Free Thinking

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Free Thinking Festival - The Rules Of Good Science Nov 17, 2015

Show notes

Science progresses by breaking the rules of the past. New observations need new theories to explain them. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity made sense of observations that Newton’s Laws of Motion could not. But how can we distinguish between the brilliant ideas that change our view of the world and those that are plain wrong? And does that make science too cautious to try out new ideas?

Joining Free Thinking presenter Rana Mitter are:

Professor Carlos Frenk, founding Director of the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University and winner of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2014

Jim al-Khalili, Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey and presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The Life Scientific and TV documentaries. His books include Paradox: The Nine Greatest Enigmas in Science, Black Holes, Wormholes and Time Machines and Quantum: A Guide For The Perplexed

Dr Katy Price from Queen Mary, University of London, author of Loving Faster Than Light: Romance and Readers in Einstein’s Universe

Dr Tom Shakespeare from the University of East Anglia, who co-founded the Café Scientifique network, which now has hundreds of affiliates in UK and worldwide.

Recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

The Free Thinking Festival Essay - Inside a Pirate’s Cookbook: A Culinary Journey through the 17th Century Nov 17, 2015

Show notes

The 1667 recipe book by Sir Kenelm Digby featured tea with eggs brought from China, sugared mallow-leaves that cured gonorrhea and ‘pan cotto' cooked by Roman Cardinals. Digby had journeyed far and wide to collect his dishes, feasting with pirate chieftains in Algiers and munching melons in the eastern Mediterranean.

Joe Moshenska of the University of Cambridge explores Kenelm Digby’s culinary travels, revealing startling contacts between Britain and the East, between alchemy and cookery, and between the past and the present.

The New Generation Thinkers are the winners of an annual scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics at the start of their careers who can turn their research into fascinating broadcasts.

The Essay was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead. If you want to hear Joe Moshenka discuss his research you can download The Essay and conversation as an Arts and Ideas podcast.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

The Free Thinking Festival Essay: The Medieval Scottish Dream State Nov 16, 2015

Show notes

The 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum and this year's general election led to a passionate debate about nationhood and nationalism. But not for the first time. Kylie Murray of the University of Oxford discusses the ways in which feelings surrounding Anglo-Scottish relations and visions of Scottish national identity reached a peak of imaginative, sometimes intemperate expression in 15th-century Scottish literature. Among the jewels - Abbot Walter Bower’s Scotichronicon, the most re-published text in Scotland for the next two hundred years – and the inspiration behind one of Scotland’s greatest epic poems, Blind Harry’s The Wallace, where two hundred years after the Wars of Independence, the old hero is virtually re-invented as a second messiah.

The Essay was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead. If you want to hear Kylie Murray discussing her research you can download The Essay and conversation as an Arts and Ideas podcast.

Free Thinking Festival - Old Ways, New Directions. Nov 16, 2015

Show notes

In the hunger for new ideas, are we forgetting the hard-earned lessons of the past? Rana Mitter chairs a discussion recorded in front of an audience at this year's Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead . James Rebanks is the Cumbrian shepherd sharing his farming knowledge with thousands of followers on his twitter account @herdyshepherd1 His book A Shepherd’s Life has been reprinted several times since its publication earlier this year. Professor Veronica Strang is a cultural anthropologist based at Durham University and the author of The Meaning of Water who has worked with communities all over the world exploring how they think of their relationship with the non-human and the land.

The Free Thinking Festival Essay - Kilts, Celts and Clearances in World War One Nov 13, 2015

Show notes

Thousands of soldiers fought in kilted regiments during the First World War. But what kind of cultural identity was adopted with the kilt? How far was it pervaded by a fatalistic sense of the Celt who ‘went forth to the war but … always fell’, or by the memory of the Highland Clearances?

Peter Mackay of the University of St Andrews explores poetry and first-hand accounts from the war to find out.

The Essay was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead. If you want to hear Peter Mackay discussing his research you can download The Essay and conversation as an Arts and Ideas podcast.

The Free Thinking Festival Essay - Nancy Cunard: The Rebellious Heiress Nov 12, 2015

Show notes

For nearly 200 years, the name Cunard has evoked glamorous images of sleek cruise ships and transatlantic sea travel. Yet the legacy of the Cunard family's black sheep, the disinherited granddaughter Nancy Cunard, is less well-known.

Sandeep Parmar of the University of Liverpool explores the tragic life of this scion of a wealthy family who became a revolutionary poet, publisher, modernist muse, anti-fascist and anti-racism activist.

The Essay was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead. If you want to hear Sandeep Parmar discussing her research you can download The Essay and conversation as an Arts and Ideas podcast

Producer: Torquil Macleod

Free Thinking Festival - Putting Competition to the Test Nov 12, 2015

Show notes

From TV talent contests such as The Great British Bake Off and Strictly Come Dancing to the pressures of school exams and job interviews – competition is at the heart of the way we live our lives. What can we learn from sports stars whose lives are geared to cultivating a healthy competitive instinct? Is the desire to be successful bringing out the best in us - or the worst?

Constructively and co-operatively arguing with Free Thinking presenter Anne McElvoy are:

Margaret Heffernan, entrepreneur, CEO and author of A Bigger Prize: Why Competition isn’t Everything and Wilful Blindness

Matthew Syed, former England Table Tennis number one and Times columnist and author whose books include Bounce: The myth of talent and the power of practice and, most recently, Black Box Thinking: The Surprising Truth about Success.

Cath Bishop, Olympic medallist and World Champion rower, worked as a British diplomat specialising in conflict issues, working in Bosnia and Iraq and is now a leadership speaker specialising in topics relating to high performance and resilience.

Christopher Frayling, author and broadcaster, former head of Arts Council England

Recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

The Free Thinking Festival Essay - Women on Their Own: Widows in Britain, Now and Then Nov 11, 2015

Show notes

Widows are exceptions to every rule”, Charles Dickens tells us in his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, published in 1837. Eighty years later, in 1917, a tune called “Widows are Wonderful” rings through the theatres and homes of a war-stricken Britain. “Widow! That great, vacant estate!” writes poet Sylvia Plath after the Second World War as the country grieves in silence.

Nadine Muller of Liverpool John Moores University uncovers the hidden history of widows in Britain from the 19th century to the present day and explores what has made them so tragically melancholic, exceptional, and wonderful in British culture.

The Essay was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead. If you want to hear Nadine discussing her research you can download the Essay and conversation as an Arts and Ideas podcast.

Free Thinking Festival - In Conversation With Richard Dawkins Nov 11, 2015

Show notes

'We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further'. Richard Dawkins' book "The God Delusion" created waves when it was first published nearly 10 years ago. Rebutting religions of all kinds Dawkins became one of 'the New Atheists', a group of thinkers including Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett. He first came to public attention though in 1976 with his iconic book "The Selfish Gene" which popularised the gene-centred view of evolution. In 2013 he was voted the world's top thinker in Prospect magazine's poll of over 10,000 readers from over 100 countries.

Richard Dawkins talks to Philip Dodd about his memoir, "Brief Candle in the Dark" in which he explores his life in the intersection between culture, religion and science.

Recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Free Thinking Festival - Breaking News - Telling Stories in Fact and Fiction Nov 10, 2015

Show notes

Are the rules of drama increasingly influencing the way the world is presented to us? TV news bulletins now employ chapter headings, dramatisations and music. Hollywood transforms real life stories into dramatized blockbusters at a dizzying rate. As it becomes harder to separate fact from fiction are we overvaluing the ‘real’? In this new multimedia environment, do we understand what the new rules of fiction and storytelling are?

Sorting out facts from faction with Free Thinking presenter Matthew Sweet are:

John Yorke, a visiting Professor at Newcastle University, is a former Controller of Drama at the BBC and Channel 4, whose CV includes East Enders, Shameless, Life on Mars, George Gently and Wolf Hall. He is the author of Into the Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them.

Journalist Bim Adewunmi is culture editor at Buzz Feed UK and writes often about popular culture and how it intersects with gender and race

Allan Little is a journalist and broadcaster and has been a foreign affairs reporter for the BBC for 25 years, reporting from more than eighty countries. He was recently awarded the Charles Wheeler Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcast Journalism.

Emily Woof is a radio and theatre writer, a performer and novelist. She grew up in Newcastle. Her latest novel is The Lightning Tree.

Recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead.

Producer: Torquil Macleod

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