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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Polari Prize winners
Wed 21 Oct 2020
Pleasure & responsibility in LGBTQ+ art with the Polari Prize & photographer Sunil Gupta
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Seances, Science and Art - A Haunting, A Telepathy Experiment, and an Exhibition of Supernormal Art.
Tue 20 Oct 2020
A haunting & artists as mediums - Kate Summerscale, Richard Wiseman & Matthew Sweet
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Poet Daljit Nagra and crime writer Val McDermid
Wed 14 Oct 2020
Daljit Nagra and Val McDermid talk about their writing, as part of Durham Book Festival
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New Thinking about Museums
Tue 13 Oct 2020
From VR Vikings & military museums to bakelite - new research into a range of collections
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The Frieze BBC Radio 3 Debate: Museums in the 21st Century
Thu 8 Oct 2020
Gallery directors from Russia, USA and Singapore compare notes, hosted by Anne McElvoy
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New Thinking: African Europeans; Fidel Castro & African leaders; WEB Du Bois
Wed 7 Oct 2020
Professors Olivette Otele and Simon Hall on understanding connections in black history
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Writing a Life: Hermione Lee, Daniel Lee and Rachel Holmes
Tue 6 Oct 2020
Biographers of Tom Stoppard, Sylvia Pankhurst and a little known SS soldier compare notes
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Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Seamus Heaney. Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
Thu 1 Oct 2020
How knowledge of poets’ lives shapes how we view their work; Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
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Cows in culture and soil
Wed 30 Sep 2020
Are cows the answer to depleted soil or the problem? With farmer and author James Rebanks
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Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize 2020
Tue 29 Sep 2020
Tales of indigenous people battling for their land; colonialism & anthropology pioneers
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Conservatism, Philanthropy, Liberal and socialist futures
Thu 24 Sep 2020
Anne McElvoy surveys current thinking on big political ideas and ideology.
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New Thinking: The impact of being multilingual
Wed 23 Sep 2020
John Gallagher looks at creating in multiple tongues and the slipperiness of metaphor
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Get Carter
Tue 22 Sep 2020
Digging beneath the surface of the classic Brit noir film with director Mike Hodges
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Family ties and reshaping history
Thu 17 Sep 2020
From Neanderthals to Sikh warriors to the idea of ‘WEIRD’ people, 3 authors look at kin
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New Thinking: The Mayflower and Native American History
Wed 16 Sep 2020
Eleanor Barraclough explores the significance of the much mythologised Pilgrim voyage.
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Piranesi and disturbing archecture
Tue 15 Sep 2020
Susanna Clarke, author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is one of Matthew Sweet's guests
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The Radiophonic Workshop
Thu 6 Aug 2020
Matthew Sweet meets members of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
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Greek classics and the sea plus a pair of novels byTolstoy and Dostoevsky
Wed 29 Jul 2020
Pat Barker & Giles Fraser on Russian lit/Edith Hall & Barry Cunliffe on the classical sea
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Wole Soyinka's writing
Wed 29 Jul 2020
Ben Okri, Louisa Egbunike & Oladipo Agboluaje discuss the Nigerian author's life and work
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Bernard-Henri Lévy, Stella Sandford, Homi K Bhabha
Tue 28 Jul 2020
Shahidha Bari talks to Bernard-Henri Lévy, Stella Sandford, Homi K Bhabha
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Anne Applebaum, Ingrid Bergman, Herland
Thu 23 Jul 2020
Politics and friendship and the lives of Ingrid Bergman and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
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Dada and the power of Nonsense
Wed 22 Jul 2020
A project to re-imagine the Dada arts movement now, and reflections on satire and nonsense
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Proms Lecture - Daniel Levitin: Music and Our Brains
Wed 22 Jul 2020
Daniel Levitin explores new thinking about the relationship between music and memory
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New Thinking:Nature Writing
Wed 15 Jul 2020
From Gilbert White to lockdown blogs - why we need to spend more time in nature.
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Magic
Tue 14 Jul 2020
Matthew Sweet and guests conjure a conversation about the importance and appeal of magic
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How do we build a new masculinity ?
Mon 13 Jul 2020
Sunil Gupta, CN Lester, Tom Shakespeare & Alona Pardo with Matthew Sweet
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Pogroms and prejudice
Thu 9 Jul 2020
Brendan McGeever looks at anti-semitism from Russian attacks to the present day
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The consolation of philosophy and stories
Thu 9 Jul 2020
Matthew Sweet talks to Kylie Murray, Prof Seth Lerer and former Bishop Richard Holloway
