Free Thinking

Latest Episodes:

Mike Hodges; Dark Sweden. Nov 29, 2018

Show notes

The director of the 1971 film Get Carter, which starred Michael Caine, has now written his own crime novellas. Mike Hodges talks to Matthew Sweet. If Nordic Noir has reshaped an image of Sweden away from Abba into a society showing cracks - journalist Kajsa Norman has been tracking stories such as the cover-up of assaults on teenage girls at music festivals in 2015. She's called her book Sweden's Dark Soul: The Unravelling of a Utopia. Mike Hodges' trio of novellas is called Bait, Grist and Security.

You can hear another Free Thinking Discussion with Anders Sandberg, Pia Lundgren, Kieran Long & Lars Blomgren about What We Have Learned From Sweden here https://bbc.in/2Q1euTl

Producer: Debbie Kilbride

Slavery Stories Nov 28, 2018

Show notes

A long lost classic by William Melvin Kelley, who coined the term "woke" back in 1962 in a New York Times article, Esi Edugyan's Booker shortlisted novel, and new research on slavery with historians Christienna Fryar, Kevin Waite, and Andrea Livesey. Laurence Scott presents.

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 earlier this year. 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.

You can hear more Free Thinking discussion on American culture and history here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06jzmf6

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Plagues, Urban Inequality and Restricted Books Nov 27, 2018

Show notes

Should we worry about the world getting healthier? Thomas Bollyky thinks we should. Jane Stevens Crawshaw looks at cleanliness and disease in Renaissance cities & Penny Woolcock films Oxford and LA. Rana Mitter presents.

For the first time in recorded history, parasites, viruses, bacteria, and other infectious diseases are not the leading cause of death and disability in any region of the world but that doesn't mean our cities are healthier and more prosperous. Jane Steven Crawshaw from Oxford Brookes researches plague hospitals and quarantine. From cleaning up C15th Venice and Milan, Rana Mitter also considers C21st Oxford and Los Angeles in new films by Penny Woolcock which explore their different mythologies. Her recent projects have also included the different responses she and a gang member have walking down the same street and a range of views on personal gun use. Jennifer Ingleheart reveals the books deemed too racy for Oxford undergraduates that were hidden away in the Bodleian Library's Phi Collection.

Thomas Bollyky is director of the global health program and senior fellow for global health, economics, and development at the Council on Foreign Relations. His book is called Plagues and the Paradox of Progress: Why the World is Getting Healthier in Worrisome Ways.

Fantastic Cities - an exhibition of Penny Woolcock's work runs at Modern Art Oxford until March 2019.

The Story of Phi, curated by Jennifer Ingleheart, is at the Bodleian Library until 13th January 2019.

Hear more from Penny Woolcock discussing her career at the Free Thinking Festival https://bbc.in/2E31s0U

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Leadership: lessons from US Presidents and campaigners. Nov 23, 2018

Show notes

Doris Kearns Goodwin on POTUS, crisis management and ambition - from Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt through FDR and LBJ to Donald Trump. Novelist Georgina Harding and Philip Woods compare notes on the impact of the war in Burma and depictions in fiction, war reporting and memoirs. New Generation Thinker Louisa Egbunike looks at the campaigning of Obi Egbuna the Nigerian-born novelist (1938- 2014), playwright and political activist who led the United Coloured People's Association. Anne McElvoy presents.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is a Pulitzer prize winning historian whose latest book is called Leadership: Lessons from the Presidents for Turbulent Times. Georgina Harding's latest novel is called Land of the Living. Philip Woods is the author of Reporting the Retreat: War Correspondents in Burma.

The Left Behind Nov 21, 2018

Show notes

Eric Kaufmann talks to Philip Dodd about white identity, immigration and populism. Plus Hungarian politics with cultural historian, Krisztina Robert, journalist, Matyas Sarkozi and Zsuzsa Szelenyi of the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna.

Eric Kaufmann's book is called Whiteshift: populism, immigration and the future of White majorities.

Krisztina Robert teaches at the University of Roehampton

Producer: Zahid Warley

What kind of history should we write? Nov 21, 2018

Show notes

Peter Frankopan brings his history of ties across Asia into the present while Maya Jasanoff, winner of the world's richest history prize, uses the novels of Joseph Conrad to show that the novelist was wrestling with the same problems and opportunities of globalisation we face today. Historian Peter Mandler also joins Rana Mitter to discuss new proposals for publishing historican research. As the centenary of the birth of Orkney film maker and poet Margaret Tait is celebrated nationally, New Generation Thinker, Elsa Richardson, discusses how Tait's medical training shaped her subsequent film work and writing while the curator Peter Todd concentrates on the influence of Orkney and why Tait's films still speak to us today.

Maya Jasanoff, winner of The 2018 Cundill Prize, announced in Canada on November 15th. https://www.cundillprize.com/ for her book The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World available now Peter Frankopan was one of this year's judges. His books include the best selling The Silk Roads: A New History of the World and The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World and created an illustrated version for children. Peter Mandler, Professor of Modern Cultural History at University of Cambridge

Stalking The Image: Margaret Tait and Her Legacy at Glasgow Museum of Modern Art until May 5th 2019 Peter Todd, curator of Rhythm and Poetry The films of Margaret Tait at British Film Institute until Friday 30 Nov 2018 and The BFI will be releasing her only feature film 'Blue Black Permanent' on Blu-ray disc in Spring 2019. Elsa Richardson, New Generation Thinker, reseaches intersection between the medical and cultural history, University of Strathclyde

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select academics who can turn their research into radio.

Buses, beer and VR - a taste of university research. Nov 15, 2018

Show notes

A 3,000 year old Iranian ritual, archaeology on a council estate, and London's Greek Cypriot community: Matthew Sweet hops on the 29 bus route, puts on some VR glasses, and visits the hospital which was home to "the Elephant Man" as he talks to researchers showcasing their projects at the 2018 Being Human Festival.

Petros Karatsareas and Athena Mandis guide Matthew through the moves made by the Greek Cypriot diaspora in London along the 29 bus route. Carenza Lewis and Ian Waites of the University of Lincoln explain why they've organised an archaeological dig on a 1960s council estate. Nadia Valman and Karen Crosby are organising a slide projection onto the walls of the Royal London Hospital Living Zoroastrianism is an exhibition on show at the Brunei Gallery at SOAS (until December 15th) in which Virtual Reality allows visitors to experience a 3,000 year old ritual from pre-Islamic Iran, stages by Almut Hintze and Anna Sowa You can find events around the UK in the Being Human Festival of research into the Humanities here https://beinghumanfestival.org/

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Death rituals Nov 14, 2018

Show notes

From death cafes to bronze age burials, C19th mourning rings to the way healthcare professionals cope when patients die. Eleanor Barraclough looks at research showcased in the Being Human Festival at UK universities.

Laura O'Brien at Northumbria University is running a death cafe and looking at the way celebrities can "live on" after their death. New Generation Thinker Danielle Thom works at the Museum of London and has been researching the history behind some of the jewelry in their collection. Duncan Garrow from Reading University is leading a major research project into prehistoric grave goods. Medical historian Agnes Arnold-Forster has been asking surgeons and other health professionals about how they deal with death.

The Being Human Festival organises free events based on research into the Humanities at universities around the UK. It runs from Nov 15th - 24th 2018 https://beinghumanfestival.org/

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Lost Words and Language Nov 14, 2018

Show notes

New Scots words to add to the The Dictionar o the Scots Leid and a quiz about words from medieval Ireland are 2 of the Being Human Festival projects explored by Shahidha Bari. Plus how researchers are using film to explore social history and a major new exhibition about the sculptor and painter Elisabeth Frink (1930-1993).

The Being Human Festival showcases research into the Humanities at universities around the UK. It runs from Nov 15th - 24th 2018 https://beinghumanfestival.org/

Watch the winning films from the AHRC Research in Film Awards 2018: https://bit.ly/2JYfgu2

Elisabeth Frink: Humans and Other Animals is The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia until 24th of February. You can see more work by Frink at Beaux Arts Mayfair Gallery, London until 1st December and at Tate Britain until 4 February.

You can hear New Generation Thinkers presenting the Radio 3 Sunday Feature here https://bbc.in/2B3o7HP A Mystery about Gilbert and Sullivan. Medieval Passions and Moderm Immersive Drama. https://bbc.in/2Fhp3wA Is it Wrong to have Children? Why Bin Laden did not like Shakespeare.

Producer: Debbie Kilbride

Why are we silent when conflict is loud? Nov 08, 2018

Show notes

Journalist Peter Hitchens; the Rector of St James’s Church Piccadilly Lucy Winkett; performer and director Neil Bartlett and Professor Steve Brown from the Open University join Anne McElvoy at the Imperial War Museum for their 2018 Remembrance Lecture.

In 1919, the first national silence was observed to commemorate the end of the First World War. Organised silences were designed to remember the human impact of conflict, but do twenty-first century collective silences fulfil that purpose? This debate brings together a panel of speakers to discuss the role of organised silences and what it means to be silent about conflict in 2018.

IWM’s annual remembrance lecture appears as part of Making a New World a free season of exhibitions, installations and immersive experiences taking place at IWM London and IWM North in 2018. Through art, photography, film, live music, dance and conversations, the season explores themes of remembrance and how the First World War has shaped today’s society, bringing together five major exhibitions – Lest We Forget? at IWM North and Renewal: Life after the First World War in Photographs, I Was There: Room of Voices, Mimesis: African Solider and Moments of Silence at IWM London.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

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