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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Marlene Dietrich
Thu 17 Dec 2020
Tracing the sensual and radical Marlene Dietrich from Europe to Hollywood.
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Winter Light
Wed 16 Dec 2020
From paintings and folk tales to Brian Cox on the stars & Susan Greaney on Stonehenge.
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Ancient wisdom & remote living
Thu 10 Dec 2020
From medieval science to the ingenuity of Arctic peoples & the resilience of island life
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New Thinking: Hey Presto!
Wed 9 Dec 2020
Magic in medicine, surgery & business; panto cross-dressing; and panto & magic history
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New Thinking: Ways of Talking about Health
Wed 9 Dec 2020
The winners of the AHRC and Wellcome Trust Medical Humanities Awards 2020
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The 1920s - Philosophy's Golden Age
Tue 8 Dec 2020
Matthew Sweet on Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Benjamin, Carnap and other philosophical greats
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Times of Change
Thu 3 Dec 2020
Can the Industrial Revolution and the end of the Aztecs help us shape a post COVID world
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Mould-Breaking Writing
Tue 1 Dec 2020
Max Porter, Chloe Aridjis, Will Harris and Xine Yao on writing the breaks the mould
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Leadership & authority
Thu 26 Nov 2020
From Tudor courts to plantations to the Arab Spring: a Bristol Festival of Ideas Debate.
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Should biographers imitate their subjects?
Mon 23 Nov 2020
The perils of writing biographies of scientist JS Haldane & Indian mystic Mother Meera
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Democracy, Hong Kong and USA
Thu 19 Nov 2020
Democracy and dissent in Hong Kong & USA. Is confrontational politics is here to stay?
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Helen Mort and Blake Morrison, Oulipo
Wed 18 Nov 2020
Helen Mort and Blake Morrison talk mentoring. Oulipo: rules for writing in 1960s Paris.
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New Thinking: Films and Research
Wed 18 Nov 2020
Films investigating melting glaciers, to refugee camps, public bathrooms, & more.
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New Thinking: Face Transplants and Researching Nose Injuries
Fri 13 Nov 2020
Would you change your nose if you could? What about an entire face transplant?
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Postcolonial Derby: Privateers, Pieces of Eight and the Postwar Playhouse
Thu 12 Nov 2020
What connects a "double elephant" sized map, an academy of dissenters and Daniel Defoe?
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The Imperial War Museum BBC Radio 3 Remembrance Debate 2020
Wed 11 Nov 2020
What is the role of artists in shaping our understanding of history by commemorating war?
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Charity shop history, our relationship with 'stuff', and musical typewriters
Tue 10 Nov 2020
Matthew Sweet on charity shops, 'stuff', musical typewriters and the Being Human Festival
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Billy Wilder
Thu 5 Nov 2020
Novelist Jonathan Coe and others discuss the director of Some Like It Hot
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New Thinking: Depicting disability in history and culture
Wed 4 Nov 2020
A history of disability: court fools, political activism, and the 19th century novel.
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War in fact and fiction
Tue 3 Nov 2020
Historians and authors discuss their own work and reflections on conflict and violence.
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Thinking about audiences in a time of pandemic
Thu 29 Oct 2020
Shahidha Bari discuss the audience in the arts with Kwame Kwei Armah and guests
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Individualism and Community
Thu 29 Oct 2020
From Enlightenment conscience to New Deal USA, carers and refugees. Anne McElvoy hosts.
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The post-Covid city
Tue 27 Oct 2020
How the pandemic has transformed our use and experience of urban space
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The Writing of Aime Cesaire
Thu 22 Oct 2020
Cesaire's poetry, politics, and ideas on anti-colonialism and black consciousness
