Free Thinking

Latest Episodes:

Free Thinking - Populism. Romola Garai on Measure for Measure. Sep 30, 2015

Show notes

On the final day of Jeremy Corbyn's first Labour Party conference as Leader, Philip Dodd presents a discussion about populism in politics, with philosopher Roger Scruton, historian Justin Champion, journalist and commentator John Lloyd, and activist Sirio Canos Donnay, a representative of the Spanish populist movement Podemos.

Romola Garai stars in a new production of Measure for Measure directed by Joe Hill-Gibbins. They discuss this drama of puritanism and carnal desire.

Free Thinking - Margaret Atwood, Yuval Harari, Celts Sep 25, 2015

Show notes

Margaret Atwood's new novel imagines the future of sexual desire in a social experiment. Professors Yuval Harari and Barry Cunliffe explore the long history of mankind. And Rana Mitter visits the new exhibition about Celts at the British Museum and discusses it with historian and author Dr Janina Ramirez and Professor Barry Cunliffe.

Free Thinking - Edmund de Waal, Orhan Pamuk Sep 24, 2015

Show notes

Orhan Pamuk, novelist and Nobel Prize winner is in conversation with Edmund de Waal - the potter and best-selling author of the Hare with Amber Eyes - who has been on a quest to explore the history of porcelain. Philip Dodd chairs a conversation ranging across the colours white and red, appreciating and conserving craft skills, the way historic objects are displayed in museums, and the changing identity of cities such as Desden, Jingdezhen and Istanbul.

Free Thinking - Sleep and Creativity Sep 23, 2015

Show notes

Rana Mitter explores why we sleep with pioneering researcher into the body clock, Russell Foster; Matt Berry, actor, comedian and writer who wrestles with insomnia; Brigitte Steger who has explored Japanese and other global sleeping cultures and Katharine Craik, a renaissance scholar whose new opera project for children is called Watching...back in the 16th century the watching hours were part of a segmented sleep pattern which only disappeared with the industrial revolution.

Free Thinking - Autism, The Financial Crisis, The Fallen Woman: 22 September 15 Sep 23, 2015

Show notes

Professor Lynda Nead has curated an exhibition at the Foundling Museum in London which looks at depictions of "the Fallen Woman" in Victorian England by artists including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Richard Redgrave, George Frederic Watts and Thomas Faed. The display includes a specially-commissioned sound installation by musician and composer Steve Lewinson. Lynda Nead joins Anne McElvoy along with James Bartholomew, an historian of the Welfare State who has studied Victorian responses to poverty.

Gillian Tett is managing editor of the New York office of The Financial Times. She reported on the financial crisis of 2007-8 in close detail, but before she became a journalist Tett trained as an anthropologist. Her latest book, The Silo Effect, combines reportage with anthropology to identify the deep structure in our thinking that contributed to the crisis: the tendency to organize things into discrete silos.

Steve Silberman is a Wired reporter and author of an article on "The Geek Syndrome" which went viral. He talks to Anne McElvoy about why we need to think about autism in a new way, along with Matthew Smith, an historian of psychiatry at the University of Strathclyde and former Radio 3 New Generation Thinker.

Free Thinking - Everything That You Never Knew About Indian History Sep 17, 2015

Show notes

Rana Mitter is joined by young academics who are exploring Indian history during British rule and looking at India in the second world war

Free Thinking - Emotion in Art - Frederick Forsyth: 15 September 15 Sep 16, 2015

Show notes

Frederick Forsyth discusses spy fiction and fact as he publishes his memoirs and Matthew Sweet explores our emotions with New Generation Thinker Dr Tiffany Watt-Smith, Thomas Dixon and Susie Orbach. Also a review of portraits chosen at the National Portrait Gallery by Simon Schama

William Kentridge and William Boyd Sep 15, 2015

Show notes

South African artist William Kentridge discusses making animated films, drawings and directing the opera Lulu. William Boyd's latest novel Sweet Caress traces the life and work of a photographer. Philip Dodd talks to him about viewing 20th century history and news events through the lens of a fictional photo journalist. New Generation Thinker Zoe Norridge, documentary photographer Anna Fox and Eamonn McCabe – portrait photographer and former picture editor of the Guardian newspaper - discuss the impact of digital photography on the way we see the world.

Free Thinking - Chalke Valley History Festival: 16 July 15 Jul 16, 2015

Show notes

Anne McElvoy discusses heroic triumph and failure with a trio of eminent historians

Free Thinking - Bryan Stevenson, Slunglow Camelot, Go Set A Watchman, Utopia at the Roundhouse: 15 July 15 Jul 15, 2015

Show notes

Philip Dodd discusses Camelot: The Shining City and reviews the new Harper Lee