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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Free Thinking - 3 American Authors
Wed 26 Nov 2014
Matthew Sweet looks at depictions of American life and history in a special edition...
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Free Thinking Festival - Fear or Wonder
Tue 25 Nov 2014
Naomi Alderman, Roger Luckhurst and BALTIC curator Alessandro Vincentelli join Matthew...
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Free Thinking Festival - Free Information
Thu 20 Nov 2014
The Cost of Free Information. Against a backdrop of perceived excess of intellectual a...
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Free Thinking Festival: Happy Talk
Wed 19 Nov 2014
How much self-knowledge do you need to be happy – and what are the limits to what to...
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Free Thinking Festival - Characters
Tue 18 Nov 2014
Knowing Your Characters. Matthew Sweet talks to playwright David Greig and actor about...
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Free Thinking Festival: Antarctica
Mon 17 Nov 2014
A hundred years ago, Ernest Shackleton set out on his Trans-Antarctic expedition which...
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Free Thinking Essay - The Spin Doctors
Fri 14 Nov 2014
The Spin Doctors of 19th-Century America. Embracing the emerging sciences of the age,...
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Free Thinking Essay - Shakespeare & India
Thu 13 Nov 2014
Drawing on Shakespeare's plays and Indian translations of them from recent times - and...
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Free Thinking Festival - Animals
Thu 13 Nov 2014
Animals: Watching Us Watching Them Watching Each Other. Rana Mitter talks to the of at...
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Free Thinking Essay - Women's Theatre
Wed 12 Nov 2014
Naomi Paxton from the University of Manchester explores the international movement for...
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Free Thinking - Language of Money
Wed 12 Nov 2014
John Lanchester talks to Matthew Sweet about his novel Capital, our understanding of...
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Free Thinking Essay - Speech Before Words
Tue 11 Nov 2014
Where did language come from? It's often been described as the fundamental barrier and...
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Free Thinking Festival - Elif Shafak
Tue 11 Nov 2014
Turkey's best selling female writer, Elif Shafak, talks to Anne McElvoy about and as...
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Free Thinking Festival - From Flat Caps
Mon 10 Nov 2014
Anne McElvoy explores whether it is worth getting hot under the collar about blue with...
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Free Thinking Essay - Beastly Politics
Mon 10 Nov 2014
Is man the only political beast? Can other animals be regarded as members of our with...
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Free Thinking Essay: Beards and Whiskers
Fri 7 Nov 2014
Historian Alun Withey says beards can shed light on a whole range of things from to...
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Free Thinking Festival: Burning the Facts
Thu 6 Nov 2014
Which historical 'facts' should be burned on the fire? How do you comb ancient and for...
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Free Thinking Essay - Disraeli the Romantic
Thu 6 Nov 2014
Daisy Hay from Exeter University explores the way in which Disraeli invented the as a...
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Free Thinking Festival 2014: Right Thinking People
Wed 5 Nov 2014
David Willetts MP and the writer and philosopher Roger Scruton discuss the best way to...
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Free Thinking Festival: The Essay
Wed 5 Nov 2014
Sophie Coulombeau on the origins of the custom for women to take their husband's name.
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Free Thinking Essay: Scold The Front Page
Tue 4 Nov 2014
New Generation Thinker Tom Charlton on what 17th-century ideas about censorship share...
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Free Thinking Festival 2014: You Must See This
Tue 4 Nov 2014
Matthew Sweet explores the way digital media have transformed our cultural tastes with...
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Free Thinking Festival 2014: Knowing Your Enemy
Mon 3 Nov 2014
Anne McElvoy chairs a discussion about conciliation in an age of uprisings recorded in...
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Free Thinking Essay: The Human Copying Machine
Mon 3 Nov 2014
New Generation Thinker Tiffany Watt-Smith explores mirroring and a nineteenth-century...
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Free Thinking Festival - Karen Armstrong
Fri 31 Oct 2014
Karen Armstrong, one of the world's leading thinkers about religion, gives the Free in...
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Free Thinking - Akram Khan
Thu 30 Oct 2014
Choreographer Akram Khan talks to Anne McElvoy about curating a festival at the Lowry,...
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Free Thinking - Orhan Pamuk
Wed 29 Oct 2014
Orhan Pamuk talks, in an extended conversation with Philip Dodd, about his writing and...
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Free Thinking - Orhan Pamuk
Wed 29 Oct 2014
Orhan Pamuk talks to Philip Dodd about his writing career and his views of modern Turkey.
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Free Thinking - Mike Leigh
Tue 28 Oct 2014
Mike Leigh discusses his film about Turner. Steve Connor and Matthew Sweet discuss an...
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Free Thinking - Margaret Atwood
Thu 23 Oct 2014
Anne McElvoy talks to celebrated Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood whose most recent a...
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
