shahidha Bari chairs a Free Thinking Festival debate.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

Image Credit: Michael Lionstar

Camille Paglia in conversation with Philip Dodd about free speech and feminism.

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

Image: Girls Garage, DIY Planter, 140 Artists' Ideas for Planet Earth, edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Kostas Stasinopoulos, Serpentine and Penguin

(London: Penguin Books, 2021)

Build Something That Feeds Your Community

Think about how you define your community, and how you

could best nourish and serve them. Make a planter box to

feed your family, or build an entire chicken co-op for your

local urban farm!

From ice photos by Wayne Binitie to 140 ideas from artists collated by Hans Ulrich Obrist

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

An expanded edition of Jah Wobble's autobiography Dark Luminosity: Memoirs of a Geezer is out on 7th March.

Matthew Sweet and guests take a deep dive into the influential German group's 1973 album

This hugely influential German group took their music in a new, more ambient direction on their fourth album. Matthew Sweet with guests including Jah Wobble, Gwenno and Alan Warner

Rupi Kaur has published a book called Milk and Honey and you can find images of her art via her website https://www.rupikaur.com/

Robbie Richardson from the University of Kent is writing a book about the connections between representations of First Nations people in 18th-century British literature and the rise of modern British identity.

Kevan Funk's film Hello Destroyer is on a tour of UK cinemas along with other films from the Canada Now Festival and it is also available from Curzon Home Cinema.

Alison MacLeod has published a short story collection all the beloved gh-osts.

Deborah Pearson's documentary History History History is screening as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from August 5th to 10th.

Anne of Green Gables, the 1908 novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery, has recently been remade for TV in a CBC-Netflix adaptation

Part of Canada 150: a week of programmes marking the 150th anniversary of the founding of the nation. You can find links to concerts and other broadcasts on the Radio 3 website.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

New Generation Thinkers Shahidha Bari and Laurence Scott on Canada in TV, poems and art.

http://www.katherineryan.co.uk/

http://lacaserne.net/index2.php/robertlepage/

Part of Radio 3's Canada 150: a week of programmes marking the 150th anniversary of the founding of the nation. You can find links to concerts and other broadcasts on the Radio 3 website.

Producer: Robyn Read.

Philip Dodd's guests are comedian Katherine Ryan and playwright/performer Robert Lepage.

The British-Trinidadian poet Vahni Capildeo on her Forward Prize winning collection Measures of Expatriation and a new Poetry Prize for Second Collections, the Ledbury Forte Prize.

Artists Larissa Sansour and Jonathan May discuss the Survival of the Artist as this year's Shubbak, London's festival of Contemporary Arab Culture opens.

Presenter: Matthew Sweet

Guests:

Graeme Burk 'Head of Drama: The Memoir of Sydney Newman' by Sydney Newman (Author), Ted Kotcheff (Foreword, Contributor), Graeme Burk (Contributor) out in September

Ryan Danes 'The Man Who Thought Outside the Box: The Life and Times of Doctor Who Creator Sydney Newman' out now

Vahni Capildeo 'Measure of Expatriation' out now.

The Ledbury Poetry Festival 30th June to 9th July 2017

The Survival of the Artist presented by The Mosaic Rooms, at the British Museum July 2nd, part of Shubbak, London's Festival of Contemporary Arab Culture 1-16 July 2017 .

Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

Profile of Sydney Newman is Part of Canada 150: a week of programmes marking the 150th anniversary of the founding of the nation. You can find concerts and other broadcasts on the Radio 3 website.

You can find more links to discussions about TV history focusing on Dr Who, The Avengers and an interview with Tony Garnett on the Free Thinking website. They are all available to download as Arts and Ideas podcasts.

Matthew Sweet discusses the Canadian producer who transformed British TV drama.

Beyond Caravaggio runs at The National Gallery 12 Oct 2016 To 15 Jan 2017.

Anders Lustgarten's play The Seven Acts of Mercy is at the Royal Shakespeare Company from November 24th to February 10th

Joe Moshenska is the author of A Stain In The Blood and teaches at Cambridge University. He is on the New Generation Thinkers scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio.

Mexican writer @lvaro Enrigue's novel is called Sudden Death. It's translated by Natasha Wimmer. You can find more about fiction in translation in a collection on our website http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vh

Catherine's Merridale's account of Lenin's journey from Zurich to Petrograd is Lenin On The Train.

(Image: Interior with a Young Man holding a Recorder, Oil on canvas 103 x 139.5 cm, Cecco del Caravaggio 1615-20, (c) Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford).

Including the Nobel Prize in Literature, Dario Fo's plays and Caravaggio's art.

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 Cond退, Aim退 C退saire, 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.

Main image: an installation view of the Between the Islands: Caribbean -British Art 1950s - Now exhibition at Tate Britain, London.

Image credit: Tate Photography

Producer: Ruth Watts

As a Tate Britain show opens, Shahidha Bari looks at Caribbean post-war writing and art

Kei Miller's novel is called Augustown.

Joshua Jelly-Schapiro's non fiction exploration is called Island People The Caribbean and The World.

Colin Grant's book about Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer is called , I &I - The Natural Mystics

Producer: Zahid Warley

Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, Colin Grant and Kei Miller discuss the Caribbean with Matthew Sweet

Everyman is in rep at the National Theatre from April until mid July and will be broadcast live to cinemas on July 16th.

Poet Clive James has just published a new collection Sentenced to Life. For Free Thinking he introduces and reads the title poem in the new collection. You can find an extended interview with him first broadcast on December 18th on the i-player or available as an arts and ideas podcast.

New York-based Iranian intellectual Hamid Dabashi discusses his book Can non Europeans Think and the decision of the New York branch of PEN to honour Charlie Hebdo.

Producer: Zahid Warley.

Philip Dodd reports on the first night of Carol Ann Duffy's new adaptation of Everyman.

Our relationship with the self-propelled small metal boxes in which we spend so much of our time is not as simple as it feels.

Why did we learn to need them? How did they shape our cities, our typewriters and our bacon slicers? Should we now redesign our roads, streets and even our skies for AI driven cars? What do we learn by looking at suburban car parks?

A discussion reflecting on speed, automobiles, AI and the 60th anniversary of the M1 motorway. Anne McElvoy presents.

Brendan Cormier is curator of the forthcoming exhibition Cars: Accelerating the Modern World, which opens in November. Nicole Badstuber of the University of Westminster studies our commuting habit and the trends in journeying that modern life inflicts on all of us. Jack Stilgoe is a senior lecturer at UCL who studies governance and oversight of emerging technologies, looking in particular at driverless futures. Gareth E Rees is author of Car Park Life, a journal of empty spaces and discarded moment, described as 'A Retail Park Heart of Darkness'.

M1 Symphony, a soundscape documentary telling the story of Britain's first motorway, featuring a specially-commissioned composition from former BBC Proms Inspire composer Alex Woolf, performed by the BBC Philharmonic is available to hear if you search for BBC Radio 3's Sunday Feature.

On BBC.com/Ideas you can find a short film exploring the history of motorway service stations

Producer: Alex Mansfield.

A discussion reflecting on automobiles, AI and the 60th anniversary of the M1 motorway.

Blue runs at English National Opera from April 20th - May 4th

Adjoa Osei is organising a conference at Trinity College, the University of Cambridge on April 28th called Performing Black Womanhood

Dr Ditlev Rindom is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at King's College, London currently finishing his first book, Singing in the City: Opera, Italianit

Charlotte Crofts runs the biannual Cary Grant Festival and is an Associate Professor of Film-making at the University of the West of England.

Pamela Hutchinson blogs about silent cinema at SilentLondon.co.uk as well as contributing regularly to Sight & Sound and the Guardian.

Mark Glancy is a Reader in Film History at Queen Mary, University of London.

The Cary Comes Home weekend in Bristol is due to take place 20-22 November 2020.

Producer: Craig Smith

You can find more episodes of Free Thinking in which Matthew discusses films including

Laurel and Hardy's The Music Box https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06xjln9

Hitchcock's Marnie https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05k6tn7

2001 A Space Odyssey https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04sv91q

They are all in a playlist called Landmarks of Culture https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44

The Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells will be discussing his new book, Great Shakespearean Actors, which maps the careers of actors from Burbage and Kemp in Shakespeare's day to contemporary actors including Kenneth Branagh and Simon Russell Beale.

Two weeks ago the University of Cape Town removed a statue of the British imperialist Cecil Rhodes after student protests. Elsewhere in South Africa a statue of Queen Victoria has been vandalised and, in Ukraine, statues of Lenin have been toppled. The writer Lesley Lokko joins Matthew to discuss the events in South Africa.

And a first night review of Eugene O'Neill's only comedy Ah, Wilderness! at London's Young Vic theatre.

Producer: Fiona McLean.

Including Caryl Phillips, Shakespearean actors, South African protests and Ah, Wilderness!

Catch-22 starts on Channel 4 on June 20th. It has already been broadcast in the USA.

Translations from Memory is the eighth collection of poems by Fred D'Aguiar.

Wu Mali gives the keynote lecture at the Rural Assembly Conference at the Whitechapel Gallery.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio. You can hear more from the 2019 Thinkers in this launch programme https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004dsv

Jade Halbert teaches on fashion at the University of Huddersfield. You can hear more from her in this programme about sewing https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002mk2

A discussion of Windrush with poets Jay Bernard and Hannah Lowe & Colin Grant can be found in the Free Thinking archive https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b6ynjb and Words and Music on Radio on Sunday June 23rd is inspired by the Empire Windrush https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000r32

You can hear more about Tagore in this discussion https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p046j6dx

A Landmark discussion about Catch 22 with Patrick Hennessey, Sarah Churchwell, Michael Goldfarb and Heller's daughter Erica https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b015n9xj

Producer: Zahid Warley

Main image: © 2019 Paramount Television. All Rights Reserved.

Anne McElvoy watches George Clooney in Catch-22 on TV and looks at recycling fashion.

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 with a host of programmes 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)).

Shahidha Bari leads a discussion of Nigerian-born novelist Buchi Emecheta (1944-2017).

Naomi Wolf's Outrages: Sex, Censorship and the Criminalisation of Love is out now

Luis de Miranda's Being and Neoness is out in eng trs now

Sarah Parker teaches at School of Arts, English and Drama at the University of Loughborough. She has edited a collection of essays on Michael Field, out in December.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Naomi Wolf discusses the criminalisation of love with presenter Matthew Sweet.

Saul David is the author of Operation Thunderbolt. It looks at the Entebbe Raid which took place on 4th July 1976.

David Starkey has written Magna Carta: The True Story Behind the Charter - a book exploring the history and relevance of the document drafted 800 years ago.

Amanda Foreman is the author of A World on Fire: The Epic History of the British in the American Civil War and will be presenting a BBC TV series exploring women's history from the Paleolithic to modern Britain.

David Starkey, Amanda Foreman and Saul David debate heroism and failure in history.

Water Babies: A New Musical Adventure runs at Curve, Leicester April 24th - May 17th

Edward St Aubyn drew on his own life in his Patrick Melrose Novels and co-wrote the screenplay for the film version of Mother's Milk. His new book - called Lost For Words - depicts writers jostling for the Elysian Prize. He discusses literary satire with Matthew Sweet.

Documentary maker and actress Sally McLean marks today's anniversary of Roger Bannister's 4 minute mile. Her current film project - A Life Unexpected - profiles the Viennese running coach Franz Stampfl.

Producer: Fiona McLean.

Matthew Sweet discusses Charles Kingsley and is joined by writer Edward St Aubyn.

Madeline Miller, the American writer who re-created Achilles for the 21st century, now turns her attention to Circe, nymph, lowest-of-the-low goddess or witch, who possesses a unique sympathy for humanity.

Zoe Gilbert's obsession with folk stories where strange things happen and no-one asks why has led her to create a new island replete with a population of selkies and hares, water bulls and human happiness and tragedy.

Kirsty Logan's novel of The Gloaming, takes us to an island somewhere-sometime-never off the West Coast of Scotland where turning to stone and the mermaid life are all part and parcel of daily existence. Together they discuss the enduring nature of certain kinds of stories, why they still matter and so often enjoy a surge in popularity at times of social stress and confusion.

Madeline Miller: Circe is out now in papberback.

Zoe Gilbert: Folk is out now in paperback

Kirsty Logan: The Gloaming is out in paperback in April 2019.

You might also be interested in the Free Thinking discussion Is British Culture Getting Weirder ? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p072nvvj

Enchantment, Witches and Woodland https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06p9w81

And the Radio 3 Sunday Feature Into The Eerie https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07276tl

Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough on the renewal of myth, folk and fairy in modern writing.

You can hear Queenie being read on BBC Radio 4 here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p075drzy

All My Sons by Arthur Miller with Sally Field and Bill Pullman in the cast runs at the Old Vic Theatre until June 8th.

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller with Wendell Pierce, Sharon D Clarke and Arinz退 Kene runs at the Young Vic Theatre until 29th June

The Lehman Trilogy by Stefano Massini adapted by Ben Power runs at the Piccadilly Theatre in London's West End in May for a 12-week run.

King Hedley II by August Wilson runs at the Theatre Royal Stratford East from 17th May to 15th June.

Producer: Fiona McLean

Main Image: Bernardine Evaristo. Credit: Jennie Scott

Anne McElvoy reads a new biography of Chaucer and talks to novelist Bernardine Evaristo.

Nadeem Aslam is the author of books including Maps For Lost Lovers and The Blind Man's Garden which have won a series of awards. His new novel is called The Golden Legend.

Chibundu Onuzo's first novel The Spider King's Daughter won a Betty Trask Award and her new novel is called Welcome to Lagos.

Lockwood Kipling: Arts and Crafts in the Punjab and London is a free display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London opening Saturday January 14th.

The Myth Gap: What Happens When Evidence and Arguments Aren't Enough by Alex Evans is out now.

Producer: Harry Parker.

Anne McElvoy explores novels set in Pakistan and Nigeria. Plus the art of Lockwood Kipling

Testament's play Daughter is available 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.

Testament, Hannah Silva, historian Jessica Cox and Thackray museum curator Laura Sellers.

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.

The V&A has re-opened its museum of childhood as Young V&A plus how kids learn to speak.

New Generation Thinker and historian Emma Butcher is researching writing from children about the trauma of war. She visits Compton Verney. Jeremy Seabrook is researching the treatment of orphans from the 17th century onwards. Historian Sian Pooley reveals what children were writing to local papers about in the late 19th century and artist Emma Smith describes the post-war anxieties about children being brainwashed that inform her exhibition Wunderblock.

Painting Childhood: From Holbein to Freud runs at Compton Verney from March 16th to June 16th 2019.

Emma Smith's exhibition Wunderblock is at the Freud Museum in London until 26th May

Orphans: A History by Jeremy Seabrook is out now.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Main image: A Boy and a Girl with a Cat and an Eel - Judith Leyster circa 1635 © The National Gallery, London

A history of orphans, fears about brainwashing and portraits on show at Compton Verney.

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

From AI and fan fiction to 1930s replica antiquities: new ways of thinking about China.

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. Malcolm McNeill would like to credit research on Lui Shou-Kwan's relationship to British Modernists and Studio Magazine mentioned in this programme to Jennifer Fleming, PhD candidate at SOAS, University of London.

Producer: Ruth Watts

Image: Raymond Fung, Breathing 23 (detail), 2021. Ink and colour on paper, 90 x 270cm. Courtesy of 3812 Gallery and the artist

Music: Can I play, too? for clarinet, violoncello, piano, and two table tennis players was commissioned by Chinese Arts Now for performance at SoundState Festival, Southbank Centre, London

You can find other episodes exploring Chinese and South Asian history and culture including

China, Freud, War and Sci-Fi https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014grr

Bruce Lee's Film Enter the Dragon https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015l7z

Africa, Babel, China https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002h89

The Inscrutable Writing of Sui Sin Far https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v9gl

Kevin Rudd talks about avoiding catastrophic conflict between China and the USA.

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

Shahidha Bari discusses the confection that has conquered the world.

Shahidha Bari traces the history, appeal and paradox of this most everyday luxury, with food writer Bee Wilson and historians Sean Williams, Caroline Dodds Pennock and Misha Ewen.

From Wonka and Matilda the musical back to Juliette Binoche in the 2000 film adaptation Chocolat; from Mexico to Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Britain and Quaker family firms and eighteenth century salons: for Valentine's Day Shahidha Bari gathers together chocolate lovers to talk about the cultural history of chocolate.

Shahidha Bari celebrates chocolate with historians of food, Switzerland and cinema.

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

Image: Marvin Thompson

Do poets choose their words or are they predetermined?

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

Image: Christopher Logue

Shahidha Bari and guests read Logue's version of Homer's Iliad and look at its language.

Elif Batuman's The Idiot is out now.

You can find information about Pocahontas events from Gravesend Council http://www.visitgravesend.co.uk/events/pocahontas-400/ and http://www.bigideascompany.org/project/pocahontas-2017/

Churchill is on general releaser from Friday.

Christopher Bannister is based at the School of Advanced Study at University College London.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3, BBC Arts and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio and television. You can find more on the Free Thinking website.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

Anne McElvoy considers Churchill on the big screen and the legacy of Pocahontas.

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 Raymond A. Spruance 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

Anne McElvoy and guests on attitudes to the politician, his rhetoric and foreign policies.

Laura Cumming's memoir is called On Chapel Sands and it is being read as the Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qftk

Cindy Sherman runs at the National Portrait Gallery in London from Thu, 27 Jun 2019 - Sun, 15 Sep 2019. The retrospective will explore the development of Sherman's work from the mid-1970s to the present day, and will feature around 150 works from international public and private collections,

Susan Greaney works part-time for English Heritage and researches at Cardiff University. She is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.

You can find more about Juno Calypso here https://www.junocalypso.com/

In our archives you can hear Laura Cumming and Joe Moshenska on Velasquez https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03dx7tw

Novelist Nicola Upson on imagining the life of artist Stanley Spencer https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000573q

Scrumbly Koldewyn and the politics of fashion and drag https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09zcjch

Producer: Fiona McLean

Image: Untitled Film Still #21 by Cindy Sherman, 1978. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York

The art of Cindy Sherman plus art critic Laura Cumming on the days her mother disappeared.

Judith Rodin's book is The Resilience Dividend.

Daisy Hay's book is called Mr and Mrs Disraeli: A Strange Romance

Brian Clarke is curating an exhibition at Pace Gallery in London: A Strong Sweet Smell of Incense runs from February 6th - March 21st at 6 Burlington Gardens. Brian Clarke's own work is on show at Pace London at 10 Lexington Street from February 13th - March 21st.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

Features the relationship between Disraeli and his wife, plus cities and disaster planning

Philip is joined by urbanist and author, Adam Greenfield, writer Beatrix Campbell, criminologist Peter Fussey, director of The Runnymede Trust Omar Khan, and historian of London Jerry White, who will be discussing Joseph Conrad's terrorist novel, The Secret Agent.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

Philip Dodd reflects on safe cities and discusses Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent.

As India puts its colonial history firmly behind it - what does 2014's pivotal national election tell us about the forces shaping the country's future direction? Rana Mitter is joined in discussion by Lord Bhikhu Parekh, Dr Shruti Kapila and the writer, Pankaj Mishra.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

Rana Mitter and Tristram Hunt on how Britain's empire gave shape to today's global cities.

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.

You might also be interested in

How architecture shapes society: Ricky Burdett, Liza Fior, Des Fitzgerald, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Edwin Heathcote recorded at the LSE Festival https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fp0d

The council estate in culture hears from Katie Beswick, artists George Shaw and Kader Attia and writer Dreda Say Mitchell https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003596

Ricky Burdett and Judith Rodin debated cities and resilience in 2015 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04yb7kd

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Matthew Sweet and guests on how Covid has changed our cities.

Recorded at The Bowler Hat at this year's City of London Festival.

Anne McElvoy, her panel and audience debate the influence of emotion on the money markets.

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. He is the author of .

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

Selina Todd, David Goodhart, Timandra Harkness and Sadie Ryan talk with Matthew Sweet.

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 and there is an exhibition of his photographs running at the Grave Gallery in Sheffield until Dec 24th

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 three 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

Authors Nadifa Mohamed, Johny Pitts and Pearl Cleage join Shahidha Bari.

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/m00016st

Peter 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

The long history of climate change and empire: historians Nandini Das and Peter Frankopan

Scholar Will Abberley wants to rethink our understanding of 'nature writing' - he's been reading John Ruskin, WH Hudson, Nan Shepherd, as well as contemporary examples such as Elizabeth-Jane Burnett's The Grassling, Jini Reddy's Wanderland and Mike Parker's On the Red Hill.

The Chilean artist, Patricia Dominguez, is taking part in a group show, Rooted Beings, at the Wellcome collection. Her work, Vegetal Matrix, draws on indigenous knowledge of plant life and challenges the exploitation of natural resources. The show examines our symbiotic relationship with plants while recognising them as ancient, complex and sensitive beings that enable life on earth

The British artist photographer, Ingrid Pollard's has a retrospective exhibition which includes images which subvert traditional landscape imagery, exploring Britishness and racial difference. In the 1980s, she produced a series of photographs of black people in rural landscapes, entitled Pastoral Interludes. The works challenge the way that English culture always places Black people in urban contexts.

Eleanor Barraclough hosts the conversation.

There Rolls the Deep: The Rising Sea Level Paintings by Julian Perry are on show at the Southampton City Art Gallery from 18 Feb 2022 - 4 Jun 2022 alongside images from the gallery's collection by artists including J.M.W. Turner, Albrecht Dürer, Gustave Courbet and William Nicholson.

Rooted Beings runs at the Wellcome Collection in London from 24 March- 29 August 2022

Ingrid Pollard: Carbon Slowly Turning runs at the Milton Keynes Gallery 12 March-29 May

Modern British Nature Writing, 1789-2020: Land Lines (Cambridge UP) edited by Will Abberley, University of Sussex, Christina Alt, University of St Andrews, Scotland, David Higgins, University of Leeds, Graham Huggan, University of Leeds, Pippa Marland, University of Bristol is out in March 2022.

Producer: Jayne Egerton

Image: Forest Edge 2021 oil on panel photo Julian Perry

You can find Jini Reddy talking to Ian McMillan on the Verb in a programme about walking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rwmz

Elizabeth Jane Burnett features in our playlist called Green Thinking talking about Soil, and Wild Swimming and she's also written an Essay for Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00051sq

Rebecca Solnit's most recent book on Roses explored the nature metaphors employed by Orwell and you can hear more about that https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010q0w

The Green Thinking playlist also features conversations with Pippa Marland and Anita Roy, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Tania Kovats, and composer Erland Cooper.

Ingrid Pollard, Julian Perry, Patricia Dominguez, Will Abberley and Eleanor Barraclough.

He has always been prolific and there's no sign that he's slowing down even though he's been dogged by serious illness in the last few years. He confirmed his credentials as a translator last year with his version of Dante's Divine Comedy and his latest book, Poetry Notebook, is a testament to his consuming love of poetry in general. Philip Dodd explores this passion with him and learns how it has informed and illuminated his thinking throughout his life.

Producer: Zahid Warley

You can download this programme by searching in the Arts and Ideas podcasts for the broadcast date.

Poet, critic and broadcaster Clive James is in conversation with Philip Dodd.

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

In February 1971, the UK went decimal. Anne McElvoy and guests look at money old and new.

Professor Jane Ridley's biography George V: Never a Dull Moment is out now.

You can hear Colm Tobin talking to Anne McElvoy about his fictional account of the life of Thomas Mann, The Magician here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001025h; discussing The Testament of Mary at the 2012 Free Thinking Festival: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p2shp; and talking about the writing of former American poet laureate Elizabeth Bishop: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05vh8sp.

Producer: Ruth Watts

Image: Colm T　ib퀀n

Image credit: Reynaldo Rivera

Is it a good thing to stand out? Anne McElvoy and guests explore the virtue of being dull.

Fareed Zakaria has published In Defense of a Liberal Education.

Beth Shapiro's book is called How to Clone a Mammoth: the Science of De-Extinction

Colm Toibin is the author of On Elizabeth Bishop. He has also written the introduction to sons + fathers - An anthology of words and images.

Producer: Fiona McLean

(Image: Colm Toibin, October 10, 2014 in New York City. Photo copyright: Bryan Bedder / Getty Images / The New Yorker).

Colm Toibin on the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop and Beth Shapiro on cloning mammoths.

the artist Lubna Chowdhary, author Mich耀le 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 Middlesbrough at MIMA in 2022 https://lubnachowdhary.co.uk/

James Fox's book is called The World According to Colour: A Cultural History

Mich耀le Roberts' novel is called Cut, Out. You can hear Mich耀le 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

Artist Lubna Chowdhary, author Mich\u00e8le Roberts, art historians James Fox and Kelly Grovier

Producer: Zahid Warley

Sean Scully: Kind of Red

Installation view, Timothy Taylor Gallery, London, June 2014

Copyright, Sean Scully. Photo by Todd White Fine Art Photography

You can download this programme by searching in the Arts and Ideas podcasts for the broadcast date.

First broadcast June 2014.

Philip Dodd talks to artist Sean Scully and reflects on the way colour is perceived.

For Ever Amber opens at the Laing Gallery in Newcastle on 27 June and runs until 19 September. An accompanying programme of films is screening at the Tyneside Cinema.

Citizen: An American Lyric is out now and has been shortlisted for the 2015 Forward Poetry Prize. You can also find our New Generation Thinker Sandeep Parmar discussing poetry on the Free Thinking home page.

Toby Young's father Michael Young co-authored a 1957 sociological study Family and Kinship in East London which aimed to understand post war community and the aspirations of fears of the people interviewed. He also set up the Institute for Community Studies in 1954 which after merging with the Mutual Aid Centre was renamed the Young Foundation.

Image: Poet Claudia Rankine, CR: John Lucas.

Philip Dodd discusses community with Toby Young and looks at historic images of Newcastle.

Maria Konnikova's new book The Confidence Game, in which she explains why most of us are easy prey to con artists.

Orson Welles was infamous early in his career for a radio broadcast of H G WELLS' War of the Worlds which - it's said - caused genuine panic that aliens were invading earth. For Free Thinking Larushka Ivan-Zadeh discusses Welles's last film, F For Fake, which tells the tangled story of art forger Elmyr de Hory.

And Gary Lachman and Kevin Jackson visit a new exhibition about Elizabethan alchemist, philosopher and mathematician John Dee - a mysterious figure who during his long career was sometimes a con-artist, and sometimes the conned.

Scholar, courtier, magician: the lost library of John Dee is on at the Royal College of Physicians in London until July 29th. Entry is free.

Main Image: Cicero - Opera omnia, vol. 2. Ship drawing in margin and annotations by John Dee. Photograph by Mike Fear. (c) Royal College of Physicians.

Matthew Sweet explores the art of the con with Maria Konnikova. Plus a John Dee exhibition

Charles Verey is writing a biography of Dom Sylvester Hou退dard and has recently edited The Kiss, The Beshara talks of Dom Sylvester Houedard (Beshara Publications 2022), a collection that gives voice to the Dom's wider spiritual wisdom.

Nicola Simpson is editor of The Cosmic Typewriter, The Life and Work of Dom Sylvester Hou退dard (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 https://www.lissongallery.com/exhibitions/dom-sylvester-houedard-tantric-poetries

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

You can find more discussions about Prose and Poetry in a collection on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vh and a collection of programmes exploring religious belief https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03mwxlp

Matthew Sweet and guests on the career of poet and monk Dom Sylvester Houedard (1924-92).

Marina Lewycka's novel is called The Lubetkin Legacy

At Home at the Bothy Gallery at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park runs from 19.03.16 - 03.07.16

Lynsey Hanley's book is called Respectable: The Experience of Class. It was read as Radio 4's Book of the Week last week so is available to listen on i player.

Barnabas Calder has written Raw Concrete.

Matthew Sweet discusses home with Marina Lewycka. Plus art at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Christopher Harding is the author of The Japanese, A History in Twenty Lives and Japan Story: In Search of a Nation, 1850 to the Present. He teaches at the University of Edinburgh.

Louisa Egbunike teaches African/Caribbean Literature at Durham University, has published A Companion to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and is a convener of the Annual International Igbo Conference at SOAS.

Victoria Donovan is the author of the first ever study of the Russian Northwest and its role in imagining the Soviet and Russian nations: Chronicles in Stone: Preservation, Patriotism and Identity in Northwest Russia. She teaches at the University of St Andrews.

Alistair Fraser is the author of Gangs and Crime: Critical Alternatives and Urban Legends: Gang Identity in the Post-Industrial City which was co-awarded the British Society of Criminology Book Prize. He teaches at the University of Glasgow.

They are all New Generation Thinkers on the 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. There are now 100 academics who have experienced the scheme and you can find a playlist featuring essays, features and discussions on the Free Thinking website.

Producer: Robyn Read

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.

Music from thunder, art inspired by a dog walk; essays about a city wood and a rural field

The Artes Mundi 8 shortlisted artists are Anna Boghiguian (Canada/Egypt); Bouchra Khalili (Morocco/France); Otobong Nkanga (Nigeria/Belgium); Trevor Paglen (USA); Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand). The exhibition runs at the National Museum Cardiff until Feb 24th 2019. New Generation Thinker Des Fitzgerald reports.

Martin Crimp's play When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other is directed by Katie Mitchell and stars Cate Blanchett. It runs at the National Theatre in rep until March 2nd 2019.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Main Image: Cate Blanchett (Photographer: Stephen Cummiskey © - from When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other: 12 Variations on Samuel Richardson's Pamela at the National Theatre)

How we deal with unwanted sexual advances and changing depictions on stage are debated.

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

Anne McElvoy talks to Edmund Fawcett about conflicts within Conservatism.

Mark Honigsbaum is the author of The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria and Hubris.

Lisa Mullen has written Mid-Century Gothic: The Uncanny Objects of Modernity in British Literature and Culture after the Second World War.

Professor John Dupr退 is director of the Centre for the Study of Life Sciences, and professor of philosophy at the University of Exeter.

You can find about Matt Adams' work at https://www.blasttheory.co.uk/

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Check out our podcast episode New Thinking: Science Fiction Hetta Howes discusses how science fiction extends beyond literature with Caroline Edwards and Amy Butt.

You might also like this Sunday feature looking at the idea of the grid https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08v8qn4 and this Sunday Feature about the idea of Apocalypse How https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b088j46v

Matthew Sweet talks to John Dupre, Mark Honigsbaum, Lisa Mullen & Matt Adams

Karim Misk退 is a writer and documentary maker based in Paris whose novel Arab Jazz won the Grand Prix de Litt退rature Polici耀re - the most prestigious award for crime and detective fiction in France.

Aatish Taseer divides his time between New Delhi and New York. His first novel The Temple-Goers was shortlisted for the Costa First novel and his memoir travelogue Stranger to History : A Son's Journey Through Islamic Lands is translated into more than 14 languages.

His new novel is called The Way Things Were.

Dr Sudhir Hazareesingh, from University of Oxford, is the author of books on Napoleon, the influence of General De Gaulle, the intellectual founders of the republic and in June his new book How the French Think: An Affectionate Portrait of an Intellectual People will be available.

Ruth Scurr, from the University of Cambridge, is the author of books including Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution. Her book John Aubrey: My Own Life comes out in March.

Producer: Jatinder Sidhu

Editor: Robyn Read.

Karim Miske and Aatish Taseer discuss their writing and religion with Philip Dodd.

BBC Radio 3's Breakfast programme is featuring music from around the coastline of Britain suggested by listeners.

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

From crumbling tin mine towers to second homes: Laurence Scott on art, fiction and film.

Shahidha Bari is joined by the philosophers Stephen Mulhall and Denis McManus, and the historian and New Generation Thinker Tiffany Watt Smith.

You can find more discussions about philosophy on the Free Thinking website Philosophy playlist: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07x0twx

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Shahidha Bari investigates how Wittgenstein meets the challenge of scepticism.

The Fountain in the Forest by Tony White is available now

A Time To Stir: Columbia '68 edited by Paul Cronin is out now

Producer: Debbie Kilbride

Main image: Students protesting, on the Columbia University Campus, in April 1968. Credit: University Archives, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University, NY City.

Matthew Sweet with Paul Hartnoll, Tony White, Tessa DeCarlo and Paul Cronin on uprisings.

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.

Are cows the answer to depleted soil or the problem? With farmer and author James Rebanks.

David Wilson was the youngest prison governor in England aged 29. He is Emeritus Professor of Criminology and founding Director of the Centre for Applied Criminology at Birmingham City University. He presented the CBS series Voice of a Serial Killer and, for BBC Radio 4, In The Criminologist's Chair. His latest book is My Life with Murderers: Behind Bars with the World's Most Violent Men.

Sophie Hannah is a poet and crime novelist who, with the blessing of the Christie estate, has written three new Poirot novels The Monogram Murders, Closed Casket and The Mystery of Three Quarters. Her latest publication is a self-help book entitled How to Hold a Grudge.

Michael Hughes' most recent novel Country maps Homer's Iliad onto 1990s Northern Ireland to describe both the black comedy and the brutality of The Troubles. His previous novel is The Countenance Divine. He teaches creative writing and also works as a professional actor.

Producer: Craig Smith

David Wilson, Sophie Hannah and Michael Hughes with Matthew Sweet at Sage.

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

Russell T Davies and Paula Milne on the power of soap operas.

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

Novelist Ian McEwan and researchers into early warning system archives join Anne McElvoy

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Philip Dodd investigates the tension between cosmopolitanism and the nation state.

With

Justin Champion, Professor of the History of Early Modern Ideas at Royal Holloway,University of London

Daniel Dennett, Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University

Ziauddin Sardar, writer and futurologist

Linda Woodhead, Professor in the Sociology of Religion at Lancaster University

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Philip Dodd and guests discuss secularism and religion.

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

Image: Attributed to Peter Anton Verschaffelt (1710 - 93) A RHINOCEROS, CALLED MISS CLARA (1738 - 58)

German or Flemish, Bronze, model and cast c.1750 - 60

© The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham

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?

Writer Philip Hoare, curator Robert Wenley, historian Helen Cowie talk celebrity animals.

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

A project to reimagine the Dada arts movement now, and reflections on satire and nonsense.

New Generation Thinker Will Abberley visits an exhibition in Oxford that plays with our notion of time as Modern Art Oxford begins a year-long celebration of 50 years, Kaleidoscope, with a show called The Indivisible Present.

Janet Street Porter and Michael Grade debate when does a celebrity become a 'national treasure', and what exactly does the term mean?

Modern Art Oxford's year-long celebration Kaleidoscope begins with The Indivisible Present. This runs until March 22nd when the galleries will begin transforming into the next exhibition, A Moment of Grace, which opens fully on April 16th.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

Main image: 'Fountain' by Marcel Duchamp. Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty.

Including Dadaism, an exhibition about time, and the celebrity as a 'national treasure'.

Dad's Army is directed by Oliver Parker and includes performances from Catherine Zeta Jones, Michael Gambon, Tom Courtenay, Toby Jones, Bill Nighy, Mark Gatiss and Ian Lavender amongst others.

States of Mind: Tracing the edges of consciousness runs at the Wellcome Collection in London from 4 February - 16 October 2016

A Friday Night Late Spectacular, Feeling Emotional, takes place on Friday 5 February 19:00-23:00 exploring the art and science of human emotions.

Utopias is the theme of this year's LSE Space For Thought Literary Festival. In a discussion on Friday 26 February 2016 Toby Litt, Patrick Parrinder, Samantha Shannon explore the history of the utopian genre in literature and its present state.

Radio 3's Free Thinking explores Utopia in politics past and present in a debate recorded at LSE on Wednesday February 17th at broadcast on Thursday February 18th.

Getting Real about Utopia

Date: Wednesday 17 February 2016 6.30pm

Location: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

Speakers: Professor Justin Champion, Dr John Guy, Kwasi Kwarteng, Gisela Stuart

Scroll down the page to the right for related links (from the Free Thinking archives: Discussion on Human Emotions)

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Main Image: Robot - credit Lola Caကamero.

Marking Dad's Army on film, Matthew Sweet looks at the fifth column.

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

A poet and a crime writer compare notes; plus, lessons for now from a medieval foxy fable

Today is the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth. In extended conversation with Philip Dodd, Janet Suzman talks about acting and directing and politics in her native South Africa - which goes to the polls on May 7th.

Part of Radio 3's celebration of the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth

Producer: Zahid Warley.

Actress and director Dame Janet Suzman is in extended conversation with Philip Dodd.

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

Art historian Martin Kemp and painter Emma Safe, parallels with Proust and a Dante website

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 BBC Proms concerts recorded at Sage Gateshead available to listen on BBC Sounds and a conversation about Writing and Place with North Eastern writers Jake Morris-Campbell and Jessica Andrews talking to Radio 3's new writing programme The Verb's Ian McMillan

A poet, crime writer, theologian and marine biologist explore darkness.

You will hear a discussion about some of the racial language used in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Dr Christine 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

Matthew Sweet and guests assess Darwin's arguments about the human species, sex and race.

Matthew Sweet assesses Darwin's arguments about the human species, sex and race with Christine Yao, Joe Cain and Ruth Mace from University College, London.

Matthew Sweet is joined by Christine 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 Christine 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

Matthew Sweet and guests assess Darwin's arguments about the human species, sex and race.

The Israeli professor of history Shlomo Sand has written a polemical book called How I Stopped Being a Jew.

Julie Burchill's latest book is called Unchosen - The Memoirs of a Philo-Semite.

They each discuss the question of religious identity with Rana Mitter.

The Infidel - The Musical runs at the Theatre Royal Stratford East until November 2nd.

Producer: Georgia Catt

Editor: Robyn Read.

Rana Mitter is joined by David Baddiel, Shlomo Sand and Julie Burchill.

Don McCullin is on show at Tate Britain until May 6th 2019.

David Bailey: The Sixties is on show at Gagosian Gallery, Davies Street in London until March 30th.

Producer: Zahid Warley

Philip Dodd goes to David Bailey's studio and talks to Don McCullin about his Tate show.

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

Two leading thinkers who are investigating the nature of mind and its place in the world.

Presented by Rana Mitter.

Producer: Zahid Warley

Image Credit: Sandra Lousada.

Rana Mitter talks to the winner of the biennial David Cohen Prize for Literature.

David Grossman's latest book Falling Out of Time mixes poetry, drama and fiction to explore the emotion of grief and loss. His own son died in 2006.

He is also the author of non fiction books including Death as a Way of Life: From Oslo to the Geneva Agreement. When he was in London for Jewish Book Week last year, Free Thinking invited him to join Matthew Sweet in the studio to discuss his fiction and the part he hopes it can play in the discourse about Israel today.

Producer: Zahid Warley

First broadcast 11 March 2014.

Matthew Sweet is in conversation with Israeli novelist David Grossman.

The Seagull runs at Chichester Festival Theatre from 28th September to November 14th

Ivanov runs from October 1st to November 14th

Platonov runs from October 5th to November 14th.

The Moderate Soprano opens at Hampstead Theatre on October 23rd.

David Hare's Memoir called The Blue Touch Paper is out now.

Recorded in front of an audience at the BBC Proms.

A University Education by David Willetts is out now.

Producer: Eliane Glaser.

The Rt Hon Lord David Willetts talks to Philip Dodd about universities in the UK.

Shobana Jeyasingh's Material Men Redux, informed by the personal stories of dancers Sooraj Subramaniam and Shailesh Bahoran, tours to Nottingham, Ipswich, Eastleigh, Birmingham, Glasgow and London from February.

Producer:Torquil MacLeod.

Anne McElvoy explores topics discussed at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.

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.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

You can find other episodes exploring language in the New Research playlist on the Free Thinking programme website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90

New Thinking: the impact of being multilingual hears from Katrin Kohl, Rajinder Dudrah and Wen-chin Ouyang https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08s6mjd

New Thinking: Shakespeare's language talks to Alison Findlay and Jonathan Culpeper, collaborators on an Encyclopedia of Shakespeare's Language https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07h2z4r

New Thinking: City Talk looks at the Manchester accents mapping project with Dr Erin Carrie and Dr Rob Drummond https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07h30hm

~Free Thinking: Speech, Voice, Accents and AI brought together Sadie Ryan, Allison Koenecke and Lynda Clark https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000srbn

John Gallagher says hello in Oscan, the language of ancient Pompeii

Laura O'Brien at Northumbria University is running a death cafe and looking at the way celebrities can 'live on' after their death. New Generation Thinker Danielle Thom works at the Museum of London and has been researching the history behind some of the jewelry in their collection. Duncan Garrow from Reading University is leading a major research project into prehistoric grave goods. Medical historian Agnes Arnold-Forster has been asking surgeons and other health professionals about how they deal with death.

The Being Human Festival organises free events based on research into the Humanities at universities around the UK. It runs from Nov 15th - 24th 2018 https://beinghumanfestival.org/

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

From death cafes to bronze age burials, from C19 mourning rings to the way doctors cope.

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.

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

You can find other Free Thinking conversations about money available to download as the Arts & Ideas podcast or on BBC Sounds

Writing about Money https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0018qph

Coins, going cashless and the magic money tree https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000s2v5

Mandeville's View of 18th-Century Economics https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b040hysk

Britain's Economy: Will Hutton, Luke Johnson, Wendy Carlin, Richard Davies and how we teach the subject https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b051cpxb

Economics: Liam Byrne, John Redwood, Luke Johnson, Juliet Michaelson and Matt Wolf https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03qbv3q

Does Growth Matter? demographer Danny Dorling and economists Richard Davies and Petr Barton https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gbtl

As Budget day approaches, Anne McElvoy looks at debt from the South Sea Bubble to Sunak.

Producer: Robyn Read

Dr 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 France

You 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

New research into ideas about decadence and connections with France, England and Iran.

Gaia Vince is the author of Transendence: How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty And Time

Lewis Dartnell's book is called Origins: How the earth shaped history

David Farrier has written a book called In Search of Future Fossils.

You can find a Free Thinking programme exploring rivers and geopolitics https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00051hb

Matthew Sweet talks to animal expert Jane Goodall https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00066qd

The influential writing of Arne Naess is discussed at in the middle of this programme after a conversation about the Thames estuary https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07tzydt

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Lewis Dartnell, Gaia Vince and David Farrier join Rana Mitter to talk the deepest history.

Suhdir Hazareesingh, author of In The Shadow of the General: Modern France and the Myth of de Gaulle, and writer and political columnist, Anne Elizabeth Moutet join Daniel Lee, New Generation Thinker and author of P退tain's Jewish Children to discuss with Philip Dodd the different notions of France that Petain and de Gaulle fought for and their post-war legacies.

And as a new exhibition Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art opens at London's National Gallery, Philip Dodd talks to curator Christopher Riopelle about the romantic pessmism of Eugene Delacroix and his visions for both art and the future of society.

The Patriotic Traitor is at the Park Theatre in London from February 17th to March 19th.

Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art is the National Gallery in London from February 17th to May 22nd.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

Main Image: 'Liberty Leading the People, 28 July 1830' - painting by Eug耀ne Delacroix, 1830, commemorating the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled King Charles X of France.

Jonathan Lynn talks about his new play exploring Petain's relationship with de Gaulle.

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, Hegel and at the quartet of female philosophers who helped shaped British philosophy in the twentieth century https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07x0twx

Matthew Sweet re-reads a classic of French postmodernism.

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

Democracy and dissent in Hong Kong and the USA. Are confrontational politics here to stay?

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Russell T Davies, Jill Nalder, Sabina Dosani and Matthew Sweet, recorded with an audience.

Professor David Turner is the author of Disability in Eighteenth-Century England: Imagining Physical Impairment which won the 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.

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. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07l3ldn

You might be interested BBC Radio 3's curated playlist of Words and Music broadcast Sunday November 8th at 5.30pm which marks the anniversary with selections including readings from Janet Frame, Oliver Sacks, Sue Townsend and Milton; music by Amadou and Mariam, Robert Wyatt, Beethoven and performer Evelyn Glennie.

Producer: Helen Fitzhenry.

The history of disabled people's political activism, to portrayals in fiction & at courts.

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 L退vy and Homi K Bhabha looking at the impact of Covid https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jq87

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Matthew Sweet asks biographer Peter Salmon about Derrida's influence today

Georgia O'Keeffe runs at Tate Modern from 6 July - 30 October 2016

Geoff Dyer is the author of White Sands: Experiences from the Outside World. It was read as Radio 4's Book of the Week last week which you can find on the Radio 4 website

Laurence Scott is the author of The Four-Dimensional Human

Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

Matthew Sweet discusses deserts with writers Geoff Dyer and Laurence Scott.

The Sky Is Falling: How Vampires, Zombies, Androids and Superheroes Made America Great For Extremism by Peter Biskind is out now.

Laurence Scott is the author of Picnic, Comma, Lightning: In Search of a New Reality; The Four Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World.

Kylie Murray is a Fellow, Lecturer, and Director of Studies in English at Christ's College, Cambridge whose research specialism is the literature of Medieval and Early-Modern Scotland, c.1100-c.1625 in Scots, French, and Latin

The London Design Biennale runs until September 23rd.

The V&A in Dundee designed by Kengo Kuma opens with a 3D Festival this weekend.

Design Research for Change is a showcase of 67 Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded Design research projects at Truman Brewery, London from 20th - 23rd September 2018.

Producer: Craig Smith

Main image: `Disobedience` Greece - Designer Nassia Inglessis from Studio Ini - Photographer: Ed Reeve

Including a report from the London Design Biennale and film historian Peter Biskind.

Alan Powers is the author of a new book Enid Marx:The Pleasures of Pattern and is curating an exhibition at the House of Illustration in London Print, Pattern and Popular Art which runs from May 25th to September 23rd 2018

James Russell has curated Edward Bawden which runs at the Dulwich Picture Gallery from May 23rd to September 9th 2018 and he is the author of The Lost Watercolours of Edward Bawden.

Eleanor Herring is interested in making, writing, teaching and talking about design with as broad an audience as possible. She is the author of Street Furniture Design: Contesting Modernism in Post-War Britain.

The Future Starts Here runs at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London until 4th November.

Mackintosh 150 marks the anniversary of the birth of Glaswegian architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Exhibitions include Making the Glasgow Style at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum until August 14th. His Oak Room will go on display when the V&A Dundee opens in September. Plus a new Mackintosh interpretation centre opens at The Mackintosh House, a series of film screenings is at The Lighthouse and exhibitions at Glasgow School of Art and other venues.

Lisa Mullen is the Steven Isenberg Junior Research Fellow at Worcester College, Oxford and one of the 2018 New Generation Thinkers in 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: Torquil MacLeod.

Shahidha Bari looks at Enid Marx, Rennie Mackintosh and Edward Bawden and visits the V&A.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Rana Mitter discusses new developments in neuroscience.

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 Grangerising.

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

Mathew Sweet, Linda Grant, Laurence Scott & Lucy Whitehead -150 years since Dickens' death

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Matthew Sweet looks at copyright rules for Steamboat Willie and Dickens in America.

The Disney short Steamboat Willie comes out of copyright in 2024. Back in the 19th century, when copyright rules were less strict, UK authors lost money with US publications.

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.

Matthew Sweet looks at copyright rules for Mickey Mouse and Dickens in C19th America.

Dutch Historian Frank Dikotter, who teaches in China, has published books on The Cultural Revolution, Mao's Famine and most recently How to Be a Dictator: the Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century which looks at Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Ceausescu, `Papa Doc` Duvalier, Kim Il Sung and Mengistu Haile Mariam

The Turkish journalist, novelist and poet Ece Temelkuran is the author of How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship

Peter Pomerantsev's books include Nothing is True and Everything is Possible and This is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality.

You can hear Peter taking part in our Free Thinking discussion about George Orwell's novel 1984 if you look up the collection of Landmarks of Culture on the Free Thinking website or use this link https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005nrl

Producer; Torquil MacLeod

Matthew Sweet and guests on Chaplin's 1941 film, The Great Dictator, and rising populism.

Sir John Jenkins is a former diplomat and Executive Director of The International Institute for Strategic Studies - Middle East. He's been HM Consul-General in Israel, and Ambassador to Syria, Iraq and Saudia Arabia.

Gabrielle Rifkind is a senior consultant to the Middle East Programme, which she founded and directed until 2015. She is the Director of the Oxford Process, an independent preventive diplomacy initiative pioneered through her dialogue work with Oxford Research Group (ORG).

Michael Burleigh is a historian and author of books including A Cultural History of Terrorism; Small Wars, Far Away Places: The Genesis of the Modern World and Moral Combat: A History of World War Two.

Dr Beyza Unal is a research fellow with the International Security Department at Chatham House. She specializes in nuclear weapons policies and leads projects on chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons. Dr Unal is also conducting research on cybersecurity.

Oslo plays at the National Theatre from 5 - 23 September. It opens in the West End at the Harold Pinter Theatre from 2 October to 30 December.

Producer: Eliane Glaser.

Philip Dodd and guests explore the art of negotiation and discuss JT Rogers' play Oslo.

Bogarde won Best Actor in a Leading Role for the 1963 film The Servant, a kind of upstairs downstairs examination of class and fraught relationships, which Harold Pinter adapted from Robin Maugham's novella and Joseph Losey directed. His co-stars included Wendy Craig, Sarah Miles and James Fox. The film has been restored and shown in cinemas around the UK and is now also available on blu-ray DVD. The BFI are curating a season of Bogarde films to screen in December.

Producer: Fiona McLean

You can find a series of programmes exploring film history in the Free Thinking Landmarks playlist including Glenda Jackson remembering the filming of Sunday Bloody Sunday, episodes focusing on Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Jacques Tati and films by Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa and Satyajit Ray.

As The Servant is released on DVD, Matthew Sweet and guests explore Dirk Bogarde's career.

Danny Dorling is the Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at Oxford. His new book called All That is Solid: The Great Housing Disaster looks at inequalities in the housing market. He joins Samira to discuss markets, social engineering and what houses are for.

We report on the winner of this year's Paul Foot Award for campaigning or investigative journalism.

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Samira Ahmed considers scoundrels in culture and also the housing market.

Helena Kennedy's book is called Eve was Shamed: how British Justice is Failing Women

Pinter at the Pinter runs in London's West End until 23rd February 2019.

Elizabeth Robertson, Professor and Chair of English Language, University of Glasgow has written Chaucer, Chaucerian Consent: Women, Religion and Subjection in Late Medieval England

You can hear a longer conversation with Elizabeth Robertson in our new podcast about academic research https://bbc.in/2yrTZU5

Producer: Fiona McLean

The lawyer Helena Kennedy joins Shahidha Bari to discuss how British justice fails women.

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

Edmund de Waal and Frances Stonor Saunders discuss uncovering Jewish family stories.

Girl with Dove: A Childhood Spent Graphically Reading by Sally Bayley is out now.

Pauline Dakin's memoir is called Run, Hide, Repeat.

Dünyay? Kurtaran Adam (The Man Who Saved the World) is the title of a 1982 Turkish science fantasy adventure film which is also described as Turkish Star Wars.

Gary Geddes is the author of poetry collections including The Terracotta Army and War & Other Measures and his non-fiction books include Medicine Unbundled: A Journey through the Minefields of Indigenous Health Care. He is talking at Birmingham, Liverpool and Oxford universities and University College London.

China's First Emperor and the Terracotta Warriors is an exhibition running at the World Museum Liverpool until October 28th 2018.

Shape of Light: 100 Years of Photography and Abstract Art runs at Tate Modern until October 14th 2018.

Producer: Fiona McLean.

Pauline Dakin compares notes with Sally Bayley about a childhood on the run and reading.

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

As the V&A opens an exhibition about performers, Naomi Paxton discusses what makes a diva.

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, Bologne 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.

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 a follow up episode of Free Thinking 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

Digging into the music of composers Joseph Bologne, Kikuko Kanai and Julia Perry.

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 another episode looking at three more composers: Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Kikuko Kanai and Julia Perry available as an Arts and Ideas podcast.

The BBC Philharmonic concert featuring the music of Nathaniel Dett, Margaret Bonds and Joseph Bologne. was broadcast by BBC Radio 3 in Afternoon Concert and is available for 28 days on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001414g

Celebrating classical composers from diverse ethnic backgrounds is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council as part of joint project run in partnership with BBC Radio 3 https://www.ukri.org/news/celebrating-classical-composers-from-diverse-ethnic-backgrounds-2/

It builds upon an earlier partnership focused on Forgotten Female Composers which is continuing to lead to more of their music being performed and recorded

https://ahrc.ukri.org/documents/publications/forgotten-female-composers/

Producer: Amelia Parker

Image: BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

New research into music by Margaret Bonds, Robert Nathaniel Dett, Ali Osman, Isaac Hishow.

He hears from historian Miranda Kaufmann about the existence of a black population of skilled workers in Tudor England, one of whom dived salvage on the wreck of the Mary Rose after she sank laden with cannons on her way to wage war against the French.

And he's joined by marine biologist, Alex Rogers, writer and whale lover Philip Hoare, and Jason de Caires Taylor, creator of the world's first underwater sculpture parks to discuss why decades after we first saw our blue and watery planet hanging in space, we still find it easier to ignore our oceans than explore them.

Manhatten Beach by Jennifer Egan is out now.

Miranda Kauffmann is the author of Black Tudors.

Philip Hoare's most recent book is called RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Image: Crossing the Rubicon, Museo Atlantico, Lanzarote, Spain by Jason deCaires Taylor. Copyright: Jason deCaires Taylor / CACT Lanzarote.

Diving as metaphor, occupation and study from Tudor times to the present.

The Vietnam War - a film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick is released by PBS as a 10 disc DVD set.

Joy by Sasha Dugdale is published by Carcanet .

Flash! Photography, writing and Surprising Illumination by Kate Flint, Provost Professor of Art History and English at the University of Southern California is out now.

Producer: Zahid Warley

Main Image: U.S. Troops On Patrol In Vietnam, June 1966. Credit: Hulton Archive /Getty Images.

The Vietnam War, poetry and flash photography with Ken Burns, Sasha Dugdale and Kate Flint

Anne McElvoy discusses economic futures, with Danny Dorling, demographer, writer, professor of Geography at Oxford University, and author of forthcoming 'Slowdown:The end of the Great Acceleration - and Why It's Good for the Planet, the Economy, and Our Lives', which is published in April. http://www.dannydorling.org/ and also www.worldmapper.org

Petr Barton writes and teaches economics in Prague, and is Chief Economist at Natland Investment Group. The webtool discussed in this programme can be found at https://coronavirus.clevermaps.io/

Richard Davies has been senior advisor to the UK Treasury, and the Bank of England and has been Economics Editor at The Economist. He teaches at the LSE and his recent book, 'Extreme Economies', is published by Penguin.

Producer Alex Mansfield

Is the economic future all about growth? Danny Dorling discusses Slowdown.

Nicky Clayton is a scientist and a dancer who began as a zoo-ologist and moved into psychology. She is Professor of Comparative Cognition at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of the Royal Society. She is also Scientist in Residence at dance company Rambert and co-founder of The Captured Thought blog and project. Her expertise is in studying members of the crow family, who have huge brains for their body size, and in studying thinking with and without words.

Kim Bard is a Professor at the University of Portsmouth. She has studied the development of emotions, cognition, communication, and attachment in captive young chimpanzees for over 30 years. Her research concerns understanding the process of development in evolution and contributes to captive animal welfare.

Erica Fudge is Professor of English Studies and Director of the British Animal Studies Network at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. She has written widely on modern and historical human-animal relationships and has recently finished a study of people's lives with their livestock animals in early modern England titled Quick Cattle and Dying Wishes.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

A Free Thinking Festival discussion with Nicky Clayton, Erica Fudge and Kim Bard.

Andrew Cotter has published Olive, Mabel and Me, and Dog Days: A Year with Olive and Mabel. https://www.oliveandmabelbook.com

Alexandra Horowtiz has published Inside of a Dog, Being a Dog, and Our Dogs Ourselves. https://alexandrahorowitz.net/

Dr Joseph Anderton teaches at Birmingham City University and has written Beckett's Creatures: Art of Failure after the Holocaust. His current project is a book called Writing Homelessness: Rough Sleeping in Contemporary British Fiction.

Dr Jason Allen-Paisant lectures at the University of Leeds and, in addition to his poetry collection Thinking with Trees, he is working on a book called Thinking with Spirits: Engaging Art and the Political through Aim退 C退saire.

You might be interested in a previous Free Thinking discussion Should we keep pets hearing from John Bradshaw, Jessica Pierce, Laura Purcell and Philip Howell. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09hzj3y

Producer: Ruth Thomson

Labradors Olive and Mabel became a Covid internet hit - can we know what a dog thinks?

New Generation Thinker Lisa Mullen is an expert on George Orwell and lecturer in film at the University of Cambridge

Lucy Grig is Senior Lecturer in Roman History at the University of Edinburgh

Faith Burden is Executive Director of Equine Operations at the Donkey Sanctuary in Devon

Directed 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

From Aesop and the bible to the film EO which looks at a donkey born in a Polish circus.

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

Rana Mitter reads from a new biography of Dostoevsky, 200 years after his birth.

Producer: Harry Parker.

Debate asking if seeing democracy on screen and stage undermines confidence in politicians

All You Need is LSD runs at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre until 13 Oct 18 as part of the Birmingham Comedy Festival. The production from Told by An Idiot then tours to Liverpool, Bristol, Salford and Coventry.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

(Main Image: LSD blotter tabs on top of a US quarter coin on April 12, 2017, in Washington, DC. Credit:Paul J Richards / AFP / Getty Images)

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.

From mould to desertification. Naomi Paxton on the impact of dirt, heat and damp.

Author Jay Owens, Architect Marianna Janowicz and New Generation Thinker Sam Johnson Schlee discuss dust, from cleaning routines in the home to climate change in dry landscapes.

Cleanfluencers like Mrs Hinch dispense modern household management advice - how does this trend fit into a longer history of dust? A book by Jay Owens moves from nuclear fall-out and desertification to dusters. Naomi Paxton is joined by New Generation Thinker Samuel Johnson Schlee.

From cleaning to desert landscapes - Naomi Paxton and guests look at dirt, dry heat, damp.

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.

From mould to desertification Naomi Paxton and guests on the impact of dirt,heat and damp

Author Jay Owens, architect Marianna Janowicz and New Generation Thinker Sam Johnson Schlee discuss dust, from cleaning routines in the home to climate change in dry landscapes.

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.

As Kay Dick's They opens at MIF, Matthew Sweet and guests trace the history of dystopias.

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

Main image: Sheila Rowbotham

Image credit James Swinson j.swinson@csm.art.ac.uk

Two Buddhism scholars and British socialist feminist Sheila Rowbotham join Rana Mitter.

Alice Guy or Alice Guy-Blach退 (July 1, 1873 - March 24, 1968) is considered a pioneer of narrative film. A new documentary Be Natural the untold story of Alice Guy-Blach退 is on general release in the UK from January 2020.

Robert Paul (3 October 1869 - 28 March 1943) was also an early pioneer of British film. He also worked as an electrician and scientific instrument maker. Ian Christie has written a biography called Robert Paul and the Origins of British Cinema. An exhibition about Paul runs at Bradford's National Science and Media Museum until March 2020.

Donna Kornhaber has published Nightmares in the Dream Sanctuary: War and the Animated Film.

Producer: Caitlin Benedict

Matthew Sweet looks back at an early female film director and a British film pioneer.

Katja Hoyer's book is called Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990

Professor Karen Leeder has been reading February 1933, a new translated work by one Germany's leading contemporary writers, Uwe Wittstock

Producer: Ruth Watts

You can find other conversations about German culture and history available on BBC Sounds and as the Arts & Ideas podcast

New angles on post-war Germany and Austria: Florian Huber, Sophie Hardach, Adam Scovell and Tom Smith https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006sjx

Cuba, cold war and RAF Fylingdales: Ian McEwan's novel sets a relationship against the backdrop of the Cuban missile crisis and the fall of the wall in Berlin plus new research https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001c05p

The 1920s - Philosophy's Golden Age 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 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000q380

Walls: Novelist John Lanchester, journalist Tim Marshall and historians David Frye and Kylie Murray https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002150

Katja Hoyer on East Germany, behind the Berlin Wall and the Cold War caricature.

Fatima Bhutto's book is called New Kings of the World: Dispatches from Bollywood, Dizi, and K-Pop

Critical Muslim is a quarterly publication of ideas and issues showcasing thinking on Islam and what it means to be a Muslim in a changing, interconnected world.

Tom Holland's books include Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West; Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom and latest Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind (U.S. edition subtitled 'How the Christian Revolution Remade the World')

Inspired by the east: how the Islamic world influenced western art runs at the British Museum in London from 10 October 2019 - 26 January 2020 and features contemporary art work by Inci Eviner.

Producer: Alex Mansfield

Historian Tom Holland, critic Fatima Bhutto, Ziauddin Sardar, and artist Inci Eviner.

Producer: Julian Siddle

The Taotie runs at Compton Verney from 21 March 2024 – 31 March 2026

On the Free Thinking programme website you can find more collections of conversations exploring religious belief, and South and East Asian culture

Authors Rowan Williams & Christopher Harding and artist Gayle Chong Kwan join Rana Mitter.

The Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams discusses religious belief and ritual with artist Gayle Chong Kwang and historian of Japan, China and the East, Chris Harding.

Producer: Julian Siddle

The Taotie runs at Compton Verney from 21 March 2024 – 31 March 2026

On the Free Thinking programme website you can find more collections of conversations exploring religious belief, and South and East Asian culture

Authors Rowan Williams & Christopher Harding and artist Gayle Chong Kwan join Rana Mitter.

The Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams discusses religious belief and ritual with artist Gayle Chong Kwang and historian of Japan, China and the East, Chris Harding.

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.

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

Who are the best writers past and present who give us an insight into the natural world?

Liam Byrne is the author of Turning to Face The East: How Britain Can Prosper In The Asian Century and Dragons: 10 Entrepreneurs Who Built Britain

Chronicles by Thomas Piketty is out now.

And the Weak Suffer What They Must? by Yanis Varoufakis is out now.

The Invisible Hand by Ayad Akhtar runs at the Tricycle Theatre in London from May 12th to July 2nd.

Anne McElvoy considers new books from Thomas Piketty and Yanis Varoufakis.

Carpe Diem Regained: The Vanishing Art of Seizing the Day' by Roman Krznaric is out now www.carpediem.click

Jules Evans is a 2013 New Generation Thinker who blogs at http://www.philosophyforlife.org/ His book The Art of Losing Control is out now.

Canon Angela Tilby is a contributor to Radio 4's Thought for the Day. Her website is http://www.angelatilby.co.uk/Index/Welcome.html

Dr Hetta Howes is at Queen Mary The University of London.

You can hear Haemin Sunim at the Free Thinking Festival here http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08jb1mp

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and BBC Arts with the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio and television. You can find out more via the Free Thinking website.

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Jules Evans and Roman Krznaric join Rana Mitter to discuss living in the moment.

Orhan Pamuk's new novel is called A Strangeness In My Mind.

Edmund de Waal's new book is called The White Road: A Pilgrimage of Sorts.

Producer: Robyn Read

First broadcast September 2015.

Ceramicist Edmund de Waal and author Orhan Pamuk are in conversation with Philip Dodd.

Her latest story The Little Red Chairs depicts a multi-cultural Ireland in which a wanted war criminal from the Balkans settles in a west coast village community.

Producer: Harry Parker

First broadcast in November 2015.

Philip Dodd is in conversation with Irish novelist Edna O'Brien.

Producer: Robyn Read

Matthew Sweet and guests discuss the playwright Edward Bond (18 July 1934 - 3 March 2024)

Writer/director Mark Ravenhill, actor Kenneth Cranham, professor of contemporary theatre Jen Harvie, playwright Tony Coult, and director Claudette Bryanston.

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

Rana Mitter reads the first biography of the Palestinian academic, pianist and negotiator

John Cleland's erotic novel Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure - otherwise known as Fanny Hill - was first published in 1748 but subsequently withdrawn. Pirated copies led to the first known obscenity case in the USA and a trial in England in 1964.

In 1789 Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies - identifying the name, location and special charms of London prostitutes - sold for half a crown and 8,000 copies of the first edition were printed.

What do these publications tell us about the way sex was seen in eighteenth-century London?

Producer: Harry Parker.

Philip Dodd explores the sexual mores of 18th-century England.

Rachel Holmes' new biography of Eleanor Marx explores her campaigning. She discusses Eleanor Marx and her legacy with Emma Griffin - historian at University of East Anglia and author of Liberty's Dawn - A People's History of the Industrial Revolution and A Short History of the British Industrial Revolution

Presenter: Philip Dodd

Producer: Neil Trevithick.

Philip Dodd meets playwright David Henry Hwang, plus Rachel Holmes discusses Eleanor Marx.

Javier Cercas' latest novel is The Impostor and his essay about fiction is called The Blind Spot.

Juan Gabriel Vကsquez's new novel is called The Shape of the Ruins.

Elif Shafak is the author of novels including The Architect's Apprentice, Honour and Three Daughters of Eve.

Producer: Fiona McLean.

Shahidha Bari chairs a discussion recorded with an audience at the Hay Festival.

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.

Matthew Sweet hears about research into the singer and friend of JS Mill feat. live songs!

Singer Frances M Lynch joins historians Oskar Jensen and Clare Stainthorp in the Free Thinking studio to perform songs written by Eliza Flower (1803-1846). Matthew Sweet hosts.

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.

Laurence Scott explores these and other emigration stories with Eliza Showell's great niece Black Country poet Liz Berry, Leanne McCormick and Elaine Farrell presenters of the Bad Bridget podcast which tells the stories of crime poverty and survival experienced by the thousands of 19th-century Irish women who saw their American Dream become a nightmare, banditry historian Meg Foster who has written about the history of bushrangers - symbols of Australian identity with roots in English highway robbery, and sociologist Michaela Benson who studies the extent and evolution of emigration from the UK today.

Producer: Ruth Thomson

Liz Berry's The Home Child is out now. More than 100,000 children were sent from the United Kingdom to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa as part of the child migration scheme which operated between 1869 and the 1970s.

You can hear her discussing Black Country history and speech patterns with Matthew Sweet in a previous episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001bzm5

Dr Meg Foster is at Newnham College, Cambridge and is the author of Boundary Crossers: the hidden history of Australia's other bushrangers.

https://www.qub.ac.uk/Research/podcasts/bad-bridget/ is an AHRC funded project led by Leanne McCormick (Ulster University) and Elaine Farrell (Queen's University Belfast) focuses on the sexually deviant woman, the bad mother and the criminal Irish woman in Boston, New York and Toronto. A book has just been published Bad Bridget: Crime, Mayhem and the Lives of Irish Emigrant Women

Michaela Benson is Professor in Public Sociology at the University of Lancaster.

Producer in Salford: Ruth Thomson

Laurence Scott finds out about 'Bad Bridgets', bush-ranger history and 'Home Children'.

Emma Cline's first novel The Girls is out now.

Jane Mayer's book is called Dark Money: How a Secretive Group of Billionaires is trying to buy political control in the US

Louisa Uchum Egbunike is at Manchester Metropolitan University. Louisa co-convenes an annual Igbo conference at SOAS

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio programmes. Find out more from our website and hear them introducing their research in the programme which broadcast on May 31st - available as an arts and ideas podcast.

With Emma Cline on cults and teenage girls, and a discussion about the novel Efuru.

Let Me Not Be Mad by the neuropsychologist AK Benjamin is out now.

Max Porter's second novel is called Lanny. His first, Grief is the Thing with Feathers, has now been turned into a stage production featuring Cillian Murphy which runs at the Barbican from 25 Mar—13 Apr 2019

Samantha Harvey's latest novel The Western Wind - set in a 15th-century Somerset village - is now out in paperback. Her previous books include The Wilderness - which depicts an architect suffering from Alzheimer's who is attempting to order his memories.

Producer: Zahid Warley

Authors Max Porter, Samantha Harvey and AK Benjamin discuss empathy with Chris Harding.

Our Life in the Forest by Marie Darrieussecq also looks at clones and trafficking. Her first novel, Pig Tales, was translated into thirty-five languages.

As Radio 3 explores the idea of forests of the imagination she joins presenter Matthew Sweet along with New Generation Thinkers Dr Dafydd Daniel, who teaches at Jesus College, University of Oxford and Dr Lisa Mullen, who is the Steven Isenberg Junior Research Fellow, Worcester College.

Zoe Gilbert's novel Folk is out now.

Spellbound: Magic, Ritual & Witchcraft runs at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford until 6 January 2019.

A playlist of Radio 3's Into the Forest programmes is here https://bbc.in/2RUE1La

Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

Marie Darrieussecq, Lisa Mullen and Dafydd Daniel on magic and dystopias.

Diderot and the art of Thinking Freely by Andrew S Curran is out now.

k-punk: the collected and unpublished writings of Mark Fisher (2004-2017) edited by Darren Ambrose is out now.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

You can find a playlist of programmes on the Free Thinking website on The Way We Live Now exploring ideas from boredom, to whether doctors should cry? the joy of sewing to ideas about consent. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p072637b

Jimmy Wales talks Diderot & collecting knowledge + Tariq Godard on Mark Fisher aka k-punk.

Essential Elements by Edward Burtynsky is published in hardback. His photographs Salt Pans

Essential Elements can be seen at the Flowers Gallery in Kingsland Road London from 16 September - 29 October 2016

Ella Hickson's play Oil, directed by Carrie Cracknell, runs at London's Almeida Theatre from October 7th to November 26th.

The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black Black Oil is the the Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh from 14th - 24th September; at Aberdeen Performing Arts from October 4th- 6th, Eden Court October 11th - 15th, at Glasgow Citizens Theatre from 18th - 22nd.

(Image: Salt Pans #05 Little Rann of Kutch India 2016 (c) Edward Burtynsky 2016. Courtesy Flowers Gallery, London / Metivier Gallery, Toronto).

Philip Dodd is joined by artist Edward Burtynsky and playwright Ella Hickson.

Light Shining in Buckinghamshire at the National Theatre from April to June.

Anne McElvoy also visits the British Museum's exhibition Indigenous Australia: Enduring Culture in the company of curator Gaye Sculthorpe, herself of Tasmanian aboriginal descent, and hears from australian aboriginal scholar Christine Nicholls about her own experience of living in an aborginal desert community for ten years. Anne McElvoy is then joined in the studio by anthropologist Howard Morphy to discuss the difficulty of translating the concept of Dreamtime into english and the role its related art has played in shaping views of aboriginal history and contemporary frustrations.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Image: Nicholas Gleaves (Star) and the company, Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, National Theatre

Photo Credit: Marc Brenner.

Anne McElvoy hears how a mid-1970s play might cast light on today's political landscape.

What Shadows runs at Birmingham Rep Theatre from October 27th to November 12th and stars Ian McDiarmid playing Enoch Powell.

James Zirin's book is called Supremely Partisan: How Raw Politics Tips the Scales in the United States Supreme Court

Traces of War, curated by Vivienne Jabri, is at King's College, London until 18th December

John Keane's exhibition - If You Knew Me, If You Knew Yourself, You Would Not Kill Me - opens at Flowers Gallery, London on 4th November.

With a play about Enoch Powell, the US Supreme Court and the visual language of war.

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

Matthew Sweet watches the 1973 martial arts film made before Bruce Lee's death aged 32.

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 ǀatalh怀yük 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

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

Shahidha Bari finds out how to use the theory of knowledge to address real-world problems.

The Hairy Ape is at The Old Vic Theatre in London from October 17th to November 21st.

Erica Jong's latest book is called Fear of Dying.

Ben Bernanke's book is called The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and its Aftermath

Photograph: Bertie Carvel (playing Yank in The Hairy Ape by Eugene O'Neill).

Philip Dodd with writer Erica Jong, director Richard Jones and economist Ben Bernanke.

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.

From Montaigne to modern Scottish writing - Rana Mitter discusses what makes a good essay.

Kirsty Gunn, Chris Arthur, Emma Claussen and Paul Lay join Rana Mitter to discuss essays by Montaigne, Orwell, Bacon and Eleanor Parker, Virginia Woolf and Alexander Lee.

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 British Academy postdoctoral fellow at Cambridge university who studies the work of Montaigne.

Producer: Harry Parker.

Anne McElvoy looks at the resurgence of non-fiction writing and the essay as a form.

Tim Burrows has written The Invention of Essex: The Making of an English County.

Elsa James is an artist whose work includes the Forgotten Black Essex project.

Simon 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-Sea.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Composer 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 1623.

In 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

Looking beyond the stereotypes of the county that's often described as 'much maligned'.

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

Anne McElvoy and guests look at the writing of the German Romantic writer and musician.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

You can find a series of concerts from Hay, Essays, 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.

Ece Temelkuran, Ben Judah, Misha Glenny and Timothy Garton Ash with Rana Mitter at Hay.

The novelist AS Byatt, the film expert Neil Brand and the cultural historians Alexandra Harris and Philipp Blom have chosen artworks and artefacts from the period and will use them to explore, with Anne McElvoy, the ideas and spirit of the European capital cities on the brink of World War 1.

Roger Fry, a landmark silent film version of Les Miserables and Freud's understanding of the Viennese practice of Gschnas give us glimpses of a rapidly changing world.

Producer: Natalie Steed.

AS Byatt, Alexandra Harris, Neil Brand and Philipp Blom on culture in Europe pre-WWI.

Brideshead Revisited - adapted by Bryony Lavery - runs at York Theatre Royal from Fri 22 Apr - Sat 30 Apr and then goes on tour to Bath, Southampton, Cambridge, Malvern, Brighton, Oxford, Richmond.

Evelyn Waugh - A Life Revisited by Philip Eade will be published in July.

Bryony Lavery, Alexander Waugh, Philip Eade and Adam Mars-Jones celebrate Evelyn Waugh.

Dr Yasmin Khan has published The Raj at War

Dr Jahnavi Phalkey is the author of Atomic State: Big Science in Twentieth Century India

Dr Anindita Ghosh has published Power in Print : Popular Publishing and the Politics of Language and Culture in a Colonial Society, 1778-1905

Maha Rafi Atal writes as a journalist and in her own blog.

Rana Mitter explores new research into India in the Second World War and the British Raj.

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 that 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

Image: The 2022 Doomsday Clock revealed in January

Image credit: Thomas Gaulkin/Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Planning and creating in the shadow of the doomsday clock with Shahidha Bari and guests.

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/

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

Shahidha Bari talks to the winner of the Goldsmiths Prize, awarded for creative daring.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Rana Mitter looks at the ideologies surrounding climate disaster.

Mich耀le 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

Lara Feigel, Mich\u00e8le Roberts and New Generation Thinker Alexandra Reza with Shahidha Bari.

Matthew Sweet is joined by Vanessa Toulmin, Director of the National Fairground Archive, Dr Helen Davies and performance artist Martin O'Brien and at the Hayward by art critic Charlotte Mullins

Carsten H怀ller: Decision runs at Hayward Gallery from June 10th to September 6th 2015

Neo-Victorian Freakery: The Cultural Afterlife of the Freak Show by Helen Davies will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in September

The Elephant Man starring Bradley Cooper runs at the Theatre Royal Haymarket until August.

The Sheffield Doc/Fest runs until June 10th. The Greatest Shows on Earth: A Century of Vaudeville, Circuses and Carnivals is directed by Benedikt Erlingsson

Image : Isometric Slides during the instalation at Hayward Gallery by Carsten H怀ller.

Photo: David Levene.

Matthew Sweet explores Carsten Holler's art and discusses the idea of the 'freak'.

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

Philosophers Daniel Dennett, Philip Goff, podcaster Liz Oldfield & a faith museum curator.

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

Image: Cravat made of limewood carved by Grinling Gibbons ca. 1690.

Image credit: Victoria and Albert Museum, London

From fake flowers carved by Grinling Gibbons to modern craft and internet images.

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 Universit退 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 Neanderthals to Sikh warriors to the idea of weird people, three authors look at kin.

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 i-player 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.

Claire Wilcox, fashion curator of the V&A, talks to Shahidha Bari and other researchers.

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 lecturer on Fashion at the University of Westminster.

British-Ghanaian photographer James Barnor's work is on show at the Serpentine Gallery in London from 19th May - 22nd 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 the programme we made 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

Olivia Laing, Charlie Porter and Ekow Eshun join Shahidha Bari.

Be My Guest: Reflections on Food, Community and the Meaning of Generosity is out now.

Feast & Fast: The art of food in Europe, 1500 -1800 runs at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge until April 26th 2020 and features food creations and sugarwork from food historian Ivan Day.

Global Food Security publish their research here: https://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/

You can hear more discussions about food by searching for

~Free Thinking Food to hear philosopher Barry Smith and critic Alex Clark with Matthew Sweet https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08wn51y

The Working Lunch and Food in History https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b7my5n

New Generation Thinkers Food: We Are What We Eat a Radio 3 Essay from Christopher Kissane which looks at Spanish Inquisition stews & Reformation sausages to pork in French school meals https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07xhr60

Healthy Eating Edwardian Style - an Essay from Elsa Richardson https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p075d3hy

Producer: Alex Mansfield.

From plenty to food banks - writer Priya Basil, curator Victoria Avery and Maia Elliot

Many of us still remember the images of Paul Gascoigne crying at the 1990 World Cup, Mrs Thatcher's red eyes on leaving Downing Street, and the national mourning for Princess Diana. Over twenty years later, the tide of tears shows no sign of receding. From public inquiries to primetime TV, the Premier League to Prime Minister's Questions, emotions seem to be everywhere in public life. With a cool head and some much-needed historical perspective, Professor Thomas Dixon opens the Free Thinking festival 2019 by showing that our emotions themselves have a history.

In recent decades, some scientists have claimed there are just five or six ‘basic emotions', but the category of ‘emotions' did not exist until the nineteenth century, and history reveals a much richer picture of passions, affections, and sentiments. Ranging from revolutionary feelings and the sentimental tales of Charles Dickens to the poetic rage of Audre Lorde, Thomas Dixon paints a historical panorama of emotions and ends by asking what we can learn from our ancestors about the value of stoical restraint. The lecture will be followed by an interview conducted by Matthew Sweet and questions from the Free Thinking Festival audience at Sage Gateshead.

Thomas Dixon was the first director of Queen Mary University of London's Centre for the History of the Emotions, the first of its kind in the UK. He is currently researching anger and has explored the histories of friendship, tears, and the British stiff upper lip in books Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears and The Invention of Altruism: Making Moral Meanings in Victorian Britain.

Producer: Debbie Kilbride

Thomas Dixon, first director of the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions.

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

Anne McElvoy talks to novelist Kamila Shamsie and playwright Rona Munro.

Fighting History is on at Tate Britain from 9 June - 13 September 2015

Othello runs at the RSC in Stratford from 4 June - 28 August 2015 and will be broadcast live to cinemas on 26 August 2015.

You can hear the director Iqbal Khan on the episode of Private Passions broadcast on May 17th. And Hugh Quarshie presents a Sunday Documentary Looking for the Moor which is being broadcast on July 12th.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger New Selected Poems is published now by Bloodaxe Books. Our reader was Stephen Critchlow.

Image: Hugh Quarshie (Othello) and Lucian Msamati (Iago)

Photo credit: Keith Pattison.

Anne McElvoy on a new history painting exhibition at Tate Britain. Plus a new Othello.

Our Bodies, Their Battlefields by Christina Lamb looks at rape as a weapon in war.

Maaza Mengiste's novel The Shadow King is set during Italy's 1935 invasion of Ethiopia.

Julie Wheelwright's book is called Sisters in Arms: Female warriors from antiquity to the new millennium. It includes the discoveries she made whilst researching one of her ancestors.

Shawn Sobers from the University of the West of England is a filmmaker and photographer whose work can be found at http://www.shawnsobers.com/

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

A collection of Free Thinking programmes on War & Conflict can be found on the programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06kgbyb

Adrienne Mayor on the Amazon https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05nt04m

Natalie Haynes looks at the Legacy of the Trojan War https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000bg2k

Maaza Mengiste, Christina Lamb, Julie Wheelwright & Shawn Sobers join Eleanor Barraclough.

Part of a series of broadcasts tying into BBC 4 Goes Abstract

Malevich: Revolutionary of Russian Art is at Tate Modern until October 26th

Mondrian and his Studios is at Tate Liverpool until October 5th.

From Tate Modern, London, Anne McElvoy leads a debate about abstract art past and present.

Bertold Brecht's Life of Galileo directed by Joe Wright in a translation by John Willlett runs at the Young Vic Theatre in London from May 6th - July 1st.

Glory on Earth runs at the Royal Lyceum Edinburgh from May 20th to June 10th. Written by Linda McLean the drama is directed by David Greig and stars Jamie Sives.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC with the Arts and Humanities Research Council to work with academics to turn their research into radio and television. You can find more broadcasts and films on the Free Thinking website.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Philip Dodd discusses speaking truth to power and the beliefs of John Knox and Galileo.

Professor Nandini Das is Project Director for Tide: http://www.tideproject.uk/

Travel, Transculturality and Identity in England c1550- 1700 is an ERC funded project.

Claudia Rogers currently teaches at the University of Leeds, where she completed her PhD, and continues her connection with the University of Sheffield as an Honorary Research Fellow.

You can view the Lienzo de Tlaxcala online http://www.mesolore.org/cultures/synopsis/3/Nahua

This episode is one of a series of conversations - New Thinking - produced in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UK Research & Innovation.

New Generation Thinkers is an annual scheme to showcase academic research in radio and podcasts. You can find more information on the Arts and Humanities Research Council website https://ahrc.ukri.org

Producer: Luke Mulhall

There's a discussion about the ongoing fascination with ruins; whether a picturesque castle ruin glimpsed through the mist or the eerie photographs of an abandoned Detroit. Why do artists, and audiences, continue to seek out images of decay and destruction? Anne talks to the curator of a new exhibition at Tate Britain and the writer, Amanda Hopkinson.

Lark Rise to Candleford has been reinvented by theatre and television, and even Danny Boyle's Olympic opening extravaganza owed a debt to the idea of rural England that Flora Thompson created and recorded in her books. Anne talks to the nature writer Richard Mabey about his latest book 'The Life of Flora Thompson and the creation of Lark Rise to Candleford.

Producer: Natalie Steed.

Richard Mabey discusses his biography of Flora Thompson, author of Lark Rise to Candleford

Matthew Sweet explores the joys of food with philosopher Barry Smith, restaurant critic cum trainee chef Lisa Markwell, literary critic Alex Clark, and food historian Elsa Richardson

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Matthew Sweet and his guests explore the joys of food.

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 18

Rebecca May Johnson is running an experimental cooking demo in Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex on Nov 18 and her memoir is called Small Fires

Zaynab Allak at Edge Hill University is running events to do with hospitality 10-16 November

Dr 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 Collections

Pen 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 New Thinking podcast episodes made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI.

Lisa Mullen hears about new research into eating habits and ideas about hospitality.

Lisa Mullen is joined by authors Pen Vogler and Rebecca May Johnson and academics Lindsay Middleton, Zayneb Allak and Sara Read for a conversation about food, class and luxury.

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.

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?

They join Anne McElvoy for a conversation about food and sustainability. Plus novelist Richard Flanagan's latest book called 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

Bush fires in novelist Richard Flanagan's new book, and Anne McElvoy looks at veganism.

Christopher Fowler's The Book of Forgotten Authors catalogues 99 writers whom he thinks should be better known.

The Prisoner first aired in Canada in 1967 and ran for 17 episodes. I am (not) a Number: Decoding The Prisoner by Alex Cox is published later this year.

The Tiger in the Smoke: Art and Culture in Postwar Britain by Professor Lynda Nead is published by London and New Haven: Yale University Press / Paul Mellon Studies in British Art.

Clare Walker Gore is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Cambridge who has edited a critical edition of Dinah Mulock Craik's out-of-print novel A Noble Life, published by Victorian Secrets - an independent publisher which makes available scholarly editions of unjustly neglected Victorian novels.

Producer: Karl Bos.

Alex Cox, Christopher Fowler, Clare Walker Gore and Lynda Nead with Matthew Sweet.

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

Shahidha Bari reads a new English translation by Robert Hurley.

Professor Tim Birkhead is a Professor of Behavioural Ecology at Sheffield University. In his book Ten Thousand Birds he describes Ornithology Since Darwin. He talks to Anne about his research into bird mating systems.

Charlotte Higgins, author of Under Another Sky about Roman Britain, discusses the lessons we can learn from the reign of the Roman emperor Augustus, who died in AD 14.

Producer: Zahid Warley.

Anne McElvoy discusses France and its former colonies, plus bird mating systems.

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 ɀdouard Louis (author)and translated by Tash Aw is out now.

ɀdouard 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 ɀdouard 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

An outdoor history of France and a look inside popular French theatre's view on Britain.

The Polish novelist Olga Tokarczuk won the 2018 Man Booker International Prize for her novel Flights. Her latest novel to be translated into English by Antonia Lloyd Jones is called Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead and became the film Spoor directed by directed by Agnieszka Holland. She's in the UK to take part in festivals at Cambridge and the London Literature Festival at the Southbank Centre.

Alev Scott has travelled through 12 countries, talking to figures including warlords and refugees for her book Ottoman Odyssey: Travels Through a Lost Empire. She explores the ties of language, culture, and religion which persist beyond the end of Ottoman rule and discusses her take with New Generation Thinker Michael Talbot who teaches and researches the Ottoman Empire at the University of Greenwich. He's a contributor to http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/ and the author of British-Ottoman Relations, 1661-1807: Commerce and Diplomatic Practice in Eighteenth-Century Istanbul.

Like a Sword Wound by Ahmet Altan is published now in English translated by Yelda Türedi and Brendan Freely. It's the winner of the Yunus Nadi Novel Prize, and the first book in the Ottoman Quartet, a narrative that spans the history of Turkey during the decline of the Ottoman Empire.

You can find more discussions about borders, home and belonging in this playlist of programmes https://bbc.in/2QALzkL

Producer: Zahid Warley

Rana Mitter explores identity, forest landscapes and the long impact of the Ottoman empire

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.

Producer: Karl Bos

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

The screenwriter and novelist talks to Matthew Sweet about depicting Britain in his work.

In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein by the poet and writer Fiona Sampson is out now.

Christopher Frayling has published Frankenstein: The First Two Hundred Years

Dr Daisy Hay is Senior Lecturer, English Literature and Archival Studies at the University of Exeter and a BBC Radio 3 and AHRC New Generation Thinker who will be publishing later this year a book on The Making of Frankenstein.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Annotated for scientists, engineers and creators of all kinds edited by David H Guston, Ed Finn and Jason Scott Robert

Late Junction tonight is looking at music and AI, asking can we create a digital version of the ideal Late Junction collaborator using computer code alone?

The Radio 3 Sunday feature Select, Edit, Paste presented by Clemency Burton-Hill has been exploring new technologies and the arts.

Producer: Zahid Warley.

Main image: Mary Shelley, 1840. Artist : Rothwell, Richard (1800-1868). (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Fiona Sampson, Daisy Hay, Christopher Frayling and David H.Guston with Matthew Sweet.

Tariq Ali is a journalist, historian, and filmmaker 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 Aim退 C退saire https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nmxf

Producer: Luke Mulhall

IMAGE: The Algerian War In Algiers, Algeria In 1961

CREDIT: Dominique BERRETTY/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Re-reading the major 20th century theorist of decolonisation

Frederick Forsyth's Memoir is The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue

Thomas Dixon is the author of Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation In Tears and presented a Radio 3 Sunday Feature on the subject.

Tiffany Watt Smith's book is called The Book of Human Emotion.

Simon Schama's Face of Britain is a curated exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery which runs from 16 September 2015 - 4 January 2016. He is also presenting a series on BBC 2 which begins on September 30th and has written a book called The Face of Britain: A Nation Through Its Portraits.

Presented by Matthew Sweet. With novelist Frederick Forsyth and a discussion on emotions.

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.

The writings of Chinese women, from Ding Ling to coming of age in the 1990s

Rana Mitter hears about the women of modern China seeking identity and voice in the public sphere and the complicated ways in which ideas are expressed outside democracy.

Rana Mitter explores the ideas shaping our lives today

Europe After Empire by Elizabeth Buettner is published in April

Islam Beyond the Mad Max Jihadis by Ziauddin Sardar is published in February.

Philip Dodd debates the question 'does France have to stop being French to survive?'.

And, the medievalist Kylie Murray, a New Generation Thinker 2015, finds surprising parity with contemporary practices of political spin when she investigates how the prophecies of Scottish seer Thomas the Rhymer were interpreted and propagated north and south of the border.

How the French Think by Sudhir Hazareesingh is published by Penguin.

The Existentialist Moment; Sartre's Rise as a Public Intellectual by Patrick Baert is published by Polity

From France with Love: Gender and Identity in French Romantic Comedy by Mary Harrod is published by I.B. Tauris.

Anne McElvoy discusses French intellectual traditions with Sudhir Hazareesingh.

Plus Emile Chabal from the University of Edinburgh discusses Savages: The Wedding by Sabri Louatah - a novel imagining the first Arab candidate for President is shot. The TV rights for the quartet of books have been sold and the first book is winning prizes and comparisons with the Neopolitan novels of Elena Ferrante.

Fleur Darkin of Scottish Dance Theatre talks about her stage adaptation of L'Amant by Marguerite Duras, while Julia Waters from the University of Reading explains how the French colonial experience in Indochina informed the work of Duras and other writers.

Lullaby by Lela Slimani is now published in English in a translation by Sam Taylor.

Savages The Saint-ɀtienne Quartet Volume 1: The Wedding is written by Sabri Louatah and translated into English by Gavin Bowd.

The Lover, adapted and directed by Fleur Darkin and Jemima Levick, is at the Lyceum, Edinburgh from 20th January to 3rd February.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Main image: Lela Slimani (photograph by Catherine H退lie (c)Editions Gallimard).

Leila Slimani, President Macron's champion of French culture and language, is interviewed.

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

Anne McElvoy talks to the directors at London's National Gallery, Yale and New York's Met.

Charlotte Jones discusses her new play set in a Quaker community during the Napoleonic Wars. Matthew Sweet visits Compton Verney Art Gallery with Lisa Mullen to see the exhibition, 'Marvellous Mechanical Museum' which re-imagines the spectacular automata exhibitions of the 18th century. Laurence Scott talks about the ideas in his book, 'Picnic Comma Lightning' which explores the way digital advances are changing the way we live and what we reveal about ourselves. And, from the Indian Superman to Batman in the Philippines, film historian and New Generation Thinker Iain Smith looks at the hidden history of unlicensed superhero films produced around the world.

Iain Robert Smith is a Lecturer in Film Studies at King's College, London.

Laurence Scott is a New Generation Thinker Lecturer in Writing at New York University in London and the author of 'Picnic Comma Lightning' which is to be broadcast as the Radio 4 Book of the Week from July 16-20th.

The Marvellous Mechanical Museum is at Compton Verney until September 20th 2018.

Charlotte Jones's drama The Meeting runs at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester from 13 July - 11 August

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.

Producer Fiona McLean

Main image: Faberg退 Silver Elephant Automaton Royal Collection Trust (c) Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2018.

Matthew Sweet visits the Marvellous Mechanical Museum at Compton Verney.

Producer: Caitlin Benedict

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

Hanif Abdurraqib, Dawn Walton, Adjoa Osei on black performers from jazz to the Super Bowl

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

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Seb Falk talks to researchers about attitudes to Mars, seeing colour and Skylab's crash.

Iain Sinclair's new writing on his trip to Peru, following in the footsteps of his great grandfather Arthur, is published in the London Review of Books. He has also blogged travel notes about it at his own website.

Violencia: A New History of Spain: Past Present and the Future of the West by Jason Webster is out this week. On the BBC Radio 3 website is a whole series of programmes broadcast on Sunday September 29th exploring Al-Andalus 800 years of music and culture.

Anna Maria Maolino: Making Love Revolutionary is on show at the Whitechapel Gallery in London until Jan 12th 2020.

Iain Sinclair publishes writing about his Peruvian travels in the London Review of Books and a film is forthcoming.

Latinx: The New Force in American Politics and Culture by Ed Morales is out now. Ed Morales is one of the 6 shortlisted authors for the 2019 Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize of £25,000, awarded annually for a non-fiction book that promotes global cultural understanding. Find our playlist on the Free Thinking website and hear the 2018 winner Kapka Kassabova and find this year's other shortlisted authors: https://bbc.in/2mFDFx4

The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity by Kwame Anthony Appiah

How the World Thinks: A Global History of Philosophy by Julian Baggini

A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution by Toby Green

Maoism: A Global History by Julia Lovell

Remnants of Partition: 21 Objects from a Continent Divided by Aanchal Malhotra

The winner is announced October 20th 2019.

Producer: Alex Mansfield

Rana Mitter talks to Jason Webster, Ed Morales, Iain Sinclair and Iwona Blazwick.

Steve Hilton's new book, More Human, argues that as our world has become more industrialised our lifestyles are becoming more impersonal. He suggests that greater fulfilment would result if we created a more local, more accountable and more human way of living. Peter Fleming's new book is called The Mythology of Work - How Capitalism Persists Despite Itself .

Actor Julian Glover performs an extract from Beowulf and talks about reworking the Old English poem for stage as he prepares to hand over to his son the show which he has taken to theatres over the last 30 years.

Julian Glover's last performances of Beowulf are at the Globe Theatre in London on Sunday May 24th at 1.30 and 7pm.

New Generation Thinker Lucy Powell joins director Simon Godwin to discuss a new production of The Beaux' Stratagem at the National Theatre. How feminist is Farquhar's comedy about love, money and marriage?

The Beaux' Stratagem runs in rep at the National Theatre until mid September.

Including a debate about fulfilment, actor Julian Glover and the play The Beaux' Stratagem

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/

Begoကa 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

Are fungi out to get us or here to help? A look at mushrooms in art, food, and psychology.

Riel Miller is an economist at UNESCO, who works on future literacy.

Rupert Read is an environmental campaigner with Extinction Rebellion and is speaking here in a personal capacity.

Sarah Dillon is New Generation Thinker and editor of a new book AI Narratives: A History of Imaginative Thinking about Intelligent Machines

Lisa Mullen is a New Generation Thinker and author of Mid Century Gothic

Mark Honigsbaum is the author of The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria and Hubris.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

In the Free Thinking archives:

New Generation Thinker Sarah Dillon's Essay on is science fiction is sexist https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03g2wkp

A discussion about Zamyatin's novel We https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03f8bqz

A discussion with Naomi Alderman, Roger Luckhurst and Alessandro Vincentelli on science fiction & space travel https://www.bbc.com/programmes/b04ps158

Matthew Sweet explores psychohistory and Isaac Asimov and guiding the future https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000d84g

Naomi Alderman is in conversation with Margaret Atwood https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07xhzy8

Ursula Le Guin's The Word for World is Forest https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b6yb37

and a New Thinking podcast made with the AHRC in which Hetta Howes talks with Caroline Edwards and Amy Butt https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p086zq4g

Mark Honigsbaum, Lisa Mullen, Riel Miller, Sarah Dillon and Rupert Read with Matthew Sweet

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.

Matthew Sweet and guests look at the manifesto celebrating youth, technology and violence.

Emma Frankland's Galatea is commissioned by and is on as part of Brighton Festival, from the 5-21 May, 2023

Dr Andy Kesson teaches at Roehampton University and runs a Before Shakespeare project

Dr 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 Newcastle

Dr 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 Shakespeare

The Globe Theatre production of A Midsummer Night's Dream runs 27th April to 12th August

On 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

Trans narratives in pre-Shakespearian drama, plus Twelfth Night and the First Folio.

Callum Williams' book The Classical School: The Turbulent Birth of Economics in Twenty Extraordinary Lives is out now

In the Free Thinking archives you can find this discussion asking Danny Dorling, Richard Davies and Petr Barton Does Growth Matter https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gbtl

A discussion about economics with Juliet Michaelson, Liam Byrne, John Redwood and Luke Johnson https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03qbv3q

A discussion about Marxism https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b0x6m0

The Free Thinking Festival Lecture on globalisation given by economist Linda Yueh https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09w3x1r

The Free Thinking Lecture on the wealth gap given by Michael Marmot https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03f2kzr

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Anne McElvoy looks at gambling and at lessons from past US presidents.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

You can also find on BBC Sounds an episode of Radio 3's weekly selection of Words and Music inspired by Game playing and the monthly episode of Sound of Gaming presented by Elle Osili-Wood

Shahidha Bari finds out how to win at rock, paper, scissors and to make a Windrush game.

Marcus du Sautoy, Corey Brotherson, Gemma Tidman and Timothy Peacock join Shahidha Bari to talk about card games at French court, chess, computer games and gamification.

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

Rana Mitter looks at a new play at the National Theatre about the man who murdered Gandhi.

BBC 6 Music's Stuart Maconie author of The Pie at Night - a book which explores northern leisure pursuits - reviews an exhibition about Salford Lads Club.

Feminist and co-founder of the group Justice for Women, Julie Bindel, and Rachael Jolley, editor of Index on Censorship magazine look at the phenomenon of 'no platforming'.

Radio journalist Gillian Reynolds pays tribute to Philip French and discusses working on Radio 3's Critics' Forum with the late film critic and radio producer.

The Nippers of Salford Lads Club is on at the People's History Museum from Wed 28 Oct 2015 - Sun 17 Jan.

Stuart Maconie's book is called The Pie at Night.

Garry Kasparov's book is called Winter is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must be Stopped.

(Photo Garry Kasparov. Credit: Igor Khodzinskiy).

Matthew Sweet is joined by Garry Kasparov, Stuart Maconie and Julie Bindel.

Daniel Levitin has published The Changing Mind: A Neuroscientist's Guide to Ageing Well. You can download his BBC Proms Lecture about music and science as a podcast https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02xfqpc

Adam Rutherford's latest book is called How To Argue With a Racist. You can hear him on BBC Sounds presenting Inside Science and The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry

Want to learn more about neuroplasticity? Listen to Rana talking to Norman Doidge - https://bbc.in/32qAN7B

Plus more on Adam & Eve here - https://bbc.in/391Ah2v

Torquil MacLeod

Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin and geneticist Adam Rutherford join Rana Mitter.

At the Stranger's Gate by Adam Gopnik, a staff writer for the New Yorker, is a memoir recalling 1980s New York and the early years of his marriage.

Lucinda Rogers: On Gentrification Drawings from Ridley Road Market is on display at the House of Illustration in London until March 25th 2018.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Image: The Gentrification of Lewisham in South London, England. 22 August 2017. Photo by Jack Taylor / Getty Images).

Essayist Adam Gopnik talks to Shahidha Bari about city living. Plus artist Lucinda Rogers.

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

Anne McElvoy and guests look at the arguments explored in the plays of Shaw (1856-1950).

George Eliot was born on 22 November 1819.

Rebecca Mead is the author of The road to Middlemarch: my life with George Eliot.

Dafydd Mills Daniel is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and AHRC to put academic research on the radio.

Professor Peggy Reynolds teaches at Queen Mary University London and has edited anthologies of Victorian poets, the Sappho Companion and the Penguin edition of George Eliot's Adam Bede.

Professor Philip Davis teaches at the University of Liverpool and is the author of The Transferred Life of George Eliot.

Listen out for Radio 3's weekly curation of Words and Music which broadcasts each Sunday at 5.30pm and is available to listen here https://bbc.in/2E72xV0

A special episode also featuring Fiona Shaw as one of the readers hears extracts from Eliot's fiction, essays and journal set alongside the music she might have had on her playlist - composers including Clara Schumann, Liszt, whom Eliot met in 1854; and Tchaikovsky, who said his favourite writer was George Eliot.

Producer: Fiona McLean

Rebecca Mead, Fiona Shaw, Philip Davis, Dafydd Daniel & Peggy Reynolds with Shahidha Bari.

Germaine Greer's new book White Beech: The Rainforest Years traces her attempt to return land in South East Queensland to its wild state.

The new novel from the author of 'The Slap' follows a boy who uses swimming as a way out of his working class, immigrant background. Tsiolkas explores ideas about competitiveness and the macho side of Australian culture.

Pat Dodson is a key campaigner for Aboriginal rights

In this special edition of Free Thinking presenter Samira Ahmed explores what lies within the Australian psyche?

Producer: Neil Trevithick.

Samira Ahmed presents a special edition discussing Australian culture.

Neil MacGregor's book Germany: Memories of a Nation is now out in paperback.

Threepenny Opera runs at the National Theatre from May 19th in rep through to September.

Babylon Berlin by Volker Kutscher translated by Niall Sellar is out in English now.

Philippe Sands is professor of law at University College London. His book East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity is out now. He has also made a documentary film My Nazi Legacy: What Our Fathers Did

A.T. Williams' book A Passing Fury: the story of the Nuremberg Trials is also out now.

Main image: Neil MacGregor - Photographer Jason Bell

Anne McElvoy explores Germany with Neil MacGregor, Volker Kutscher and Haydn Gwynne.

Originally set in Scunthorpe, Lewis' novel Jack's Return Home was relocated to Newcastle/Gateshead for the film which Mike Hodges adapted and directed.

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

Get Carter is screening in early June at the BFI and then at selected regional cinemas. It is being released on UHD & Blu-ray on 25 July.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

You can find discussions about films and TV including Tarkovsky's Stalker, This Sporting Life, Man with a Movie Camera, Quatermass, and Jaws in a collection of Landmark programmes https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44

Digging beneath the surface of the classic Brit noir film with director Mike Hodges.

Producer: Robyn Read

Hungry 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 Ou退draogo, Am퀀lcar Cabral and the Victorian circus performer Pablo Fanque https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbp

New writing by Colin Grant and Kevin Jared Hosein; art by Michael Elliott and Mary Evans.

The Silence of Others, backed by Pedro Almod　var 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

Rana Mitter talks to documentary makers, a novelist and historian about breaking silences.

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. https://www.bfi.org.uk/in-dreams-are-monsters

In the Free Thinking archives you can find a discussion about Vampires and the Penny Dreadful https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0018h4y

Ghost Stories https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0009t19

Spookiness and Fear featuring the author Sarah Perry https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000kk2

An examination of the reality - horror/pseudo-documentary TV broadcast from 1992.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

The BFI season runs to the end of April

Many of Ginger Rogers's 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

Matthew Sweet and guests discuss Ginger Rogers's dancing, comic timing and 'sass'.

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 to turn 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 Arts and Humanities Research Council 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 in war, and women's bodies - hearing from guests including Helena Kennedy, Layla AlAmmar, Kiley Reid, Helen Lewis, and Maaza Mengiste. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p084ttwp

Producer: Emma Wallace

Shahidha Bari looks at research into girls in film and fiction to Malawi health projects.

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Presented by Samira Ahmed. With the TV series Girls, Daniel Alarcon and the constitution.

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

Matthew Sweet and guests including Glenda Jackson on John Schlesinger's love triangle film

Elif Shafak talks about her latest novel, Three Daughters of Eve, which looks at love, friendship and religion set in Oxford and Istanbul.

They are joined in the Free Thinking studio by Douglas Murray, founder of the centre for social cohesion and on a line from USA, Julius Krein, editor of American Affairs, a new magazine backing Trumpism.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

Three Daughters of Eve by Elif Shafak is published on the 2nd of February.

Age of Anger: A History of the Present by Pankaj Mishra is published on the 7th of February.

With a discussion about anger, Elif Shafak's new novel and a debate about Trumpism.

As TATE MODERN opens an exhibition CONFLICT TIME AND PHOTOGRAPHY, former New Generation Thinker Dr ZOE NORRIDGE from Kings' College London discusses images of war with Austrian photographer ALEX SCHLACHER, who has spent 3 years with the Gurkhas and has documented the work of US Marines in Afghanistan as well as law enforcement in the US and Austria.

The 25th anniversary of the 1989 Polish TV drama series THE DECALOGUE directed by KRZYSZTOF KIESLOWSKI is being marked by a series of screenings at the ICA GALLERY in London, at JW3 and DEPTFORD CINEMA. AGATA PYZIK, author of POOR BUT SEXY: CULTURE CLASHES IN EUROPE EAST AND WEST and MICHAEL GODDARD, co-ed POLISH CINEMA IN A TRANSNATIONAL CONTEXT discuss an auteur director more interested in the general human condition than politics per se.

CONFLICT TIME AND PHOTOGRAPHY runs at TATE MODERN from 26 November 2014 - 15 March 2015

Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

Geoffrey Parker talks to Anne McElvoy about the relationship between weather and war.

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

Image: Riina Oun's python skin gloves

From python skin to Nintendo gaming, PPE to vegan materials: how gloves are evolving.

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 Association'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. Tom Chatfield, is the author of Wise Animals: How Technology has Made Us What We Are. He 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 has looked at gloves in fiction and old documents in her book Gloves: An Intimate History 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

Image: Riina Oun's python skin gloves

From python skin to Nintendo gaming, PPE to vegan materials: how gloves are evolving.

Shahidha Bari dons a pair of gloves and is joined by guests Anne Green, Tom Chatfield, Riina Oun and Rebecca Unsworth to examine their making and the many meanings they have held.

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

Christopher Harding investigates the feminine divine with Ronald Hutton and others.

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

Image: a bronze statue of the Greek god Zeus

Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Hetta Howes and Mark Vernon join Matthew Sweet.

As a new blockbuster featuring Japanese monster Godzilla opens in 3D and the last animated film from Hayao Miyazaki depicts a Japanese aircraft designer behind the fighter plane used by the navy - New Generation Thinker Christopher Harding discusses different depictions of Japanese fear.

New Generation Thinker Dr Philip Roscoe, from St Andrews University, and Geoffrey Wood, Professor Emeritus of Economics at Cass Business School and the University of Buckingham discuss the teaching of economics degrees, the interest in Thomas Piketty's arguments and whether academia needs to change the focus of studies into financial systems.

Philip Roscoe's book is called I Spend, Therefore I Am.

Thomas Piketty's booked is called Capital in the 21st Century

As Irish photographer Richard Mosse is announced as the winner of this year's £30,000 in the Deutsche B怀rse prize for his images of the Congo, New Generation Thinker Zoe Norridge discusses photography and depictions of African countries affected by war.

Producer: Zahid Warley.

Matthew Sweet reviews Godzilla and The Wind Rises, plus Lily Cole in The Last Days of Troy

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

Andrea Wulf, author of a new group biography set in 1790s Jena, joins Anne McElvoy.

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 Ren退 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

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

Plus as Sheffield Theatres begin a season looking back at the work of Sarah Kane, Director Daniel Evans discusses her writing with Anne McElvoy; also a review of Indian Summers - Channel 4's new costume drama about the end of colonial rule.

The Sarah Kane Season runs at Sheffield Theatres until Mid March.

Indian Summers screens on Channel 4 for 10 weeks beginning on Sunday February 15th at 9pm.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Image: Indian Summers, Channel 4

Photographer: Joss Barratt.

With the future of Greece discussed, Sarah Kane's plays and the TV series Indian Summers.

The Future of Capitalism by Paul Collier, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government and a Professorial Fellow of St Antony's College.

The Scottish Clearances by Tom Devine, Professor Emeritus, University of Edinburgh.

The Farm, a new novel by Hector Abad is translated by Anne McLean

Anne McElvoy presents a short film Is Capitalism Here to Stay for BBC Ideas https://www.bbc.com/ideas/ Browse their A-Z of Isms

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Main Image: Part of the Ardkinglas Estate on the banks of Loch Fyne, Argyll, Scotland, 01/01/1964.

Economist Paul Collier, Scottish historian Tom Devine and Colombian novelist Hector Abad

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 Life

John 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 gallery

Leda 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

From classic myths rewritten by Natalie Haynes to the art of John Craxton in Crete.

Natalie Haynes explores Greek goddesses in her new book. She joins art curators Ian Collins and Minna Moore Ede and classicist Lucy Jackson for a conversation with Shahidha Bari.

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

Image: Weeping widow statue in Montmartre Cemetery, Paris

Matthew Sweet and guests look at the role of ritual, laments and how we express grief.

Producer: Julian Siddle

From gut feelings in your stomach to the language of disgust. Matthew Sweet hosts.

Producer: Robyn Read

Poets 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.

The most recent collection from Malika Booker is Pepper Seed from Peepal Tree Press

In the Free Thinking archives you can find Noreen Masud on the aphorisms of Stevie Smith https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000srj1

A 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/m000ql9k

Sophie Oliver discusses Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mzdf

Shahidha Bari looks at the writing of a Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet (1917-2000).

Ghost Stories by Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson is running in the West End at the Ambassadors Theatre until Jan 4th.

Kirsty Logan's new book of horror stories is called Things We Say in the Dark.

Nisha Ramayya's new collection is called States of the Body produced by Love.

Adam Scovell's novel is called Mothlight.

The Arts & Ideas podcast offers up the following ghostly, witchy and spooky programmes:

Matthew Sweet goes on a ghost hunt in Portsmouth https://bbc.in/2BxVan1 and in this programme https://bbc.in/31zf0sA

Shahidha Bari looks at new research into gothic fiction Sinking Your Teeth Into Vampires https://bbc.in/2AjoXQk

Charms looked at new versions of mythic and fairy tales with Zoe Gilbert, Kirsty Logan and Madeline Miller https://bbc.in/2FZfflG

Enchantment Witches and Woodlands featured author Marie Darrieussecq and a visit to the woods of South London with modern witch, William Hunter, and writer and folklorist, Zoe Gilbert https://bbc.in/2C2fQnK

Spookiness and Fear and Sarah Perry's updating of the Melmoth myth https://bbc.in/35UF4Sd

Proms Plus Witches and Witchcraft with Fern Riddell, Suzannah Lipscomb and Thomas Waters https://bbc.in/2MzVxnb

Producer: Paula McGinley

Haunting stories with Kirsty Logan, Jeremy Dyson and host Shahidha Bari.

The Anatomical Venus' looks at another point where physiology and art meet, in waxwork anatomical models. The book's author Joanna Ebenstein joins Matthew along with the curator of the Barts Pathology Museum Carla Valentine.

And, one of this year's New Generation Thinkers, Seb Falk, unveils his work on the history of science. Seb Falk is at the University of Cambridge and blogs at http://astrolabesandstuff.blogspot.co.uk/

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio programmes. Find out more from our website and hear them introducing their research in the programme which broadcast on May 31st - available as an arts and ideas podcast.

The Body Extended: Sculpture and Prosthetics runs at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds from 21st July 2016 - 23rd October 2016

Robotics Open Day 2016 runs 11am to 4pm King's College London on Sat 25th June.

You can hear more about The Robots Are Coming at Southbank's Power of Power Festival debates on Saturday 25 June.

Matthew Sweet discuses hands with psychoanalyst Darian Leader.

You can download this programme by searching under the Arts and Ideas podcasts for the broadcast date.

Producer: Fiona McLean

First broadcast 06/02/2014.

Author Hanif Kureishi in extended interview with Philip Dodd.

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

Image: Hannah Arendt

Credit: Getty Images/Fred Stein Archive

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

Why do Hannah Arendt's ideas continue to fire the imaginations of artists and thinkers?

Matthew Sweet investigates the history, politics and economics of this elusive concept, with

Tiffany Watt-Smith, historian of emotion, Reader in Cultural History at Queen Mary, University of London
Sophie Scott-Brown, political philosopher and historian, Fellow of St Andrew's
Becca Voelcker, film historian and cultural critic, Lecturer in Fine Art Critical Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London
Christian Krekel, Assistant Professor of Behavioural Science, London School of Economics

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Matthew Sweet investigates the history, politics and economics of this elusive concept.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with artists and thinkers in debates and interviews.

Matthew Sweet and guests explore the ideas shaping our lives today

Hallie Rubenhold's book is called The Covent Garden Ladies. Her book The Five; The Untold Lives of The Women Killed by Jack the Ripper winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-fiction has also been optioned as a drama series. Her book Lady Worsley's Whim became the TV drama The Scandalous Lady.

Moira Buffini's scripts include Harlots and the films The Dig which reimagines the events of the 1939 excavation of Sutton Hoo; Viceroy's House and Jane Eyre. Her plays include wonder.land; Handbagged and Dinner.

Laura Lammasniemi is Assistant Professor in the Warwick University Law School. She's currently a Leverhulme Fellow working on a project 'Narratives of sexual consent in criminal courts, 1870-1950'. This project focuses on how the concept of 'consent' has been understood historically in different contexts such as rape, age of consent/youth, and BDSM.

Producer: Emma Wallace

Hallie Rubenhold, Moira Buffini and Laura Lammasniemi discuss the TV series Harlots.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

On the Free Thinking website you can find Matthew Sweet's interview with Harry Belafonte, recorded in 2012 after he published his autobiography My Song and made a documentary Sing Your Song.

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.

A discussion about the career of American singer, film star and activist Harry Belafonte.

With a BFI season of his films running through December, Matthew Sweet and guests explore the long career of great American singer, film star and activist Harry Belafonte.

Popularising calypso music, performing with Sinatra's Rat pack, Nana Mouskouri and 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.

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.

Kevin Le Gendre's Edgar Allan Poe based musical project - Re:EAP - has just released its debut album 'Zoo For Barbers'.

The long career of the American singer, film star & activist with Matthew Sweet & guests.

Tove Jansson (1914-2001) runs at Dulwich Picture Gallery in London from October 25th - January 28th 2018

Harry Potter: A History of Magic runs at the British Library from October 20th to Wednesday 28th February 2018

Philip Pullman's The Book of Dust Vol 1: La Belle Sauvage is out now. He's also written Daemon Voices: Essays on Storytelling which are being read on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week.

Tim O'Reilly has written What's the Future and Why it's Up to Us.

Aisha Bushby will be talking at the Southbank Centre's Young Adult Literature Weekender on the 28th October and her story Marionette Girl is published in a new collection called A Change is Gonna Come.

Image details: DETAIL - A phoenix rising from the ashes in a 13th-century bestiary (c) British Library

Producer: Debbie Kilbride.

Colm Toibin's new novel House of Names explores the story of Clytemnestra and the murder of her husband Agamemnon. His other novels include The Testament of Mary, Brooklyn and Nora Webster.

Paul Cartledge is A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture Emeritus at the University of Cambridge and the author of many books which look at the classical world including Ancient Greece: A Very Short Introduction, Ancient Greece: A History in Eleven Cities and Democracy: A Life

Bettany Hughes has presented many TV and Radio programmes exploring the classical world including Divine Women, Genius of the Ancient World, Banishing Eve and The Ideas That Make Us. Her books include Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore, The Hemlock Cup and Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities

Catherine Fletcher is a New Generation Thinker who has presented Essays and documentaries for BBC Radio 3. She is the author of The Black Prince of Florence The Spectacular Life and Treacherous World of Alessandro de' Medici

Producer: Zahid Warley

Part of Radio 3's week-long residency at Hay Festival, with Lunchtime Concert, In Tune, Free Thinking, The Verb and The Listening Service all broadcasting from the festival.

Catherine Fletcher introduces a discussion recorded at 2017's Hay Festival.

Jake Arnott has set novels in the 1960s, the 1940s and the 1900s and in his latest novel The Fatal Tree he depicts the criminal world in 18th century London.

Madeleine Thien's novel Do Not Say We Have Nothing explores the impact of the Cultural Revolution on two generations of musicians. It has won prizes in her native Canada and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

Sebastian Barry won the Costa Book of the Year for his novel Days Without End, which imagines the gay relationship between soldiers caught up in the American Civil War.

Producer: Zahid Warley.

At 2017's Hay Festival, Sarah Dillon chairs a discussion about writing history.

Recorded earlier this week at the Hay Festival 2015 as part of Radio 3's week-long residency at the Hay Festival, with programmes CD Review, Lunchtime Concert, In Tune, The Verb, The Essay and World on 3 all broadcasting from the festival.

Rana Mitter and guests Azar Nafisi, David Brooks and Tom Holland discuss humility.

Lionel Shriver's latest novel called The Mandibles depicts a family living in a near future America where the dollar has crashed and food is scarce. She is also the author of We Need To Talk About Kevin, Big Brother and A Perfectly Good Family.

The biologist and geneticist Steve Jones' latest book No Need For Geniuses looks at Paris at the time of the French Revolution, when it was the world capital of science.

Marlon James won the Booker Prize for his most recent novel A Brief History of Seven Killings. His other books include Crow's Devil and The Book of Night Women.

Main image (left to right): Marlon James, Lionel Shriver, Steve Jones

Lionel Shriver, Marlon James and Steve Jones join Rana Mitter to debate inheritance.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio programmes. You can hear more from the New Generation Thinkers who will be appearing on Free Thinking throughout June and find out more from our website.

The New Generation Thinkers 2016:

Leah Broad, University of Oxford

Leah Broad's research is on Nordic modernism, exploring the music written for the theatre at the turn of the 20th century, taking her to Finland and Scandinavia to search out scores which have not been heard since the early 1900s. As a journalist Leah won the Observer/Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism in 2015. She is the founder of The Oxford Culture Review

Katherine Cooper, University of Newcastle

Katherine Cooper is working on a project exploring the ways in which British writers including H.G. Wells, Graham Greene and Margaret Storm Jameson helped in the escape of fellow writers facing prosecution and imprisonment under fascist governments in the period between WWI and WWII.

Victoria Donovan, University of St Andrews

Victoria Donovan's is a historian of Russia whose research explores the complex and contradictory relationship between the Soviets and their religious heritage. Her new project is looking at the significance of patriotism in contemporary Putin's Russia. She has worked on topics including Soviet and contemporary Russian cinema, socialist architecture and the connections between South Wales and the Eastern Ukraine.

Louisa Uchum Egbunike, Manchester Metropolitan University

Louisa Uchum Egbunike's research centres on African literature in which she specialises in Igbo (Nigerian) fiction and culture. Her latest work explores the child's voice in contemporary fiction on Biafra. She co-convenes an annual Igbo conference at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) and is curating a 'Remembering Biafra' exhibition to open in 2018.

Seb Falk, University of Cambridge

Seb Falk is a medieval historian and historian of science whose research centres on the scientific instruments made and used by monks, scholars and nobles in the later Middle Ages. His research has led him to made wood and brass models of the instruments he studies. His new project will be an investigation of the sciences practised by medieval monks and nuns.

Sarah Jackson, Nottingham Trent University

Sarah Jackson's current research explores the relationship between the telephone and literature from the work of Arthur Conan Doyle to that of Haruki Murakami. The project involves research at the BT Archives which hold the public records of the world's oldest communications company. She is also a poet whose collection Pelt won the prestigious Seamus Heaney Prize in 2012.

Christopher Kissane, London School of Economics

Christopher Kissane is a historian working on the role of food in history exploring what we can learn about societies and cultures through studying their diets. His book, which will be published later this year, examines food's relationship with major issues of early modern society including the Spanish Inquisition and witchcraft.

Anindya Raychaudhuri, University of St Andrews

Anindya Raychaudhuri is working on the way nostalgia is used by diasporic communities to create imaginary and real homes. He has written about the Spanish Civil War and the India/Pakistan partition and the cultural legacies of these wars. He co-hosts a podcast show, State of the Theory, and explores the issues raised by his research in stand up comedy.

Edmund Richardson, University of Durham

Edmund Richardson is working on a book about the lost cities of Alexander the Great and the history of their discovery by adventurers and tricksters rather than scholars. His first book was on Victorian Britain and the 'lowlife' lived by magicians, con-men and deserters. His latest project is on Victorian ghost-hunters and their obsession with the ancient world which led Houdini to fight against the con-artists making a fortune from fake 'spirits'.

Sean Williams, University of Sheffield

Sean Williams is currently writing a cultural history of the hairdresser from the 18th century to the present day exploring their role as 'outsiders' in society. As a lecturer at the University of Berne in Switzerland he taught German and Comparative Literature and wrote articles on flatulence in the 18th century and contemporary satires of Hitler.

Rana Mitter introduces the ten academics named as the New Generation Thinkers for 2016.

First broadcast 28/05/2014

You can download this programme by searching in the Arts and Ideas podcasts for the broadcast date.

PJ O'Rourke and writers of Freakonomics join Rana Mitter at the 2015 Hay Festival.

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

Seကn 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

Anne McElvoy listens out for echoes of Beethoven in Hegel

Producer: Luke Mulhall

You can find a collection of Free Thinking episodes exploring philosophy on the programme website and as Arts & Ideas podcasts including discussions of Hannah Arendt, Wittgenstein, Hegel, the 1920s - philosophy's golden age?

Matthew Sweet discusses the influential German philosopher's relationship with Nazism.

Matthew Sweet and guests discuss the influential German philosopher's relationship with Nazism. How far does it extend into his thought?

As the Liverpool Biennial gets under way Dale Harding, an Australian artist and descendant of the Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal peoples of Central Queensland, explains his own education in the medium of wood and why his art is part of the making and story-telling traditions and brutal recent history of his cultural family. Back to the 17th century and Stella Tillyard tells Anne about the inspiration behind her new novel: the immense human effort (and human sacrifice) it took to reclaim land from the sea in East Anglia, Holland and the islands of what is now New York.

And pirates...New Generation Thinker and Ottoman historian, Michael Talbot, looks to change their image.

Helaine Blumenfeld 'Tree of Life' at Ely Cathedral 13 JULY - 26 OCTOBER 2018

Dale Harding See his work at Tate Liverpool as part of Liverpool Biennial 2018: Beautiful world, where are you? from 14 July - 28 October.

Stella Tillyard 'The Great Level' is out now.

Michael Talbot is a lecturer in the History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Middle East at the University of Greenwich . New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.

Presenter: Anne McElvoy

Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

Anne McElvoy with sculptor Helaine Blumenfeld, artist Dale Harding, writer Stella Tillyard

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 Fl neuse: 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

How do you teach writing? Helen Mort and Blake Morrison compare notes.

Matthew Sweet is also joined by musician and neuroscientist Daniel Levitin. His new book is 'The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload'.

And New Generation Thinker Alasdair Cochrane and Anne Phillips, author of a forthcoming book

The Politics of the Human', discuss what comprises humanness.

Producer: Harry Parker.

With Tom Stoppard's play The Hard Problem, plus musician and neuroscientist Daniel Levitin

Naomi Paxton is at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, a magician and performer as Ada Campe, a member of the Magic Circle and their first Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Officer, and was a magician's assistant. She has researched popular entertainment and the suffragettes for her book Stage rights! The Actresses' Franchise League, Activism & Politics 1908-58, and she is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker http://www.naomipaxton.co.uk/

Will Houston is a magician and historian of magic, who looks at how magic can be used in medicine, surgery, and business. He is Honorary Research Associate in the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London, and is the Imperial College/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 researches pantomime and is looking at theatre and visual culture in the 19th century https://theatreandvisualculture19.wordpress.com/

You can find more conversations about new research here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90

This playlist focuses on discussions, essays and features involving New Generation Thinkers, including Naomi Paxton's on Suffragette Punch & Judy: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35

Playing God in medieval drama: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000v24

Ice, including the use of stage effects in 17th century drama: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001jzq

Producer: Emma Wallace

From a history of Panto to magic tricks and what surgeons can learn from them.

Het Noordbrabants Museum in 's-Hertogenbosch, Holland, presents the Jheronimus Bosch - Visions of a Genius exhibition from February 13 to May 8, 2016. 20 paintings (panels and triptychs) and 19 drawings are on display.

You might also be interested listening to Saturday 13 February, 1302-1500: Saturday Classics: Ahead of his BBC4 series Renaissance Unchained, art critic Waldemar Januszczak conjures up the sound world of this epoch of huge passions and powerful religious emotions across all of Europe. The term 'Renaissance', or 'rinascita', was coined by Giorgio Vasari in 16th-century Florence, and his assertion that it had fixed origins in Italy has since influenced all of art history. But what of Flanders, Germany and the rest of Northern Europe? Waldemar presents music from the time of the Renaissance greats: Jan Van Eyck, Hans Memling, Albrecht Dürer, Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo and El Greco.

Producer: Laura Thomas.

Tom Shakespeare and Peter Greenaway join Matthew Sweet to discuss Hieronymus Bosch.

Xinran talks about her new book Buy Me The Sky which explores the consequences of the one-child policy which China began to pursue in 1979. As the first generation of only children grow up and become parents in their turn, she set out to tell their stories. She is in discussion with journalist Isabel Hilton.

And a week on from the election, Anne turns to three historians - Tim Bale, Krista Cowman and Jon Lawrence - to offer their views on the dramatic changes to the UK's political landscape.

High Society is at London's Old Vic Theatre until August 22nd 2015.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

(Image: Ellie Bamber and Jamie Parker in The Old Vic production of High Society. Copyright: Johan Persson.).

Anne McElvoy presents a review of High Society at the Old Vic. Plus Chinese writer Xinran.

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 Station

Dr 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 Watts

You 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

Anne McElvoy hosts a conversation about higher education and the history of its expansion.

Nabila Abdel Nabi is co-curator of Hilma Af Klint & Piet Mondrian: Forms of Life runs at Tate Modern in London

Jennifer Higgie is the author of The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World

Daniel Birnbaum is a Swedish art curator and an art critic. Since 2019, he has been director and curator of Acute Art in London

Sarah Kent is an art critic

Producer: Ruth Watts

Hilma Af Klint & Piet Mondrian: Forms of Life runs at Tate Modern in London from April 20 - September 3 2023

You 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

The spiritual paintings of the Swedish artist are discussed by Matthew Sweet and guests.

Hisham Matar's book is called The Return.

Eleanor Herring has published Street Furniture Design: Contesting Modernism in Post-War Britain

Gideon Rachman's forthcoming book is called Easternisation: War and Peace in the Asian Century

Ricardo Soares de Oliveira is the author of Magnificent and Beggar Land: Angola Since the Civil War

Katherine Cooper researches Margaret Storm Jameson's novels of World War Two at Newcastle University.

The New Generation Thinkers prize is an initiative launched by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to find the brightest minds from across the UK who have the potential to transform their research into engaging broadcast programmes. You can hear more about the research topics of all 10 2016 New Generation Thinkers on our website on a programme broadcast on May 31st and available as an arts and ideas podcast and find clips where you can hear their newly commissioned written pieces on a range of subjects.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

With Hisham Matar on the search for his father, street furniture and Storm Jameson's work.

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

Matthew Sweet on hitchhiking, from Pawe\u0142 Pawlikowski's film Ida to Woody Guthrie.

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 Strangers

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 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 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p072637b

Matthew Sweet considers examples from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Polish tokens.

I made this song up one day when I was hitchhiking down the road out of Reno' - the start of a Woody Guthrie letter now in the Library of Congress. Do people still thumb a lift?

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 power

James Kirkup is a Senior Fellow at the Social Market Foundation think tank and he writes for publications including The Times

Sophie 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

Matthew Sweet and guests look back at the week exploring the ideas shaping our lives today

The ideas shaping our lives today - with artists and thinkers in debates and interviews.

Barry Smith, Joanne Paul, James Kirkup and Sophie Scott Brown join Matthew Sweet for a conversation about rights and duties that moves from Thomas Hobbes to margarine.

Matthew Sweet and guests look back at the week exploring the ideas shaping our lives today

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 Stuart

John Maynard Keynes with guests including Adam Tooze and Zachary D. Carter

John Rawls's A Theory of Justice with Rupert Read, Teresa Bejan and Jonathan Floyd

John Gray on why rereading Hobbes can help us understand contemporary politics.

Professor Paul Younger from Glasgow University is the author of Water: All That Matters and Energy: All That Matters

Ted Nield is the author of Underlands: A Journey Through Britain's Lost Landscape

Rosalind Williams is the author of Notes on the Underground' and 'The Triumph of the Human Empire'.

Rana Mitter discusses underground worlds past and present.

Dr Rachel Pistol is a digital historian and National Coordinator of European Holocaust Research Infrastructure. She is also the Historical Advisor for World Jewish Relief.

Dr Barbara Warnock of the Wiener Holocaust Library has curated its 90th anniversary exhibition.

Dr Liza Weber, University of Sussex Weidenfeld Institute of Jewish Studies.

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.

Ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day (Jan 27) Anne McElvoy hears testimony and new research.

Anne McElvoy looks at the work of discovering and preserving the stories of the holocaust.

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

Available as the Arts & Ideas podcast and on BBC Sounds are previous Free Thinking discussions about

Jewish Identity in 2020: Howard Jacobson, Bari Weiss, Hadley Freeman and Jonathan Freedland https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fwqd

Jewish history, jokes and contemporary identity: Simon Schama and Devorah Baum https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b098hz1m

Links between Judaism and Christianity: Giles Fraser talks to Matthew Sweet, Miri Rubin and David Feldman https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000vhgz

Nazis, Holocaust, Time and Memory: Richard J Evans, Jane Caplan and David Cesarani. Andre Singer and Eva Hoffman https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0506lp0

Remembering Auschwitz: Anne Michaels, Gerald Jacobs, Laurence Rees, Roland Clark, Anna Prazmowska, Stephen Smith

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dq00

Yishai Sarid, Marking Holocaust Memorial Day 2022: Roland Clark, Joseph Cronin, Allis Moss and novelist Yishai Sarid https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0013sp7

Yiddish and Rotwelsch Languages, Nazi France : Michael Rosen and Martin Puchner, Ludivine Broch and Stephanie Hesz-Wood https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rlv7

Matthew Sweet looks at the experiences of Portuguese Jewish and Roma communities.

Pulitzer Prize winning author Marilynne Robinson is the author of a novel called Home and finds her own roots in Iowa and in her Calvinist faith. In her new collection of essays The Givenness of Things, she explores the ideas that make up the religious and philosophical homeland of Europe and America - Calvinism, Humanism, the Reformation, the self.

Thomas Harding's family originate in Germany. In his new book The House by the Lake he relates the changing ownership and fortunes of his family's summer house in eastern Berlin and with it the history of Germany from the thirties up to the present. It's his follow up to his best-selling book Hanns and Rudolph.

Poet and artist Imtiaz Dharker describes herself as a 'Pakistani Calvinist Scottish Muslim' and her life has taken her from Lahore, to Glasgow, to Bombay, to Wales and finally to London - 'I think displacement is often a good and useful thing for a writer', she says.

And as a new exhibition dedicated to The World of Charles and Ray Eames opens, Edwin Heathcote takes Philip on an imaginative tour of their iconic house, Case Study House #8, which they designed to 'express man's life in the modern world.

The World of Charles and Ray Eames runs at the Barbican in London from 21st October to 14th February.

Marilynne Robinson's Essay collection The Givenness of Things is out now.

Thomas Harding's book is called The House by the Lake

Imtiaz Dharker's most recent poetry collection is called Over The Moon.

Ideas of home: Marilynne Robinson, Edwin Heathcote, Thomas Harding, Imtiaz Dharker.

‘Nations, like narratives, lose their origins in the myths of time and only fully realise their horizons in the mind's eye. Such an image of the nation - or narration - might seem impossibly romantic and excessively metaphorical, but it is from those traditions of political thought and literary language that the nation emerges as a powerful historical idea in the west.' So begins Nation and Narration, first published in 1990. For Professor Bhabha, one of the world's leading cultural theorists, known for his work on hybridity, mimicry, difference, ambivalence and the ‘Third Space', ‘literature is the repository of culture, tradition, the life in language itself.

Homi K Bhabha is the Director of the Mahindra Humanities Center, and Senior Advisor to the President and Provost at Harvard University. His works exploring postcolonial theory, contemporary art, and cosmopolitanism, include Nation and Narration and The Location of Culture, which was reprinted as a Routledge Classic in 2004.

Producer: Zahid Warley

Shahidha Bari talks to Professor Bhabha about his influence on postcolonial studies.

MIchele Roberts is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and the author of 12 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 and 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

Gender, class and domestic tasks. Matthew pulls on his rubber gloves and gets stuck in.

Producer in Salford: Faith Lawrence

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 Suffolk

Professor 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 podcasts

New Thinking: City Talk https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07h30hm and New Thinking: Accents https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0d66mtl

And we have other 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/m000srbn

New Thinking: Language the Victorians and Us https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0dmjgwx

New Thinking: Language Loss and Revival https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0dw6ctr

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

John Gallagher hears about Gaelic consonants, tongue shapes and accent prejudice

Accents in Gaelic, from Greater Manchester and the science behind why we make conversation in new research from Rob Drummond, Claire Nance, Andrea Smith and Shane O'Mara

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

Economist Gillian Tett is one of Anne McElvoy's guests.

Ricky Burdett is Professor of Urban Studies at LSE and Director of LSE Cities.

Liza Fior is an award-winning architect and designer; founding partner of muf architecture/art.

Des Fitzgerald is a sociologist at Cardiff University and AHRC\BBC New Generation Thinker who works on cities and mental health.

Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg is an artist exploring the human values that shape design, science, technology, and nature. Through artworks, writing, and curatorial projects, Daisy examines the human impulse to 'better' the world.

Edwin Heathcote is architecture and design critic for the Financial Times.

You can find and download previous LSE Free Thinking debates on the programme website

How Big Should the State Be ? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09sqw6p

Authority in the Era of Populism - What makes a good leader? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002rwv

Breaking Free: Martin Luther's Revolution https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08nf02y

Utopianism in Politics From Thomas More to the present day https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07054cy

A Free Thinking discussion recorded at RIBA with an architectural gang of 5 'The Brits Who Built Modern Britain' https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03x1p4n

Cities and Safety https://www.bbc.com/programmes/b06rwvrc

Cities and Resilience https://www.bbc.com/programmes/b04yb7kd

Producer: Eliane Glaser

Ricky Burdett, Liza Fior, Des Fitzgerald, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Edwin Heathcote at LSE

Over 75 years ago, the publication of the Beveridge Report heralded the founding of the post-war welfare state, and next year the NHS will celebrate its 70th anniversary. Yet now the state can seem like an outdated concept. Both Right and Left champion localism, empowerment and autonomy. Anne McElvoy is joined by:

David Willetts, former Conservative Minister and Executive Chair of the Resolution Foundation

Polly Toynbee, Guardian columnist and author of several books including Dismembered: How the Attack on the State Harms Us All.

Baroness Simone Finn, a Conservative politician and member of the House of Lords. She is a former government adviser on industrial relations, efficiency and civil service reform.

Julia Black, Professor of Law at LSE, who has advised policy makers and consumer bodies on institutional design and regulatory policy.

Adrian Wooldridge, Politics editor of the Economist and writes the Bagehot column, an analysis of British life and politics, in the tradition of Walter Bagehot, the Economist's 19th century editor.

Producer: Eliane Glaser

Photo L-R: Polly Toynbee, David Willetts, Adrian Wooldridge, Baroness Simone Finn, Julia Black and Anne McElvoy.

David Willetts, Polly Toynbee, Simone Finn, Julia Black, Adrian Wooldridge + Anne McElvoy.

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.

Sunil Gupta, CN Lester, Tom Shakespeare and Alona Pardo with Matthew Sweet.

New Generation Thinker Vid Simoniti teaches on art and philosophy at the University of Liverpool. He joins presenter Catherine Fletcher to discuss this year's Turner prize along with Dr Cleo Hanaway-Oakley, whose research interests include the role of the senses in culture and the artist Sally Booth, who is visually impaired.

In Plain Sight runs at the Wellcome Collection in London until 12 February 2023

The four shortlisted artists for the Turner Prize 2022 whose work is on display at Tate Liverpool until to 19 March 2023 are: Heather Phillipson, Ingrid Pollard, Veronica Ryan and Sin Wai Kin. The winner is announced on December 7th.

Immersive shows in London currently include Mexican Geniuses: A Frida & Diego Immersive Experience runs at Canada Water; Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience, Klimt the immersive experience, Frameless, Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Rooms and The World of ASMR.

Layers of Visions, featuring work by Sally Booth and others, is on show at the Kings' College exhibition space in Bush House Arcade, London until Dec 16th 2022

More information on her work is at https://sallybooth.co.uk/

Cleo Hanaway-Oakley discussed James Joyce and vision on a Free Thinking episode Bloomsday, Dalloway Day and 1922 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001828l

The Free Thinking programme website has a collection of episodes exploring Art, Architecture, Photography and Museums with recent episodes focusing on shows about Plastic and Clay; The Frieze/Radio 3 Museum Directors Debate 2022 hearing about running the Guggenheim New York, the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris and M+ in Hong Kong; Alexander the Great, and Hollow Earth: Art, Caves & The Subterranean Imaginary at Nottingham Contemporary.

Producer in Salford: Olive Clancy

Turner Prize shortlist, the vogue for surround-sound projections, and shows about sight.

Ad man Robert Heath worked on campaigns including the Marlboro Cowboy, Castrol GTX Liquid Engineering, and Heineken `Refreshes the Parts`. He is the author of The Hidden Power of Advertising and Seducing the Subconscious: The Psychology of Emotional Influence in Advertising.

Claudia Hammond presents All in the Mind and Mind Changers on BBC Radio 4 and Health Check on BBC World Service. She is the author of Emotional Rollercoaster: A journey through the science of feelings and Time Warped: Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Perception and Mind over Money: the psychology of money and how to use it better.

Darshana Jayemanne is Lecturer in Games and Art at Abertay University. He is investigating the role of emotion in young people's digital play (collaborating with the NSPCC) and how this can be used to raise awareness of climate change (along with the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research).

May Abdalla is co-director and founder of Anagram - a studio which won the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival Storyscapes Award for Door Into The Dark - a blindfolded sensory experience about what it means to be lost. They are working on a VR experience about the Uncanny with the Freud Museum and an immersive documentary about imagined realities exploring schizophrenia and online gaming.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

An adman, VR creator, gamer, psychologist and Shahidha Bari at the Free Thinking Festival.

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.

Will Self, Alexandra Harris, Kevin Le Gendre and Owen Hatherley build up a manifesto.

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.

Matthew Sweet explores our surprisingly complex and mysterious relationship with text.

In 1726, King George I sent a doctor to examine Mary Toft after it was reported that she had given birth to over a dozen rabbits. Karen Harvey retells this story in a new book called The Imposteress Rabbit Breeder: Mary Toft and 18th Century England.

We also look at ideas which were the focus of attention in Davos at this year's World Economic Forum and the tone of debate - with the WEF's Managing Director Adrian Monck, and The Guardian's Economics Editor, Larry Elliot.

Portraying Pregnancy: From Holbein to Social Media' curated by Karen Hearn runs at the Foundling Museum in London until April 26th.

You can hear an Essay from New Generation Thinker Corin Throsby on the Romantic period attitudes towards breast feeding here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08wn2rm

You can hear more Free Thinking programmes looking at ideas around pregnancy, including this one which examines surrogacy and baby farming in the Philippines https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000573q

Producer: Karl Bos

Anne McElvoy hears the story of a woman who gave birth to rabbits and the news from Davos.

Kate Lister started tweeting as Whores of Yore in 2015 to kick off a conversation about how we talk about sex. She has just published A Curious History of Sex which looks at everything from slang through the ages to medieval impotence tests, the relevance of oysters, bicycling and the tart card.

Robin Mitchell's new book is called Venus Noire: Black Women and Colonial Fantasies in Nineteenth-Century France. In it she traces visual and literary representations of 3 black women: Sarah Baartmann, popularly known as the Hottentot Venus; Ourika, a young Senegalese girl and Jeanne Duval, long-time lover of the poet Charles Baudelaire.

Fern Riddell's books include The Victorian Guide to Sex and Sex: A Brief History. She hosts the podcast series #NotWhatYouThought and is a historian on the New Generation Thinker scheme which aims to put academic research on the radio. It's a partnership between BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. You can find her talking about depictions of Eroticism in a Free Thinking conversation about The Piano and Love https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b6t06b and exploring the life of the singer and suffragette Kitty Marion in a Sunday Feature https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04n2zcp

An exhibition called With Love opens at the National Archives in Kew displaying letters spanning 500 years, which explore intimate expressions of love. You can hear archivist Vicky Iglikowski-Broad talking on a Free Thinking programme called Being Human: Love Stories https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b6hk

Anne McElvoy explores who and why we love with philosopher Laura Mucha, poet and novelist Lavinia Greenlaw, novelist Elanor Dymott and poet Andrew McMillan.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002hk8

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Howard Jacobson won the Man Booker Prize in 2010 for The Finkler Question and was shortlisted for J in 2014

Producer: Zahid Warley

Main image: Howard Jacobson (courtesy of Man Booker Prize (c)).

Writer Howard Jacobson delivers a keynote lecture on why we need the novel.

In 1989, Francis Fukuyama published an essay which he titled ?The End of History?' He's just published Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy.

Howard Jacobson won the Man Booker prize in 210 for his comic novel The Finkler Question. His new book J is a dystopian love story.

You can download this programme by searching in the Arts and Ideas podcasts for the broadcast date.

Philip Dodd is joined by political scientist Francis Fukuyama and author Howard Jacobson.

You can hear more of Basil Kirchin's music for films in tonight's Late Junction which follows at 11pm and Radio3 is recording Mind on the Run featuring Goldfrapp's Will Gregory with members of the BBC Concert Orchestra - the event takes place 17th - 19th Feb at Hull City Hall and will be broadcast on Hear and Now on March 4th.

The Ferens Art Gallery is displaying Francis Bacon's Screaming Popes until May 1st; Pietro Lorenzetti's panel painting Christ Between Saints Paul and Peter until April. Exhibitions by Ron Mueck, Spencer Tunick's Sea of Hull commission and the Turner prize follow later in 2017.

Richard Bean's play The Hypocrite - dramatising what happened in the Civil War when parliament charged Sir John Hotham with denying King Charles entry to Hull - runs from Friday 24th of February - Saturday 25th of March at Hull Truck Theatre, and Friday 31th of March - Saturday 29th of April at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

Matthew Sweet explores music, art and drama in Hull, the city where he grew up.

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

The Essay Series on Radio 3 this week looks at Animals.

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

Matthew Sweet talks to Joanna Bourke and Anna Tsing about the human and the non human.

Producer in Salford: Olive Clancy

Frank Walter: Artist, Gardener, Radical runs at the Garden Museum in London until 25 Feb 2024

At 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 2024

On the Free Thinking programme website you can find a collection of episodes exploring Green Thinking, all available as the Arts & Ideas podcast.

Jade Munslow Ong talks to Sainsbury Centre director Jago Cooper.

On World Soil Day, Jade Munslow Ong looks at garden paintings from Antigua, Alexander von Humboldt, trees and soil research, and talks to Sainsbury Centre director Jago Cooper.

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.

The Politics of Street Trees edited By Jan Woudstra and Camilla Allen is out now

Jago Cooper, Barbara Paca, Jim Scown and Camilla Allen talk trees, soil, art and advocacy.

On World Soil Day, Jade Munslow Ong looks at garden paintings from Antigua, Alexander von Humboldt, trees and soil research, and talks to the Sainsbury Centre Director Jago Cooper

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.

From mitochondria and 16th-century cancer treatments to breath, blood and Bach cantatas.

Shower songs in Lutheran Germany were used to prepare congregants for Eucharist to cleanse their bodies. Naomi Paxton and guests move from medical beliefs to the music of Bach.

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

A pair of authors due to be at the Bradford Literature Festival compare notes on writing.

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.

K倀re 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.

Producer: Ruth Watts

On BBC Sounds and the Free Thinking programme website you can find previous discussions about

Adapting Moli耀re 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

New interpretations of the Norwegian dramatist's plays by Lucinda Coxon and Steve Waters.

North Pole by Michael Bravo is published on 14th December.

Ice Diaries: An Antarctic Memoir by Jean McNeil is out now.

Kat Austen's concentration

The Matter of the Soul is available for purchase and download via Bandcamp. She was the 2017/18 Scott Polar Research Institute artist-in-residence.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

A journey to the frozen ends of the Earth, plus theatrical magic from the 17th century.

Julia Lovell's book Maoism a Global History is out soon

Mark Vernon's book A Secret History of Christianity is out soon.

For more information about the BBC TV series of programmes profiling modern icons from sport, cinema, politics, exploration - go to bbc.co.uk/icons

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Do our heroes and heroines have to be perfect? We look at ikons, film idols & politicians.

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

Gavin Francis on Thomas Browne, Polly Morland on John Berger, Matt Smith on mental health

Strange and Familiar: Britain as Revealed by International Photographers runs at the Barbican 16 March 2016 - 19 June 2016

Unseen City: Photos by Martin Parr City of London photographer-in-residence since 2013 runs at the Guildhall Art Gallery, 4 Mar-31 Jul 2016.

This is London: Life and Death in the World City by Ben Judah is published by Picador.

Philip Dodd discusses British identity with photographer Martin Parr.

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

Matthew Sweet and guests explore the work of Burkinabe film-maker Idrissa Ouedraogo.

Michael Prodger writes on art for the New Statesman

Sarah Churchwell is Professor of American Literature and the Public Understanding of the Humanities at the University of London's School of Advanced Study.

Edward Luce is Chief Washington Correspondent and Columnist for the Financial Times Michael Goldfarb writes for The Guardian, The New York Times and The Washington Post and Globalpost.com and is a regular broadcaster.

America After The Fall: Painting in the 1930s is on show at the Royal Academy until June 4th.

The American Dream Pop To Present is on show at the British Museum until June 17th.

Tyler Cowan's book is called The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream

Rutger Bregman's book is called Utopia for Realists: And how we can get there

Donald Trump has written Great Again: How to Fix Our Crippled America

Edward Luce's book The Retreat of Western Liberalism will be published in early May.

Producer: Eliane Glaser.

(Image: Wayne Thiebaud (b.1920), Gumball Machine. Colour linocut, 1970. (c) Wayne Thiebaud/DACS, London/VAGA, New York 2016.).

As London hosts two exhibitions of American art, Anne McElvoy discusses the American Dream

Kyoko Nakajimas books include The Little House - set between the early 1930s economic boom and Japan's defeat in World War II.

Yuya Sato is the author of books including Dendera.

Fumio Obata has written The Quake News From Elsewhere and Just So Happens - a graphic novel.

Jocelyne Allen has translated many books and is taking part in a special day at Japan Now North organised at the Univerity of Sheffield.

Japan Now is an annual Festival which includes events in Sheffield, Manchester, and a day of talks at the British Library in London on Saturday Feb 23rd. It is programmed by Modern Culture in partnership with the Japan Foundation and the University of Sheffield it is part of the Japan-UK season of culture 2019-20

Find the playlist of Free Thinking discussions exploring Japanese culture on bbc.co.uk/FreeThinking https://bbc.in/2A5vnme

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Fumio Obata and Jocelyne Allen discuss graphic art and manga.

Producers Jayne Egerton and Robyn Read

Poetry by Hafez, Nowruz (New Year) and the Haft Sin table, the Mongol invasion, music.

Ahead of Persian New Year, Chris Harding gathers together four academics studying Persian literature, history, art and poetry to explore links between their work.

Ahead of Persian New Year, Persian poetry set to music and the work of Hafez, plus the novels of a nineteenth century feminist archaeologist Jane Dieulafoy discussed by the academics Julia Hartley, Lecturer in Comparative Literature at Kings College, London; Michelle Assay, Principal investigator of the Marie Curie/UKRI project, 'Women and Western Art Music in Iran' at King's College London and Ide Haghi, Lecturer in Modern Foreign Languages at the University of Glasgow. Chris Harding presents.

Chris Harding and new research from Michelle Assay, Ide Haghi and Julia Hartley.

Ahead of Persian New Year, Persian poetry set to music and the work of Hafez, plus the novels of a nineteenth century archaeologist Jane Dieulafoy.

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

Matthew Sweet and guests explore ideas about never ending life in literature film and myth

Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith is out now.

You can find a collection of Free Thinking the Future conversations on the programme website.

Kevin Rudd's Memoir is called Not for the Faint-hearted: A Personal Reflection on Life, Politics and Purpose 1957-2007

Producer: Debbie Kilbride

Photograph: Kevin Rudd at the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia on October 27, 2017. Credit: Michael Masters / Getty Images

Kelly and Zach Weinersmith share visions of the future with Rana Mitter. Plus Kevin Rudd.

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

From Enlightenment conscience to New Deal USA to carers and refugees. Anne McElvoy hosts

Their YouTube videos and podcasts receive millions of views and downloads. They sell out theatres across the US. But these aren't rock stars or the latest pop sensation. They are a collection of public intellectuals, scientists, political columnists, and stand up-comedians who are at the front line of the raging 'culture wars'. As two of its leading figures, neuroscience Sam Harris and clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson, prepare for a UK tour, Philip Dodd finds out more about this popular movement.

The Strange Death of Europe by Douglas Murray is out now.

The House of Islam: A Global History by Ed Husain is out now.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

Philip Dodd on the intellectual dark web with Bari Weiss, Douglas Murray and Ed Husain.

They join Anne McElvoy for a programme for International Women's Day which looks at the ways in which everyday experiences in the lives of women feed into creativity.

Helen Pearson is the author of The Life Project: The extraordinary story of 70,000 Ordinary Lives.

Hollie McNish is the author of Nobody Told Me: The Poetry of Parenthood. You can find more on her website Holliepoetry.com

Emily Hall's compositions include the operas Folie a Deux, Sante and a children's opera for Hull 2017. Song Cycles including Love Songs and Life Cycle and a whole range of compositions for chamber ensembles, string quartets, orchestras and soloists. http://www.emilyhall.co.uk/

Producer: Laura Thomas.

Left image: Hollie McNish (photographer: Helmi Okpara)

Right image: Emily Hall

Anne McElvoy presents a special edition to mark International Women's Day.

Antigone, starring Juliette Binoche, is at the Barbican Theatre from March 4th - 28th.

Roy Williams' version of Antigone, performed by Pilot Theatre and co-commissioned by Derby Theatre, runs at London's Stratford East Theatre from 24th February to March 14th.

If you still have an appetite for tragedy after that, tune in to Radio 3's Sunday Drama on March 8th. Kristin Scott Thomas will be starring as Electra in a version by Frank McGuiness which was first staged at the Old Vic Theatre.

Oliver Taplin's Sophocles: Four Tragedies is published later this March by Oxford University Press.

Producer: Zahid Warley

Photo: Ivo van Hove, Antigone, Juliette Binoche, photocredit Jan Versweyveld.

Kazuo Ishiguro talks to Anne McElvoy about his new novel, The Buried Giant.

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 Subryan 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

Image: Bookshelf inside Stockholm Public Library - stock photo

Credit: olaser/Getty

Ten researchers look at colonial history, alphabets, punctuation, poetry, art terminology.

Christopher Harding finds out about the research done by ten academics chosen this year.

New Generation Thinkers is an annual scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select 10 researchers to work on ideas for radio

Dr Brendan McGeever - Lecturer in the Sociology of Racialization and Antisemitism, Birkbeck, University of London - researches the forgotten Russian pogroms of 1919

Christina Faraday - University of Cambridge - looks at the ways Tudor art was powerful, vivid and lively

Dr Dina Rezk - Associate Professor in Middle Eastern History, University of Reading - has looked at how Dr Bassem Youssef, ‘Egypt's Jon Stewart' shot to fame

Dr Ella Parry- Davies -British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama - is researching the home lives of migrant communities of Philippine women in London and Beirut

Dr Emily Cock - Cardiff University - is exploring changing attitudes towards facial disfigurement, from C17 to now

Dr Jade Halbert - University of Huddersfield - rediscovers the post-war ‘rag trade' in British fashion

Dr Jeff Howard - University College London - is investigating how to respond to ‘dangerous speech', lies and ‘fake news

Dr Majed Akhter - King's College London - is examining the contentious history of dams built in the 20th century

Susan Greaney - Cardiff University - is unearthing Neolithic humans attitudes to the ground beneath them and the underworld

Dr Tom Smith - Lecturer in German, University of St Andrews - is exploring the emotional experience of techno music in Berlin and beyond

Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

From techno music in Berlin to the Glasgow 'rag trade', and divisive dams to fake news.

And New Generation Thinker Louise Brangan, who has researched the history of Ireland's Magdalene Laundries, gives an insight into a surprisingly lenient time in Ireland's prisons - the 1970s.

Producer in Salford: Ruth Thomson

The Speculations of Country People by Majella Kelly is a poetry collection inspired by the Tuam mother and baby home mass grave uncovered in 2017.

Queen of Codes: The Secret Life of Emily Anderson, Britain's Greatest Female Code Breaker by Jackie U퀀 Chionna is out now.

In Ordinary Time: Fragments of a Family History by Carmel McMahon is out now.

Dr Louise Brangan is Chancellor's Fellow in Social Work and Social Policy at the University of Strathclyde Glasgow and a 2023 New Generation Thinker.

With poet Majella Kelly, historian Jackie U\u00ed Chionna and memoirist Carmel McMahon.

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

Shahidha Bari talks to a pair of authors about the writing life. Plus a musical monument.

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

Matthew Sweet and guests on Iris Murdoch's thought and writing (15 Jul 1919 - 8 Feb 1999).

Gazelle Twin (Elizabeth Bernholz) is a British composer, producer and musician

Julia Bardsley,is a performer and lecturer

Hannah Catherine Jones is a multi-instrumentalist and founder of Peckham Chamber Orchestra

Luke Turner is co-founder and editor of arts magazine The Quietus and author of a memoir Out of the Woods.

William Fowler is Curator of Artists' Moving Image at the BFI National Archive. BFI's Derek Jarman's Blu-ray box set available 18th March 2019. https://bit.ly/2VRl5hg

You might also be interested in

Enchantment Witches and Woodland https://bbc.in/2C2fQnK

Encyclopedias and Knowledge - includes a discussion about Mark Fisher K Punk https://bbc.in/2UO8V8n

Into the Eerie - an episode of Radio 3's Sunday Feature https://bbc.in/2EM26PF

Charms - authors Zoe Gilbert, Madeline Miller and Kirsty Logan https://bbc.in/2FZfflG

Producer: Debbie Kilbride

Gazelle Twin, Julia Bardsley, Hannah Catherine Jones, Luke Turner and William Fowler.

Part of a week-long focus Free Thinking the Future. You can find more interviews and discussions to download and catch up with on the playlist on our website

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zwn4d

Bestselling US author and columnist David Brooks has just published The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life. You can hear him talking to Rana Mitter about his book The Road to Character https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05w8131

Hilary Cottam is Visiting Professor at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose and the author of Radical Help.

Ryan Abbott is Professor of Law and Health Sciences at the University of Surrey.

Peter Dunne is a lecturer at the University of Bristol Law School

Craig Jones is a lecturer in political geography at the University of Newcastle.

A BBC Ideas playlist of films Are You Robot Ready is here https://www.bbc.com/ideas/playlists/are-you-robot-ready

Producer: Chris Wilson

A panel of researchers share insights into the law and warfare, gender and AI.

Playwright Tom Morton-Smith discusses putting cold war tensions on stage in his new play Ravens: Spasky v Fischer which is inspired by the chess match that took place in Reykjavik, 1972. The play runs at the Hampstead Theatre in London until January 18th.

The winner of the biennial David Cohen prize for Literature is announced. You can find our playlist of In Depth Interviews here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04ly0c8

Film critic Agnes Poirer compares two crime caper films from 50 years ago The Italian Job featuring Michael Caine and Noel Coward and The Brain, which starred David Niven alongside Jean Paul Belmondo and comedian Bourvil.

If you want more programmes exploring China include this discussion of Patriotism Beyond the West: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08583zz

The Cultural Revolution https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b079mcg9

Rana talks to the leading Chinese thinker Zhang Weiwei in Japanese History, Chinese Democracy https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03q5gdy

Jung Chang discusses her book on Empress Dowager Cixi https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01hy158

Producer: Harry Parker.

Rana Mitter talks to historians of China Jung Chang and Julia Lovell, and Cindy Yu.

Nearly 60 years on from C.P. Snow's 'Two Cultures' lecture in which the chemist and novelist argued that a great divide existed between art and science, this conversation considers the relationship between the two in 2018

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

Sir Paul Nurse and Tristram Hunt debate with an audience at Queen Mary University London.

Film critic Charlotte O Sullivan has been watching 'I Declare War,' Jason Lapeyre and Robert Wilson's film about childhood games which turn sour.

And thirteen years after British troops entered combat in Afghanistan, and in the week that the British Command handed over to the Americans in Helmand province, Noorjahan Akbar and Hamdullah Mohib talk about what has happened to their culture and society in Afghanistan over that time and what might change with national elections at the week-end.

Anne McElvoy explores the impact of war, Afghan elections and childhood violence.

Philip Dodd also asks whether divisions between East and West continue to affect European unity. He is joined by Agata Pyzik, a polish writer and blogger and author of 'Poor But Sexy: Culture Clashes between East and West', Oxford University's Gwendolyn Sasse, a German expert on the Comparative Politics of Central and Eastern Europe and author of the prize-winning book The Crimea Question: Identity, Transition, and Conflict (2007) and Hungarian-Romanian businessman and writer, Zoltan Boszormenyi, whose latest cold-war novel is called The Club at Eddy's Bar discuss the West's apparent need to find a generic label for their part of the world and whether it helps or hinders the region's sense of self and global development.

And current New Generation Thinker and Cambridge academic Dr Sarah Dillon and critic Susannah Clapp reflect on science fiction on stage and screen as Free Thinking continues its focus on catching up with previous New Generation Thinkers.

1984 is on stage at the Playhouse Theatre in London's West End.

Researcher, Writer, Teacher, Broadcaster http://drsarahdillon.com/

Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

Photo credit: Jan Rasch

Philip Dodd talks to Czech novelist Ivan Klima and asks if Europe always needs an East.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

You can find previous episodes exploring film and fiction on the Free Thinking website, all available to download as Arts and Ideas podcasts.

Iain Sinclair, Mark Blacklock, Muriel Zagha and Jo Stanley join Matthew Sweet.

JG Ballard's 1973 novel follows a group of people who re-enact car crashes involving Hollywood celebrities like James Dean and Jayne Mansfield. David Cronenberg filmed it in 1996.

Hallie Rubenhold has published The Five - The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper.

Dr Kate Lister teaches at Leeds Trinity University and is the author of Paraphernalia! Victorian Objects.

Iain Bell's opera Jack the Ripper: The Women of Whitechapel opens at ENO in London on 30th March.

Ruth Ware's most recent psychological thriller is The Death of Mrs Westaway.

Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes is on Netflix.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Hallie Rubenhold, Emma Jenkins, Dr Kate Lister and Ruth Ware join Matthew Sweet.

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

Image: Jacques Tati fixes tire in a scene from the film 'Traffic', 1972

Credit: Columbia Pictures/Getty Images

Matthew Sweet, Adam Scovell, Muriel Zagha and Phuong Le on the 1971 French comedy.

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 organization.

Populism: Before and After the Pandemic by Michael Burleigh is published on 9th February

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Rana Mitter and guests re-read James Baldwin as a new US president is inaugurated.

Elisabeth Kendall is the author of Twenty-First Century Jihad

Connect: How Companies Succeed by Engaging Radically with Society by John Browne with Robin Nuttall and Tommy Standlen, is out now.

Sam Goodman is the author of British Spy Fiction and the End of Empire

Spectre certificate 12A is out in cinemas nationwide from Monday.

Nawal El Saadawi is the author of The Hidden Face of Eve, Woman at Point Zero, The hidden face of Eve, God Dies By The Nile.

With writer Nawal El Saadawi on protest, Lord Browne on business, and IS and Arabic poetry

As he tells Philip Dodd, in a conversation that ranges from Calvinism to Chandler, Count Basie to late Beethoven:

'As my literary sensibility becomes more patriotic, more conservatism, more religious, more sentimental, more fraternal, I find an era to write about where I can look back and live it and so This Storm is very much about alliance and friendship and belief and ideology in the early days of World War II and my good guys - who are always the cops ... and these folks are always going to one of two places, to carouse, to booze, to plot, to talk of sandbagging unfriendly politicians and to flirt and conduct their adulterous love affairs.'

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Main Image: ©Lisa Stafford

Philip Dodd is in conversation with American author James Ellroy.

Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, Volume Two: Everything She Wants by Charles Moore is published by Allen Lane.

Thatcher's Trial by Kwasi Kwarteng is published by Bloomsbury.

Suffragette is released nationwide Monday 12th October.

James Fenton has made a selection of his poems published under the title Yellow Tulips: Poems 1968 - 2011

The PEN Pinter Prize is awarded annually to a British writer or a writer resident in Britain of outstanding literary merit who, in the words of Harold Pinter's Nobel speech, casts an 'unflinching, unswerving' gaze upon the world, and shows a 'fierce intellectual determination ... to define the real truth of our lives and our societies'.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

James Fenton on his poetic career, Suffragette reviewed and Thatcher's legacy discussed.

Jane Eyre has been adapted for a stage production at Bristol Old Vic. Which literary heroines provide good role models? We hear from writers Bidisha and Rebecca Mead, whose new book is called The Road to Middlemarch.

German artist Georg Baselitz discusses his artistic career as his work goes on show in two London Galleries.

And literary depictions of flooding. What books you might want to avoid reading if you are faced with rising water levels.

Producer: Natalie Steed.

Anne McElvoy discusses parent power, literary heroines, artist Georg Baselitz and floods.

Jane Goodall is giving a talk at the British Academy on the work of the Jane Goodall Foundation with chimpanzees, protecting the environment with local communities and improving health and education for girls in rural Africa.

Elif Shafak's latest novel is called 10 Minutes, 38 Seconds in this Strange World and looks at the death of a sex worker and the last moments of her life. Elif Shafak has been vocal in her concerns about freedom of speech in modern day Turkey.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Image credit: Benedict Johnson / British Academy

Matthew Sweet talks to two campaigning women: a writer from Turkey and an animal expert.

Hokusai: beyond the Great Wave runs at the British Museum from May 25th to August 13th. You can find out more about Hokusai on BBC Radio 4's In Our Time.

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

(Poppies from Large Flowers. Colour woodblock, 1831-1832. © The Trustees of the British Museum. On display from 25 May -13 August.)

Chris Harding discusses the work of Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai.

Seventeen by Hideo Yokoyama translated by Louise Heal Kawai is out in English now.

Producer: Robyn Read

Main Image: detail from 'MIKA NINAGAWA', Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan, 2016 (c)mika ninagawa.

The photographs of Mika Ninagawa and the new novel from Hideo Yokoyama, with Anne McElvoy.

Japan Now 2020 is a series of events taking place in Sheffield, Norwich and London organised by Modern Culture culminating in a day of events at the British Library on Saturday February 22nd.

Hiromi It? is one of the most prominent women writers in Japan who looks at sexuality motherhood and the body in her work which is translated by Jeffrey Angles.

Yukiko Motoya's first book in English, Picnic In The Storm, is a collection of short stories which include salary men being swept skywards by their umbrellas, to a married couple morphing into one another's bodies. It was the winner of the Akutagawa Prize and the Kenzaburo Oe Prize. It is translated by Asa Yoneda

Tomoko Sawada is a photographer and performance artist whose work explores gender roles and cultural stereotypes from a strongly feminist perspective.

Translator Motoyuki Shibata, has introduced writers like Paul Auster, Richard Powers, Edward Gorey and Steven Millhauser to Japanese readers.

You can find more programmes in the playlist Free Thinking explores Japanese culture https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0657spq

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Hiromi Ito, Tomoko Sawada, Yukiko Motoya and Motoyuki Shibata

Alex Kerr is the author of Lost Japan and Dogs and Demons.

Yoko Tawada's books include Memoirs of a Polar Bear which has just been translated into English.

The Keshiki Series edited by Elmer Luke includes writing by Yoko Tawada, Aoko Matsuda, Keiichiro Hirano, Misumi Kubo, Masatsugo Ono and Natsuki Ekezawa.

Momoko Ando graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in London and studied film at New York University. Her films are Kakera: A Piece Of Our Life (2009) and 0.5mm (2014).

They are all in England to take part in the Japan Now Festival at the British Library organised by Modern Culture.

Producer: Fiona McLean.

Christopher Harding with writers Alex Kerr and Yoko Tawada, and film-maker Momoko Ando.

And as rising tensions between China and Japan continue to dominate headlines in East Asia, we hear from two young journalists, one from each country, about what they learned about each other at school and why mutual suspicion is on the rise in their generation. Mariko Oi and Haining Liu's documentary will be broadcast as part of a season about Freedom which runs on the World Service from January to April.

Finally the author of 'Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival' David Pilling and historian Naoko Shimazu reflect on Japan's historic ability to re-invent itself and why it needs that skill more than ever at the present time.

Rana Mitter talks to Zhang Weiwei, one of China's leading public intellectuals.

Thus Bad Begins by Javier Marias is now published in English in the UK.

Don Quixote, adapted by James Fenton from the novel by Miguel de Cervantes, directed by Angus Jackson, with songs by James Fenton and Grant Olding, is at the Swan Theatre in Stratford 25 February - 21 May 2016

Ben Okri is taking part in Cervantes and Shakespeare 400, a project marking the anniversary of both authors. Events are happening at the Hay Festival and at the British Library on Tuesday April 12th when the anthology Lunatics, Lovers and Poets: Twelve Stories After Cervantes and Shakespeare, featuring new work from 12 contemporary international authors is being unveiled. The British Library has a free display of illustrated editions of Don Quixote in the Treasures Gallery running until May 22nd.

Philips Dodd explores Spanish culture and politics and is joined by novelist Javier Marias

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 Cin退 Lumi耀re.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Image: Jean-Paul Belmondo in 1958

Image credit: Roger Viollet via Getty Images

The French film star who burst onto the scene in 1960 in Godard's Breathless.

This Orient Isle: Elizabethan England and the Islamic World by Jerry Brotton - Professor of Renaissance Studies in the Department of

English, Queen Mary, University of London is out now and is being read on Radio 4 as this week's Book of the Week.

The Radio 3 Sunday Feature he presented on The Venice Ghetto is available on the i player or as a download from Radio 3's website.

Another World: Losing Our Children to Islamic State written by Gillian Slovo and directed by Nicolas Kent is at the temporary space at the National Theatre from 9th April to 7th May.

Gillian Slovo's novel is called Ten Days.

Professor John Breuilly is the editor of the Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism which is out in paperback in April.

Elif Shafak's most recent novel is The Architect's Apprentice.

Jerry Brotton talks to Rana Mitter about Elizabethan England and the Islamic world.

Belonging: The Story of the Jews 1492-1900 is the title of Simon Schama's latest book.

Devorah Baum teaches at the University of Southampton and has written Feeling Jewish (A Book for Just About Anyone) and The Jewish Joke.

Michael Longley is the recipient of the 2017 PEN Pinter Prize. His latest collection is called Angel Hill. The Pen Pinter prize is awarded annually to a writer from Britain, the Republic of Ireland or the Commonwealth who, in the words of Harold Pinter's Nobel Literature Prize speech, casts an 'unflinching, unswerving gaze upon the world' and shows a 'fierce intellectual determination...to define the real truth of our lives and our societies.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

Simon Schama and Devorah Baum discuss Jewishness.

Howard Jacobson's most recent novel is called Live a Little

Bari Weiss has published How to Fight Anti-Semitism

Hadley Freeman's book tracing her family history is called House of Glass

Jonathan Freedland's latest novel under the pen name Sam Bourne is called To Kill a Man

Jewish Book Week runs at venues in London, including JW3 and Kings Place, until Sunday 8 March.

In the Free Thinking programme archive and available to download as an Arts & Ideas podcast you can hear:

Howard Jacobson delivering a lecture on Why We Need The Novel https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b949cx and talking to Philip Dodd about his dystopian novel J https://www.bbc.com/programmes/b04hyvk5

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

Matthew Sweet in conversation with David Grossman https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03x1p4l

Simon Schama and Devorah Baum debating Jewish history, jokes and contemporary identity https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b098hz1m

Jonathan Freedland exploring Jewish identity in fiction from Amos Oz, Ayelet Gundar-Goshen & Jonathan Safran Foer https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07vws14

Producer: Emma Wallace

Howard Jacobson, Bari Weiss, Hadley Freeman, Jonathan Freedland and Matthew Sweet.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

You can find previous episodes exploring film and fiction on the Free Thinking website, all available to download as Arts and Ideas podcasts.

Iain Sinclair, Mark Blacklock, Muriel Zagha and Jo Stanley join Matthew Sweet.

JG Ballard's 1973 novel follows a group of people who re-enact car crashes involving Hollywood celebrities like James Dean and Jayne Mansfield. David Cronenberg filmed it in 1996.

Jhumpa Lahiri has edited The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories which is out now.

Valeria Luiselli's novel Lost Children Archive is out now

George Szirtes' memoir The Photographer at Sixteen: The Death and Life of a Fighter is out now

The Free Thinking collection of discussions about prose and poetry is at bbc.co.uk/Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vh

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Two writers and a poet in conversation about language, migrants and personhood.

Filmmaker Johanna Hamilton and former Washington Post journalist Betty Medsger on 1971, a documentary focusing on the events of March 8th that year when eight people broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania and uncovered illegal spying operations.

Richard Bean's new play, starring Stephen Merchant, opens at the Wyndham Theatre in London, on the 3rd of July.

Australian author Steve Tolz was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for his 2008 novel A Fraction of the Whole. His new novel is called Quicksand.

AD Miller is a journalist at The Economist whose Russian based crime story Snowdrops was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2011. His new novel is called The Faithful Couple.

1971 is opening at Bertha DocHouse(Bloomsbury Curzon this Friday. Betty Medsger's book is called The Burglarly: The Discovery of J Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI.

Main image: Richard Bean.

Playwright Richard Bean joins Matthew Sweet to discuss male friendships.

Producer: Zahid Warley

First broadcast last year.

Director John Boorman talks about his film-making career with Matthew Sweet.

As a European court backs the 'right to be forgotten' - legislation allowing people to ask search engines to remove unwanted information from their indexes - Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Viktor Mayer-Sch怀nberger, Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, discuss how privacy vs expression and remembering vs forgetting clash in the internet age.

Also, an assessment of Polish filmmaker Walerian Borowczyk with writer and psychoanalyst Cherry Potter and curator Daniel Bird.

Iain Sinclair talks to Matthew Sweet about a walk to mark John Clare's death 150 years ago

Producer: Luke Mulhall

You can find a collection of programmes exploring prose, poetry and drama on the Free Thinking website including episodes about Iris Murdoch, ETA Hoffmann, Eco Criticism https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vh

John Gray, Margaret Drabble, Iain Sinclair and Kevan Manwaring discuss Powys's writing.

Also we consider how artistic movements become successful as the National Gallery stages an exhibition devoted to Paul Durand-Ruel, the french art dealer who discovered the Impressionists.

National gallery curator Christopher Riopelle tells the story of the man who supported the likes of Pissarro, Degas, Monet and launched a group of anti-establishment artists into the art history pantheon.

Jacky Klein, art historian and newly-appointed head of Tate Publishing and Godfrey Barker, man of letters and art critic discuss the anthropology of the art world through time and how and why art movements and artists gain prominence or fade from memory, who gains and who loses and why.

Inventing Impressionism runs at the National Gallery in London from 4 March - 31 May 2015

Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

Presented by Matthew Sweet. Philosopher John Gray discusses illusory ideas of freedom.

The Avenue of Mysteries by John Irving is out now.

Producer: Robyn Read

Main Image: Philip Dodd (lhs) and John Irving (rhs) in the Free Thinking studio.

Original broadcast Wed 3 Feb 2016.

The author of The Cider House Rules on religion, Mexico and the USA. With Philip Dodd.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

A life of great drama and religious controversy explored by Matthew Sweet and guests.

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 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 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000d6yy

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

Image: JM Keynes. Credit: Getty Images

Hall of Mirrors is the Drama on 3 Sunday 27th March 2022 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tnwj

You can find other episodes of Free Thinking exploring economic ideas:

Economics: Liam Byrne, John Redwood, Luke Johnson, Juliet Michaelson and Matt Wolf https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03qbv3q

Mandeville's View of 18th-century Economics https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b040hysk

Coins, going cashless and the magic money tree https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000s2v5

John Rawls's A Theory of Justice https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rd97

From HM Treasury to Versailles and Bloomsbury: a look at the life and legacy of JM Keynes.

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.

Anne McElvoy revisits the 1973 play The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil

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 how arguments can be right or wrong, or at least better or worse, both in philosophy and in 'real politics'. Recent books include Political Philosophy versus History? (2011); Is Political Philosophy impossible? (2017); and, 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

Anne McElvoy and guests re-read this 1971 work of political philosophy about inequality.

Once our news came from three primary sources: newspapers, radio and TV. But in a digital world which offers a proliferation of 'news' how do we separate fact from opinion or even fakery? Former director general of the BBC and current CEO of The New York Times Company, Mark Thompson, journalist Susie Boniface (aka Fleet Street Fox), author and TV producer, Peter Pomerantsev, and academic, Martin Moore, consider what we mean by news in 2016.

We Chose to Speak of War and Strife: The World of the Foreign Correspondent is by John Simpson.

Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia is by Peter Pomerantsev

Enough Said: What's gone wrong with the language of politics? is by Mark Thompson.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

Philip Dodd and guests consider what we mean by 'news' in 2016.

Jonathan Coe's 2001 novel, The Rotters' Club, depicts teenage life in Birmingham in the 1970s, against a backdrop of strikes at the local car factories. It's been adapted for the stage by Richard Cameron - whose other plays include The Glee Club and Can't Stand Up For Falling Down. They discuss the difference between page and stage, assess the sexual and racial politics of the time and consider the cultural influence of Britain's second city.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

Author Jonathan Coe and playwright Richard Cameron join Matthew Sweet at Birmingham Rep.

Gary Shteyngart is the author of Super Sad True Love Story, Absurdistan and The Russian Debutante's Handbook. Born in Leningrad, he moved to America in the '70s. His new memoir is called Little Failure.

Jonathan Lethem's books include The Fortress of Solitude, Motherless Brooklyn and Chronic City. His new novel Dissident Gardens draws on his upbringing in hippie New York and explores radicalism from American communism and folk music to the Occupy movement.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

American authors Jonathan Lethem and Gary Shteyngart are in conversation with Samira Ahmed

Not in God's Name: Confronting Religious Violence by Rabbi Sacks is out now.

The Mother---------- With The Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis gained 6 Tony nominations on Broadway. It runs in rep at the National Theatre until mid August.

Milan Kundera's novel is called The Festival of Insignificance.

Monochrome: Painting in Black and White runs at the National Gallery in London from October 30th until February 18th 2018.

Swift at 350: A Graphic Anthology is launched at Dundee on November 25th along with a series of events for families, Telling Tall Tales, Gulliver! A Fantastical Pantomime and an exhibition at the local library in Dundee. Find out more at www.beinghumanfestival.org.

Martin Rowson is taking part in a discussion about satire at the British Library on November 28th with Jonathan Coe, Rory Bremner, Judith Hawley, and Sathnam Sanghera.

Land Lines - Modern British Nature Writing 1789-2014 - Finding the UK's favourite nature book. Find out More at http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/favouritenaturebooks/

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Anne McElvoy looks at art from monochrome religious painting to a yellow light-filled room

Anne will also be hearing from the director, Gemma Bodinetz who with Peepolykus is staging a comic version of Madame Bovary at the Liverpool Everyman and from Laurie Sansom, who's directing a revival of Rona Munro's acclaimed trilogy of James plays. And in the week that sees the publication of a life of the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, Matthew Parris discusses the art of political biography.

Joseph Crawhall: Masterworks from The Burrell Collection which runs from 4 February - 12 March 2016 is on at the The Fleming Collection in London and it's the first time in 25 years that an exhibition of his his works is on show in London.

Rona Munro's James Plays are on at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre from February 3rd to 13th and then the UK and international tour stops in Glasgow, Inverness, Newcastle, Salford, Birmingham, Leicester and Plymouth

Madame Bovary performed by Peepolykus is touring. Liverpool Everyman 5th to 27th February and then on to the Nuffield Theatre Southampton, Bristol Old Vic, Royal & Derngate, Northampton.

Producer: Zahid Warley

Image Credit: The Flower Shop, by Joseph Crawhall c.1894-1900. The Burrell Collection (c) CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collection.

Anne McElvoy profiles painter Joseph Crawhall. Plus Madame Bovary and The James Plays.

The Pakistani novelist and women's right activist Bapsi Sidhwa, who's awards include the Sitara-i-Imtiaz - Pakistan's highest national honour in the arts - talks about her 1978 novel The Crow Eaters, which is about to be re-published.

Also on the programme - Anne discusses poetry inspired by light, and in particular the work of Jackson Mac Low, who's Light Poems form the basis of one of events taking place as part of On Light, a programme of events taking place at the Wellcome Collection in London bank holiday weekend, to mark the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies.

Keeping An Eye Open: Essays on Art by Julian Barnes is published on 7 May

The Crow Eaters by Bapsi Sidhwa is published in paperback on 30 April

On Light is at the Wellcome Collection, in London between 1 - 4 May

Producer: Ella-mai Robey

Image: Julian Barnes

Photo Credit: Joanna Briscoe.

With Booker Prize-winning writer Julian Barnes and Pakistani novelist Bapsi Sidhwa.

Producer: Robyn Read

Historian Hetta Howes, novelists Claire Gilbert and Victoria MacKenzie join Shahidha Bari.

The pianist Alice Herz-Sommer, who gave concerts while she was incarcerated in Terez퀀n, was the oldest known holocaust survivor until her death last week at the age of 110. Michael Goldfarb considers her life.

Michael Goldfarb's new book is called Emancipation, How Liberating Europe's Jews from the Ghetto Led to Revolution and Renaissance.

Producer: Natalie Steed.

Philip Dodd meets artist Julian Schnabel. Plus Michael Goldfarb on Alice Herz-Sommer.

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

We examine Rome's last pagan ruler via Ibsen's drama to apostasy in contemporary politics.

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 episode

Professor Roger Luckhurst's books include Gothic: an illustrated history; Corridors - passages of modernity; Science Fiction: a Literary History

Mirela Ivanova teaches at the University of Sheffield. You can hear her in a Free Thinking discussion of Slavic Myths

Georgi Gospodinov (born 1968) is a Bulgarian novelist, poet and playwright. Time Shelter translated by Angela Rodel is his most recent novel.

Lea Ypi and Roger Luckhurst join Matthew Sweet to look at novels, dreams and bureaucracy.

Novels from Bulgaria, Albania, the Czech republic and Victorian London are our topic tonight as Matthew Sweet and guests explore what you might call the bureaucracy of the soul.

Lea Ypi and Mirela Ivanova join Matthew Sweet to look at novels, dreams and bureaucracy.

Novels from Bulgaria, Albania, the Czech Republic and Victorian London are our topic, as Matthew Sweet and guests explore what you might call the bureaucracy of the soul.

Kamila Shamsie's novels include Burnt Shadows which links events in Nagasaki and partition in India to Pakistan in the early 1980s, New York post 9/11 and Afghanistan in the wake of a US bombing campaign; and A God in Every Stone moves from the time of Persian Darius I to the experiences of Indian troops fighting the First World War and the independence movement in Peshawar.

John Kasmin's Postcards series published by Trivia Press is themed into collections Meat; Scrub; Elders; Size; and Wreck.

Dido, Queen of Carthage is at the Swan theatre in Stratford with Kimberley Sykes directing for the Royal Shakespeare Company until October 28th 2017.

Natalie Haynes is the author The Ancient Guide to Modern Life and her latest novel is The Children of Jocasta.

Rebecca McCutcheon directed performances of Christopher Marlowe's drama in a women's refuge and at Kensington Palace and her theatre company Lost Text, Found Space is now working on staging a rarely performed play by Elizabeth Inchbold at a Victorian House in Peckham.

Producer: Robyn Read

Philip Dodd looks at postcards of beggars, the love and scorn of Dido and radicalisation.

Some Rain Must Fall by Karl Ove Knausgard is published now in the UK.

Raoul Wallenberg - The Biography by Ingrid Carlberg is published now in the UK

Karate Chop and Minna Needs Rehearsal Space by Dorthe Nors is out now in the UK

Nikolai Astrup: Painting Norway is on show at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London from until 15 May 2016

Main image: Marsh Marigold Night by Nikolai Astrup (1880-1928) - (Courtesy of the Dulwich Picture Gallery).

Karl Ove Knausgard talks to Philip Dodd in a programme exploring Scandinavia today.

In her trilogy The Secret River, The Lieutenant, and Sarah Thornhill, Kate Grenville explored Australia's early history through three generations of a colonial family.

Image: Kate Grenville

Photo Credit: Darren James.

Rana Mitter is joined by novelist Kate Grenville, who talks about her new book.

Kollwitz was born in K怀nigsberg in East Prussia in 1867 and the show gathers together 40 of her drawings and prints under the themes of social and political protest, self-portraits and images she made in response to the death of her son Peter in October 1914.

Portrait of the Artist: K䀀the Kollwitz A British Museum and Ikon Partnership Exhibition runs from 13 September 26 November 2017 with a fully illustrated catalogue.

John Ashbery (July 28, 1927 - September 3, 2017) is the author of collections including Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror which won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1976

Image: K䀀the Kollwitz (1867-1945) Self Portrait, (1924) Woodcut

Copyright: The Trustees of the British Museum

Producer: Zahid Warley

Art and irony - Philip Dodd and Joanna Kavenna on the Kathe Kollwitz show in Birmingham.

Claire Harman's biography is called All Sorts of Lives: Katherine Mansfield and the art of risking everything.

Kirsty 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 Bikini.

Laurence Scott is the author of Picnic, Comma, Lightning.

Producer: Ruth Watts

On the Free Thinking programme website you can find a collection of discussions about Prose, Poetry and Drama https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vh

and a collection exploring Modernism around the World https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07p3nxh

Claire Harman, Kirsty Gunn, Laurence Scott and Shahidha Bari discuss short story writing.

Israel Goldman is a leading collector and dealer in the field of Japanese prints, paintings and illustrated books. The exhibition, Ky?sai: 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 Ky?sai.

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

Japanese cultural experimentation: painter Ky\u014dsai 1831-1889 and writer Mishima 1925-1970.

Philip Dodd chairs a debate about arts broadcasting, past and present. His panel is Dr Janina Ramirez and Dr Gus Casely-Hayford, both of whom combine art history with broadcasting careers, Charles Uzzell-Edwards who creates his graffiti artworks and runs the Pure Evil Gallery and Kim Evans, award winning film maker and former head of Music and Arts at the BBC.

Producer: Zahid Warley.

Philip Dodd chairs a debate about arts broadcasting past and present.

Africa Writes 2014 marks 25 years since the English translation of the novel Matigari by Ngugi wa Thiong'o. He spoke to Philip Dodd when he published his childhood memoir Dreams in a Time of War.

Billy Kahora's story The Gorilla's Apprentice is published and online at Granta Magazine.

Philip Dodd discusses Kenya past and present with Billy Kahora and Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

Artist and Empire: Facing Britain's Imperial Past runs at Tate Britain from 25 November 2015 - 10 April 2016

Death By Water written by Kenzaburo Oe is translated by Deborah Boliver Boehm.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

Philip Dodd reviews the newly translated novel from Nobel Prize winner Kenzaburo Oe.

As part of Southbank Centre's Film Scores Live, Carl Davis conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra in his score for Napoleon - the longest film score ever composed - alongside a screening of the new digital version of the BFI-Photoplay restoration which Kevin Brownlow has worked on. This event happens on Sunday November 6th.

BBC Radio 3's Sound of Cinema broadcasts an interview with Carl Davis on Saturday October 29th.

(Image courtesy of BFI-Photoplay).

Kevin Brownlow talks to Matthew Sweet about documenting and restoring silent film classics

You can hear a curated selection of readings and music on the theme of travelling fairs and circuses on Radio 3's Words and Music programme broadcast Sunday afternoons at half past five and available for 28 days following on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04sv2wr

and on BBC Ideas there is a short film about funfairs https://www.bbc.co.uk/ideas/videos/a-nostalgic-spin-around-the-history-of-the-funfair/p087fpn9

and more programmes about mental health in this BBC collection https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04t6bc1

Producer: Robyn Read

Rutger Bregman tells Anne McElvoy why survival of the fittest needs rethinking as an idea.

Dr Jamie Fraser is curator for the Ancient Levant and Anatolia at the British Museum and has curated Luxury and power: Persia to Greece

Dr 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 Watts

Luxury and power: Persia to Greece runs at the British Museum in London from 4 May 2023 - 13 Aug 2023

On 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.

Music:

Meyerbeer, Le Proph耀te, The Coronation March,

London Symphony Orchestra, Richard Bonynge, Decca - SXL.6541

Verdi, Don Carlos, Act II, Cejour heureux est plein d'allg耀gresse!

Coro del Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Claudia Abbado, Deutsche Grammophon - DEF058231107

Anne McElvoy looks at royalty, pomp and glory in opera, ancient Persia and Tudor England.

Tracy Chevalier's novels include A Single Thread - a novel depicting the work of 'broderers' creating cushions and kneelers for Winchester Cathedral in the 1930s.

Russell Maliphant formed Russell Maliphant Company in 1996 and has worked with companies and artists including Sylvie Guillem, Robert Lepage, Isaac Julian, Balletboyz and Lyon Opera Ballet. He created Broken Fall for Sylvie Guillem and Balletboyz which premiered at the Royal Opera House and received an Olivier award for best new dance production.

Producer: Paula McGinley

If you are interested in craft you might like our discussion on the joy of sewing with Clare Hunter and Jade Halbert https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002mk2 or The Woolly episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0009bw4 with Esther Rutter & Alex Harris

or Darian Leader and Seb Falk join Lisa Le Feuvre and Thrishantha Nanayakkara to look at Hands with Matthew Sweet https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03z2nbj

Dance to prayer, servants to Kings, knees ups to being on our knees. With Matthew Sweet

Producer: Luke Mulhall

On the Free Thinking programme website you can find a collection of conversations exploring South and East Asian Culture which includes episodes about My Neighbour Totoro, Japan's equivalent to Sherlock Holmes - The Black Lizard, photographs by Mika Ninagawa, writing by Hideo Yokoyama, Yukio Mishima and Tomoyuki Hoshino, ideas about nature and about city living.

Chris Harding reads from Yu Miri's new novel, The End of August.

Chris Harding reads from The End of August, a new novel by Yu Miri, and explores the legacy of earthquakes in Japan.

1930s Japanese-occupied Korea ahead of the Tokyo Olympics and a marathon runner in present day Japan are paired in the latest novel from Yu Miri. It has been translated into English as The End of August by Morgan Giles and they both join presenter and Japan expert Chris Harding as part of a programme exploring links between Korea and Japan. He also looks back at the Great Kant? Earthquake a hundred years ago and disaster planning today.

Andrew Roberts talks about his new biography, 'Napoleon the Great'.

Ai Weiwei has supervised the installation of the largest UK exhibition of his artworks at Blenheim Palace using a 3D computer model because he is unable to travel to Britain. Katie Hill reviews the show.

Edith Hall is the author of books including Introducing the Ancient Greeks: from Bronze Age Seafarers to Navigators of the Western Mind.

Rana Mitter with a first-night review of Sophocles' Electra, starring Kristin Scott Thomas

Clancy Sigal's autobiography, Black Sunset is out now.

A Thousand Cuts: The Bizarre Underground World of Collectors and Dealers Who Saved the Movies by Dennis Bartok and Jeff Joseph is out now.

La La Land is out in cinemas across Britain from January 13th certificate 12A

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

Matthew Sweet and guests discuss Hollywood and its self-obsession.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

The shortlist for the 2023 Elizabeth Longford Prize for historical biography is announced in May.

Lady 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 Rights.

In May 2023 Lady Antonia Fraser publishes Lady Caroline Lamb: A Free Spirit.

You 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.

Rana Mitter talks to Antonia Fraser about the art of writing historical biography.

Macbeth - an Undoing by Zinnie Harris runs at the Lyceum Edinburgh from Feb 4th to 25th 2023. The play text is published by Faber and Faber

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.uk

You 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 Sounds

Lady 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/p06406hm

Producer: Ruth Watts

From Kurosawa and Shostakovich to Zinnie Harris. New takes on the Scottish play.

Gillian Williamson is the author of Lodgers, Landlords, and Landladies in Georgian London.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

On Radio 3's Free Thinking programme website you can find a collection of programmes called The Way We Live Now exploring a range of topics from sneezing and smells, to ideas about health and gut instinct.

Historical accounts and fictional depictions of the women who ran boarding houses.

Part of a series of Radio 3 broadcasts about science fiction. You can find out more on the BBC/Arts website

2001 is on general release around the UK as part of the BFI science fiction season of events.

You can download this programme by searching in the Arts and Ideas podcasts for the broadcast date.

Producer: Zahid Warley

Image: 2001: A Space Odyssey (c)2014 Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved.

A special discussion recorded at the BFI to mark the re-release of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Jaws started out as a novel which reads as a sociological study of a small American coastal resort full of rather unlikeable characters. It ended up as an iconic film whose heroes engage in a fight to the death with a Great White Man-Eating Machine. Matthew Sweet discusses how the shark came to fill the space once held by the whale, why big teeth still fill our nightmares and whether all publicity is good publicity for the denizens of the oceans with writer Will Self, whose novel 'Shark' was inspired by the film, and Gareth Fraser, who now studies the dental configurations of sharks all because he once sat in a dark cinema, as did life-long Jaws fan, the film expert Ian Hunter.

The artist Fiona Tan, whose new exhibition is partly inspired by 'Jonah the Giant Whale', a preserved whale exhibited inside a lorry which toured across Europe from the 1950s to the mid-1970s will also appear out of the deep.

Matthew Sweet discusses the film Jaws with writer Will Self and shark expert Gareth Fraser

Michael Nyman has composed scores for the three major films that the pioneering Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov made in the late 1920s

Ian Christie is Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck University London. He is co-editor, with Richard Taylor, of The Film Factory: Russian and Soviet Cinema in Documents 1896-1939 and Eisenstein rediscovered.

Larushka Ivan-Zadeh is chief film critic for the Metro newspaper.

Alexei Popogrebsky is a film director and screenwriter whose work includes How I Ended this Summer and Prostye veshchi.

Plus, on the website you can find Salman Rushdie's comments about watching the film.

Producer: Zahid Warley.

Michael Nyman, Alexei Popogrebsky, Ian Christie and Larushka Ivan-Zadeh on Dziga Vertov.

Published posthumously in 1861, the poem has been seen as following traditions of carpe diem love poetry exhorting the female reader to seize the day and respond more quickly to the poet/lover but it has also been argued that the metaphors are ambiguous and the poem can be read as an ironic version of sexual seduction. Many of the phrases and ideas about time in the poem have inspired other authors and been re-used as book titles and lines in films including within A Matter of Life and Death, The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock and the writing of Ursula K Le Guin.

Recorded with an audience at the University of Hull as part of the BBC's festival Contains Strong Language.

Producer: Fiona McLean.

Michael Symmons Roberts, Helen Mort and Stewart Mottram join Matthew Sweet in Hull.

Philip Dodd is joined by Jerry White, Simon Heffer, Kathryn Hughes and Jonathan Myerson to consider the nature of Trollope's achievement and the novel's place in the literary landscape.

Producer: Zahid Warley.

Philip Dodd with a special edition devoted to Anthony Trollope's novel The Way We Live Now

In her famous essay The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House (1980), Lorde wrote:

'Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference - those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older - know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.'

Lorde's writing includes poetry collections such as The First Cities (1968), Cables to Rage (1970) and The Black Unicorn (1978). Her Essays include Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984) and Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference. She also wrote Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982) her novel chronicling her own childhood and sexuality.

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches and The Black Unicorn are being reprinted in the UK this July.

Presenter: Shahidha Bari

Producer: Debbie Kilbride

Jackie Kay and Selina Thompson on the influential US writer and civil rights activist.

To mark the centenary of Chaplin's iconic tramp character, Matthew Sweet discusses City Lights with comedian Lucy Porter, actor Paul McGann, film maker and historian Kevin Brownlow, and Chaplin's biographer David Robinson.

Recorded in front of a live audience at the Watershed Arts Centre as part of the Bristol Slapstick Festival.

You can download this programme by searching in the Arts and Ideas podcasts for the broadcast date.

First broadcast 19/02/2014.

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Matthew Sweet hosts a discussion about Chaplin recorded at the Bristol Slapstick Festival.

Prue Shaw is the author of 'Reading Dante

Sean O'Brien has done his own version of Dante's Inferno

Nick Havely is the author of 'Dante's British Public, from the Fourteenth Century to the Present

Kevin Jackson is the author of the graphic novel Dante's Inferno with illustrations by Hunt Emerson

A selection of 30 of Botticelli's images for The Divine Comedy are on show as part of Botticelli and Treasures from the Hamilton Collection which runs at The Courtaul Gallery in London from February 18th - May 8th.

You might also be interested in Saturday Classics on 13 February, 1302-1500: Ahead of his BBC4 series Renaissance Unchained, art critic Waldemar Januszczak conjures up the sound world of this epoch of huge passions and powerful religious emotions across all of Europe. The term 'Renaissance', or 'rinascita', was coined by Giorgio Vasari in 16th-century Florence, and his assertion that it had fixed origins in Italy has since influenced all of art history. But what of Flanders, Germany and the rest of Northern Europe? Waldemar presents music from the time of the Renaissance greats: Jan Van Eyck, Hans Memling, Albrecht Dürer, Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo and El Greco.

Presenter: Philip Dodd

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Revised repeat of a programme first broadcast on May 13th 2015.

Prue Shaw, Sean O'Brien, Nick Havely and Kevin Jackson discuss Dante's The Divine Comedy.

Eimear McBride is the author of A Girl is a Half-formed Thing and The Lesser Bohemians

Professor Finn Fordham from Royal Holloway, University of London is the author of Lots of Fun at Finnegans Wake: I do I undo I redo: and he edited Finnegans Wake for Oxford World Classics

Eleanor Lybeck is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker teaches at the University of Oxford and is the author of All on Show: The Circus in Irish Literature and Culture.

You can find more Free Thinking discussions about artworks which are Landmarks of Culture in this playlist on our website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44

You might also be interested in last Sunday's Bloomsday edition of Words and Music on Radio 3. Stanley Townsend and Kathy Kiera Clarke read extracts from Ulysses with music from Wagner to Radiohead and a very special traditional number called 'Carolan's Farewell', played on the guitar once owned by none other than James Joyce himself.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006x35f

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Main image credit: Lolo Wood

Matthew Sweet discusses James Joyce's groundbreaking novel of 1939.

You can download this programme by searching under the Arts and Ideas Podcasts by the broadcast date.

Dangerfield's first memory as a child was of being held up to a window in May 1910 to watch Halley's Comet falling across the sky and it is with this moment in time that he begins his book. The Right Honourable Herbert Henry Asquith is watching the comet from the deck of an Admiralty Yacht way out in the Bay of Biscay having just heard via wireless that Edward VII is dead. And as HMS Enchantress tacks for Plymouth, Asquith stands in the summer ocean twilight and wonders how the new George V will tackle the political crises that lie just ahead.

The rapid collapse of self-confidence from the apogee of Empire to industrial unrest, mutiny, civil war in Ireland, The Parliament Act of 1911, the Suffragette movement: this was the reality of the lead-up to World War I. It was a period which marked the end of English Liberalism, and this is Dangerfield's subject.

Producer Neil Trevithick.

Philip Dodd and guests discuss George Dangerfield's The Strange Death of Liberal England.

Iain Bell's In Parenthesis is at WNO in Carcdiff from 13th May -3 June, in Birmhingham on 10 June and then at the Royal Opera House in London from 29 June -1 July

It will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on July 2nd.

David Jones's In Parenthesis is published by Faber

David Jones - Vision and Memory - is at the Djanogly Gallery in Nottingham until 5 June. It was previously on show at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester.

His art is also on show at the Martin Tinney Gallery in Cardiff in May and June.

Photo Credit: The Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum, The Estate of David Jones

Iain Sinclair, Emma Jenkins, Paul Hills and Iain Bell discuss the writing of David Jones.

Released in 1957 and inspired by Bergman's own memories of childhood holidays in a summerhouse in the north of Sweden, Wild Strawberries tells the story of elderly professor Isak Borg, who travels from his home in Stockholm to receive an honorary doctorate. On the way, he's visited by childhood memories. The film stars veteran actor and director Victor Sjostrom, Bibi Andersson and Ingrid Thulin.

With additional contributions from the film historian Kevin Brownlow and Jan Holmberg from the Ingmar Bergman Foundation, which administers Bergman's archives.

The BFI in London is running a season of Ingmar Bergman films until March 1st 2018 as part of the global celebrations of the centenary of world-renowned Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (1918 - 2007).

A Matter of Life and Death: the Films of Ingmar Bergman has been republished with a new introduction by Geoff Andrew of the BFI.

Wild Strawberries is being screened on 26 Feb, Newlyn Filmhouse; 8 March, Borderlines Film Festival; 11 March, Chapter Arts Centre.

This programme was originally recorded in December 2015.

Producer: Laura Thomas

(Main image: Ingmar Bergman. Photo by Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images.).

Matthew Sweet is joined by Colm Toibin and others to discuss Bergman's Wild Strawberries.

With Lucy Bolton, who has written about Iris Murdoch, philosophy and cinema, novelist and critic Bidisha, and friend of Iris Murdoch Peter J Conradi, who is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Kingston.

The Iris Murdoch Research Centre is at the University of Chichester.

The Centenary Conference takes place 13 - 15 July 2019 at St Anne's College, Oxford.

The project womeninparenthesis is currently asking members of the public to send a postcard to Iris ttps://www.philosophybypostcard.com/ - you can hear more about it in this Free Thinking discussion on rewriting 20th-century British philosophy

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000r9b

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Matthew Sweet and guests on Iris Murdoch's thought and writing 100 years on from her birth

The project womeninparenthesis is currently asking members of the public to send a postcard to Iris https://www.philosophybypostcard.com/ - you can hear more about it in this Free Thinking discussion on rewriting 20th-century British philosophy

Matthew Sweet and guests look at Iris Murdoch's thought and writing 100 years on from her birth.

His semi- autobiographical novel, first published in 1932, is a ferocious assault on the hypocrisy and idiocy of his time. It follows its anti hero Ferdinand Bardamu from the battlefields of the First World War to Africa and America before returning to Paris and a chilling confrontation with his demons. The book established C退line as a an original and dangerous voice amongst the generation of writers who emerged from the carnage of the Great War. The fluency of his prose, its tone and bristling attitude has won him many admirers among them Philip Roth and Joseph Heller. He's entered popular culture too -- being quoted by Jim Morrison in the Doors' song End of the Night. But as well as the praise there's been criticism - not least for the vicious anti-Semitism that surfaces in some of his later work.

To explore the novel and the man Rana Mitter is joined by the writers, Marie Darrieussecq and Tibor Fischer, the literary historian, Andrew Hussey, and C退line's latest biographer, Damian Catani.

Marie Darrieussecq is the author of novels including Pig Tales, Tom is Dead and her latest Our Life in the Forest

Andrew Hussey is the author of The French Intifada : The Long War Between France and its Arabs

Tibor Fischer is the author of the novels, How to Rule the World, Under the Frog and The Thought Gang.

Damian Catani teaches at Birkbeck College in London and is writing a biography of C退line that will be published in 2020 by Reaktion Books.

Producer: Zahid Warley

Marie Darrieussecq, Andrew Hussey, Tibor Fischer & Damian Catani on Celine's masterpiece.

Laurel and Hardy to give them their more formal title won the hearts of cinema goers all over the world in the '30s and '40s with films such as Way out West, Sons of the Desert and The Music Box, the sublime short which is the focus of this edition of Free Thinking. With the release of a new film about their life Stan and Ollie - starring John C Reilly and Steve Coogan, and a month long season of their work already underway at the British Film Institute in London - Matthew Sweet is joined by the standup comedian, Lucy Porter, the Emmy award winning writer, David Quantick and playwright and musician, Neil Brand to pay tribute to their achievement and enduring appeal.

Producer: Zahid Warley

Lucy Porter begins a nationwide tour of her show - Pass it On - in February

The BFI Laurel and Hardy season is on now at London's Southbank and runs until 26th January.

Matthew Sweet pays tribute to Hollywood's most famous comedy duo, Stan and Ollie.

Readings performed by William Hope.

Producer: Fiona McLean.

Originally broadcast on Thu 8 Oct 2015.

Poets Mark Doty and Andrew McMillan and Professor Sarah Churchwell on Walt Whitman's poem.

Recorded with an audience at Wellcome Collection as part of BBC Radio 3's series of programmes Why Music? The Key to Memory.

Lisa Appignanesi - Trials of Passion: Crimes in the Name of Love and Madness

Murray Pomerance - Marnie: BFIClassic

Nico Muhly's opera based on Marnie premieres at English National Opera on November 18th and will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

Photo Credit: David Bishop / Wellcome Collection

Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

Matthew Sweet explores memory and Marnie, of Graham's novel and Hitchcock's film fame.

Arnold argued that modern life was producing a society of 'Philistines' who only cared for material possessions and hedonistic pleasure. As a medicine for this moral and spiritual degradation, Arnold prescribed 'culture', which he defined as 'the best which has been thought and said in the world', stored in Europe's great literature, philosophy and history. By engaging with this heritage, he argued, humans could develop towards a higher state of mental and moral 'perfection'.

Simon Heffer is the author of books including High minds: the Victorians and the birth of modern Britain; Moral Desperado: A Life of Thomas Carlyle and Nor Shall My Sword: The Reinvention of England.

Tiffany Jenkins is Culture Editor for the journal Sociology Compass. Her books include Contesting Human Remains in Museum Collections, Keeping Their Marbles and she is editor of a collection of essays from various writers called Political Culture, Soft Interventions and Nation Building.

Will Abberley is a Lecturer in English at the University of Sussex and the author of English Fiction and the Evolution of Language, 1850-1914

Stella Duffy is a writer and the co-director of the Fun Palaces campaign for wider participation in all forms of arts and culture.;

Producer: Fiona McLean.

Matthew Sweet and guests debate the contemporary relevance of ideas of poet Matthew Arnold

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 edited the latest translation of the book and from France, the writer, Marie Darrieussecq. The actor Peter Marinker tackles the difficult task of giving an English voice to Proust.

You can download this programme by searching under the Arts and Ideas podcasts and the broadcast date.

The novel 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. To read it is to explore the mechanics of human sensibility -- it is comic, tragic, discursive, scholarly, obscene, vicious and heartfelt but above all profoundly self-aware. Sometimes it reads like a journal or a gossip column; sometimes like autobiography; from times like a scholarly monograph: and often as delicious parody; the coils of Proust's language slows time right down and tempts the reader ever further into the maze of self-examination.

Human attachment lies at the heart of the book - whether it's a young boy's love of his grandmother, a grown man's obsessive sexual interest in a young woman or the self deceptions of narcissism. But these are just a few of the book's facets as the mind of its narrator moves from the marriage of his bourgeois family's neighbours in the country, the Swanns, to the glamour and snobbery of the aristocracy in Paris.

Producer: Zahid Warley

First broadcast 21/10/2014

A landmark edition celebrating Proust's great novel In Search of Lost Time.

For a recording of Free Thinking's Cultural Landmark series at the 2019 Hay Festival, presenter Rana Mitter was joined by guests Tony Juniper, Emily Shuckburgh, Dieter Helm and Kapka Kassabova.

Tony Juniper is a campaigner, sustainability adviser and writer of work including Saving Planet Earth and How many lightbulbs does it take to change a planet?

Emily Shuckburgh is a climate scientist and mathematician at the British Antarctic Survey and the co-author (with the Prince of Wales and Tony Juniper) of the Ladybird Book on Climate Change.

Dieter Helm is an economist specialising in utilities, regulation and the environment. His recent books include Burn Out: the Endgame for Fossil Fuels, The Carbon Crunch, Nature in the Balance and Natural Capital: Valuing the Planet.

Kapka Kassabova is a novelist, poet and journalist whose work includes Border,, Someone else's life and Villa Pacifica. You can hear her talking to Free Thinking about winning the Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding here https://bbc.in/2TsFZ51

You might be interested in our playlist Green Thinking on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2

You can also find a collection of all the discussions of Landmarks of culture as a playlist on the Free Thinking website / and available to download as BBC Arts&Ideas podcasts https://bbc.in/2Jw9y5Q

Producer: Fiona McLean

Rana Mitter hosts a debate at Hay Festival about the rise of the environmental movement.

Ry?nosuke Akutagawa's short story 'In a Grove', published in 1922, became the basis for the 1950 film from Akira Kurosawa 'Rash?mon', one of the first Japanese films to gain worldwide critical acclaim. 'The Rash?mon 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 Ry?nosuke 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 Rash?mon 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.

David Peace and Natasha Pulley look at the writing of Akutagawa and the film by Kurosawa.

Born exactly one hundred years ago on June 10th 1915 in Quebec, Bellow spent most of his life in Chicago and it formed the backdrop for many of his novels. In 1976 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Herzog depicts the mid life crisis of a Jewish academic whose mind begins to unravel when his wife leaves him for his best friend. His rage drives him to write a series of letters to friends, family and the famous in a bid to understand his predicament. They are never sent but they colour the book's emotional landscape. Herzog was nominated as one of the 100 best novels in the English language by TIME magazine.

Martin Amis, Zachary Leader and Sarah Churchwell discuss Saul Bellow's novel Herzog.

Matthew Sweet is joined for a discussion of this Landmark of culture by Professor Ian Christie, critic Larushka Ivan Zadeh, writer SF Said and Dr Alexander Jacoby, author of A Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors.

Producer: Zahid Warley

First broadcast 25/03/2014.

Matthew Sweet and guests including Ian Christie and SF Said on Kurosawa's Seven Samurai.

Ben Moser is the author of Sontag: Her life and work which is out now.

Lauren Elkin teaches at the University of Liverpool and is the author of Fl neuse: Women Walk the City. She is researching Sontag's time in Sarajevo in 1993 when she staged Waiting for Godot during the Siege following the declaration of Bosnia and Herzegovina's independence from Yugoslavia.

Lisa Appignanesi is a Visiting Professor in the Department of English at King's College London and Chair of the Royal Society of Literature Council . Her books include Everday Madness, Simone De Beauvoir, Freud's Women.

You can hear more from Lisa including her BBC Radio 3 interview with Susan Sontag if you search for the Sunday Feature Afterwords: Susan Sontag

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00022p1

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Lauren Elkin, Lisa Appignanesi and Ben Moser debate Susan Sontag's life and ideas.

Stalker tells the story of three men - Writer, Professor, and Stalker. We are never quite sure who Stalker is, or what he represents, but it's his job to lead Writer and Professor on a journey into a mysterious region called The Zone. At the heart of The Zone is a room in which all wishes come true.

Based on the novel Roadside Picnic, by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, Stalker is a kind of Science Fiction film with all the Science Fiction stripped out. Geoff Dyer notes that 'Stalker has always invited allegorical readings, and since the film has something of the quality of prophecy, these readings are not confined to events that had occurred by the time the film was made.' Is Stalker about the end of Communism? Does it prefigure the Chernobyl disaster? There are many possibilities, but the film remains mysterious.

Producer: Laura Thomas.

Matthew Sweet and guests discuss Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 film Stalker.

Inspired by her re-reading of Doris Lessing, Lara Feigel has written a revealing book which is part memoir part biography called 'Free Woman: Life, Liberation and Doris Lessing'. It is out in paperback.

Melissa Benn's books include Mother and Child, One of Us and School Wars

David Aaronovitch is the author of Party Animals: My Family and Other Communists and a former winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Journalism.

Xiaolu Guo has written a memoir Once Upon a Time in the East, and novels including UFO in Her Eyes, and Lovers In the Age of Indifference.

Producer: Fiona McLean

(Photo: Front: Xiaolu Guo, Matthew Sweet, Lara Feigel, standing: Adjoa Andoh, Melissa Benn, David Aaronovitch).

Lara Feigel, David Aaronovitch, Melissa Benn, Xiaolu Guo, Matthew Sweet on Doris Lessing.

Emily Wilson has published a new translation of The Odyssey

Daniel Mendelsohn has written An Odyssey: A Father, A Son and An Epic

Karen McCarthy Woolf wrote Nightshift as part of a BBC Radio 4's Odyssey Project which commissioned ten writers to create a contemporary response. Her most recent collection is called Seasonal Disturbances.

Amit Chaudhuri has written a novel called Odysseus Abroad which draws on The Odyssey by Homer and James Joyce's novel, Ulysses.

The discussion also mentions The Odyssey translated by Robert Fitzgerald

Producer: Zahid Warley

Main Image: Odysseus and the Sirens, detail. Photo by: Leemage / UIG via Getty Images.

Amit Chaudhuri, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Daniel Mendelsohn and Emily Wilson join Philip Dodd.

Philip Dodd asks a panel of experts on these hugely influential tales, plus story-tellers who continue to wrest new life out of them, to discuss their continuing relevance in the age of globalisation.

Scholars Robert Irwin and Wen-chin Ouyang and theatre director, Tim Supple recount their own experience of how stories of Scheherazade, Jinns, Hunchbacks and Sinbad the Sailor work in time and space and explore just why essentially urban folk tales, some of which date from the earliest centuries of the Arab Empire, and which were largely compiled during the Islamic Golden Age, should still have relevance for understanding today's increasingly complex mega-cities.

Philip also talks to the lebanese novelist Hanan al-Shaykh about the way in which artists have used the idea of embedding one story inside another inside another. Hanan al-Shaykh's own One Thousand and One Nights: A New Re-Imagining was the result of total immersion in all the known texts.

Robert Irwin, in his Arabian Nights: A Companion and in other works has shown its massive influence on artists, writers, film-makers, in the modern period while Wen-chin Ouyang has explored how the stories came to inspire the East as well as the West and edited The Arabian Nights: An Anthology. Tim Supple travelled across the modern Arab-speaking world whilst developing his multi-national production of the Nights for the theatre.

How to live in cities? How to make your marriage work? What are the limits of the law? Reflections on the relationship between morality, ethics, the law, secular power to the divine - questions and arguments about how to live and where to live at a time of huge social, religious and political flux in the middle ages echo many of our struggles today.

With readings by Houda Echouafni.

Readings from: The Arabian Nights trs Husain Haddawy;

A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, Now Entituled

The Book of The Thousand Nights and a Night trs Richard Francis Burton; One Thousand and One Nights: A New Re-imagining by Hanan al-Shaykh.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

Philip Dodd and guests including Robert Irwin discuss The One Thousand and One Nights.

Merlin Holland, Oscar Wilde's grandson, has adapted it for a new stage version which runs at The Trafalgar Studios in London from January 18th to February 13th.

Will Self's novel Dorian: An Imitation updated the story to the late 20th century.

Fiona Shaw played Agatha in the 2009 film version, Dorian Gray.

Main image: Peter Firth as Dorian Gray and Jeremy Brett as Basil Hallward, from the BBC's production of The Picture Of Dorian Gray, tx'd: 19/09/1976.

Matthew Sweet, Will Self, Fiona Shaw and Merlin Holland discuss The Picture of Dorian Gray

Producer Fiona McLean

First broadcast in June 2012

Main image: Muriel Spark (1918 - 2006) (1960 Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images).

A Landmark edition in which Philip Dodd and guests examine The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Sarah Dunant's series of Renaissance novels include Blood and Beauty: the Borgias and In The Name of The Family: A Novel of Machiavelli and The Borgias.

Erica Benner has written Be Like the Fox: Machiavelli's Lifelong Quest For Freedom.

Catherine Fletcher is the author of The Black Prince of Florence: The Spectacular Life and Treacherous World of Alessandro de' Medici

Producer: Robyn Read.

Philip Dodd and guests explore the continuing relevance of Machiavelli's The Prince.

In a special edition of Free Thinking, Matthew Sweet talks to Buchan's biographer Andrew Lownie and Buchan scholars Dr Michael Redley and Dr Kate Macdonald about the connections between Buchan's own war experience and The Thirty-Nine Steps, and to Professors Elleke Boehmer and Terence Ranger about how ideas about empire and adventure play out in the novel.

First broadcast 24/06/2014

You can download this programme by searching in the Arts and Ideas podcasts for the broadcast date.

Matthew Sweet discusses WWI, empire and adventure in John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps.

The Tin Drum was published in 1959 and helped shape the way Germans came to think of the Nazi period and its immediate aftermath. It also presented the world with one of the most memorable characters in 20th century fiction. Oskar Matzerath is a small boy who decides at the age of three that he will stop growing and instead trains his child like eye and his eloquent drum on the grotesque manoeuvrings of the adult world - its affairs; its political affiliations; its betrayals; and the feast of sensations it generates as it revolves on its axis.

Producer: Zahid Warley.

Anne McElvoy and guests discuss Gunter Grass's 1959 novel The Tin Drum.

Winifred Holtby (23 June 1898 - 29 September 1935) came from a farming family in Yorkshire, met Vera Brittain at Oxford University and shared a house in London as they began their careers as writers. Brittain went on to publish Testament of Youth. Holtby made her name with journalism for newspapers including the Manchester Guardian and the feminist magazine Time and Tide and published 14 books including the first critical study of Virginia Woolf. When her doctor gave her only two more years to live, she devoted herself to writing her novel South Riding which was published the year after she died aged 37.

Rachel Reeves is Labour MP for Leeds and the author of books including Women of Westminster: The MPs Who Changed Politics

Jane Thomas is Professor of Victorian and early 20th century literature at Hull University.

Dr Katie Cooper teaches at the University of East Anglia and is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker working on a project exploring writers' organisations and free expression.

Contains Strong Language is the BBC's national poetry and spoken word festival which took place in Hull for the first time 3 years ago as part of the City of Culture celebrations.

You can find other Free Thinking discussions about books, paintings and films which are Landmarks of Culture in a playlist on the website https://bbc.in/2Jw9y5Q

including the writing of Audre Lorde, Virginia Woolf, Susan Sontag, Buchi Emecheta, Doris Lessing, and Iris Murdoch amongst others.

Producer Fiona McLean

Matthew Sweet is joined by Rachel Reeves MP, Jane Thomas and Katie Cooper in Hull.

First published in 1972, Adams' novel follows rabbits escaping the destruction of their warren. Adams said that he told the tale to his daughters on car journeys and he rejected comparisons with the Bible tale of Moses and other religious symbolism. What do portrayals of rabbits in literature and film, from Peter Rabbit to Bugs Bunny, tell us about our own society? Matthew Sweet remembers being scared by the first animated film released in 1978. Now a new one from BBC TV and Netflix features the voices of James McAvoy, John Boyega and Gemma Arterton.

Producer: Harry Parker

An ecological fable about a perfect society? Matthew Sweet reads Richard Adams' classic.

Joining Rana in discussion: the writer, Jenni Calder who has recently adapted 'Waverley' for a modern audience; the poet and literary historian, Robert Crawford, who is interested in the originality and reception of Scott's writing and its affect on the imagination; and Andrew Lincoln, an English literature scholar, who has explored Scott as a forward-looking thinker, one who evoked patriotism in the Unionist cause.

You can find more programmes in the BBC #LoveToRead campaign http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04b5zz8/members

And hear more over the #LovetoRead weekend 5-6 November.

As an acclaimed romantic poet, beloved of Byron, then a best-selling novelist, envied by Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott wrote into existence many of the myths and legends we still re-tell and he used this past to examine and explore the political problems of his own day. Waverley' appeared in 1814 when the Napoleonic Wars had not yet drawn to a close -- and the events the novel describes, the 1745, (when Charles Edward Stuart and his army rocked the stability of a still youthful Anglo-Scottish political Union) were as close in time as the Second World War now is to us. In 'Waverley', 'Rob Roy', 'Red Gauntlet' and 'Ivanhoe', Scott conjured up heroic pasts - not just for Scotland, but for England too - romantic highlanders like Rob Roy on the one hand, the anglo-saxon Robin of the Greenwood on the other. The Waverley novels instilled in their readers a great sense of national pride along with the belief that the two countries, now politically mature, their internal struggles behind them, really could and would be stronger together. In the by-going he conjured up a portrait of the British as an effortlessly multicultural people with deep roots who were now uniquely qualified to take on the world.

Presenter: Rana Mitter

Guests: Robert Crawford: University of St Andrews, 'Bannockburns: Scottish Independence and the Literary Imagination 1314-2014

Jenni Calder: 'Sir Walter Scott's Waverley': Newly Adapted for the Modern Reader

Andrew Lincoln: Queen Mary, University of London, 'Walter Scott and Modernity

Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

Rana Mitter presents a special programme exploring Walter Scott's novel Waverley.

Will Self experiments with language and literary form. Will Self's new book Shark links an incident in World War II with an American resident in a therapeutic community in London overseen by psychiatrist Zack Busner.

They join Matthew Sweet for a Free Thinking programme about language.

Matthew Sweet discusses language with Steven Pinker and Will Self.

Guy Gunaratne's first novel In Our Mad and Furious City imagines events over 48 hours on a London council estate evoking the voices of different residents. It was the winner of the International Dylan Thomas Prize, the Jhalak Prize as well as the Authors Club Best First Novel Award in 2019.

Deena Mohamed is in the UK to take part in the Bradford Literature Festival https://www.bradfordlitfest.co.uk/ which runs until July 7th and the Shubbak Festival which runs until July 14th https://www.shubbak.co.uk/

You can find more about her https://deenadraws.art/about

Michael Rosen is a writer, broadcaster and Professor of children's literature at Goldsmith's, University of London. https://www.michaelrosen.co.uk/

Dina Nayeri's books are The Ungrateful Refugee and A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea.

Momtaza Mehri has been young people's laureate for London, a former winner of the Out-Spoken Page poetry prize. Her poetry chapbook is called sugah. lump. prayer.

You can find Preti Taneja talking to Arundhati Roy and a debate about books in translation here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b5hk01

A Free Thinking programme playlist looking at ideas of Belonging, Home, Borders and National Identity is here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03mb66k

Producer: Zahid Warley

With Guy Gunaratne, Dina Nayeri, Michael Rosen, Momtaza Mehri and Deena Mohamed.

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.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Other 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 into

Accents: 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.

John Gallagher is joined by Gwenno, who writes and sings in Cornish, and others.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Other episodes 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.

And Arts and Ideas New Thinking podcast episodes on research into

Accents: 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

From Lancashire dialect protest poetry to Hardy's Dorset vowels. John Gallagher hosts.

Old Rage by Sheila Hancock is out now in paperback and you can see her in the TV drama The Sixth Commandment available on BBC iPlayer

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

On BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking programme website you can find a collection of programmes called The Way We Live Now exploring a range of topics from gloves, to hitchhiking, agoraphobia to Essex.

Dame Sheila Hancock, viola player Rachel Stott and writer Geoff Dyer on endings.

Claudia Pineiro's most recent thriller is called Betty Boo, translated by Miranda France.

Vကsquez won the 2014 International Dublin Literary Award, for The Sound of Things Falling and his most recent book to be translated by Anne McLean is Reputations.

Brazillionaires is by Alex Cuadros

40 years of writing about Latin America is brought together posthumously in Eric Hobsbawm's Viva La Revolucion

Oscar Guardiola-Rivera is the author of What If Latin America Ruled the World?

Producer: Ruth Watts.

Philip Dodd explores Latin America with writers Juan Gabriel Vasquez and Claudia Pineiro.

Curator Liz Gilmore and dealer Julian Hartnoll discuss the British painter John Bratby who was celebrated and seen as an enfant terrible of the art world in the '50s and '60s. He is believed to have painted over 1500 works and an exhibition at the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings has drawn upon paintings brought in by members of the public.

Artist Gayle Chong Kwan is working on a project based upon the North Eastern food dish Pan Haggerty. She talks about the walks, videos and photographs she has been creating as part of her residency in East Durham.

Laura Cumming's book is called The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velကzquez

John Bratby: Everything But The Kitchen Sink Including The Kitchen Sink runs at the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings from January 30th to April 17th.

The Pan Hag Project is being produced in conjunction with Forma Arts.

Producer: Ella-Mai Robey

(Main Image: Still Life, John Bratby (c)The Artist's Estate).

Anne McElvoy and Laura Cumming on a 19th-century court case involving a Velazquez portrait

The 7th Function of Language by Laurent Binet, translated by Sam Taylor, is out now.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

With novelist Laurent Binet, a discussion about France, and blockchain technology.

The Invisible by Rebecca Lenkiewicz runs at the Bush Theatre in London from July 3rd to August 15th.

Best of Enemies is released in UK cinemas from Friday July 24th

Image: Rebecca Lenkiewicz

Photographer: Catherine Ashmore.

Philip Dodd discusses law and language and reviews a new play by Rebecca Lenkiewicz.

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

From Tudor courts to plantations to the Arab Spring: a Bristol Festival of Ideas debate.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is a Pulitzer prize winning historian whose latest book is called Leadership: Lessons from the Presidents for Turbulent Times.

Georgina Harding's latest novel is called Land of the Living. Her first book was a word of non-fiction, In Another Europe, recording a journey she made across Romania in 1988 during the worst times of the Ceausescu regime.

Philip Graham Woods teaches at the New York University London and is the author of Reporting the Retreat: War Correspondents in Burma.

You can find the Free Thinking discussion about the Black British Art Movement here https://bbc.in/2PFTO32

and Jackie Kaye, Fred D'Aigur and Major Jackson looking at Martin Luther King, protest and poetry here https://bbc.in/2S9Vpej

Producer: Robyn Read

Doris Kearns Goodwin on what makes a good president. Plus Georgina Harding on war.

Matthew Sweet discusses new biographies of each thinker, with their authors Clare Carlisle and Armand D'Angour.

Plus, Matthew talks to the winner of this year's Wellcome Book Prize for writing which illuminates the many ways that health, medicine and illness touch our lives.

Clare Carlisle is the author of Philosopher Of The Heart: The Restless Life of Søren Kierkegaard

Armand D'Angour has written Socrates In Love

Information about the books listed for this year's Wellcome Prize for science writing can be found here https://wellcomebookprize.org/

Producer: Luke Mulhall

A philosopher of love and a philosopher in love.

Chess runs at English National Opera from 26 Apr - 02 Jun 2018

Producer: Zahid Warley.

From IKEA to Bergman and ABBA - Matthew Sweet looks at Sweden's impact on Britain.

In a conversation recorded in front of an audience at The Studio at Birmingham Rep, Lenny Henry talks to Matthew Sweet about performing on radio, stage and screen and his campaign for better Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) representation.

Producer: Harry Parker

You can download this programme by searching in the Arts and Ideas podcasts for the broadcast date.

First broadcast 16/09/2014.

Lenny Henry talks to Matthew Sweet in front of an audience at Birmingham Rep.

Professor Maria Delgado is Director of Research at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

Mar퀀a 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

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

You might be interested in other films by Torre Nilsson including: El crimen de Oribe , Dias de odio, Martin Fierro and Heartbreak Tango.

Other writers and directors mentioned in the discussion include: Julio Cortကzar (1914-1984) author of the short story which inspired Antonioni's 1966 film Blowup; the British directors Karel Reisz and Lindsay Anderson; Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Silvina Ocampo (1903-1993) a friend of Surrealist painters L退ger and de Chirico she co-authored the Antolog퀀a de la literatura fantကstica in 1940 along with Borges and Bioy Casares; Fernando `Pino` Solanas (1936 -2020) Luis Buကuel (1900-1983) and his 1961 film Viridiana; and Lucrecia Martel director of La Ci退naga (The Swamp), Pablo Trapero and Mart퀀n Rejtman - cinema directors of the New Argentine cinema.

Confronting the man who jilted you is the plot of this 1960s Argentine expressionist film

Les Liaisons Dangereuses runs at 11 December 2015 - 13 February 2016. It will be broadcast live in cinemas in partnership with National Theatre Live on 28 January 2016

Ruth Scurr's book is called John Aubrey: My Own Life

Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands will be screened on ITV in January 2016.

Star Wars The Force Awakens is screening in cinemas across the UK from today.

Producer: Zahid Warley

(Main image: John Aubrey from a drawing by William Faithorne).

Anne McElvoy talks to Christopher Hampton and Adjoa Andoh about Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

Libertarianism has long left the contrarian political fringes it occupied during Britain's revolutionary period and seems to be on the ascendance. Journalist Rod Liddle and Conservative Party politician Douglas Carswell join Anne to discuss the ideology today.

A 62 metre photographic installation unveiled at London's Gloucester Road Tube station depicts the US reconnaissance base in North Yorkshire. Anne speaks to the image's creator Trevor Paglen about how much - or little - we understand of global surveillance.

New Generation Thinker Naomi Paxton reflects on the Actresses' Franchise League.

Producer: Georgia Catt.

Anne McElvoy presents. Including Ranters, libertarianism, Trevor Paglen and Naomi Paxton.

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 History.

Fflur 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, 1945-1975.

Islam 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

From Alexandria to mid-Wales, Laurence Scott and guests look at library history.

How did the modern library come to be? From Alexandria to mid-Wales, Laurence Scott and guests look at library history.

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.

From Alexandria to mid Wales - Laurence Scott and guests look at library history.

Dan Flavin: It is What It Is and It Ain't Nothing Else runs at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham from 13th April to 26th June.

Six Facets Of Light by Ann Wroe is out now. She is also the author of Pilate: The Biography of an Invented Man.

15 Million Degrees - A Journey to the Centre of the Sun is written by Dr Lucie Green, solar physicist at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at UCL.

Ann Wroe joins Anne McElvoy for an exploration of light from Blackpool to the South Downs.

Producer in Salford: Nick Holmes

https://www.manchesterjewishmuseum.com/ has re-opened after a £6 million redevelopment

Dr 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 Studies

http://www.juliapascal.org/

You can find other Free Thinking discussions about Jewish history and identity, including:

Jonathan Freedland, Hadley Freeman, Howard Jacobson and Bari Weiss on Jewish Identity in 2020

Simon Schama and Devorah Baum on Jewish history and jokes

Howard Jacobson delivering a lecture on Why We Need The Novel and talking to Philip Dodd about his dystopian novel J

Rabbi Baroness Julia Neuberger and New Generation Thinker Brendan McGeevor from the Pears Institute discussing stereotypes and also anti-Semitism

Matthew Sweet in conversation with David Grossman

Jonathan Freedland exploring Jewish identity in fiction from Amos Oz, Ayelet Gundar-Goshen & Jonathan Safran Foer

Linda Grant alongside AD Miller, Boris Dralyuk, and Diana Vonnak discussing Odessa Stories and the writing of Isaac Babel.

John Gallagher looks at the Manchester Jewish Museum and talks to novelist Linda Grant.

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 this relationship between Judaism and Christianity through medieval, early modern and modern history.

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

Rector Giles Fraser tells Matthew Sweet how a crisis led to discovering his Jewish roots.

Producer: Zahid Warley

Main image: Linton Kwesi Johnson (Photo by Lex van Rossen/MAI/Redferns)

The reggae poet and recording artist talks politics, religion and writing with Philip Dodd

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? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001bs9p

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 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001767f

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 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p072637b

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Are lists a good way of organising chaos? Lisa Mullen and guests discuss

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Radio 3 is broadcasting live from a pop-up studio at London's Southbank Centre all day every day for the last two weeks of March. If you're in the area, visit the Radio 3 studio and performance space in the Royal Festival Hall Riverside Caf退 to listen to Radio 3, ask questions and enjoy the special events.

Stephen Bayley, Rachel Johnson, AL Kennedy and Philip Dodd discuss what we mean by charm.

Producer Neil Trevithick

Radio 3 is broadcasting live from a pop-up studio at London's Southbank Centre all day every day for the last two weeks of March. If you're in the area, visit the Radio 3 studio and performance space in the Royal Festival Hall Riverside Caf退 to listen to Radio 3, ask questions and enjoy the special events.

Frank Field MP joins Philip Dodd for a discussion about different aspects of childhood.

Deyan Sudjic is the author of B is for Bauhaus.

Hans Ulrich Obrist is the author of Ways of Curating and works as the Serpentine Gallery's Co-director of Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects.

Victoria Walsh is the Head of Curating Contemporary Art Programme at the Royal College of Art.

Serena Kutchinsky, Digital Editor of Prospect, joins Anne to debate what constitutes a World Thinker. The magazine has just launched its long list for their poll which was topped last time by Richard Dawkins.

Also lawyer and political activist Raja Shehadeh outlines the arguments he will be putting forward in this year's Edward Said London Lecture: Is there a Language of Peace?

The Edward Said London Lecture is at the British Museum on Friday 28th March 19.00-20.00

Producer: Natalie Steed

Radio 3 is broadcasting live from a pop-up studio at London's Southbank Centre all day every day for the last two weeks of March. If you're in the area, visit the Radio 3 studio and performance space in the Royal Festival Hall Riverside Caf退 to listen to Radio 3, ask questions and enjoy the special events.

With Anne McElvoy on displaying art and design, World Thinkers and the language of peace.

Producer: Zahid Warley

Radio 3 is broadcasting live from a pop-up studio at London's Southbank Centre all day every day for the last two weeks of March. If you're in the area, visit the Radio 3 studio and performance space in the Royal Festival Hall Riverside Caf退 to listen to Radio 3, ask questions and enjoy the special events.

South African novelist Damon Galgut joins Rana Mitter to discuss the career of EM Forster.

The Liverpool Biennial runs until October 16th

Sandeep Parmar is the author of two poetry books: The Marble Orchard and Eidolon (a rewriting of Helen of Troy in modern America).

Producer: Zahid Warley

(Image: Momentary Monument - The Stone by Lara Favaretto / Credit: Joel Fildes).

Matthew Sweet and critic Natalie Haynes report from the Liverpool Biennial.

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.

Catherine Fletcher talks to three artists with new works at the Liverpool Biennial.

Veteran filmmaker Fred Wiseman who has documented what it is like to work at London's National Gallery. National Gallery is screening in key cities across the UK.

Producer: Zahid Warley.

Philip Dodd explores the way we look at art, talking to documentary maker Fred Wiseman.

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

As the National Theatre stages The House of Bernarda Alba, Rana Mitter discusses Lorca

The Spanish playwright Lorca (1898-1936) made his name with poems celebrating Andalusian culture and plays featuring strong women. He was assassinated at the start of the Civil War

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.

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.

Les Blancs directed by Yael Farber opens at the National Theatre on March 24th.

A Raisin in the Sun directed by Dawn Walton artistic director of Eclipse Theatre company opens at the Sheffield Crucible Studio Theatre on Jan 28th and tours to New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich; Nuffield Theatre, Southampton; Liverpool Playhouse; Watford Palace Theatre; The Albany, Deptford ; The Belgrade, Coventry.

A BBC Radio 3 production of A Raisin in the Sun is being broadcast on Sunday January 31st.

(Main Image: Lorraine Hansberry, sitting at a desk with books and papers, 1st January 1955 Credit: Smith Collection/Gado).

Philip Dodd explores the writing of Lorraine Hansberry and its continuing resonance.

Lisa Appignanesi : Everyday madness: On Grief, Anger, Loss and Love

Heather O'Neill is one of Canada's best known fiction writers. Also a poet and journalist, her latest novel is The Lonely Hearts Hotel.

Cherie Dimaline is a writer and editor from the Georgian Bay Metis Community in Ontario. Dimaline's latest book is The Marrow Thieves. They are taking part in the inaugural Festival America in London this September.

Jo Walsh, (M?ori / P?keh?) is a London-based artist and founding member of In*ter*is*land Collective and works with major institutions, including the British Library and National Maritime Museum.

Oceania at The Royal Academy, London, 29 September — 10 December 2018.

Sackler Gallery: Pacific Encounters, one of four new galleries at National Maritime Museum, now open.

Playlist of discussions on Belonging, Home, Borders and National Identity https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03mb66k

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Lisa Appignanesi on public and private loss and how to face its concomitant, anger.

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)

Anne McElvoy explores the past and present of the transcontinental nation of Egypt.

The Being Human Festival showcases research into the Humanities at universities around the UK. It runs from Nov 15th - 24th 2018 https://beinghumanfestival.org/

Watch the winning films from the AHRC Research in Film Awards 2018: https://bit.ly/2JYfgu2

Elisabeth Frink: Humans and Other Animals is The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia until 24th of February. You can see more work by Frink at Beaux Arts Mayfair Gallery, London until 1st December and at Tate Britain until 4 February.

You can hear New Generation Thinkers presenting the Radio 3 Sunday Feature here

https://bbc.in/2B3o7HP A Mystery about Gilbert and Sullivan. Medieval Passions and Moderm Immersive Drama.

https://bbc.in/2Fhp3wA Is it Wrong to have Children? Why Bin Laden did not like Shakespeare.

Producer: Debbie Kilbride

Shahidha Bari looks at research showcased in the Being Human Festival at UK universities.

Laura Mucha has written Love Factually: the science of who, how and why we love

Andrew McMillan's new book of poetry is called Playtime

Lavinia Greenlaw's novel In the City of Love's Sleep is out in paperback and her new book of poetry is called The Built Moment

Elanor Dymott's latest novel Slacktide is out now. It follows her first novel Every Contact Leaves a Trace.

The science and art of love. Andrew McMillan, Lavinia Greenlaw, Elanor Dymott, Laura Mucha

A 60th anniversary reading of Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe and abridged by Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, Publishing Director at The Indigo Press, is taking place at London's Southbank Centre in the Queen Elizabeth Hall on April 15th, with readers including Lucian Msamati, Chibundu Onuzo, Margaret Busby and Olu Jacobs.

Jo Nesbø's Macbeth is published now and the plot summary reads: When a drug bust turns into a bloodbath it's up to Inspector Macbeth and his team to clean up the mess. He's also an ex-drug addict with a troubled past.

Macbeth - starring Rory Kinnear and Anne-Marie Duff - is on stage at London's National Theatre until June 23rd and will be broadcast live to cinemas on 10 May.

It's also at the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon - starring Christopher Eccleston and Niamh Cusack - until September 18th and will transfer to London between Oct 15th and Jan 18th 2019.

Mark Bruce Company are on tour with their dance-theatre version visiting Ipswich, Blackpool, Exeter, Salisbury and Milton Keynes.

Macbeth directed by Kit Monkman is in cinemas around the UK.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Jo Nesb\u00f8 and Mark Ravenhill on the Scottish Play; Chinua Achebe's novel about leadership.

1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear by James Shapiro is published by Faber & Faber and is out now.

Macbeth starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard is on general release from 2nd October

Barbarians by Barrie Keeffe opens at Central St Martins in London on 3rd October and runs until 7th November. There's another production of the play at The Young Vic in London which opens on 2nd December

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Image: James Shapiro

Photographer: Mary Cregan.

Matthew Sweet looks at Macbeth on film and talks to Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro.

Matthew Beaumont also presents his history of an ancient crime but one still on the statute books of Massachussetts - Night Walking. Via the pens of Samuel Johnson who blamed London's noxious night hours on arrogant aristocrats, to William Blake's evocations of London's Darkness, Free Thinking hears from those who had nothing in common with their slumbering fellows and who like Charles Dickens, enjoyed a time that brought some sense of better things, else forgotten and unattainable. Alongside, Deborah Longworth with a view of the flaneuse, the female solitary ambler and a pen-portrait of Dorothy Richardson whose relationship with the city of London outweighed all other passions in her life.

Matthew Sweet discusses the history of mental illness. Plus a nocturnal history of London.

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.

You can find other conversations in our archive featuring French novelist Marie Dariussecq in a programme called Enchantment, Witches and Woodlands https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000qkl

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: Torquil MacLeod

Matthew Sweet and guests conjure a conversation about the importance and appeal of magic

Alberta Whittle: Dipping below a waxing moon, the dance claims us for release is at the Holburne Museum until May 8th.

create dangerously runs at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art from Sat 1 Apr 2023 - Sun 7 Jan 2024

Kirsty 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/m0006fh9

~Free 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/p084ttwp

Producer: Jayne Egerton

Dina Nayeri, Kirsty Sedgman, Michelle Assay and Alberta Whittle join Shahidha Bari.

with John Keane who was a war artist in the Gulf War. 2017 New Generation Thinker Simon Beard outlines his research into overpopulation and our attitude towards death.

Garry Kasparov's book is called Deep Thinking: Where Artificial Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins.

Wyndham Lewis: Life, Art, War is a display of 160 artworks, books, journals and pamphlets which runs at the Imperial War Museum North in Salford from 23 June 2017 - 1 January 2018

Simon Beard is based at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Cambridge researching existential risk. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio and television.

You can find more on the Free Thinking website.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Image: A Battery Shelled, 1919, Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957) IWM

credit: (c) IWM Art.IWM ART 2747.

Philip Dodd explores AI with Garry Kasparov. Plus vorticism and overpopulation.

Sherlock Holmes: The Man Who Never Lived and Who Will Never Die is at the Museum of London from October 17th - April 12th 2015.

Rebecca Newburger Goldstein's book is called Plato At The Googleplex and Why Philosophy Still Matters

Armand Marie Leroi's book is called The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science

Producer: Fiona McLean.

Mark Gatiss and Matthew Sweet discuss Sherlock Holmes. Plus the 2014 Man Booker Prize.

There's discussion of imaginative histories of Weather and Twilight with Alex Harris and Peter Davidson. They'll be explaining why painters first noticed the witching hour at the end of the 18th century, and why Anglo-Saxons only told stories about the winter, why April showers were precious in the middle-ages and fog was the novelists' weather of choice in the 19th century.

Plus the poet Michael Rosen, whose new anthology links anti-Semitism, fascism and war with the lives of his parents and grandparents, joins Matthew in the great outdoors to remember the Kibbo Kift Kin, the 1920s youth movement which combined woodcraft with cutting edge costume and art and arcane and possibly occult dreams of changing the world forever.

The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift, a new book by Annebella Pollen accompanies Intellectual Barbarians, an exhibition at London's Whitechapel Gallery, marking the short but colourful history of an organisation which fell foul of both Right and Left.

Matthew Sweet with Peter Davidson and Alexandra Harris on Britain's weather and twilight.

As part of Radio 3's 18th Century season of programming, Matthew Sweet chairs a discussion with the Natural History Museum's Dr Erica McAlister, Southampton University economic historian Dr Helen Paul, finance journalist and presenter of BBC Radio 4's Money Box Paul Lewis and Stephen Davies, Education Director at the Institute of Economic Affairs. They reflect on Mandeville's fable and how it relates to economics and the organisation of society today.

Producer: Laura Thomas.

Matthew Sweet on the lessons about finance outlined in Mandeville's Fable of the Bees.

She talks to Anne McElvoy about her interest in science fiction. The MaddAddam trilogy began with Oryx and Crake and continued six years later with The Year of the Flood. It's now being adapted for TV by HBO.

Producer Fiona McLean.

Anne McElvoy is joined by celebrated Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood.

Margaret Atwood's new novel is called The Heart Goes Last.

Yuval Harari's book Sapiens is out in paperback.

Barry Cunliffe has written By Steppe, Desert and Ocean: The Birth of Eurasia

Janina Ramierz is the author of The Private Lives of the Saints

Celts: Art and Identity is on show at the British Museum 24 September 2015 - 31 January 2016

Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery

£16.50, Members/under 16s free.

With novelist Margaret Atwood, exploring the history of mankind and an exhibition on Celts

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

Nandini Das and guests discuss the Duchess of Newcastle - philosopher, poet and scientist.

Marilynne Robinson is the author of novels including Gilead, Lila, Home and her new collection of Essays is called What Are We Doing Here ?

The American novelist and essayist talks religion, fiction & US politics with Rana Mitter.

Producer Fiona McLean.

You can download this programme by searching in the Arts and Ideas podcasts for the broadcast date.

Lila' by Marilynne Robinson is published by Virago.

Let me be Frank with you' by Richard Ford is published by Bloomsbury and

Some Luck' by Jane Smiley is published by Mantle.

In a special edition, Matthew Sweet explores depictions of American life and history.

Virginia Woolf: An Exhibition Inspired by her Writings opens at Tate St Ives so Anne McElvoy finds out how questions about colour perception and insect behaviour in turn inspired the writer. Literary scholars Claudia Tobin and Rachel Murray discuss.

Evolutionary biologists, Menno Schiltuizen and Suzanne Williams, tell Anne about how colour and invertebrate studies in ecosystems old and new are refining our understanding of evolution.

Mark Dion: Theatre of the Natural World at Whitechapel Gallery, London until May 13th

Virginia Woolf: An Exhibition Inspired by Her Writings at Tate St Ives continues until April 29th.

Menno Schiltuizen 'Darwin Comes to Town: How the Urban Jungle Drives Evolution' is out now.

Suzanne Williams, Researcher and Head of Invertebrate Division, Natural History Museum, London.

Claudia Tobin is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Cambridge

Rachel Murray, School of Humanities, University of Bristol

Presenter: Anne McElvoy.

Anne McElvoy meets artist Mark Dion and biologist Menno Schilthuizen.

Recorded in front of an audience as part of the BBC Proms Plus series of discussions.

You can find a playlist of In Depth Conversations on the Free Thinking website with guests including James Ellroy, Edna O'Brien, Sebastian Faulks, Margaret Atwood, Elif Shafak, Arundhati Roy, Zadie Smith, Hanif Kureishi and others. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04ly0c8

Producer: Fiona McLean.

Anne McElvoy talks to Mark Haddon about his career and latest novel The Porpoise.

Mark Lilla's new book, The Once and Future Liberal, is a ferocious analysis of the American left's abdication as well as a call to arms. The time for evangelism - of speaking truth to power is over, he says, now its all about seizing power to defend truth.

Gulzaar Barn lectures in philosophy at the University of Birmingham working on moral, political, and feminist philosophy.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 with the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics at the start of their careers who can turn their research into radio. You can find a collection of short columns reflecting their research on bbc.co.uk/FreeThinking

Producer: Zahid Warley.

Why Mark Lilla thinks the American Left needs a rethink and Gulzaar Barn on medical trials

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-Blach退 which are all available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts from the Free Thinking programme website.

Producer: Caitlin Benedict

Tracing the sensual and radical Marlene Dietrich, from Europe to Hollywood.

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

Image: Marlon James

Credit: Jeffrey Skemp

Two weavers of fantastical fiction sift through myths with Matthew Sweet.

Two weavers of fantastical fiction sift through myths with Matthew Sweet in a conversation set up in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature and the British Library.

He discusses his writing with Philip Dodd in a conversation recorded in front of an audience at the Royal College of Music last month as a Proms Plus Literary Event.

Author Martin Amis discusses his writing with Philip Dodd.

Martin Creed's artworks have included a room full of balloons and a room containing only a light switch. Matthew Sweet considers how Creed questions what are the limits to art, talking to Creed himself, art critic Charlotte Mullins and comedian Waen Shepherd.

And, as their latest plays open on the London stage, Free Thinking brings together the director and writer Carrie Cracknell and the writer Abi Morgan to consider feminism in theatre. Between January 16th and February 22nd Blurred Lines - created by Carrie Cracknell and Nick Payne is on at the Shed at the National Theatre and The Mistress Contract is at the Royal Court from January 30th until March 22nd.

Producer: Robyn Read.

Matthew Sweet discusses the work of artist Martin Creed and debates feminism in theatre.

The words of Martin Luther King in 1967 when he visited Newcastle upon Tyne to receive an honorary degree. Words that underlie a discussion about poetry and protest which features in the festival marking the 50th anniversary of that visit. The poets Jackie Kay, Fred D'Aguiar and Major Jackson join Shahidha Bari and an audience at Newcastle University to explore the nature of protest poetry and to launch a poetry anthology celebrating the spirit of Dr King.

Producer: Zahid Warley.

Going to Meet the Man

As if one day, a grand gesture of the brain, an expired

subscription to silence, a decision raw as a concert

of habaneros on the lips: a renewal to decency like a trash

can smashing a storefront or the shattering glass face

of a time-clock: where once a man forced to the ground,

a woman spread-eagled against a wall, where a shot into

the back of an unarmed teen: finally, a decisive spark,

the engine of action, this civilian standoff: on one side,

a barricade of shields, helmets, batons, and pepper spray:

on the other, a cocktail of fire, all that is just and good

Going to Meet the Man' originally published by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. in Holding Company,(c) Major Jackson, 2010

The Mighty Stream: Poems in Celebration of Martin Luther King edited by Carolyn Forch退 and Jackie Kay is published by Bloodaxe.

Photo: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. signs the Degree Roll At Newcastle University after receiving an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree, Newcastle, England, November 14, 1967. Credit: Getty Images.

Shahidha Bari and guests mark Martin Luther King's visit to Newcastle University in 1967.

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 and Canterbury.

You can hear a host of programmes featuring performers from the London Jazz Festival on BBC Radio 3 including a special Jazz All 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

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Matthew Sweet and guests discuss what inspired Marvin Gaye's 1971 album What's Going On?

Gregory Claeys is the author of Marx and Marxism

Richard Seymour has written Corbyn - The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics

Anne Applebaum's latest book is called Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine

Jane Humphries' book is called Childhood and Child Labour

Emile Chabal is writing a biography of Eric Hobsbawm and teaches at the University of Edinburgh.

Producer: Zahid Warley.

Anne Applebaum, Gregory Claeys, Jane Humphries and Richard Seymour discuss Marxism now.

Suzanne O'Sullivan is a former winner of the Wellcome Book Prize for It's All In Your Head and you can find a conversation with her about her book Brainstorm in the Free Thinking archives https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09z67gr

and in this discussion marking 100 years since Freud's paper The Unconscious https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06r5gp6

The Bocas Lit Fest runs online from April 23rd to 25th https://www.bocaslitfest.com/ One of the events will be revealing the 100 authors on their list of Caribbean Books That Made Us.

Edwidge Danticat has published books including Breath, Eyes, Memory; Claire of the Sea Light and a collection of stories Everything Inside which won the 2020 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature for fiction

Alexandra Reza is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. You can hear her Essay on Colonial Papers being broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on April 27th

She has also taken part in Free Thinking discussions about the writing of Aim退 C退saire https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nmxf and the writing of Frantz Fanon

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000tdtn

Producer: Robyn Read

Image: French writer Maryse Conde poses while attending the Saint Malo Festival des Etonnants voyageurs on 10 May 2008 in Saint Malo, France

Credit: Sophie Bassouls/Sygma via Getty Images

Shahidha Bari reads I Tituba, the story of the West Indian slave accused in Salem.

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

The role of masks in African traditions, Greek tragedy and Covid conspiracies

Plus, philosopher Emily Thomas on the role travel has played in the development of philosophy.

Photo of Frank Ramsey courtesy of Stephen Burch

Cheryl Misak's biography Frank Ramsey: A Sheer Excess of Powers is out now.

Emily Thomas' The Meaning of Travel is out now.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Shahidha Bari looks at the legacy of 20th-century polymath Frank Ramsey (1903-1930).

Alex Bellos is the author of Alex Through the Looking Glass and his latest book called Can You Solve My Problems.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is the author of many books including Welcome to the Universe co-written with J Richard Gott and Michael A Strauss.

Vicky Neale is Whitehead Lecturer at the Mathematical Institute and Balliol College at Oxford University.

Serafina Cuomo is Reader in Roman History at Birkbeck College, University of London.

Producer: Harry Parker.

Discussing the maths gallery at the Science Museum and the need for better numeracy.

Producer: Harry Parker

Photo Credit: Simon Annand.

Anne McElvoy is joined by the US ambassador to Britain. Plus a review of Speed-the-Plow.

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

Matthew Sweet and guests explore ideas about community, collective action and May revels.

Mark Britnell's book is called In Search of the Perfect Health System and is out now.

Blood runs at the Jewish Museum in London from November 5th - February 28th.

Being Human: a festival of the humanities organised in conjunction with universities across the UK runs from November 12th - 22nd.

http://beinghumanfestival.org/ Several of BBC Radio 3 and the AHRC's New Generation Thinkers are taking part.

Newes From The Dead - Jane Taylor's semi staged lecture is being performed at The Thackray Medical Museum in Leeds on Thursday 19th November.

Producer: Harry Parker

Image: Newes From The Dead, The Thackray Medical Museum, Leeds

Photographer: Anthony Strack.

Anne McElvoy discusses healthcare past and present with New Generation Thinker Alun Withey

We also visit Colour: The Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts, currently glowing at Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum; Kylie Murray, expert on Scottish medieval literature and a New Generation Thinker, reviews the exhibition.

Emma Donoghue author of 'Room' is back with a new novel and another child in claustrophobic setting. This room is an earth-floored room in mid-19th century Ireland, where a Florence Nightingale-trained nurse and 'The Wonder', a devout Irish girl, are locked in a potentially fatal battle over whether the girl is, as she claims, being fed by manna from heaven. Inspired by a historical phenomenon, 'the fasting girls', Donoghue's novel takes place on the battlefield between the forces of Victorian scientific rationalism and traditional religious belief

Plus Dennis Duncan on the story of Boris Vian and a post-war best-seller in France - I Spit On Your Graves .

Emma Donoghue's novel is called The Wonder.

Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts is by Christopher de Hamel - who has worked for Sothebys and is Fellow and librarian at Corpus Christi College Cambridge.

The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge is marking its first 200 year 1816 to 2016 with an exhibition called COLOUR: The Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts. It runs until 30th December 2016 and includes on display the Macclesfield Psalter, an alchemical scroll, a duchess' wedding gift, and the ABC of a five-year old princess.

With a discussion about medieval illuminated manuscripts, plus author Emma Donoghue.

Rana Mitter chairs a discussion about Anita and Me, growing up in 70s Britain, the surrogacy industry in India and having a rebel in the family with questions from an audience at Birmingham Rep Theatre and as part of the Birmingham Literature Festival.

Anita and Me runs at Birmingham Repertory Theatre until October 24th. It's on at Theatre Royal Stratford East from October 29th - November 21st.

Meera Syal's latest novel is called The House of Hidden Mothers.

Producer: Robyn Read.

Meera Syal and Tanika Gupta talk to Rana Mitter about turning Anita and Me into a play.

Photographer Anna Fox and painter Chantal Joffe discuss an exhibition of Julia Margaret Cameron photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

New Yorker journalist Larissa MacFarquhar talks to Anne McElvoy about altruism.

The exhibition to mark the bicentenary of the birth of Julia Margaret Cameron (1815 - 1879), runs at the Victoria and Albert Museum from 28 November 2015 - 21 February 2016, and Julia Margaret Cameron: Influence and Intimacy is also on show at the Science Museum, London until the 28th March 2016.

Larissa MacFarquhar's book is called Strangers Drowning.

Producer: Zahid Warley

(Main image: Julia Jackson photographed by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1867 (c) Victoria and Albert Museum, London).

Anna Fox and Chantal Joffe on Julia Margaret Cameron, plus Larissa MacFarquhar on altruism

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 M退lusine 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.

Producer: Ruth Watts

Image: colourised illustration of Melusine (after a woodcut).

Image credit: Science Source/Photo Researchers history/Getty Images

The mermaid-like figure from medieval folklore is discussed by Shahidha Bari and guests.

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

Anne McElvoy looks at ASMR, clean air, loneliness and a memoir exploring mental health.

Producer: Sofie Vilcins

Once 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 Mermaid.

Disney's The Little Mermaid starring Halle Bailey and directed by Rob Marshall is in cinemas from May 26th.

Shahidha Bari looks at sea creatures and a Caribbean re-telling of The Little Mermaid.

Wojciech Przybylski has written a book called Understanding Central Europe.

Michael Ignatieff's books include The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror (2004), Fire and Ashes: Success and Failure in Politics (2013) and The Ordinary Virtues: Moral Order in a Divided World

Guido Franzinetti teaches Political Science at the University of Eastern Piedmont. He's carried out research and worked in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Albania and Kosovo.

Producer: Robyn Read.

Philip Dodd talks to Michael Ignatieff about the political landscape of central Europe.

The Undoing Project is out now.

Producer: Fiona McLean.

Author Michael Lewis joins Matthew Sweet to explore risk-taking in sport and in finance.

Michael Radowitz Whitechapel Gallery London 4 June 2019 - 25 August 2019

Nicholas Jubber's book 'Epic Continent' out now

Emily Cock teaches at Cardiff University and holds a Leverhulme Fellowship for her research project Fragile Faces: Disfigurement in Britain & its Colonies (1600-1850).

Isilay Gursu Cultural Heritage Management Fellow British Institute at Ankara and Tomos Proffitt, Institute of Archaeology, British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow University College London both appearing in British Academy Summer Showcase 21 - 22 June 2019 https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.

Image: Michael Rakowitz (portrait) with The invisible enemy should not exist (Northwest palace of Nimrud, Room N) 2018 (Photo John Nguyen/PA Wire, Courtesy Whitechapel Gallery)

You can hear a discussion of The Odyssey with Amit Chaudhuri, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Daniel Mendelsohn and Emily Wilson https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09kqjc0

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Artist, archaeologists, a writer and a historian of the face make the invisible visible.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Michel Piccoli: A Fearless Talent, is running at BFI Southbank from 1-29 June

You 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.

Matthew Sweet on the French actor who worked with Bu\u00f1uel, Varda, Ferreri and Godard.

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

Shahidha Bari and guests look at labour saving devices and revamping the 1950s home.

Bull is on at the Young Vic in London until 14 February

King Charles III is at Wyndham's Theatre in London until 31 January

A Stranger In My Own Country: The 1944 Prison Diary by Hans Fallada is published 12 January

Song for Coal is on display at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park until 19 April

Producer: Ella-mai Robey.

Anne McElvoy is joined by playwright Mike Bartlett, writer of King Charles III.

You can hear another Free Thinking Discussion with Anders Sandberg, Pia Lundgren, Kieran Long & Lars Blomgren about What We Have Learned From Sweden here https://bbc.in/2Q1euTl

Producer: Debbie Kilbride

The director of Get Carter talks to Matthew Sweet about writing his own crime stories.

Peterloo is in UK cinemas from 2 November

Jacqueline Riding's Peterloo - The Story of the Manchester Massacre is available now

Producer: Debbie Kilbride

Mike Leigh talks to Matthew Sweet as his historical epic Peterloo opens in cinemas.

Laura Lippman's novels include the PI Tess Monaghan series and standalone 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

Matthew Sweet and guests discuss James M Cain's classic novel and its film adaptation.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Bill Laswell's many recordings and productions include Panthalassa: The Music of Miles Davis 1969-1974.