Free Thinking Podcast
Leading thinkers discuss the ideas shaping our lives - looking back at the news and making links between past and present. Fridays at 9pm on BBC Radio 4. Presented by Matthew Sweet, Shahidha Bari and Anne McElvoy.
Episodes to download
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Women's Art
Tue 8 Jun 2021
Jennifer Higgie, Adjoa Osei, Veronica Ryan, and Lydia Yee talk to Shahidha Bari
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Green Thinking: Can artists help save the planet?
Thu 3 Jun 2021
From ice photos by Wayne Binitie to 140 ideas from artists collated by Hans Ulrich Obrist
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Alice and Dreaming
Wed 2 Jun 2021
Alice is asked in Wonderland, Why is a raven like a writing desk? Salman Rushdie explains
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New Thinking: The Botanical Past
Tue 1 Jun 2021
From still life paintings to Kew Gardens, a new history of horticulture is being written
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Fashion, Art, and the Body
Wed 26 May 2021
Olivia Laing, Charlie Porter, and Ekow Eshun join Shahidha Bari
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Novelist Tahmima Anam plus was Nero a ruthless tyrant?
Tue 25 May 2021
Was Nero really a victim of plots? Bulgaria's hidden past. Plus a novel about startups.
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Who needs critics?
Thu 20 May 2021
Matthew Sweet questions the critic's role while Vid Simoniti looks at algorithms and art.
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Ghosts of the Spanish civil war
Wed 19 May 2021
Breaking the silence: filmmakers, a novelist and historian on the recent Spanish past.
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The Wolfson History Prize 2021
Tue 18 May 2021
Rana Mitter meets the six authors shortlisted for the UK's most prestigious history prize
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Lost cities, 20s divas and 2011 uprisings
Thu 13 May 2021
Anne McElvoy explores the past and present of the transcontinental nation of Egypt
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New Thinking: Archiving, curating and digging for data
Wed 12 May 2021
Lisa Mullen explores the way data can change our view of history & looks at conservation.
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Marlon James and Neil Gaiman
Tue 11 May 2021
The two weavers of fantastical fiction sift through myths with Matthew Sweet.
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Alison Bechdel
Thu 6 May 2021
American graphic novelist Alison Bechdel talks mushrooms, therapy and Adrienne Rich
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Napoleon the gardener and art thief
Wed 5 May 2021
Ruth Scurr, Emma Rothschild and Natasha Pulley look at French history with Rana Mitter
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Samuel Johnson's circle
Tue 4 May 2021
Patience Agbabi's novel time travels back to eighteenth century London - so do we
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Northern Ireland
Thu 29 Apr 2021
Anne McElvoy marks the 1921 creation of Northern Ireland with historians and writers
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Links between Judaism and Christianity
Wed 28 Apr 2021
Rector Giles Fraser tells Matthew Sweet how a crisis led to discovering his Jewish roots
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Epistemic Injustice
Tue 27 Apr 2021
Shahidha Bari investigates how theory of knowledge can address real world problems
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Bombing and morals, Flooding and the future
Thu 22 Apr 2021
Malcolm Gladwell, Satyajit Ray's film Jalsaghar, Jessie Greengrass. Rana Mitter hosts.
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New Thinking: Shakespeare's Life Lessons
Wed 21 Apr 2021
Scholars Emma Smith, Patrick Gray, and Emma Whipday find examples in different dramas
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Maryse Condé's writing plus Suzanne O'Sullivan
Tue 20 Apr 2021
Shahida Bari reads I Tituba, the story of the West Indian slave accused in Salem.
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The Battle of Culloden, Outlander, Peter Watkins
Thu 15 Apr 2021
Matthew Sweet with Outlander creator Diana Gabaldon, historian Tom Devine and John Cook
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Jacques Tati's Trafic
Wed 14 Apr 2021
Matthew Sweet, Adam Scovell, Muriel Zagha and Phuong Le on the 1971 French comedy.
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Octavia Butler's Kindred
Tue 13 Apr 2021
A novel from 1979 that uses time travel to explore race, slavery and trauma
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Deleuze and Guattari, Capitalism and Schizophrenia
Thu 8 Apr 2021
Matthew Sweet re-reads a classic of French postmodern theory
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Milton: Samson Agonistes
Thu 8 Apr 2021
How do we look at blindness in poetic writing, classics, in Milton's and Handel's life?
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John Milton's Samson Agonistes
Wed 7 Apr 2021
Rana Mitter looks at how politics, blindness and the Bible fed into this dramatic poem
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The Liverpool Biennial debate
Tue 6 Apr 2021
How to reflect Liverpool's history in new artworks: Anne McElvoy hosts a discussion.
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Spy talk
Thu 1 Apr 2021
From a secret Iraqi spy cell to new revelations of cold war exploits. Rana Mitter hosts.
Discussions and talks from the Free Thinking Festival 2019
Angry politics, what we can’t say, being diplomatic, weeping, emotion in music, film & TV
Click to listen to discussions, talks and music as the Free Thinking Festival 2019 Gets Emotional
Angry politics, what we can’t say, being diplomatic, weeping, emotion in music, film & TV
CLICK to LISTEN & SEE programmes from the Free Thinking Festival 2018: The One & the Many
We examine the fast-changing relationship between the individual & the crowd
CLICK to LISTEN & SEE all programmes, images, clips & features from 2017's festival
Free Thinking Festival 2017: The Speed of Life
