Arts & Ideas

Leading thinkers discuss the ideas shaping our lives – looking back at the news and making links between past and present.

Radio 4,1296 episodes

Episodes

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The Greenwich Outrage
The attempt by an anarchist to blow up the Royal Observatory in 1894 and its consequences
09 Feb 2024,45 mins
Picnics
From Picnic at Hanging Rock to an Iron Curtain Pan European picnic
07 Feb 2024,45 mins
Iris Murdoch's The Sovereignty of Good
Matthew Sweet and guests on Iris Murdoch's thought and writing (15 July 1919-8 Feb 1999)
05 Feb 2024,44 mins
On The Silver Globe
Take a mind-bending trip to a distant planet with Andrzej Zulawski's cult 1987 SF film
02 Feb 2024,45 mins
East West religious connections
Authors Rowan Williams & Christopher Harding and artist Gayle Chong Kwan join Rana Mitter
31 Jan 2024,45 mins
Secrets, Lies & Irish History
Clair Wills, Martin Doyle, Scott McKendry & Louise Brangan discuss secrets and conflict
30 Jan 2024,45 mins
Holocaust history
Ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day (Jan 27) Anne McElvoy hears testimony and new research
26 Jan 2024,45 mins
The Kyoto School
Chris Harding investigates the flourishing of Japanese philosophy in the 1930s and beyond
24 Jan 2024,45 mins
Heidegger & Antisemitism
Matthew Sweet discusses the influential German philosopher's relationship with Nazism
23 Jan 2024,48 mins
What is normal?
Sarah Chaney, Louise Creechan and Robert Chapman on neurodiversity, with Matthew Sweet
19 Jan 2024,45 mins
Shakespeare's Women
The women who crop up in Shakespeare's life, his plays and who helped conserve his legacy
17 Jan 2024,45 mins
Dust, dirt and domesticity
From mould to desertification Naomi Paxton and guests on the impact of dirt,heat and damp
16 Jan 2024,44 mins
Octavia Butler's Kindred
A novel from 1979 which uses time travel to explore race, slavery and trauma
11 Jan 2024,43 mins
Essay writing
From Montaigne to modern Scottish writing - Rana Mitter discusses what makes a good Essay
10 Jan 2024,45 mins
Travel, pleasure and peril
From preventing strangulation on the railways to guide maps and the art of travel posters
03 Jan 2024,45 mins
Dickens, Disney and copyright
Matthew Sweet looks at copyright rules for Mickey Mouse & Dickens in C19th America
21 Dec 2023,44 mins
New Thinking: Carols and Convents
English Nuns abroad, and are carols just for Christmas?
20 Dec 2023,27 mins
Greek myth, goddesses and art
From classic myths rewritten by Natalie Haynes to the art of John Craxton in Crete
20 Dec 2023,44 mins
Prize Winners 2023
Nandini Das, Tania Branigan, Halik Kochanski, Ed Yong, John Vallaint talk to Rana Mitter
19 Dec 2023,44 mins
Harry Belafonte
The long career of the American singer, film star & activist with Matthew Sweet & guests
15 Dec 2023,45 mins
Margaret Cavendish
Nandini Das and guests discuss the Duchess of Newcastle - philosopher, poet and scientist
13 Dec 2023,44 mins
Narnia and CS Lewis
Exploring the literary and theological terrain of C.S. Lewis's Narnia
06 Dec 2023,54 mins
Humboldt, soil, gardens and Frank Walter
For World Soil Day, a celebration of art, research and ideas to revive the earth
05 Dec 2023,44 mins
New Thinking: Disability in Music and Theatre
Dr Louise Creechan and guests discuss adaptive music technology & musical theatre roles
01 Dec 2023,39 mins
Kadare, Gospodinov, Kafka and Dickens
Bureaucracies of the soul satirised in novels. Matthew Sweet's guests include Lea Ypi.
01 Dec 2023,45 mins
Libraries
From Alexandria to Mid Wales, Laurence Scott and guests look at library history.
29 Nov 2023,44 mins
Lorca
As the National Theatre stages The House of Bernarda Alba, Rana Mitter discusses Lorca
28 Nov 2023,45 mins
AS Byatt and The Children's Book
AS Byatt discussed her writing life with Matthew Sweet as she published a novel in 2009
24 Nov 2023,43 mins
Post-War Germany
Forging the modern German nation from the moral and material ruins of WW2
22 Nov 2023,44 mins
Sam Selvon and The Lonely Londoners
Selvon's evocative 1956 novel discussed at the British Library by Shahidha Bari & guests.
21 Nov 2023,44 mins