Free Thinking

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'Calm Down Dear' - How Angry Should Politics Get? Apr 05, 2019

Show notes

What does it mean to feel that your political position is righteous? At a time of rising tempers among electorates, should we all “calm down - or harness our rage? Kehinde Andrews is Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University. His books include Back to Black: Retelling Black Radicalism for the 21st Century and Resisting Racism: Race, Inequality and the Black Supplementary School Movement. He writes for The Guardian, Independent and Ebony Magazine. Dr Fern Riddell is a historian and New Generation Thinker whose latest book Death In Ten Minutes, is about the Suffragette bomber and birth control activist, Kitty Marion. She writes for The Guardian, Huffington Post, Times Higher Education, The Telegraph and BBC History Magazine and was a consultant for BBC’s Ripper Street, Decline and Fall and ITV2’s TimeWasters. Will Davies is a political economist at Goldsmiths, University of London and co-director of the Political Economy Research Centre. His books include Nervous States: How feeling Took Over the World and The Happiness Industry: How the government & big business sold us well-being. He has written for The Guardian, The New Statesman and The Atlantic. Jo Anne Nadler is a political journalist and former producer/reporter on BBC Political Programmes. She has been a Conservative councillor in the London borough of Wandsworth and her books include William Hague - In His Own Right and Too Nice to be a Tory. Producer: Luke Mulhall

Being Diplomatic Apr 03, 2019

Show notes

How much emotion should you show if you are a diplomat, a news reporter or a conciliation expert? Anne McElvoy chairs a Free Thinking Festival debate at Sage Gateshead with Gabriel Gatehouse, Gabrielle Rifkind and William J Burns.

In the world of international affairs, the overriding philosophy for global professionals has been one of restraint and rationality – whether you are negotiating, mediating or observing. So how is this traditional idea of “being diplomatic” and even-handed faring in a more emotional and expressive age?

Psychotherapist Gabrielle Rifkind works in conflict resolution in the Middle East. She directs The Oxford Process, a conflict prevention initiative specialising in managing radical disagreement. Her books include The Psychology of Political Extremism: What would Sigmund Freud have thought about Islamic State and The Fog of Peace: How to Prevent War.

William J Burns’ book The Back Channel - American Diplomacy in a Disordered World charts his career as an American diplomat for over 3 decades. involved in negotiations with President Putin and secret nuclear talks with Iran. He is now President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Gabriel Gatehouse is a BBC reporter whose work includes the Panorama programme Marine Le Pen: Who's Funding France's Far Right? (2017) and Our World A Tale of Two Swedens. His reporting has included investigations in East Africa, the Ukraine and Russia, Libya and Iraq and the BBC Radio 4 series The Puppet Master

Anxiety and the Teenage Brain Apr 02, 2019

Show notes

Worrying is a natural part of growing-up. And yet the incidence of serious anxiety and depression is rapidly increasing. Psychologist Stephen Briers from TV's Teen Angels, student Ceyda Uzun and Durham University's head of counselling Caroline Dower join Anne McElvoy at the Free Thinking Festival to explore the possible causes and the influence of digital technology and social pressures. The discussion was recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead.

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

Producer: Debbie Kilbride

Crimes of Passion: Sophie Hannah, Michael Hughes and David Wilson Apr 01, 2019

Show notes

Many legal systems have allowed the accused the defence of a “crime of passion”: attributing their act to a sudden explosion of feeling, rather than pre-meditated violence. Prosecutors, though, have argued that “passion” is simply another word for “insanity” or “malice”.

David Wilson was the youngest prison governor in England aged 29. He is Emeritus Professor of Criminology and founding Director of the Centre for Applied Criminology at Birmingham City University. He presented the CBS series Voice of a Serial Killer and, for BBC Radio 4, In The Criminologist’s Chair. His latest book is My Life with Murderers: Behind Bars with the World’s Most Violent Men.

Sophie Hannah is a poet and crime novelist who, with the blessing of the Christie estate, has written three new Poirot novels The Monogram Murders, Closed Casket and The Mystery of Three Quarters. Her latest publication is a self-help book entitled How to Hold a Grudge.

Michael Hughes’ most recent novel Country maps Homer’s Iliad onto 1990s Northern Ireland to describe both the black comedy and the brutality of The Troubles. His previous novel is The Countenance Divine. He teaches creative writing and also works as a professional actor.

Feelings, and Feelings, and Feelings. The Free Thinking Festival Lecture Apr 01, 2019

Show notes

The idea of ‘emotions’ did not exist until the nineteenth century but now they are the subject of study and Professor Thomas Dixon was the first director of Queen Mary University of London's Centre for the History of the Emotions. He is currently researching anger and has explored the histories of friendship, tears, and the British stiff upper lip in books Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears and The Invention of Altruism: Making Moral Meanings in Victorian Britain.

Ranging from revolutionary feelings and the sentimental tales of Charles Dickens to the poetic rage of Audre Lorde, in his 2019 BBC Free Thinking Festival Lecture, Thomas Dixon paints a historical panorama of emotions and ends by asking what we can learn from our ancestors about the value of stoical restraint.

Whatever happened to Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais? Mar 27, 2019

Show notes

The writers of TV sitcoms The Likely Lads, Porridge and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet talk to Matthew Sweet. As a restoration of the film version of The Likely Lads is released, Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais discuss depicting working lives in the 1960s, the pretensions and social changes of the '70s and how their characters might have voted over Brexit.

The Likely Lads film has been restored and made available on Blu-ray and 2 previously lost episodes of the TV series have been found.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

Betrayal Mar 26, 2019

Show notes

From politics to religion, gangster films to espionage, Philip Dodd considers acts of betrayal, with theologian, Elaine Storkey, columnist Peter Hitchens, author Jenny McCartney and historian Owen Matthews.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

Childhood faces and fears Mar 21, 2019

Show notes

A history of orphans in Britain, fears about post war brainwashing, childrens' letters to C19 newspapers and portraits on show at Compton Verney. Anne McElvoy presents.

New Generation Thinker and historian Emma Butcher is researching writing from children about the trauma of war. She visits Compton Verney. Jeremy Seabrook is researching the treatment of orphans from the 17th century onwards. Historian Sian Pooley reveals what children were writing to local papers about in the late 19th century and artist Emma Smith describes the post-war anxieties about children being brainwashed that inform her exhibition Wunderblock.

Painting Childhood: From Holbein to Freud runs at Compton Verney from March 16th to June 16th 2019. Emma Smith's exhibition Wunderblock is at the Freud Museum in London until 26th May Orphans: A History by Jeremy Seabrook is out now.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Empathy Mar 20, 2019

Show notes

Authors Max Porter, Samantha Harvey and Alisdair Benjamin discuss empathy and the role it plays in writing and reading. How does it work? Is it the same in fiction and non-fiction? And how is it faring in a world where data sometimes seems to have replaced feeling. Chris Harding talks to all three about their latest books, Lanny, Let Me Not be Mad and the Western Wind in his search for answers.

Let Me Not Be Mad by the neuropsychologist AK Benjamin is out now. Max Porter's second novel is called Lanny. His first, Grief is the Thing with Feathers, has now been turned into a stage production featuring Cillian Murphy which runs at the Barbican from 25 Mar—13 Apr 2019 Samantha Harvey's latest novel The Western Wind - set in a C15th Somerset village - is now out in paperback. Her previous books include The Wilderness - which depicts an architect suffering from Alzheimers who is attempting to order his memories.

Producer: Zahid Warley

George Szirtes, Valeria Luiselli, Jhumpa Lahiri Mar 19, 2019

Show notes

Valeria Luiselli talks to Laurence Scott about the desert border between Mexico and USA & capturing the sound, history and contemporary politics in her novel Lost Children Archive. The poet George Szirtes' first prose work brings his Hungarian mother superbly to life and works backwards through the years to explore the truth of being alive in the world. And Pulitzer-prize-winning short story writer Jhumpa Lahiri on her new anthology of stories from Italy, and why the Italian language releases a part of her unfulfilled by either her Bengali heritage or American upbringing.

Jhumpa Lahiri has edited The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories which is out now. Valeria Luiselli's novel Lost Children Archive is out now George Szirtes' memoir The Photographer at Sixteen: The Death and Life of a Fighter is out now

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