Free Thinking

Latest Episodes:

Reinventing the 'Mistake on the Lake'. Jul 04, 2019

Show notes

Philip Dodd hosts a special programme recorded in Cleveland, Ohio. Once a booming manufacturing metropolis located on the southern shore of Lake Erie, this 'rust belt' city has for many years been synonymous with industrial decay and high unemployment. For many the city's fortunes changed in 1969 when industrial pollution on the Cuyahoga river caught fire causing an environmental catastrophe, earning the city the moniker 'the mistake on the lake', a pejorative term it still struggles to shake off today.

To find out how Cleveland is reinventing itself in the 21st century, Philip is joined by banker and civic leader Justin Bibb, historian David Stradling, and Colette Jones, one of a team running Destination Cleveland, which attracts visitors to the city.

Plus, Philip meets Cai Guo-Qiang, to hear how the artist has used gunpowder and water to mark the 50th anniversary of the Cuyahoga river fires.

David Stradling is the author of Where the River Burned

Chinese-raised New York artist Cai Guo-Qiang has been commissioned as part of Cuyahoga50.

You can find a Free Thinking discussion with writer Adam Gopnik and others about gentrification here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09gyg4q

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

Russia and Fear. Jul 04, 2019

Show notes

Rana Mitter considers fearing Russia past and present with Mark B Smith, and the way Russia controlled fears over Chernobyl. Plus Tamar Koplatadze from the University of Oxford on her research into contemporary post-Soviet/colonial women writers’ responses to the fall of the Soviet Union, Victoria Donovan from the University of St Andrews outlines her project in the Donbass region of Ukraine that attempts to reconcile an industrial, Soviet past with an uncertain future and Yu Jie, Research Fellow at Chatham House, gives an account of the Chinese view of Russia.

Mark B Smith teaches at the University of Cambridge and is the author of The Russia Anxiety.

Chernobyl the TV miniseries was created and written by Craig Mazin, directed by Johan Renck and produced by HBO in association with Sky UK

You can hear a Free Thinking discussion of Soviet history featuring the authors Svetlana Alexievich and Stephen Kotkin https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09d3q93

This discussion of Tarkovsky's 1979 film Stalker hears research into tourism in Chernobyl https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0775023

Cundill Prize winning historian Daniel Beer, Masha Gessen and Mary Dejevsky consider Totalitarianism and Punishment https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09h659t

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Free Thinking: Language and Belonging Jul 03, 2019

Show notes

Preti Taneja talks to the winner of the 2019 Dylan Thomas Prize, Guy Gunaratne, Egyptian graphic novelist Deena Mohamed, poet and broadcaster, Michael Rosen, Iranian-American author Dina Nayeri and Somali-British poet Momtaza Mehri.

Guy Gunaratne's first novel In Our Mad and Furious City imagines events over 48 hours on a London council estate evoking the voices of different residents. It was the winner of the International Dylan Thomas Prize, the Jhalak Prize as well as the Authors Club Best First Novel Award in 2019. Deena Mohamed is in the UK to take part in the Bradford Literature Festival https://www.bradfordlitfest.co.uk/ which runs until July 7th and the Shubbak Festival which runs until July 14th https://www.shubbak.co.uk/ You can find our more about her https://deenadraws.art/about Michael Rosen is a writer, broadcaster and Professor of children's literature at Goldsmith's, University of London. https://www.michaelrosen.co.uk/ Dina Nayeri's books are The Ungrateful Refugee and A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea. Momtaza Mehri has been young people's laureate for London, a former winner of the Out-Spoken Page poetry prize. Her poetry chapbook is called sugah. lump. prayer.

You can find Preti Taneja talking to Arundhati Roy and a debate about books in translation here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b5hk01 A Free Thinking programme playlist looking at ideas of Belonging, Home, Borders and National Identity is here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03mb66k

Producer: Zahid Warley

Amitav Ghosh. Layla and Majnun. Islam Issa. Jun 28, 2019

Show notes

Amitav Ghosh on linking refugees, climate change, Venice & Bengali forests in his fiction. New Generation Thinker Islam Issa on Epstein's Lucifer sculpture. Rana Mitter presents.

Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh weaves the ancient legend about the goddess of snakes, Manasa Devi into a journey between America, the Sundarbans and Venice. You can also find Amitav Ghosh talking to Free Thinking about the need for fiction to reflect climate change here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07z7bnd

The emotional epic that is Layla and Majnun is the subject of events at the Bradford Literature Festival https://www.bradfordlitfest.co.uk/ which runs until July 7th and the Shubbak Festival which runs until July 14th https://www.shubbak.co.uk/ Film maker Soraya Syed and story-teller and producer Alia Alzougbi discuss the story's eternal attraction and ability to speak to contemporary issues.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio. Islam Issa teaches at Birmingham City University. His books include Milton in the Arab-Muslim World.

Free Thinking Landmarks on Paradise Lost https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08nf037 One Thousand and One Nights https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b052gz7g

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Cindy Sherman, Laura Cumming Jun 26, 2019

Show notes

The art of Cindy Sherman; art critic Laura Cumming on finding out the history behind the days her mother disappeared as a child on a Lincolnshire beach, New Generation Thinker Susan Greaney on local history museums. Naomi Paxton presents and joining her to talk about Cindy Sherman are Laura Cumming, the actor Adjoa Andoh, photographer Juno Calypso and New Generation Thinker Joe Moshenska from the University of Oxford.

Laura Cumming's memoir is called On Chapel Sands and it is being read as the Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qftk Cindy Sherman runs at the National Portrait Gallery in London from Thu, 27 Jun 2019 – Sun, 15 Sep 2019. The retrospective will explore the development of Sherman’s work from the mid-1970s to the present day, and will feature around 150 works from international public and private collections,

Susan Greaney works part-time for English Heritage and researches at Cardiff University. She is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.

You can find more about Juno Calypso here https://www.junocalypso.com/

In our archives you can hear Laura Cumming and Joe Moshenska on Velasquez https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03dx7tw Novelist Nicola Upson on imagining the life of artist Stanley Spencer https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000573q Scrumbly Koldewyn and the politics of fashion and drag https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09zcjch

Producer: Fiona McLean

Jane Goodall, Elif Shafak Jun 26, 2019

Show notes

Jane Goodall is giving a talk at the British Academy on the work of the Jane Goodall Foundation with chimpanzees, protecting the environment with local communities and improving health and education for girls in rural Africa. Elif Shafak's latest novel is called 10 Minutes, 38 Seconds in this Strange World and looks at the death of a sex worker and the last moments of her life. Elif Shafak has been vocal in her concerns about freedom of speech in modern day Turkey.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

James Ellroy Jun 20, 2019

Show notes

Philip Dodd is in conversation with the American author James Ellroy, whose books include LA Confidential and his latest, This Storm, part of his ongoing project to write a novelistic history of the USA from 1941 to 1972.

As he tells Philip Dodd, in a conversation that ranges from Calvinism to Chandler, Count Basie to late Beethoven: "As my literary sensibility becomes more patriotic, more conservatism, more religious, more sentimental, more fraternal, I find an era to write about where I can look back and live it and so This Storm is very much about alliance and friendship and belief and ideology in the early days of World War II and my good guys - who are always the cops ... and these folks are always going to one of two places, to carouse, to booze, to plot, to talk of sandbagging unfriendly politicians and to flirt and conduct their adulterous love affairs."

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Catch 22, Recycling fashion, Fred D'Aguiar, Wu Mali Jun 20, 2019

Show notes

Anne McElvoy, former Colonel Lincoln Jopp MC & novelist Benjamin Markovits on the new TV Catch-22. Jade Halbert on recycling fashion. Poet Fred D'Aguiar on winning the Cholmondeley Prize and Wu Mali on socially engaged art.

Producer: Zahid Warley

Landmark: Finnegans Wake Jun 19, 2019

Show notes

Eimear McBride is the author of A Girl is a Half-formed Thing and The Lesser Bohemians Professor Finn Fordham from Royal Holloway, University of London is the author of Lots of Fun at Finnegans Wake: I do I undo I redo: and he edited Finnegans Wake for Oxford World Classics Eleanor Lybeck is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker teaches at the University of Oxford and is the author of All on Show: The Circus in Irish Literature and Culture. Derek Pyle is the director of Waywords & Meansigns, an experimental project that sets Finnegans Wake to music With additional Producer: Luke Mulhall

Afropean Identities. Filming the Arab Spring. Jun 14, 2019

Show notes

Johny Pitts, Caryl Phillips and Nat Illumine discuss the idea of Afropean identity with Matthew Sweet. Plus New Generation Thinker Dina Rezk on Jehane Noujaim's Oscar nominated documentary The Square and Egyptian politics. Georgia Parris discusses her first film Mari - a family drama of birth, death and contemporary dance.

Johny Pitts is one of the team behind https://afropean.com/ an online multimedia, multidisciplinary journal exploring the social, cultural and aesthetic interplay of black and European cultures. He runs this with Nat Illumine. Johny Pitts has just published a book Afropean: Notes from Black Europe

Caryl Phillips' most recent novel A View of the Empire at Sunset is inspired by the travels of the writer Jean Rhys who moved from Dominica to Edwardian England and 1920s Paris and his first play Strange Fruit (1980) is being re-staged at the Bush Theatre in London until July 27th 2019.

Mari by Georgia Parris is at selected cinemas from June 21st 2019.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio. You can hear more from the 2019 Thinkers in this launch programme https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004dsv

Dina Rezk teaches at the University of Reading.

You can find extended conversations with Claudia Rankine, Teju Cole, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Spike Lee and Paul Gilroy included in our playlist on the Free Thinking website and available as BBC Arts&Ideas podcasts https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04ly0c8

Producer: Fiona McLean

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