Free Thinking

Latest Episodes:

Samuel Beckett & the purpose of culture Feb 05, 2020

Show notes

Lisa Dwan tells Philip Dodd what playing Beckett taught her about herself and feminism; playwright Mark Ravenhill, arts editor Jan Dalley & sp!ked author Alexander Adams discuss the proposition that the arts are increasingly expected to be uplifting and inspirational and to confirm identities. Where do the pessimism and shattered identities of Beckett's work fit into this view of culture?

Beckett Triple Bill is at Jermyn Street Theatre, London until 8th February starring Lisa Dwan, Niall Buggy, James Hayes and David Threlfall. Endgame runs at the Old Vic in London until March 28th starring Daniel Radcliffe, Alan Cummings, with Rough for the Theatre II with Jane Horrocks and Karl Johnson.

Culture War: Art, Identity Politics and Cultural Entryism by Alexander Adams is published by Societas

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Mocking power past and present. Feb 05, 2020

Show notes

The German joker Tyll Ulenspiegel. Anne McElvoy with best selling novelist Daniel Kehlmann plus Prof Karen Leeder who has been looking at changing versions of the Dresden bombing.

Daniel Kehlmann's new book is called Tyll, translated by Ross Benjamin. A Netflix TV series has been commissioned. His book Measuring The World about mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss and German geographer Alexander von Humboldt became the world's second best-selling novel in 2006. Professor Karen Leeder teaches at the University of Oxford. She has translated Porzellan: Poem vom Untergang meiner Stadt by Durs Grünbein, coming out as Durs Grünbein, Porcelain: Poem on the Downfall of my City and has been reading a new history of Dresden by Sinclair Mackay called Dresden: The Fire and the Darkness. You can hear her contributing to a discussion on Radio 3's The Verb about German poetry after the Fall of the Berlin Wall https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b7x0

You can find Anne McElvoy talking to Susan Neimann about tolerance, censorship and free speech and lessons from German history https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008hvz to novelists Florian Huber and Sophie Hardach about New angles on post war German history https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006sjx to Neil McGregor about Germany https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b079mcgf

Dr Tom Smith lectures in German at the University of St Andrews. Dr Dina Rezk lectures on Middle East History at the University of Reading. They are both New Generation Thinkers on the scheme run by the BBC in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council to work with academics to share their research on radio. You can find more examples of their work on the Free Thinking programme website.

Producer: Paula McGinley

New Thinking: It all begins here? Understanding the Industrial Revolution Jan 31, 2020

Show notes

From government intervention and workshop ingenuity, to Britain's 'mind blowing historical carbon debt' and ground that's been polluted for 200 years, via the slave economies of Jamaica and the southern US states. John Gallagher discusses new lines of thinking on the Industrial Revolution with historians Emma Griffin of the University of East Anglia, and William Ashworth of the University of Liverpool.

More information about Living With Machines https://livingwithmachines.ac.uk/ Living with Machines is funded by AHRC, part of UKRI. This episode is one of a series of conversations - New Thinking - produced in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UK Research & Innovation. Further podcasts are available on the BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking website under the playlist New Research https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Fungi: An Alien Encounter Jan 30, 2020

Show notes

Are fungi out to get us or here to help? Neither animal nor vegetable, they are both amongst us and within us, shaping or lives in ways it is difficult to imagine. They can also be very tasty. An exhibition of mushrooms at Somerset House in London prompts Matthew Sweet to look at what we can learn from them, the way they grow and depictions of them in the arts. Francesca Gavin is curator of Mushrooms: The Art, Design and Future of the Fungi, which runs at Somerset House in London from Jan 31st to April 26th 2020. It features the work of 40 artists, musicians and designers from Cy Twombly to Beatrix Potter, John Cage to Hannah Collins. Author and mycologist Merlin Sheldrake's forthcoming book Entangled Life is published 7th May 2020 by Penguin Random House. Sam Gandy is an ecologist, writer and researcher who has collaborated with the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College. And Begoña Aguirre-Hudson is Curator and Mycologist at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. She helps look after the Kew Fungarium - the largest collection of fungi in the world. https://www.kew.org/science/our-science/people/begona-aguirre-hudson Producer: Alex Mansfield

How we see pregnancy past and present Jan 30, 2020

Show notes

From Hans Holbein sketches to Beyoncé on Instagram – Anne McElvoy looks at the changing image of pregnant women in a new exhibition at the Foundling Museum. We hear about the cultural history of breast feeding with academic Jessica Cox and marvel at the story of a rabbit breeder.

In 1726, King George I sent a doctor to examine Mary Toft after it was reported that she had given birth to over a dozen rabbits. Karen Harvey retells this story in a new book called The Imposteress Rabbit Breeder: Mary Toft and 18th Century England.

We also look at ideas which were the focus of attention in Davos at this year’s World Economic Forum and the tone of debate – with the WEF’s Managing Director Adrian Monck, and The Guardian’s Economics Editor, Larry Elliot.

'Portraying Pregnancy: From Holbein to Social Media' curated by Karen Hearn runs at the Foundling Museum in London until April 26th.

You can hear an Essay from New Generation Thinker Corin Throsby on the Romantic period attitudes towards breast feeding here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08wn2rm

We have more Free Thinking programmes looking at ideas around pregnancy, including this one which examines surrogacy and baby farming in the Philippines https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000573q

Remembering Auschwitz Jan 28, 2020

Show notes

Anne Michaels, author of Fugitive Pieces, talks to Rana Mitter about her 1996 novel. Jewish Chronicle Literary Editor and author Gerald Jacobs, and historian and documentary maker Laurence Rees, join Rana for a discussion on the way fiction and history on TV and in books have represented the Holocaust. Dr Roland Clark from the University of Liverpool shares his research in the fascist past of Romania, and Rana speaks to Professor Anna Prazmowska of the London School of Economics about recent Polish history. Stephen Smith discusses the use of videos to educate children in the work he does as Director of the USC Shoah Foundation.

What is good listening? Jan 24, 2020

Show notes

Matthew Sweet with NYT journalist Kate Murphy, Anne Karpf & David Toop in a conversation about paying attention and how to hear each other properly. Kate's new book You're Not Listening draws on her interviews with a range of people including priests, focus group co-ordinators and CIA interrogators. Former radio critic Anne Karpf is the author of the Human Voice and professor of Life Writing and Culture at London Metropolitan University. David Toop is a musician, composer and professor of Audio Culture and Improvisation at London College of Communication. His album Entities Inertias Faint Beings includes the track Dry Keys Echo in the Dark and Humid Early Hours which features in the programme.

Poetry and Science: A 19th century metre on the (uni)verse Jan 22, 2020

Show notes

Astrophysicist Dame Jocelyn Bell-Burnell, poets Sam Illingworth and Sunayana Bhargava, and C19 expert and New Generation Thinker Greg Tate from the University of St Andrews join Anne McElvoy to discuss the parallels between poetry and Victorian laboratory work.

Dame Jocelyn Bell-Burnell, is perhaps most famous for first discovering Pulsars - strange spinning massively dense stars that emit powerful regular pulses of radiation. she has been President of the Royal Astronomical Society and the Institute of Physics, and more recently was recipient of the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. Alongside, she collects poetry related to Astronomy.

Greg Tate's next book looks at the physical and metaphysical part of rhythm in verse by C19 physical scientists. Sam Illingworth's book "Sonnet to Science" looks at several scientists who have resorted to poetry in their work. Sunayana Bhargava works at University of Sussex studying distant galactic clusters, and is also a practising poet. Previously she was Barbican young Poet.

You can hear Greg discussing the 19th-century scientist and mountaineer John Tyndall in a Free Thinking programme which also looks at mountains through the eyes of artist Tacita Dean https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b3fkt3 and a short feature about poetry and science in the 19th century https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04n2zcp

Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A Museum and Sir Paul Nurse, Director of the Francis Crick Institute, debate the divide and the links between arts and science in a Free Thinking debate recording at Queen Mary University London https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001f5f

Producer: Alex Mansfield.

Goddesses of academia Jan 21, 2020

Show notes

Nikita Gill on goddesses, Sandeep Parmar on Hope Mirlees, Francesca Wade looks at the careers of classicist Jane Harrison and LSE's Eileen Power and Victorian Leonard looks at attempts to write more women back into the story of classics. Shahidha Bari presents.

Francesa Wade has written a new book called Square Haunting which traces the experiences of five women who lived in Bloomsbury's Mecklenburgh Square: Virginia Woolf, Dorothy L Sayers, HD, Eileen Power and Jane Harrison- tracing ideas about women living independently, how academic institutions them and the way Virginia Woolf's ideas about A Room of One's Own resonate in the lives of these 5 women.

Nikita Gill’s new poetry collection, Great Goddesses: Life lessons from myths and monsters, retells and re-imagines the untold stories of women characters in Greek mythology.

Victoria Leonard is a founding member of the Women’s Classical Committee https://wcc-uk.blogs.sas.ac.uk/

You can listen back to New Generation Thinker and poet Sandeep Parmar’s Sunday Feature on Hope Mirrlees’ Paris here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0831fpk and she also contributes to a Radio 3 series about the artistic figure Arthur Cravan here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dj0k

Colm Toibin, Bettany Hughes and Paul Cartledge discuss Women's Voices in the Classical World in a Free Thinking discussion from the Hay Festival https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08rsrlt

Classicist Natalie Haynes discusses Women Finding a Voice with podcaster Deborah Frances White in this discussion https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000bd6

New Generation Thinker Eleanor Lybeck discusses attitudes towards Victorian women in education in this Essay https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09v64pk

Producer: Karl Bos

New Thinking: About Face Jan 17, 2020

Show notes

Would you change your nose if you could? What about an entire face transplant? Des Fitzgerald speaks to two researchers investigating the past and future of facial difference and medical intervention.

Emily Cock, from the University of Cardiff looks at our relationship with our noses throughout history – from duels and sexual diseases to racial prejudice.

Fay Bound Alberti, from the University of York, talks about a project called AboutFace which she is running to look at the emotional impact of this complex new surgery and to investigate the moral questions it raises, looking at the impact of facial difference in the age of the selfie, and the emergence of facial transplantation as a response to severe trauma. There have been fewer than 50 face transplants globally since the first was performed in 2005 and none in the UK to date. You can find more at https://aboutfaceyork.com/ @AboutFaceYork Fay is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow from the Department of History at the University of York.

Emily Cock is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, undertaking a three-year project Fragile Faces: Disfigurement in Britain and its Colonies (1600–1850). Her book is called Rhinoplasty and the nose in early modern British medicine and culture She and host Des Fitzgerald from Cardiff University are New Generation Thinkers on the scheme run by the BBC with the AHRC to work with academics to put research onto radio.

Their conversation was recorded with an audience at the New home for School of Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University.

This episode is one of a series of conversations - New Thinking - produced in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UK Research & Innovation. Further podcasts are available on the BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking website under the playlist New Research https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90

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