Free Thinking

Latest Episodes:

The Frieze Masters Free Thinking Conversation about Art Oct 08, 2019

Show notes

Michael Govan, Director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art outlines the issues facing museum directors talking with Philip Dodd and an audience at the Frieze London Art Fair. They debate the "authority" of museums, the idea of "great" art and he answers critics of his rebuilding plan.

Michael Govan took over running LACMA in 2006 following his work at the DIA Art Foundation in New York City. The Los Angeles museum has partnered with Chinese-Indonesian entrepreneur Budi Tek to create a new foundation, to which Tek will donate his vast Chinese art collection. Plans also include establishing a satellite museum in South Los Angeles and new Peter Zumthor designs for redisplaying the LACMA collections.

You can find more interviews to download with artists, curators and museum directors in the Visual Arts playlist on the Free Thinking programme website https://bbc.in/2DpskGS

You might also be interested in the new podcast and Essay series from Radio 3 The Way I See It which sees works of art from the collection of MOMA in New York chosen and discussed by guests including Steve Martin, Steve Reich, Margaret Cho and Roxane Gay.

Producer Robyn Read.

Rebecca Solnit, Truth, National Poetry Day. Oct 03, 2019

Show notes

Who holds the power? The US activist and author Rebecca Solnit talks to Shahidha Bari about pros and cons of anger, US border patrols, rape cases in courts and shifts in the point of view of Hollywood films. Plus a look at the theme of National Poetry Day 2019 - Truth with the poet David Cain author of Truth Street - A Hillsborough Poem and Fiona Benson - whose collection is called Vertigo & Ghost.

Rebecca Solnit's fourth Essay collection is called Whose Story Is This ? Old Conflicts, New Chapters.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

From The Spains to LatinX Oct 02, 2019

Show notes

Rana Mitter talks to Jason Webster, Ed Morales, Iain Sinclair and Iwona Blazwick, about the shifting concepts of identity in the Ibero-Latin world, from the days before Spain was a single Spain, through the indigenous and the artistic of South America, to the multiplicity of ethnic and cultural identities represented in the US by the neologism "Latinx".

Surveillance, Conspiracy, and Secrets from the Archives Sep 29, 2019

Show notes

"They do not come into our house in jackboots... This is not totalitarianism. This is a new kind of power." Shoshana Zuboff discusses surveillance capitalism, the links between Pokémon Go and BF Skinner, the behavioural psychologist she studied with at Harvard in the 1970s. Plus the mystery of the cuckoo clock in The Third Man. To mark the 70th anniversary of Carol Reed's classic post-War thriller, Matthew Sweet visits the archive of the British Film Institute with Angela Allen, the script supervisor for the film. And we retrace Stieg Larsson's investigation into the unsolved assassination of Olof Palme in 1986 with Jan Stocklassa, author of the book The Man Who Played With Fire.

If you look up Free Thinking and Learning from Sweden you can hear about British and Swedish cultural exchange from Abba to Ikea https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09z68sn and our programme called Dark Sweden gives you journalist Kajsa Norman on crime in modern Sweden.

Shoshana Zuboff's book is called The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.

Films about emotions from anger and joy to the manipulation of adverts made at our Free Thinking Festival can be found on https://www.bbc.com/ideas/playlists/free-thinking-2019. The discussions include a debate about the manipulative power of advertising How They Manipulate Our Emotions https://bbc.in/2WYmOlO and you can see a film about it on bbc.com/ideas/videos/how-ads-manipulate

Produced by Luke Mulhall

Anxiety Sep 26, 2019

Show notes

Comedian Sofie Hagen, Colombian novelist Héctor Abad, political journalist Isabel Hardman, artistic director John O'Shea & psychologist Dr Colette Hirsch, who are behind a new exhibition about anxiety, join Shahidha Bari.

On Edge: Living in an Age of Anxiety is a new exhibition at Science Gallery London until 19th January 2020 which combines art, design, psychology and neuroscience drawing on research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London.

Comedian Sofie Hagen has explored her experience of anxiety in many of her shows notably Shimmer Shatter which described with brutal honesty what she calls her outsider status and why she's been known to hide public toilets so she doesn't have to deal with other people. Her new show The Bumswing runs until June 14th 2020. Tour details and her podcast Made of Human Podcast on https://www.sofiehagen.com

Political journalist Isabel Hardman has written about going through a severe bout of anxiety 2 years ago which forced her to take a lengthy break from her job at the Spectator. As she puts it herself, "my mind was full of words flying angrily around like startled gulls." She argues that Government policy should do much more to tackle the issue of mental health care. Her latest book is called Why We Get the Wrong Politicians.

Born and brought up in Colombia, journalist and novelist Héctor Abad has written a memoir called Oblivion about his late father who was killed by right wing paramilitaries in 1987.

In the Free Thinking archives - Anxiety and the Teenage Brain hears a student, university counsellor and psychologist Stephen Briers from TV's Teen Angels give their take on anxiety https://bbc.in/2D4WPRV

Producer: Paula McGinley

Back to the '80s Sep 20, 2019

Show notes

Matthew Sweet is joined by guests including comedian Alexei Sayle, TV presenter Janet Ellis and film critics Adam Mars Jones and New Generation Thinker Iain Smith to look at remakes and new interpretations of the '80s from Stephen King's 1986 horror novel IT - now in cinemas as It Chapter Two, Rambo - first seen on screen in 1982 and now the inspiration for Last Blood and My Beautiful Launderette, which Hanif Kureishi has adapted for a UK theatre tour this Autumn - to TV series like Stranger Things.

Second Sight The Selected Film Writing of Adam Mars-Jones is out now.

The Film of My Beautiful Launderette has been reissued on DVD by the BFI and a theatrical version by Hanif Kureishi opens at the Curve Leicester Sept 20th and travels to Cheltenham, Leeds, Coventry, Birmingham.

Alexei Sayle's books include Thatcher Stole My Trousers. During the 1980s he performed with the Comic Strip, in the Secret Policeman's Other Ball, The Young Ones and various other TV series and movies including Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Revelation Of The Daleks. Doctor Who and Whoops Apocalypse. His series Alexei Sayle's Imaginary Sandwich Bar can currently be heard on BBC Radio 4.

Janet Ellis presented TV series Blue Peter and Jigsaw between 1979 and 1987. Her second novel How It Was is out now.

Dr Iain Smith teaches film at Kings College, London and is the author of The Hollywood Meme: Transnational Adaptations in World Cinema.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

Landmark: Susan Sontag's Against Interpretation Sep 18, 2019

Show notes

Lauren Elkin, Lisa Appignanesi and biographer Ben Moser debate Susan Sontag's life and ideas with presenter Laurence Scott, focusing in on her 1966 essay collection, which argued for a new way of approaching art and culture.

Ben Moser is the author of Sontag: Her life and work which is out now. Lauren Elkin teaches at the University of Liverpool and is the author of Flâneuse: Women Walk the City. She is researching Sontag's time in Sarajevo in 1993 when she staged Waiting for Godot during the Siege following the declaration of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s independence from Yugoslavia. Lisa Appignanesi is a Visiting Professor in the Department of English at King's College London and Chair of the Royal Society of Literature Council . Her books include Everday Madness, Simone De Beauvoir, Freud's Women.

You can hear more from Lisa including her BBC Radio 3 interview with Susan Sontag if you search for the Sunday Feature Afterwords: Susan Sontag https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00022p1

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Tolerance, censorship and free speech. Sep 17, 2019

Show notes

Moral philosopher Susan Neiman studies lessons from German & US history. Ursula Owen went from Virago to Index on Censorship. Christopher Hampton has translated an Ödön von Horváth novel about the fallout from an accusation of racism. Anne McElvoy brings them together for a conversation about tolerance, censorship and parallels between the past and the present.

Written in exile while in flight from the Nazis, Youth Without God was the last book by Ödön von Horváth (1901-1938), a German-writing Austro-Hungarian-born playwright and novelist . Christopher Hampton's stage version has its UK stage premiere at the Coronet Theatre, Notting Hill London from 19 Sep–19 Oct Susan Neiman's latest book Learning from the Germans: Confronting Race and the Memory of Evil looks at western struggles with the legacies of racism and colonialism. A white girl from the American South, Susan Neiman is also a Jewish woman living in Berlin and the book draws on these experiences. Urusula Owen's parents were German Jews who fled Berlin for London. Her career has seen her work as a founder director of Virago Press and later as Chief Executive of Index on Censorship. Her memoir is called Single Journey Only.

Producer: Harry Parker

Revisit Anxiety, Teenagers, University and Leaving Home Sep 12, 2019

Show notes

Caroline Dower is a psychotherapist and currently Head of the Counselling Service at Durham University. She has a special interest in the experience of psychological distress, and the experience of anxiety in young adults.

Ceyda Uzun is a student at Kings College London, currently in her final year studying English Literature. She is a former Into Film Reporter and Head Editor of The Strand Magazine who has written on topics including mental health, identity and youth culture.

Stephen Briers is a British clinical psychologist who took part in BBC Three's Little Angels and Teen Angels, working with Tanya Byron. He has presented the Channel 4 series, Make Me A Grownup, The 10 Demandments for Channel Five and appeared on GMTV. He has written a parenting book called Superpowers for Parents, Help your Child to Succeed in Life and contributes frequently to the Times Educational Supplement.

BBC Action Line 08000 155 998 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/actionline

Revisit Slavery Stories, William Melvyn Kelley & Esi Edugyan Aug 18, 2019

Show notes

New research on slavery with historians Christienna Fryar, Kevin Waite, and Andrea Livesey. A Different Drummer was the debut novel of Kelley - first published when he was 24. Compared to William Faulkner and James Baldwin, it was forgotten until an article about it led to republication. Kelley died aged 79 in 2017. His story imagines the day the black population of a Southern US town decide to get up and all go. Canadian writer Esi Edugyan has imagined a black slave becoming a scientist in her novel Washington Black. Laurence Scott presents.

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