Free Thinking

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Rationality & Tradition Oct 20, 2021

Show notes

Do we value the right ideas? Two concepts come in for close scrutiny in this edition of Free Thinking: Rationality and Tradition. So, what are they, how has our understanding of them changed over time and why do we seem to place such little emphasis on each in our contemporary world? Presenter Anne McElvoy will listening to the arguments as Steven Pinker makes the case for rationality and Tim Stanley for tradition.

Steven Pinker is Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and author or Rationality: What it is, why it seems scarce, why it matters Tim Stanley is a writer, broadcaster and journalist, his latest book is Whatever Happened to Tradition? History, Belonging and the Future of the West

Producer: Ruth Watts

New Thinking: Black British Theatre. An Afro-Cuban star Oct 19, 2021

Show notes

Who complained about Olivier's Othello? Stephen Bourne has been mining the archives to find out who raised questions about Laurence Olivier's blacked up performance in 1964. It's one of the stories he tells in his new book, which also includes memories of meeting performers including Carmen Munroe, Corinne Skinner-Carter and Elisabeth Welch. Nadine Deller hosts a podcast linked to the National Theatre's Black plays archive and she's particularly interested in women playwrights whose work deserves to be better known including Una Marson. They talk to performer and historian of women in theatre Naomi Paxton. Plus New Generation Thinker Adjoa Osei tells the story of Afro Cuban performer Rita Montaner who straddled the worlds of opera and cabaret between the 1920s and 1950s.

Deep Are the Roots: Trailblazers Who Changed Black British Theatre is out now from Stephen Bourne. His other books include Black Poppies and Playing Gay in the Golden Age of British TV. The National Theatre Black Plays archive is at https://www.blackplaysarchive.org.uk/ and Nadine's podcast is called That Black Theatre Podcast. You can hear Dawn Walton who directed the Hampstead Theatre production of Alfred Fagon's drama The Death of a Black Man in this Free Thinking conversation about black performance From Blackface to Beyoncé https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000tnlt

Naomi Paxton is the author of Stage Rights! The Actresses' Franchise League, activism and politics: 1908-1958 and has written an introduction to the new book 50 Women in Theatre. Naomi and Adjoa are New Generation Thinkers on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio.

A playlist of discussions, features and essays about Black history, music, writing and performance is available on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbp

This episode is part of the New Thinking series of conversations focusing on new research put together in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI.

Producer: Tim Bano

Sugar Oct 14, 2021

Show notes

Could the modern world be built on the back of our craving for an addictive substance? Matthew Sweet marshals historians Mimi Goodall and Dexnell Peters, and artist and theorist Ayesha Hameed, to see how far we can push the idea that our desire for sugar led to the development of new forms of agriculture, as well as slavery, empire and capitalism, indeed the initiation of a new era in the earth's geological history and climate. And they consider how we can think through such massive, world-historical shifts.

Ayesha Hameed is Co-Programme Leader for the PhD in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her video Black Atlantis: The Plantationocene is here: https://vimeo.com/415428776 Dexnell Peters is Teaching Fellow in History at the University of Warwick and Supernumerary Fellow at Exeter College, Oxford Mimi Goodall has just finished a DPhil in History at Oxford

Producer: Luke Mulhall

You might be interested in episodes exploring Black history available on the Arts & Ideas podcast or a playlist on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbp

Colour Oct 13, 2021

Show notes

A novel about Matisse, hand glazed ceramic panels, red ochre to Yves Klein blue, the story of female pioneers of colour theory: Laurence Scott is joined by the artist Lubna Chowdhary, author Michèle Roberts and art historians James Fox and Kelly Grovier to celebrate colour and find out more about the history of different colours and the way we look at them.

Lubna Chowdhary's exhibition at Peer in London until November will be expanded when it goes on show in Middlesborough at MIMA in 2022 https://lubnachowdhary.co.uk/ James Fox's book is called The World According to Colour: A Cultural History Michèle Roberts' novel is called Cut, Out. You can hear Michèle talking about failure and female friendship in a previous Free Thinking discussion https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jvwp Kelly Grovier is writing about female pioneers of colour theory for bbc.com You can find more of his work at https://www.kellygrovier.com/

In the Free Thinking visual arts playlist we talk to painter Sean Scully, a fashion expert and a neuro scientist about colour perception https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b046cs01 and Kelly thinks about how we look at art in this episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04xrzd5 And if you want to experience colour on the walls of galleries at the moment – the Royal Academy Summer show is ablaze with it, the Hayward Gallery has a display of painters, Frieze London art fair is on this week, Mit Jai Inn has created a Dreamworld at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, Charleston farmhouse in Sussex – the colourfully decorated home of the Bloomsbury gang - pairs the work of Duncan Grant with contemporary art and the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge has a show focusing on gold artefacts found in Kazakhstan.

Producer: Jessica Treen

Frieze: Museums in the 21st century Oct 12, 2021

Show notes

The National Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut were among the many arts institutions forced to close during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. How has this experience changed the running of these galleries and museums? Anne McElvoy talks to:

Gabriele Finaldi - Director of the National Gallery in London, which filmed its Artemisia Gentileschi exhibition and then sold online passes to view the show. Courtney J. Martin - Paul Mellon Director, Yale Center for British Art. Daniel Weiss - President and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

You can find directors of museums and galleries in Singapore, Beijing, Paris, St Petersburg, Washington, Los Angeles, London and Dresden in previous Frieze/Free Thinking discussions. There's a playlist on the Free Thinking website called Visual Arts which also includes conversations about colour in art, slow looking, women's art, Black British art, the role of critics.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Choice Oct 07, 2021

Show notes

The theme of this year's National Poetry Day is choice. Shahidha Bari is joined by Marvin Thompson, winner of this year's Poetry Society National Poetry Competition, and poet and New Generation Thinker Jake Morris-Campbell to discuss the choices poets make in their work, and the choices audiences make in their reception of poetry too. But is choice an illusion? What does it mean to choose anyway? Philosopher Clare Carlisle discusses the analysis of choice offered by the 17th century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, and the economist Carol Propper discusses the concept of choice in economics.

Marvin Thompson's prize winning poem is The Fruit of the Spirit Is Love (Galatians 5:22) https://poetrysociety.org.uk/poems/the-fruit-of-the-spirit-is-love-galatians-522 His poem for National Poetry Day is May 8th, 2020 https://nationalpoetryday.co.uk/poem/may-8th-2020/

Clare Carlisle's book Spinoza's Religion is published by Princeton University Press on the 12th October

Jake Morris-Campbell will be at the Durham Book Festival on the 17th October reading from his forthcoming collection Corrigenda for Costafine Town, tickets are available here https://durhambookfestival.com/programme/event/north-east-poetry-showcase-john-challis-jo-clement-and-jake-morris-campbell/

Producer: Luke Mulhall

The British Academy Book Prize 2021 Oct 06, 2021

Show notes

Racial injustice in USA; ghost towns in post-industrial Scotland; how maritime history looks from the viewpoint of Aboriginal Australians and Parsis, Mauritians and Malays; the roots of violence that has plagued postcolonial society. These are topics covered in the books shortlisted for the British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding. Rana Mitter talks to the four authors who are:

Cal Flynn for Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape Eddie S. Glaude Jr. for Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Today Mahmood Mamdani for Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities Sujit Sivasundaram for Waves Across the South: A New History of Revolution and Empire

Producer: Ruth Watts

Previously known as the Al Rodhan prize - you can find interviews with previous winners and shortlisted authors on the Free Thinking website. The winner in 2020 was Hazel V. Carby for Imperial Intimacies: A Tale of Two Islands. Other previous winners include Toby Green, Kapka Kassabova, Neil MacGregor and Karen Armstrong.

Breakfast Oct 05, 2021

Show notes

The Full English or Continental? What does our breakfast choice signify and how has it been represented in culture? 60 years on from the opening of the film Breakfast at Tiffany's - taken from Truman Capote's novella - Matthew Sweet and his guests consider a range of examples from monks and nuns breaking the fast, through films and TV series depicting the upper class English choices to the clubs promoted by the Black Panthers and poverty campaigner Marcus Rashford. Matthew is joined by medieval expert and New Generation Thinker Hetta Howes, by the French cultural critic Muriel Zagha and food historian Annie Gray. Hetta Howes has published a book called Transformative Waters in Late Medieval Literature. Annie Gray is a food historian who appears regularly on BBC Radio 4's The Kitchen Cabinet and is the author of books including Victory in the Kitchen: The Life of Churchill's Cook http://www.anniegray.co.uk/ You can find the book Matthew recommends Round About a Pound a Week by Maud Pember Reeves here https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58691 You can find out more about the Black Panther breakfast clubs at http://www.itsabouttimebpp.com/index_PhotoGallery.html

Muriel talks about films including Groundhog Day and Phantom Thread.

In the Free Thinking archives you can find programmes about food hearing from: philosopher Barry Smith, restaurant critic-cum-trainee chef Lisa Markwell, book critic Alex Clark and food historian Elsa Richardson https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08wn51y Food, the Environment and Richard Flanagan : Cassandra Coburn, Anthony Warner and Alasdair Cochrane discuss food security, hunger and vegan politics https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rn6v The Working Lunch: James C Scott on the birth of cities and how the Victorians changed lunch, with New Generation Thinkers Elsa Richardson and Chris Kissane https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b7my5n Funghi: An Alien Encounter https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dr46

Producer: Robyn Read

Order & Chaos Sep 30, 2021

Show notes

Archiving or hoarding - the mother in Ruth Ozeki's new novel The Book of Form and Emptiness is overwhelmed by the newspaper cuttings she is supposed to categorise for her job. In his new history of indexes, Dennis Duncan tells us about why people were criticised as "index rakers" in the Restoration, and the links between Cicero, the idea of alphabetical ordering and a former Bishop of Lincoln. Saxophone player Alam Nathoo is helping Ruth Ozeki launch her novel at the Southbank Centre in London and he joins us to explore the ideas of structure and improvising in jazz music.

Ruth Ozeki launches her new novel The Book of Form and Emptiness at the Southbank Centre London alongside a performance by Alam Nathoo on October 7th. BBC Radio 3 is broadcasting a series of concerts from Southbank Centre London - all available to listen to on BBC Sounds. Dennis Duncan's book is called Index, A History of the You can hear him discussing title pages and marginalia in a Free Thinking episode called Book Parts and Difficulty https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006tnf and translation in an episode called Africa, Babel, China https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002h89

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Thomas Mann Sep 29, 2021

Show notes

Would he condemn Hitler? That's the question novelist Thomas Mann was continually asked, after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929 following novels such as Buddenbrooks and The Magic Mountain. Colm Toibin's new novel The Magician details the differences of opinion between Mann and his brother, and the way his children were part of a bold and experimental younger generation of writers. Anne McElvoy brings Colm Toibin, Sean Williams and Dr Erica Wickerson together for a discussion about Mann's life and writing and the pressure put upon writers to make a public stand on topical issues.

Colm Toibin is the author of ten novels including Brooklyn, Nora Webster and The Testament of Mary. His latest book, The Magician, is out now.

Sean Williams is a BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker and Senior Lecturer in German and European Cultural History in the School of Languages and Cultures at the University of Sheffield.

Erica Wickerson, is the author of The Architecture of Narrative Time: Thomas Mann and the Problems of Modern Narrative, she's a British Academy Rising Star and recent holder of a research fellowship at St John’s College, Cambridge.

Producer: Ruth Watts

Image: Colm Toibin Credit: Reynaldo Rivera

You can find Colm Toibin in a Free Thinking discussion about women's voices in the Classical world recorded at Hay Festival https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08rsrlt and talking about his novels at the 2012 Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p2shp

You can find Free Thinking discussions about German culture including Neil McGregor and crime writer Volker Kutscherhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b079mcgf New Angles on Post-War Germany and Austria with Sophie Hardach and Florian Huber https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006sjx Mocking Power past and present with Daniel Kelhmann, Karen Leeder https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dzww Anne McElvoy talks to Susan Neimann, Christopher Hampton and Ursula Owen about tolerance, censorship and free speech and lessons from German history https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008hvz

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