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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Free Thinking - Taking the Long View with the Animal Kingdom
Thu 13 Apr 2017
Tim Birkhead and Phyllis Lee on long-lived animal species and their survival strategies.
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Free Thinking - My Body Clock is Broken
Wed 12 Apr 2017
Jay Griffiths, Vincent Deary, Louise Robinson and Matthew Smith discuss our mental health
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Free Thinking Festival: Time, Space and Science
Tue 11 Apr 2017
Carlos Frenk, Eugenia Cheng, Jim Al-Khalili and Louisa Preston debate time and space.
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Free Thinking Festival: Writing Life
Mon 10 Apr 2017
Poet Simon Armitage and writer Alexandra Harris explore time and place in modern Britain.
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Free Thinking at Uproot Festival
Fri 7 Apr 2017
Author David Mark and poet Adelle Stripe join Matthew Sweet and an audience at Hull Truck.
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Free Thinking: An interview with Haemin Sunim
Wed 5 Apr 2017
Haemin Sunim, the Buddhist meditation teacher, on calm in a fast-paced 21st century world
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Free Thinking Festival: New Generation Thinkers 2017
Tue 4 Apr 2017
The 2017 New Generation Thinkers make their first public appearance together.
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Free Thinking Festival: Education Slow and Fast
Mon 3 Apr 2017
Tony Sewell and Mike Grenier on the challenges of education in the 21st century.
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Free Thinking Essay: Killing Time in Imperial Japan
Fri 31 Mar 2017
Christopher Harding explores the Tokyo of a century ago when 'time' was hotly contested.
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Free Thinking Festival: The Time of Your Life
Thu 30 Mar 2017
Edwina Currie, Miranda Sawyer and Lola Okolosie explore the different times of our lives.
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The Essay - Creating Modern India
Thu 30 Mar 2017
Preti Taneja on the architectural links between Letchworth Garden City and New Delhi.
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Free Thinking Essay: England's First European
Wed 29 Mar 2017
John Gallagher marks the 400th anniversary of Fynes Moryson's great travel book.
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Free Thinking Festival: The Never-Ending Workday
Wed 29 Mar 2017
Sathnam Sanghera, Judy Wajcman, Griselda Togobo and Robert Colvile on time and working.
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The Essay - The Magic Years
Tue 28 Mar 2017
Medical historian Matthew Smith on 1970s US psychiatry - a time of hope and promise.
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Essay - The Magic Years
Tue 28 Mar 2017
Medical historian Matthew Smith on 1970s US psychiatry - a time of hope and promise.
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Free Thinking Festival: The Speed of Revolution
Tue 28 Mar 2017
Bettany Hughes, Richard J Evans and John Hall join Philip Dodd and an audience at Sage
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The Essay - Faith, Fire and the Family
Mon 27 Mar 2017
Catherine Fletcher on the story of her grandfather, a missionary in India.
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Free Thinking Festival: Doing Time/Confinement
Mon 27 Mar 2017
Terry Waite, Erwin James and Cleo Van Velsen on the experience of isolation.
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Free Thinking Essay: Russia's Sacred Ruins
Fri 24 Mar 2017
Victoria Donovan on the dilemmas of post-war reconstruction in Soviet Russia.
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The Essay - The British Writer and the Refugee
Thu 23 Mar 2017
Katherine Cooper on the work by British writers to save colleagues in Europe during WW2.
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Free Thinking Festival: Quick Reactions
Thu 23 Mar 2017
Damon Hill,Tanni Grey-Thompson and Lincoln Jopp on pressured decision-making at top speed
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The Essay - In the Shadows of Biafra
Wed 22 Mar 2017
Louisa Egbunike explores images of refugees and Igbo rituals which continue to resonate.
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Free Thinking Festival: How Short is a Short Story?
Wed 22 Mar 2017
George Saunders, Kirsty Logan, Jenn Ashworth and Paul McVeigh on writing short fiction.
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Free Thinking Essay: Alexander the Great's Lost City
Tue 21 Mar 2017
New Generation Thinker Edmund Richardson with a story linking Egypt and Afghanistan.
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Free Thinking Festival: Harriet Harman - Politics Fast and Slow
Tue 21 Mar 2017
Labour MP Harriet Harman on sustaining her career in a fast-changing political world.
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Free Thinking Essay: Monks, Models and Medieval Time
Tue 21 Mar 2017
Seb Falk on the 14th century monks who studied astronomy, a world of science & religion.
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Free Thinking Festival: Faster, Faster, Faster?
Tue 21 Mar 2017
Pinky Lilani, Denise Mina, Jay Griffiths and John Gallagher debate the speed of life.
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Free Thinking: Sleep - Freedom to Think
Fri 17 Mar 2017
Russell Foster, leading neuroscientist, with the Free Thinking lecture, The Speed of Life
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Free Thinking - Rodney Graham at BALTIC, The Amber Collective.
Fri 17 Mar 2017
New Generation Thinker Shahidha Bari visits exhibitions opening in Gateshead and Newcastle
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Free Thinking: Images of America
Wed 15 Mar 2017
As London hosts 2 exhibitions of American art, Anne McElvoy discusses the American Dream.
