Arts & Ideas Podcast
Leading thinkers discuss the ideas shaping our lives – looking back at the news and making links between past and present. Broadcast as Free Thinking, Fridays at 9pm on BBC Radio 4. Presented by Matthew Sweet, Shahidha Bari and Anne McElvoy.
Episodes to download
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Edward Said's thinking
Fri 12 Mar 2021
Rana Mitter reads the first biography of the Palestinian academic, pianist and negotiator
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The Vietnam Paris connection
Thu 11 Mar 2021
Author Viet Thanh Nguyen, film critic Phuong Le and Peter Salmon join Matthew Sweet
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New Thinking: From life on Mars to space junk
Tue 9 Mar 2021
Seb Falk talks to researchers about our attitude to Mars,seeing colour and Skylab's crash
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Speech, Voice, Accents and AI Free Thinking
Thu 4 Mar 2021
Lynda Clark, Allison Koenecke and Sadie Ryan discuss their research with Matthew Sweet
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Breakdown: Horatio Clare, Stevie Smith
Wed 3 Mar 2021
Horatio Clare talks to Laurence Scott about mania and healing + Stevie's Smith's writing
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New Thinking: Girls
Tue 2 Mar 2021
New research into ideas about girlhood and growing up - in film, fiction, art and society
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Saint John Henry Newman
Mon 1 Mar 2021
Newman's thought: Kate Kennedy, Tim Stanley, Catherine Pepinster and Dafydd Mills Daniel
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Foucault: The History of Sexuality 4
Thu 25 Feb 2021
Shahidha Bari reads Robert Hurley's new English translation
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Humans, Animals, Ecologies
Wed 24 Feb 2021
Matthew Sweet in conversation with two radical thinkers: Joanna Bourke and Anna Tsing
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Adoption, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Renée Vivien & Violette Leduc
Fri 19 Feb 2021
Fiona Sampson, Peggy Reynolds and Anne McElvoy talk poetry and writing personal stories
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Turkey: Adnan Menderes, populism, and history
Wed 17 Feb 2021
Having survived a plane crash, the Turkish Prime Minister 1950-60 died in an execution
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Pakistan, Politics and Water Supplies
Tue 16 Feb 2021
Samira Shackle , Ejaz Haider and Majed Akhter talk about Karachi, power, crime and energy
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Coins, the magic money tree and a cashless world
Fri 12 Feb 2021
In February 1971 the UK went decimal. Anne McElvoy and guests look at money old and new.
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Darwin's The Descent of Man (1871)
Wed 10 Feb 2021
Matthew Sweet and guests assess Darwin's arguments about the human species, sex, and race
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New Thinking: Fashion Stories in Museums
Tue 9 Feb 2021
Shahidha Bari & V&A fashion curator Claire Wilcox on costumes, couture, and wardrobes
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Class and social mobility
Thu 4 Feb 2021
Selina Todd, David Goodhart, Timandra Harkness and Sadie Ryan talk with Matthew Sweet.
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Patricia Lockwood and André Aciman
Wed 3 Feb 2021
Two American authors talk to Laurence Scott about their sense of time, place and self
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New Thinking: Eco-Criticism
Tue 2 Feb 2021
Exploring the points where literature and ecological thinking meet
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What Makes a Good Lecture?
Sat 30 Jan 2021
From Aristotle to TED talks: Mary Beard, Homi Bhabha and Seán Williams with Shahidha Bari
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Yiddish and Rotwelsch, Nazi France
Wed 27 Jan 2021
Michael Rosen and Martin Puchner talk to Matthew Sweet about a lost language of the road
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Food, The Environment & Richard Flanagan
Tue 26 Jan 2021
How food impacts on the environment; Richard Flanagan on his novel about a dying planet
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John Rawls's A Theory of Justice
Thu 21 Jan 2021
The lasting impact of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice on philosophy and politics.
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James Baldwin and race in USA
Wed 20 Jan 2021
Rana Mitter & guests re-read James Baldwin's writing as a new US President is inaugurated
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Harlots & 18th Century Working Women
Tue 19 Jan 2021
History & Harlots: Hallie Rubenhold & Moira Buffini on the C18th sex worker TV drama
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Witchcraft, Werewolves, and Writing The Devil
Thu 14 Jan 2021
Conjuring fear, discussed by historians and by novelists Jenni Fagan and Salena Godden
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New Thinking: Women and Slavery
Wed 13 Jan 2021
Research on women owners, women on plantations, and the daughter of a slave trader
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Autism, film and patterns
Tue 12 Jan 2021
From Rain Man to Atypical - Matthew Sweet looks at autism on screen and in everyday life
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New Thinking: Aphra Behn
Fri 8 Jan 2021
John Gallagher's guests decode changes in Behn's loyalties from her plays and dedications
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Mildred Pierce
Tue 5 Jan 2021
James M Cain's classic novel and its film adaptation discussed by Matthew Sweet & guests
