Free Thinking

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The Rossettis and Walter Pater Apr 05, 2023

Show notes

What is that people hate about the Pre-Raphaelites? From the 19th century to the present day their detractors have been remarkably consistent in the language that they have used to the describe their visceral dislike of these artists and their works. Dinah Roe, Greg Tate and Lynda Nead join Matthew Sweet to examine what makes Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his gang such a polarising force in art history. They also delve into the powerful and sensual poetry of Christina Rossetti and Walter Pater's scandalous book about the Renaissance.

The Rossettis runs at Tate Britain from April 6th to September 24th 2023 Dr Dinah Roe teaches at Oxford Brookes University and is currently editing the Collected Poems of Christina Rossetti. Dr Gregory Tate teaches at St Andrews University and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council Professor Lynda Nead teaches at Birkbeck University, London

You might also be interested in a Radio 3 Sunday feature presented by Lily Cole called Plot 5779: Unearthing Elizabeth Siddall https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0009c67 And Radio 3 listeners wrote a new carol inspired by Christina Rosetti's poem Love Came Down at Christmas https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/309PX0cDlP1wZpy4JkHTL1Y/radio-3-carol-competition-2021

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Introducing New Generation Thinkers 2023 Apr 04, 2023

Show notes

From lessons in civility learnt playing French board game to the value of babbling by babies in speech development, a history of central heating to the neglected industrial landscapes of the A13, Anti-Asian tropes in AI, Quaker needlework to Viking burial practices, 70’s women’s art collectives, the history of Ireland’s Magdalen laundries to the first philosophy book by a woman to be published in C17 century Germany: Chris Harding hears about the research topics of ten early career academics chosen as the 2023 New Generation Thinkers on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to promote academic research and turn it into radio broadcasts

Incidentally you can also find on BBC Sounds the set of Essays by the 2022 New Generation Thinkers and there's a collection of other discussions and features from New Generation Thinkers across the years on BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking programme website

But in this podcast Chris Harding talks to: Dr Marianne Hem Eriksen, Associate Professor of Archaeology at the University of Leicester is working on a project which asks what does it mean if a human body isn’t buried and the bones are broken apart and scattered? Dr Andrew Cooper, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick is researching "Germany’s Mary Wollstonecraft" - Amalia Holst Dr Ana Baeza Ruiz, Loughborough University is conducting an oral history project looking at women’s art collectives in 1970s Britain and Ireland Dr Gemma Tidman, a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at Queen Mary, is working on her second book, Playing on Words: A History of French Literary Play, 1635–1789 Dr Rebecca Woods, a Senior Lecturer in Language and Cognition at Newcastle University, researches how play helps language learning and the value of multi-lingualism Dr Dan Taylor works at the Open University. His most recent book is Spinoza and the Politics of Freedom and he’s been an advisor on a BBC-Open University co-production Union, a four-part tv series due later this year presented by David Olusoga Dr Sam Johnson-Schlee, from London South Bank University has been researching a history of gas heating and he's published a kind of domestic spaces memoir titled Living Rooms Dr Kerry McInerney, a Research Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge co-hosts the Good Robots podcast and looks at anti-Asian racism in AI Isabella Rosner, is a PhD student at King’s College London and presenter of the Sew What? podcast and her research looks at Quaker needlework Dr Louise Brangan, Chancellor's Fellow in Social Work and Social Policy at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow is researching the way Ireland is now coming to terms with the impact of the Magdalene Laundries and the treatment of women and babies.

Producer: Ruth Watts

Translating Cultures Mar 28, 2023

Show notes

Composer Alex Ho, novelist Xiaolu Guo, curator George Young and director Anthony Lau join Rana Mitter to discuss a Cinderella story Ye Xian which has inspired a new music theatre piece, a new Manchester gallery display of Chinese life and history, a Brecht play set in China which looks at love, hospitality and goodness and a memoir which describes ideas about love and what it feels like to be based in a new city.

Producer: Robyn Read

George Young is Head of Exhibitions and Collections at the Manchester Museum which has re-opened with new galleries including the Lee Kai Hung Chinese Culture Gallery which features on display a late Qing dynasty (1636–1912) ‘Manchu’ headdress decorated with blue kingfisher feathers, a 20-metre scroll showing Emperor Kangxi’s birthday procession through the streets of Beijing in the 18th century and a taxidermy milu deer.

Untold is a music theatre piece co-created by composer Alex Ho and creative director/choreographer Julia Cheng for premiere by Jasmine Chiu, Keith Pun, and Tangram at Concertgebouw Brugge in April 2023. Co-produced by Muziektheater Transparant, O.Festival Rotterdam, and Tangram, Untold won the FEDORA Opera Prize 2022 awarded at Opéra national de Paris.

Anthony Lau is director of a version of Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan with a new adaptation by Nina Segal on at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield (Saturday 11 March - Saturday 1 April 2023) and then transferring to the Lyric Hammersmith (Saturday 15 April – Saturday 13 May). It is one of the first major revivals in the UK to have a creative team and company represented from the East Asian heritage where the play is set.

Radical: A Life of My Own is being launched by Xiaolu Guo at the British Library on April 13th http://www.guoxiaolu.com/

You can find other conversations about Chinese culture on the Free Thinking programme website and available on BBC Sounds and as Arts & Ideas podcasts. They include discussions about World Politics, Ink Art and Insomnia https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015vns China, Freud, War and Sci-Fi https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014grr Bruce Lee's Film Enter the Dragon https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015l7z Africa, Babel, China https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002h89 The Inscrutable Writing of Sui Sin Far https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v9gl

East Germany Mar 28, 2023

Show notes

Katja Hoyer and Karen Leeder join Anne McElvoy to discuss new histories of East Germany, stories depicting life in the state which have recently been translated into English as well as a recently translated edition of Uwe Wittstock's February 1933. Plus, Emily Oliver on the history of BBC German service and Elizabeth Ward is beginning a research project on the cinema of East Germany and its involvement in International Film Festivals.

Katja Hoyer's book is called Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990 Professor Karen Leeder has been reading February 1933, a new translated work by one Germany’s leading contemporary writers, Uwe Wittstock

Producer: Ruth Watts

The culture of Albania Mar 23, 2023

Show notes

Lea Ypi, author of a memoir entitled Free: Coming of Age at the End of History, joins Matthew Sweet to explore the history and culture of Albania - its art, music and literature. They're joined by Adela Demetja - curator and director of the Tirana Art Lab - Centre for Contemporary Art in Albania and curator of the Albania pavilion in last year's Venice Biennale, which featured the work of Lumturi Blloshmi. Ani Kokobobo, Associate Professor and chair of Slavic Languages & Literatures at the University of Kansas and translator of Ismail Kadare, discusses Kadare's major works including his 1981 novel The Palace of Dreams. Violinist Aurel Qirjo performs in studio - music featured on the album At least wave your handkerchief at me: The joys and sorrows of Southern Albanian song, by his band Saz'iso. Producer: Eliane Glaser

Busking and Billy Waters Mar 21, 2023

Show notes

Billy Waters became a celebrity in early 19th century London as a talented street performer. New Generation Thinker Oskar Jensen and Mary L. Shannon join Rana Mitter to tell Billy's story and those of other musicians performing on the streets of London at the time. Charlie Taverner has written a history of Street Food. We also hear from Marigold Hughes about the latest production from Streetwise Opera, an organisation that devises opera productions with people who are or have been homeless.

Vagabonds: Life on the Streets of Nineteenth-century London by Oskar Jensen is out now. Mary L. Shannon's book 'Billy Waters Is Dancing’ will be published later this year. Street Food: Hawkers and the History of London by Charlie Taverner is out now Streetwise Opera, BBC Concert Orchestra and The Sixteen perform Re:sound at the Southbank Centre, London on Weds 22nd March and at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London on Sun 26th March.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

The wicked? stepmother Mar 16, 2023

Show notes

Cinderella is opening in a new ballet production at the Royal Opera House and Mothering Sunday is coming up so Matthew Sweet is joined by New Generation Thinkers Sabina Dosani and Emma Whipday and Marina Warner for a conversation about good and bad mothering and how images are changing.

Marina Warner's many books include From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers Frederick Ashton's ballet Cinderella has been re-imagined using video design for a new production running at the Royal Opera House 27th March - 3rd May

Producer: Eliane Glaser

Decadent Art Mar 15, 2023

Show notes

A Persian epic depicted in The Yellow Book which Aubrey Beardsley was art editor for, Iranian figures on the French operatic stage and Rudyard Kipling's links with decadent ideas: Shahidha Bari is joined by Dr Julia Hartley, Dr Alexander Bubb and Professor Jennifer Yee to discuss new research into late nineteenth century art, literature and opera and what we mean by decadence. Was it really a-political and focused on surface and ornament? And how far are ideas about art for art's sake and sex for sex's sake linked?

Producer: Robyn Read

Dr Alexander Bubb teaches at the University of Roehampton, London and is the author of Flights of Translation: Popular Circulation and Reception of Asian Literature in the Victorian World. Professor Jennifer Yee teaches Modern Languages at the University of Oxford and has edited a book French Decadence in a Global Context. Julia Hartley is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker who teaches at Glasgow University. Later this year she will be publishing Iran and French Orientalism: Persia in the Literary Culture of Nineteenth-Century France

You might be interested in a Radio 3 Sunday Feature asking Should Feminists Read Baudelaire ? And the Free Thinking programme website has a collection of discussions exploring Prose, Poetry and Drama

Debt Mar 14, 2023

Show notes

Debt is central to the modern economy and it has long been so. The idea of debt has long been loaded with as much morality as financial meaning. Anne McElvoy explores our ideas about debt, what it is and how it works. Decisions about borrowing or paying down debt are currently being faced the world over. They’re informed by political beliefs and a whole history of ideas behind that. So, how have our ideas changed over time and what can or should be done about it?

Professor Kenneth Rogoff is Maurits C. Boas Chair of International Economics at Harvard University, a former Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund and the author of This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. Vicky Pryce is an economist and a former Joint Head of the United Kingdom's Government Economic Service. New Generation Thinker Philip Roscoe is a Reader in the School of Management at the University of St Andrews and the author of How to Build a Stock Exchange: On the past, present and future of finance. And, New Generation Thinker, Dafydd Mills Daniel is a lecturer in Divinity at the University of St Andrews who looks at the history of philosophy and religious thought.

Producer: Ruth Watts

Making Your Voice Heard Mar 08, 2023

Show notes

Iranian women using song to protest and whose voices do we pay attention to ? On International Women's Day, Shahidha Bari hosts a conversation with the authors of books called On Being Unreasonable and Who Gets Believed, an artist and a researcher looking at Iranian women using song. Michelle Assay is an academic specialising in music who was born in Iran and had to leave the country. Dina Nayeri is an Iranian American writer now based in Scotland and Kirsty Sedgman studies the behaviour of audiences. Alberta Whittle represented Scotland in the Venice Biennale and has exhibitions on at Bath's Holburne Museum and in Scotland.

Alberta Whittle: Dipping below a waxing moon, the dance claims us for release is at the Holburne Museum until May 8th. Alberta Whittle | create dangerously runs at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art from Sat 1 Apr 2023 - Sun 7 Jan 2024 Kirsty Sedgman's On Being Unreasonable: Breaking the Rules and Making Things Better is out now https://kirstysedgman.com/ Dina Nayeri's latest book is called “Who Gets Believed? https://www.dinanayeri.com/ You can hear more from her in a previous episode of Free Thinking called Language and Belonging https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006fh9 Free Thinking has a whole collection of programmes Women in the World with conversations ranging from fictional characters including The Wife of Bath and Lady Macbeth to Arabian queens, landladies, women warriors and goddesses ttps://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p084ttwp

Producer: Jayne Egerton

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