Free Thinking

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Revisit Napoleon in Fact and Fiction Aug 15, 2019

Show notes

From Napoleon impersonators, caricature and ballads, to a play which asks what if he didn't die in exile - presenter Anne McElvoy is joined by actor and director Kathryn Hunter, biographer Michael Broers, historians Oskar Cox Jensen and Laura O'Brien and journalist Nabila Ramdani who looks at how Napoleon is viewed in 21st century France

Michael Broers has published the second instalment of his biography which is called Napoleon The Spirit of The Age. Oskar Cox Jensen has published Napoleon and British Song. Laura O'Brien has published The Republican Line: Caricature and French Republican Identity

Revisit Mike Leigh in Conversation about Peterloo, politics and his Salford upbringing. Aug 14, 2019

Show notes

Recorded as his film Peterloo opened in cinemas and repeated now to mark this week's 200th anniversary of the Manchester massacre

Revisit Spike Lee in Conversation on Free Thinking Aug 05, 2019

Show notes

Since 1983, Spike Lee's production company has produced over 35 films. His 1989 film Do The Right Thing was nominated for Best Original Screenplay in the Academy Awards. Best Picture that year went to Driving Miss Daisy. 30 years on Do the Right Thing has been re-released in cinemas in the UK and BlacKkKlansman is now out on DVD. It won Best Adapted Screenplay in the 2019 Academy Awards where Best Picture went to Green Book.

Book Parts and Difficulty Jul 19, 2019

Show notes

Matthew Sweet looks at book frontispieces, dust jackets, footnotes, indexes and marginalia with Dennis Duncan, and explores a research project investigating difficulty in culture, with Professor Sarah Knight and Dr Hannah Crawforth.

Plus, New Generation Thinker Jeffrey Howard discusses hate speech.

Jeffrey Howard lectures in political theory at University College London and is a 2019 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put academic research on the radio.

On Difficulty: https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/english/research/research-projects/on-difficulty-in-early-modern-literature

Producer: Luke Mulhall

New angles on post-war Germany and Austria Jul 17, 2019

Show notes

Anne McElvoy and new ways of understanding post-war Germany and Austria through history, film and literature with Florian Huber, Sophie Hardach, Adam Scovell and Tom Smith.

Florian Huber Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself explores a little understood wave of suicides across Germany towards the end of the Third Reich Sophie Hardach's latest novel called Confession with Blue Horses follows a family living in East Berlin who try to escape to the West. Adam Scovell is a film critic and author whose new novella is called Mothlight and blogs at Celluloid Wicker Man Tom Smith teaches German at the University of St Andrews and is a 2019 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select academics who can turn their research into radio. You can hear an Essay about the Stasi persecution of queer soldiers recorded at the York Festival of Idea here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07dgydc

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

New Thinking: Neolithic Revelations Jul 17, 2019

Show notes

Hetta Howes learns that the absence of dental floss in the Neolithic era has left archaeologists with invaluable information about how our ancestors lived and where they travelled to. While piles of pig bones near Stonehenge reveal a communal society that used feasting as a form of negotiation. Penny Bickle and Jim Leary, who both lecture in the University of York's Department of Archaeology, uncover their findings from research projects in the Vale of Pewsey, Alsace and Stonehenge. Penny's current project is 'Counter Culture: investigating Neolithic social diversity', while Jim has been working on 'Neolithic Pilgrimage? Rivers, mobility and monumentality in the land between Avebury and Stonehenge'. 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.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Camille Paglia Jul 16, 2019

Show notes

Writer, feminist and author of such books as Sexual Personae and Provocations, Camille Paglia joins Philip Dodd to talk about feminism and free speech in the 21st century, and how her Italian heritage has contributed to her character.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

An insider's view of war Jul 11, 2019

Show notes

Ex marine and journalist Elliot Ackerman talks with Iraq war political advisor Emma Sky. A novel by Shiromi Pinto tracing the life of Sri Lankan architect Minnette de Silva. New Generation Thinker Christina Faraday researches the history of pop-up anatomy books. Rana Mitter presents.

Elliot Ackerman has written Places and Names. Emma Sky has written In a Time of Monsters. Shiromi Pinto has written Plastic Emotions

You can hear a Free Thinking discussion about Why We Fight with Former army officer Dr Mike Martin and Priya Satia https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b1pyn4 How Terrorism Works https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08v8y00 Diplomacy https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b094sxfh Catch 22 https://bbc.in/2XFtIvU

Producer: Fiona McLean

Caine Prize. Ivo van Hove. Female Desire. Jul 10, 2019

Show notes

The Belgian theatre director Ivo van Hove on staging Ayn Rand's ideas in The Fountainhead. 'The theme of my novel', said Ayn Rand, 'is the struggle between individualism and collectivism, not in the political arena but in the human soul. Plus Shahidha Bari meets Lesley Nneka Arimah, the winner of the 2019 Caine Prize for African Writing and looks at sex lives on screen and in print. How much do women share and how quickly do ideas about shame and acceptance come into play? Zoe Strimpel researches dating and sexual relationships and Lisa Taddeo has spent 8 years finding and tracking Three Women prepared to speak frankly about their desires.

The Fountainhead runs at MIF July 10th - 13th performed by Ivo van Hove's Internationaal Theater Amsterdam ensemble.

You can read all the stories shortliste for the Caine Prize here http://caineprize.com/ and hear interviews with past winners on Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b89ssp https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p040rr3n

Louise Egbunike looks at Afrofuturism in this Radio 3 Sunday Feature https://bbc.in/2LkSmR9

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo is out now.

Irenosen Okojie's film on Black Joy is here https://bbc.in/2Nx5IeY

Free Thinking on Consent https://bbc.in/2XCH5St

Free Thinking on Women, relationships and the law https://bbc.in/2C3svH1

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Landmark: Iris Murdoch's The Sovereignty of Good Jul 10, 2019

Show notes

Matthew Sweet and guests look at the thought and writing of Iris Murdoch 100 years on from her birth, re-reading her work of moral philosophy she published in 1970, drawing on lectures she had given at universities in England and America. With Lucy Bolton, who has written about Iris Murdoch, philosophy and cinema, novelist and critic Bidisha, and friend of Iris Murdoch Peter J Conradi, who is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Kingston.

The Iris Murdoch Research Centre is at the University of Chichester. The Centenary Conference takes place 13 - 15 July 2019 at St Anne’s College, Oxford. The project womeninparenthesis is currently asking members of the public to send a postcard to Iris ttps://www.philosophybypostcard.com/ - you can hear more about it in this Free Thinking discussion on rewriting 20th-century British philosophy https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000r9b

Producer: Luke Mulhall

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