Free Thinking

Latest Episodes:

Housework Apr 15, 2022

Show notes

Who's doing the cleaning and looking after the kids? Are we all shouldering an equal share of the domestic burden and if not, why not? Matthew Sweet and guests on housework, gender & class from early 20th century domestic appliance ads via1960s feminist critiques such as Hannah Gavron's The Captive Wife to the age of TikTok cleanfluencers.

MIchele Roberts is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and the author of twelve novels, including The Looking Glass and Daughters of the House.

Michele Kirsch has written about her experiences of working as a cleaner in her memoir Clean.

Rachele Dini is Senior Lecturer in English and American Literature, University of Roehampton. She is the author of ‘All-Electric’ Narratives: Time-Saving Appliances & Domesticity in American Literature, 1945-2020 and her current project is called Cleaning Through Crisis.

Oriel Sullivan is Professor of Sociology of Gender in the Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, and Co-Director of the Centre for Time Use Research. Her recent publications include What We Really Do All Day and Gender Inequality in Work-Family Balance.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Ships and History Apr 13, 2022

Show notes

What nationalities served in the British navy of the 18th century and what difference did peacetime and wartime conditions have on the make-up of crews? How does visiting a landlocked village that was once a thriving Gloucestershire port change our view of history? What did enslaved people think about their rescue by anti-slavery rescue ships? These are the questions Rana Mitter will be asking three writers and historians: Sara Caputo, Tom Nancollas and New Generation Thinker Jake Subryan Richards. Plus the artist Hew Locke describes his new commission for the entrance hall of Tate Britain and the artwork now on show at Tate Liverpool which is built from 45 votive boats suspended from the ceiling.

Tate Britain Commission 2022: Hew Locke is on show until 22 Jan 2023. His work Armanda 2019 is on show at Tate Liverpool The Ship Asunder: A maritime history in eleven vessels by Tom Nancollas is out now Seafaring - an exhibition of fifty works from 1820 to the present day runs at Hastings Contemporary from Saturday 30 April – Sunday 25 September 2022 and includes works by Eric Ravilious, Elisabeth Frink, James Tissot, Edward Burne-Jones, Richard Eurich, Alfred Wallis, Edward Wadsworth, Frank Brangwyn and Maggi Hambling Dr Sara Caputo from the University of Cambridge researches maritime history Dr Jake Subryan Richards is an Assistant Professor at LSE and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. He researches law, empire, and the African diaspora in the Atlantic world.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Grief Apr 08, 2022

Show notes

Archaeological remains, Jewish rituals, music, memento mori and the construction of elaborately carved tombs: Matthew Sweet discusses grief and the expression of mourning with guests: Lindsey Buster, an archaeologist whose work at Death Cafes, set up to help people talk about death, has led her to reinterpret the way people's relationship with 'stuff' shows up in the archaeological record Emily MacGregor, a musicologist who is writing a memoir of the ways her relationship with music changed after the death of her father Christina Faraday, an historian of art who has studied memento mori and vanitas, two popular genres of painting in the early modern period that suggest a different set of attitudes towards death Sally Berkovic, who has written about Jewish rituals and traditions surrounding death and mourning https://sallyberkovic.com/

Producer: Luke Mulhall

You can find on the BBC Ideas website a short film about how to face death with Kathryn Mannix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CruBRZh8quc and a Free Thinking Festival Discussion Death Comes to Us All https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09xnmgz

China: world politics, ink art & insomnia Apr 06, 2022

Show notes

Former Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd is a long time scholar of China. In his new book, The Avoidable War, he argues that it is cultural misunderstanding and historical grievance which make Chinese-US relations so volatile. Rana Mitter asks him how he sees China's current positioning of itself on the world stage. We hear why it is that the ideas of Hegel and not Kant resonate in Chinese politics. And, in the spirit of better understanding the rich artistic traditions and cultural history of China, we hear from three researchers about the latest thinking on Hong Kong ink art, representations of sleep, Chinese identity and contemporary classical music and insomnia from the cultural revolution to the present day.

Kevin Rudd is President and CEO of Asia Society and a former Prime Minister of Australia. He is a leading international authority on China and began his career as a China scholar, serving as an Australian diplomat in Beijing before entering Australian politics. His latest book is The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping's China.

Alexander Ho is a British-Chinese composer based at the Royal College of Music in London. His work has been commissioned or performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Radio 3 and the Royal Opera House.

Ros Holmes is a lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of St Andrews. Her research focuses on ideas about sleep and the art and visual culture of twentieth century and contemporary China.

Malcolm McNeill is Director of Postgraduate Diploma in Asian Art at SOAS, University of London. He is a specialist in Chinese paining and he has worked for museums in the UK and Taiwan.

Producer: Ruth Watts

Bridgerton and Georgian Entertainment Apr 06, 2022

Show notes

Venanzio Rauzzini, Fanny Burney, and Mr Foote are figures who come up in today's Free Thinking discussion as the hit period drama Bridgerton returns to Netflix for a second series and Shahidha Bari explores what kept the Georgians entertained, from a night at the opera to music lessons at home, strolls in the pleasure gardens, hot air balloons, chess playing Turks, and perhaps most of all - if Lady Whistledown is to be believed - gossip, intrigue, and scandal. Just what is it about the Georgians that we find so enduringly entertaining? Shahidha’s guests are: musicologist Brianna Robertson-Kirkland who has written a new book about Venanzio Rauzzini, a scandal ridden Italian castrato revered by Mozart who fled the continent to become one of Georgian England’s most celebrated singing teachers and a musical figurehead in the city of Bath. Writer and New Generation Thinker Sophie Coulombeau who has researched Georgian novelist Frances Burney and bluestocking socialite Mary Hamilton. Biographer, playwright and actor Ian Kelly who has played George III in his own play Mr Foote’s Other Leg. And History Film Club podcast presenter Hannah Greig whose credits as a historical consultant in TV and film include The Duchess, Sanditon, and Bridgerton.

Producer: Ruth Thomson

Image: Golda Rosheuvel as Queen Charlotte in Bridgerton Credit: Liam Daniel/Netflix

You might also be interested in previous conversations on Free Thinking exploring Harlots and 18th-century working women https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rdfz Samuel Johnson's Circle https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000vq3w The Value of Gossip https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fwfb 18th century crime and punishment https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b040hysp

New Generation Thinkers 2022 Mar 31, 2022

Show notes

From Shakespearian writing and Tudor sound to the power of song, ideas about stupidity to sea monsters and the soil - the ten academics working at UK universities who have been chosen to share their research on radio give us insights into a range of subjects. Laurence Scott - one of the first New Generation Thinkers back in 2010 is the host.

Dr Ellie Chan, University of Manchester Dr Louise Creechan, University of Durham Dr Sabina Dosani, University of East Anglia Dr Shirin Hirsch, Manchester Metropolitan University and the People’s History Museum Dr Oskar Jensen, University of East Anglia Dr Jade Munslow Ong, University of Salford Dr Joan Passey, University of Bristol Dr Jim Scown, University of Cardiff and Food, Farming and Countryside Commission Dr Clare Siviter, University of Bristol Dr Emma Whipday, Newcastle University

Producer: Ruth Watts

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio. There's a playlist featuring insights from the 120 academics over the 12 years the scheme has been running https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35

Leopoldo Torre Nilsson's Hand in the Trap Mar 30, 2022

Show notes

Born to a film-making family, Leopoldo Torre Nilsson was the first Argentine film director to be critically acclaimed outside the country. Before he died in 1978 from cancer, aged 54, Torre Nilsson worked alongside his wife Beatriz Guido, a published author, on many of the scripts which he turned into successful films. One of them, Martín Fierro (1968), is about the main character of Argentina's national poem. In today's programme Rana Mitter and his guests discuss another - Hand in the Trap - a psychological coming of age story which won the FIPRESCI prize at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival. Elsa Daniel discovers the reasons for her aunt shutting herself away from the world and arranges a confrontation with the man who jilted her.

Professor Maria Delgado is Director of Research a Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

María Blanco is Associate Professor in Spanish American Literature at the University of Oxford

Xavier Aldana Reyes is Reader in English Literature and Film at Manchester Metropolitan University

Jordana Blejmar is a lecturer in Visual Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Liverpool

Producer: Ruth Watts

Bruce Lee and Enter The Dragon Mar 29, 2022

Show notes

Jeet Kune Do, the martial arts philosophy founded by Bruce Lee has influenced the creation of modern mixed martial arts. He started as a child actor in the Hong Kong film industry and his five feature-length 1970s films helped change the way Asian performers were portrayed. Matthew Sweet and guests look at his career, focusing on the film Enter the Dragon, which is one of the most influential action films made. With Lee's biographer Matthew Polly, film historian Luke White, philosopher William Sin, and New Generation Thinker Xine Yao.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

You can now find a playlist on the Free Thinking website, Film on Radio 3: music, history, classics of world cinema.

From Matthew Sweet on sound tracks to star performers through films which have created an impact to old favourites, including programmes on Marlene Dietrich, Asta Neilsen, Jacques Tati, Cary Grant, Bette Davis, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Satyajit Ray, The Tin Drum, Touki Bouki, Kurosawa, Dziga Vertov, 2001 A Space Odyssey, Penny Woolcock, Mike Leigh, Spike Lee. Plus Radio 3's regular exploration of The Sound of Cinema and classic soundtracks

After Dark Festival: Dark Places Mar 25, 2022

Show notes

Crime writer Ann Cleeves, theologian Mona Siddiqui, deep sea fish expert and podcast host Thomas Linley and poet Jake Morris-Campbell join Matthew Sweet to explore areas beyond the reach of light, both literally and metaphorically, as part of Radio 3's overnight festival at Sage Gateshead.

What darkness makes someone commit a murder? Shetland and Vera are two TV series developed from the crime novels of Ann Cleeves. Her most recent book is The Heron's Cry featuring detective Matthew Venn and his colleague Jen Rafferty, played on TV in an adaptation of The Long Call by Ben Aldridge and Pearl Mackie. Poet and New Generation Thinker Jake Morris-Campbell writes about the mining communities of Northumberland and Durham and the experience of working in darkness. Professor Mona Siddiqui joined the University of Edinburgh’s Divinity school in December 2011 as the first Muslim to hold a Chair in Islamic and Interreligious Studies Dr Thomas Linley hosts The Deep-Sea podcast and researches the behaviour of deep sea fish. He's based at Newcastle University.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Part of Radio 3’s After Dark Festival, a major new live music festival for 2022 in partnership with Sage Gateshead and TUSK Music, featuring some of the biggest names in contemporary, classical and experimental music. For all related content, search “After Dark Festival” in BBC Sounds.

After Dark Festival: Equinox Mar 25, 2022

Show notes

Matthew Sweet and his guests begin coverage of the After Dark Festival - an overnight extravaganza recorded at Sage Gateshead for the equinox weekend. What meanings and interpretations has humanity given to the equinox moment - when the length of day and night is equal and to other key points of the solar year? Cosmologist Carlos Frenk from Durham University, archaeologist Penny Bickle from the University of York, Kevin Lapping from the Pagan Federation and his wife Kirsten discuss the significance of the changing seasons, what we learn from the solar alignment of Neolithic monuments and the vaster galactic and cosmic cycles that are we are also a part of.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

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