Free Thinking

Latest Episodes:

Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex Nov 16, 2021

Show notes

Kick-starting second-wave feminism with her 1949 book The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir was a key member of the Parisian circle of Existentialists alongside Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Her philosophical influences include Descartes and Bergson, phenomenology via Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, the assessment of society put forward by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and ideas about idealism from Immanuel Kant and GWF Hegel. Shahidha Bari and her guests consider her role in contemporary philosophy and Lauren Elkin describes translating a newly discovered novel The Inseparables.

Kathryn Belle is Associate Professor of Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University

Skye Cleary is Lecturer, Barnard College

Lauren Elkin is a Writer and translator of Simone de Beauvoir's The Inseparables, which follows two friends growing up and falling apart.

Kate Kirkpatrick is Fellow in Philosophy and Christian Ethics, Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford

Recorded in partnership with LSE Forum for Philosophy. You can find a playlist of Free Thinking discussions about philosophy on the programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07x0twx You can find a Radio 3 Sunday Feature hearing from some of our guests and archive of Simone de Beauvoir called Afterwords: Simone de Beauvoir https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011m4h

Producer: Luke Mulhall

New Thinking: Being Human 2021 Nov 11, 2021

Show notes

Deciphering Dickens's shorthand, how the National Health Service uses graphic art to convey messages, creating a comic strip from Greek myths: these are some of the events taking place at the annual Being Human Festival in which universities around the UK introduce their research in a series of public talks, walks, workshops and performances. Laurence Scott meets some of those taking part and discusses different ways of recording and presenting information from comics to coded notebooks, to a scheme that projected books onto the ceilings of hospitals, which made it possible for thousands of people with disabilities to read after the Second World War.

Dr Claire Wood is at the University of Leicester. Her event is called Cracking the Dickens Code

Professor Anna Feigenbaum is at the University of Bournemouth. Her event is called Covid Comics and Me. Find out more at https://www.covidcomics.org/

Dr Amanda Potter is at the Open University. Her event is called Greek Mythology Comic Writing Workshop

Professor Matthew Rubery is at Queen Mary University of London. His event is called Projected Books for Veterans of the Second World War

The Being Human Festival runs from November 11th to 20th https://beinghumanfestival.org/

Producer: Phoebe McFarlane.

This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find other programmes hearing insights from academics in our New Research playlist on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90

The Imperial War Museum Remembrance Discussion 2021 Nov 09, 2021

Show notes

Cold, civil, world, uprising, conflict, war on terror: Anne McElvoy and her guests Elif Shafak, Christina Lamb, Lincoln Jopp and Hilary Roberts explore the impact of the words we use to describe conflict. The Imperial War Museum has just revamped its "Second World War" galleries with changed dates and a wider focus and Cold War history is being rewritten in the light of current politics. So this year's Remembrance discussion asks how does language affect attitudes to war?

Elif Shafak's latest novel The Island of Missing Trees explores the division of Cyprus. Journalist Christina Lamb's books include Our Bodies, Their Battlefield: What War Does to Women and Farewell Kabul: From Afghanistan to a More Dangerous World and with Nujeen Mustafa she published The Girl from Aleppo: Nujeen's Escape from War to Freedom and with Malala Yousafzai she published I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban. Hilary Roberts is the IWM's Senior Curator and Historian of Cold War and Late 20th Century Conflict. Total War: A People’s History of the Second World War and The Holocaust by IWM curators Kate Clements, Paul Cornish and Vikki Hawkins an illustrated history of the Second World War, told with the help of personal stories from across the globe has been published to mark the re-opening of the IWM galleries. Lieutenant-Colonel Lincoln Jopp MC (retired) discussed war and modern memory on Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07jlbvp and at the Free Thinking Festival he debated decision making and quick reactions with Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson and Damon Hill https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08j9zsh

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

You can find a playlist on the Free Thinking website exploring war hearing from historians, writers, soldiers, diplomats, artists and including the previous Remembrance Discussions. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06kgbyb

God's Body Nov 05, 2021

Show notes

Modern theology often treats God as an abstract principle: a mover that doesn't move. But in the Bible, Abraham walks alongside him, Jacob (arguably) spends a night wrestling with him, Moses talks with him face to face, Ezekiel sees him sitting on a throne, and Amos sees him standing in his temple. Jesus is declared the son of God, and declares in turn that he has sat alongside God at his right hand. Biblical scholar Francesca Stavrakopoulou joins Matthew Sweet to discuss the embodied divine and what it means for our understanding of God, along with with Hetta Howes, who studies Medieval mystical Christianity, and psychotherapist and former priest Mark Vernon.

On our website you can find a playlist called Free Thinking explores religious belief which includes conversations about Jewish history, Buddhism, interviews with Karen Armstrong and Richard Dawkins, a discussion of St John Henry Newman and about Islam and Mecca. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03mwxlp

You might also be interested in hearing the music picked out by Francesca Stavrakopoulou on Radio 3's Private Passions https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tnv3

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Caesar, Hogarth and images of power Nov 03, 2021

Show notes

Caesars with the wrong beard, faint laurels in the background of a scene from Hogarth's A Rake's Progress and the experiences of the guardian of empty tombs, part of a ruined Neolithic necropolis in the Sharjah desert in the United Arab Emirates: Rana Mitter and his guests discuss the ghosts of history and depictions of power in art. Classicist Mary Beard has traced the collecting of images of Caesar over centuries in her latest book. Ali Cherri's artwork, born out of his experiences growing up in Lebanon, includes films like the Digger and interventions in galleries designed to make us notice what is on display and what is being hidden or erased. Alice Insley is Curator of Historic British Art at Tate Britain and she's been exploring the continental connections between Hogarth and his fellow artists.

Hogarth and Europe runs at Tate Britain from November 3rd to 20th March 2022. Ali Cherri is the National Gallery’s new Artist in Residence for 2021. He is also making work inspired by the archives held by Coventry's Herbert Art Gallery and Museum. You can find examples of his work https://www.alicherri.com/ Mary Beard's book is called Twelve Caesars: Images of Power form the Ancient World to the Modern

Our playlist of conversations about visual arts includes the 2021 Frieze Discussion with three directors of museums and galleries, an exploration of colour, and Aboriginal artworks on show at the Box Plymouth https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p026wnjl

Producer: Robyn Read

Oceans, art and pacific poetry Nov 02, 2021

Show notes

A concrete diving suited figure apparently swimming into the gallery floor is one of the sculptures created by Tania Kovats for her current exhibition. Margo Neale Ngawagurrawa has curated the Songlines exhibition of Aborginal art and the importance of their landscape. Huhana Smith works on the Te Waituhi a Nuku project which looks at Māori Coastal Ecosystems and Economies and climate change. Michael Falk researches the poetry of Papua New Guinea, including Reluctant Flame by John Kaisapwalova, which was written 50 years ago. Laurence Scott hosts the conversation about our relationship with water, the land and a sense of identity.

Tania Kovats: Oceanic is on show at Parafin London until Sat 20 Nov 2021. She is Profess of Drawing at Bath Spa University and her drawings and sculptures are inspired by reading Rachel Carson’s 1953 book The Sea Around Us https://www.drawingopen.com/tania-kovats has links to projects including Te Waituhi ā Nuku: Drawing Ecologies: Planning for Climate Change Impacts on Māori Coastal Ecosystems and Economies which Huhana Smith works on. Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters runs at the Box Plymouth until 27 February 2022 and includes the work of over 100 artists covering a landscape of 500,000 sq km. This link has more information about the poetry discussed by Michael Falk https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-kasaipwalova

You can find a playlist on the Free Thinking programme website called Green Thinking which gathers together podcasts made for COP26 highlighting new research into ways of combatting climate change and a series of discussions with writers, artists and musicians interested in exploring nature in their work. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2

Producer: Sofie Vilcins.

Time Oct 29, 2021

Show notes

As the clocks go back, theoretical physicist Fay Dowker, philosopher Nikk Effingham and science fiction writer Una McCormack join Matthew Sweet get to grips with the weirdness of time travel.

Fay Dowker is Professor of Theoretical Physics at Imperial College London. Una McCormack's latest book is The Autobiography of Mr Spock. Nikk Effingham is Reader of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham and author of Time Travel: Possibility and Improbability

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Radio 3 is broadcasting a series of programmes Capturing Twilight including a Free Thinking episode and an edition of Words and Music. On Sunday October 31st you can hear Music for the Hours - a day punctuated by moments of musical reflection. This is inspired by the daily rituals of the Liturgy of the Hours, also known as the Divine Office, which formed the basis of the earliest Christian services particularly in the monastic tradition. The music centres on medieval chant and the Renaissance vocal polyphony that arose from this tradition, with complementary choral works from contemporary composers, recorded specially for Radio 3 by the Tallis Scholars, directed by Peter Phillips. You can find details of the broadcasts on the BBC Radio 3 website.

Twilight Oct 26, 2021

Show notes

Photographing at nightfall, capturing the sense of light in classical music, the charged body of a black Jaguar in the Amazon: Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough's guests poet Pascale Petit, photographer Jasper Goodall, literary expert Alexandra Harris and composer Sally Beamish discuss the way twilight has been reflected in their own work and that of writers and painters of the past.

Pascale Petit's collection Fauverie draws on her experiences of watching wildlife at both ends of the day. Her most recent collection is Tiger Girl. Jaspar Goodall has taken a series of images of trees called Twilight's Path which you can find out about on https://www.jaspergoodall.com/ Alexandra Harris's books include Weatherland, Romantic Moderns, Time and Place. She is Professor of English Literature at the University of Birmingham and a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and AHRC to put academic research on the radio - leading to a feature for BBC Radio 3 on the art of Eric Ravilious, and a series of walking tours in the footsteps of Virginia Woolf https://www.alexandraharris.co.uk/tv-radio Sally Beamish has written various compositions reflecting on light at the beginning and end of the day including Epilogue reflecting on a Quaker prayer meeting, Bridging the Day and Wild Swans inspired by the Yeats poem. https://www.sallybeamish.com/

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

BBC Radio 3 is broadcasting a series of programmes reflecting on twilight including a recent episode of the weekly curation of prose and poetry set alongside music Words and Music which will be available on BBC Sounds for 28 days.

Celebrating Buchi Emecheta Oct 23, 2021

Show notes

Child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education are amongst the topics explored in over 20 books by the author Buchi Emecheta. Born in 1944 in an Ibusa village, she lost her father aged eight, travelled to London and made a career as a writer whilst bringing up five children on her own, working by day and studying at night for a degree. Shahidha Bari is joined in the studio by her son Sylvester Onwordi, New Generation Thinker Louisa Egbunike, publisher Margaret Busby and Kadija George (otherwise known as Kadija Sesay) founder of SABLE LitMag. We also hear from other writers and readers, including Diane Abbott MP and poet Grace Nichols, who took part in an event held at the Centre of African Studies at SOAS, University of London, a year after her death.

Buchi Emecheta's career took off when she turned her columns for the New Statesman about black British life into a novel In The Ditch which was published in 1972. It depicted a single black mother struggling to cope in England against a background of squalor. Two years later Allison and Busby published her book Second-Class Citizen, which focused on issues of race, poverty and gender. Now her books are being re-published so for Black History Month this October 2021 here's another chance to hear this discussion recorded in 2018.

Producer: Robyn Read

You can find a playlist Exploring Black History on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbp

Main Image: Buchi Emecheta (Photograph by Valerie Wilmer, courtesy of Sylvester Onwordi (c)).

The Language of Flowers Oct 21, 2021

Show notes

Gardening and George Orwell might not be the first pairing that comes to mind but he uses gardening metaphors in his writing and made many notes about the growth of vegetables and flowers he had planted. Rebecca Solnit discusses how this focus helps us understand his work and that of other writers interested in flowers. Shahidha Bari is also joined by Amy de la Haye, curator and author of 'Ravishing: The Rose in Fashion', Randy Malamud, whose study of cut flowers in culture is called 'Strange Bright Blooms', and Simon Morley, author of 'By Any Other Name: A Cultural History Of The Rose'.

Orwell's Roses by Rebecca Solnit is out now. You can hear her discussing her ideas about truth in a previous episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008wc1

Producer: Luke Mulhall

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