Free Thinking

Latest Episodes:

Free Thinking - Scotland, Wales and the Ukraine: New Generation Thinker Victoria Donovan. The 2016 Caine Prize. Jul 07, 2016

Show notes

New Generation Thinker Victoria Donovan explores the links between Wales and Ukraine. Later this month the Wales Book of the Year Awards take place. We hear from Dr Emma Schofield about the way Welsh fiction has reflected debates since devolution. And talk to Lidudumalingani - winner of this year's Caine Prize for African Writing. And Alex Massie and Professor Richard Wyn Jones discuss the view from Scotland and Wales after the Brexit referendum.

Dr Victoria Donovan researches Russian history and culture at the University of St Andrews. The New Generation Thinkers prize is an initiative launched by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to find the brightest minds from across the UK who have the potential to transform their research into engaging broadcast programmes. You can hear more about the research topics of all 10 2016 New Generation Thinkers on our website. You can read the Caine Prize story here http://caineprize.com/2016-shortlist/

The Wales Book of the Year Awards are announced on Thursday 21 July. The shortlists are: The Roland Mathias Poetry Award: Love Songs of Carbon, Philip Gross /Boy Running, Paul Henry /Pattern beyond Chance, Stephen Payne The Rhys Davies Fiction Award: The Girl in the Red Coat, Kate Hamer/ We Don't Know What We're Doing, Thomas Morris / I Saw a Man, Owen Sheers The Open University in Wales Creative Non-Fiction Award: Losing Israel, Jasmine Donahaye / Woman Who Brings the Rain, Eluned Gramich / Wales Unchained, Daniel G. Williams Aberystwyth University Welsh-language Poetry Award: Nes Draw, Mererid Hopwood / Hel llus yn y glaw, Gruffudd Owen / Eiliadau Tragwyddol, Cen Williams Welsh-language Fiction Award: Norte, Jon Gower / Y Bwthyn, Caryl Lewis / Rifiera Reu, Dewi Prysor The Open University in Wales Welsh-language Creative Non-Fiction Award: Pam Na Fu Cymru, Simon Brooks / Dyddiau Olaf Owain Glyndwr, Gruffydd Aled Williams / Is-deitla'n Unig, Emyr Glyn Williams

Producer: Ruth Watts

Free Thinking: The Desert: Geoff Dyer, Laurence Scott, Georgia O'Keeffe Jul 05, 2016

Show notes

As Georgia O'Keeffe images of New Mexico go on display at Tate Matthew Sweet discusses the idea of the desert with writers Geoff Dyer and Laurence Scott and Tanya Barson, the exhibition curator.

Georgia O'Keeffe runs at Tate Modern from 6 July – 30 October 2016 Geoff Dyer is the author of White Sands: Experiences from the Outside World. It was read as Radio 4's Book of the Week last week which you can find on the Radio 4 website Laurence Scott is the author of The Four-Dimensional Human

Free Thinking - Hisham Matar. Street Furniture. Easternisation. New Generation Thinker Katherine Cooper on Storm Jameson. Jun 30, 2016

Show notes

Hisham Matar last saw his father when he was 19. He talks to Rana Mitter about his attempts to find out what happened to his parent who was last seen in a Libyan jail and he discusses the way his family was caught up in the recent wave of fighting in Libya. 2016 New Generation Thinker Katherine Cooper looks at the writing of Storm Jameson. The design of street furniture in post war Britain is explored by Eleanor Herring. Gideon Rachman and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira discuss the phenomenon of 'easternisation' in an era of Asian dominance.

Hisham Matar's book is called The Return. Eleanor Herring has published Street Furniture Design: Contesting Modernism in Post-War Britain Gideon Rachman's forthcoming book is called Easternisation: War and Peace in the Asian Century Ricardo Soares de Oliveira is the author of Magnificent and Beggar Land: Angola Since the Civil War

Katherine Cooper researches Margaret Storm Jameson's novels of World War Two at Newcastle University.

The New Generation Thinkers prize is an initiative launched by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to find the brightest minds from across the UK who have the potential to transform their research into engaging broadcast programmes. You can hear more about the research topics of all 10 2016 New Generation Thinkers on our website on a programme broadcast on May 31st and available as an arts and ideas podcast and find clips where you can hear their newly commissioned written pieces on a range of subjects.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Free Thinking - Post Referendum reflections and New Generation Thinker Chris Kissane on citizenship. Jun 29, 2016

Show notes

Post referendum, Anne McElvoy is joined by Kwasi Kwarteng MP for Spelthorne who made the case for Brexit; Dr Uta Staiger, Deputy Director of the European Institute at University College London; Sunder Katwala, the Director of the Think Tank, Britain Thinks; and, Abigail Green, Professor of European History at the University of Oxford discuss the competing histories behind Britain's decision to leave the European Union.

And we're joined by one of our 2016 New Generation Thinkers, Chris Kissane, who discusses our ideas of citizenship. Plus Dr Matthew Wall from Swansea University shares his research into betting patterns and what they tell us about the referendum.

Chris Kissane researches early modern history, food and history, economic and social history at the London School of Economics.

Free Thinking - Tony Garnett Jun 28, 2016

Show notes

British TV and film producer Tony Garnett is in conversation with Matthew Sweet about a career which straddles the Wednesday Play and the many films he worked on with Ken Loach for the BBC in the 1960s, including Up The Junction and Cathy Come Home through the late 1990s series This Life to Between the Lines and a forthcoming drama about police infiltration of British activist groups.

Tony Garnett's memoir is called The Day The Music Died.

Producer: Fiona McLean

Free Thinking - Walter Benjamin; A cultural history of the body; Edvard Munch; Soviet Superwoman Jun 23, 2016

Show notes

Anne McElvoy evaluates the first major English edition of short fiction by the great German critic and essayist, Walter Benjamin with the translator and scholar Esther Leslie and the critic, Kevin Jackson. Also in the programme a guide to the Soviet Superwoman courtesy of curator Elena Sudokova and Dolya Gavanski -- the moving forces behind the GRAD gallery show devoted to women in the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1991.

And as Peter Watkins' critically acclaimed film based on the life of Edvard Munch is re-released New Generation Thinker Leah Broad considers the Norwegian painter's achievement and the art of biography.

Fay Bound Alberti's cultural history of the body completes the programme - why do we talk of the heart as the seat of our emotions and where would you expect to find someone's "mind" ?

This Mortal Coil by Fay Bound Alberti is published by Oxford University Press.

The Storyteller by Walter Benjamin is published by Verso on 23rd June.

Superwoman: Work, Build and Don't Whine is on at GRAD in Little Portland Street in London from 18 June -17 September

Edvard Munch - a 1974 biographical film about the Norwegian Expressionist painter Edvard Munch, written and directed by Peter Watkins, has been re-released on DVD by Eureka.

Leah Broad's research at the University of Oxford is focused on Nordic modernism. She is editor of The Oxford Culture Review and winner of the Observer/Anthony Burgess prize for the best arts journalism essay in 2015 for her reappraisal of the Finnish composer Sibelius.

Producer: Zahid Warley

Free Thinking - Universities: Therapy or Learning? Jun 22, 2016

Show notes

Philip Dodd debates "Universities - therapy or learning?". New Generation Thinker Dr Seán Williams looks at the history of the university as a space for thought, considering the arguments put forward by Frederick Nietzsche. Dr Seán Williams is at the University of Sheffield's School of Languages and Cultures. He is an expert on German and Comparative Literature and is currently researching a cultural history of hairdressing.

Dr Matt Lodder, Lecturer in Contemporary Art and Visual Culture at the University of Essex and Dr Joanna Williams, education editor of Spiked Online and former Director of the Study for Higher Education at the University of Kent discuss what is happening in academia and what it means.

Dr Shahidha Bari reviews Omer Fast's film of Tom McCarthy's novel Remainder. And Adam Mars Jones joins her to discuss the place for experimentation in the arts today.

Free Thinking: Hands - The Anatomical Venus Jun 21, 2016

Show notes

Psychoanalyst Darian Leader's new book looks at the culture and psychology of the human hand. He joins Matthew Sweet along with art historian Lisa Le Feuvre, currently curating an exhibition on sculpture and prosthesis at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, and robotics scientist Thrishantha Nanayakkara from King's College London, who works on the problem of engineering a functioning hand from scratch.

'The Anatomical Venus' looks at another point where physiology and art meet, in waxwork anatomical models. The book's author Joanna Ebenstein joins Matthew along with the curator of the Barts Pathology Museum Carla Valentine.

And, one of this year's New Generation Thinkers, Seb Falk, unveils his work on the history of science. Seb Falk is at the University of Cambridge and blogs at http://astrolabesandstuff.blogspot.co.uk/

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio programmes. Find out more from our website and hear them introducing their research in the programme which broadcast on May 31st - available as an arts and ideas podcast.

The Body Extended: Sculpture and Prosthetics runs at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds from 21st July 2016 - 23rd October 2016

Robotics Open Day 2016 runs 11am to 4pm King's College London on Sat 25th June. You can hear more about The Robots Are Coming at Southbank's Power of Power Festival debates on Saturday 25 June

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Free Thinking - Nottingham Contemporary Art Debate: Elizabeth Price, Alice Channer. Jun 16, 2016

Show notes

Anne McElvoy is joined by curators and artists and an audience at Nottingham Contemporary to discuss the life of an artist today as Tate Modern opens its new wing. Her panel is

Elizabeth Price - winner of the Turner Prize in 2012 and curator of a new touring exhibition Alice Channer - a sculptor who graduated from the Royal College in 2008 Sam Thorne Director of Nottingham Contemporary and former Artistic Director of Tate St Ives Ann Gallagher who holds responsibility for building Tate's collection and archive of British art

In a Dream You Saw a Way to Survive and You Were Full of Joy curated by Turner Prize-winning artist Elizabeth Price is at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester. Presenting a vast repertoire of seminal artworks and historical objects, it explores the psychological and affective power of the horizontal. It runs from June 10th to October 30th and then moves to the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea, and the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea.

Nottingham Contemporary is hosting exhibitions this summer displaying the work of Michael Beutler and Yelena Popova 16 Jul 2016 - 25 Sep 2016. The largest ever exhibition in the UK of the works of Simon Starling – the Turner Prize winner in 2005 runs until June 26th.

Tate Modern's new ten-storey Switch House opens 17 June 2016. It gives Tate Modern 60% more space for displays and opens with a focus on the work of Louise Bourgeois in the Artist Rooms. Works by Mark Rothko, Agnes Martin and Henri Matisse join new acquisitions from Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

This year's Royal Academy Summer Exhibition runs from June 13th to August 21st.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Free Thinking - Jane Mayer Dark Money - Money & US Politics - Flora Nwapa's Efuru - African Literature - Emma Cline The Girls Jun 15, 2016

Show notes

Philip Dodd talks to Emma Cline whose first novel about teenage girls and the Charles Manson cult and our third 2016 New Generation Thinker Louisa Uchum Egbunike marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Efuru by Flora Nwapa - the first novel written by a Nigerian woman to be published. She's joined by editor and critic Ellah Allfrey to look at African writing today. Plus Dark Money - New Yorker writer, Jane Mayer examines how money has changed American politics. And she's joined by Professor Gary Gerstle and Dr James Boys to discuss the tensions between free speech and big donors, populists and libertarians.

Emma Cline's first novel The Girls is out now.

Jane Mayer's book is called Dark Money: How a Secretive Group of Billionaires is trying to buy political control in the US

Louisa Uchum Egbunike is at Manchester Metropolitan University. Louisa co-convenes an annual Igbo conference at SOAS

Producer: Ruth Watts

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