Free Thinking

Latest Episodes:

Free Thinking - Sociology in the 21 century Mar 18, 2015

Show notes

Does the discipline of Sociology still have a role to play in the 21st century?To examine where we are at with Sociology in 2015, Philip Dodd is joined by three leading practitioners, the LSE's Richard Sennett, Frank Furedi from the University of Kent, and Monika Krause at Goldsmiths, as well as the journalist and author, Peter Oborne.

Free Thinking - Madness/Civilisation Mar 17, 2015

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Matthew Sweet talks to Andrew Scull, author of Madness in Civilisation and Lisa Appignanesi about how different cultures around the world and through time have dealt with what we might call madness, insanity or the loss of reason. Matthew Beaumont also presents his history of an ancient crime but one still on the statute books of Massachussetts - Night Walking. Alongside, Deborah Longworth with a view of the flaneuse, the female solitary ambler and a pen-portrait of Dorothy Richardson whose relationship with the city of London outweighed all other passions in her life.

Free Thinking - Tom McCarthy Mar 12, 2015

Show notes

Anne McElvoy looks at what we mean by the idea of fairness. She also talks to novelist Tom McCarthy who was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his novel C. His new work Satin Island follows a man working for a consultancy trying to sum up our age - who wonders whether there is a logic which holds the world together.

Free Thinking - Hanif Kureishi Mar 11, 2015

Show notes

An extended interview in which Philip Dodd is joined by novelist, screenwriter and dramatist Hanif Kureishi. He discusses subjects including immigration, sexuality and mortality.

Free Thinking - Age of Earthquakes Mar 10, 2015

Show notes

Douglas Coupland, Shumon Basar and Hans Ulrich Obrist explain the Extreme Present to Matthew Sweet. Their co-authored book The Age of Earthquakes builds on Marshall McLuhan's analysis of how technology influenced culture in the 1960s and is described as "a new history of how we are feeling in the world today when the future seems to be happening much faster than we ever thought." Also, Mathematician Hannah Fry and film critic Kevin Jackson explore the ways in which number-crunching geniuses have been depicted on the big screen.

Free Thinking - Kazuo Ishiguro Mar 05, 2015

Show notes

Novelist Kazuo Ishiguro talks to Anne McElvoy about his latest book – The Buried Giant. And as two separate productions of Sophocles’ tragedy, Antigone, are performed on stage in London – the playwright Roy Williams and the Greek scholar and translator, Oliver Taplin assess the enduring appeal of the play.

Free Thinking - Against Democracy Mar 04, 2015

Show notes

Churchill famously commented that ‘democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.' Rana Mitter and his guests David Runciman, Professor of Politics, University of Cambridge; Duncan Kelly, Reader in Political Thought, University of Cambridge; Patricia Thornton, University Lecturer in the Politics of China, University of Oxford and Tim Stanley, blogger and columnist for The Daily Telegraph test Free Thinking to its limits by looking at the alternatives to our own political system.

Free Thinking - John Gray Mar 03, 2015

Show notes

John Gray talks to Matthew Sweet about why the Aztecs might have had a better understanding of freedom than we do and other human illusions about meaning and progress. Also we consider how artistic movements become successful as the National Gallery stages an exhibition devoted to Paul Durand-Ruel, the french art dealer who discovered the Impressionists. Matthew talks to National gallery curator Christopher Riopelle. Also Jacky Klein, art historian and Godfrey Barker, man of letters and art critic discuss the anthropology of the art world through time.

Free Thinking - David Cohen prize Feb 26, 2015

Show notes

Rana Mitter talks to Tony Harrison, the winner of the biennial David Cohen prize - one of our most prestigious literary awards. Two other writers join Rana - Ru Freeman and Romesh Gunesekara. Both from Sri Lanka and both on the programme to discuss the role of the writer in a country recovering from civil war. Finally, as part of the BBC's Get Creative initiative, the mathematician, Marcus du Sautoy, will be explaining why he values the arts as much as numbers.

Free Thinking - Social Identity Feb 25, 2015

Show notes

Philip Dodd looks at the value of the arts with the former Chief Scientific Advisor to the EU, biologist Anne Glover,and discusses the notion of belonging and social identity in Europe with Dutch author Tommy Wieringa, Hungarian film director Kornel Mondruczo and academics Eric Kaufmann and Vesna Popovski.

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