Free Thinking

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Philosophical tennis, hidden beaches and Eleanor Marx. Jul 10, 2018

Show notes

At the height of summer, Matthew Sweet and guests turn their minds to tennis, beaches and walking.

As Wimbledon continues, Benjamin Markovits and William Skidelsky consider the philosophy of tennis; New Generation Thinker Des Fitzgerald explores the geography of a little known beach in Cardiff city centre; Rachel Holmes goes on a walking tour of Eleanor Marx's Sydenham in south London.

A Weekend in New York is by Benjamin Markovits Federer and Me: A Story of Obsession is by William Skidelsky Eleanor Marx: A Life is by Rachel Holmes The links between Japan and Wales, and the geography of a particular Welsh beach are explored by KIZUNA: Japan | Wales | Design opens at National Museum Cardiff runs until 9 September 2018.

Des Fitzgerald is a lecturer in sociology at Cardiff University who studies the history of medicine, science and neuroscience and city life. New Generation Thinkers is a 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.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

From C18 automata to Superheroes and Digital Living Jul 06, 2018

Show notes

Playwright Charlotte Jones, author Laurence Scott, New Generation Thinkers Lisa Mullen and Iain Smith join Matthew Sweet.

Charlotte Jones discusses her new play set in a Quaker community during the Napoleonic Wars. Matthew Sweet visits Compton Verney Art Gallery with Lisa Mullen to see the exhibition, 'Marvellous Mechanical Museum' which re-imagines the spectacular automata exhibitions of the 18th century. Laurence Scott talks about the ideas in his book, 'Picnic Comma Lightning' which explores the way digital advances are changing the way we live and what we reveal about ourselves. And, from the Indian Superman to Batman in the Philippines, film historian and New Generation Thinker Iain Smith looks at the hidden history of unlicensed superhero films produced around the world.

Iain Robert Smith is a Lecturer in Film Studies at King's College, London.

Laurence Scott is a New Generation Thinker Lecturer in Writing at New York University in London and the author of 'Picnic Comma Lightning' which is to be broadcast as the Radio 4 Book of the Week from July 16-20th.

The Marvellous Mechanical Museum is at Compton Verney until September 20th 2018.

Charlotte Jones's drama The Meeting runs at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester from 13 July – 11 August

New Generation Thinkers is a 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.

Producer Fiona McLean

Renzo Piano Jul 04, 2018

Show notes

The Italian architect and engineer, Renzo Piano, talks to Philip Dodd about his career from the Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers) to the Shard in London and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

50 years of his work are being marked in an exhibition at London's Royal Academy of Arts from the 15th of September to the 20th of January 2019.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

What do you call a stranger? The Caine Prize. NHS ideals. Jul 04, 2018

Show notes

Nandini Das and John Gallagher look at words for strangers in Tudor and Stuart England and ideas about civility. Plus Shahidha Bari talks to Makena Onjerika the winner of the 2018 Caine Prize for African Writing. And, as the NHS approaches its 70th anniversary, we discuss the relationship between care, institutions, and the concept of medicine with novelist and former nurse Christie Watson, and historian of the NHS Roberta Bivins.

Nandini Das is working on the Tide Project http://www.tideproject.uk/ exploring travel and identity in England 1550 - 1700 She and John Gallagher are taking part in the Society for Renaissance Studies conference at Sheffield University this week. Christie Watson is the author of The Language of Kindness: A Nurse's Story.

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Fun Home, Olivia Laing, Oscar Wilde, The Deer Hunter Jun 28, 2018

Show notes

Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir 'Fun Home' on stage at the Young Vic in London reviewed by Jen Harvie from Queens Mary University of London, a novel inspired by Kathy Acker from Olivia Laing, Film historian and broadcaster Ian Christie on the 40th anniversary of Michael Cimino's film, 'The Deerhunter' and a new biography by Michèle Mendelssohn on Oscar Wilde's time in America. Mathew Sweet presents.

Fun Home - which explores family, memory and sexuality, runs at the Young Vic in London from June 18th to September 1st 2018. Jen Harvie, Professor of Contemporary Theatre & Performance, at Queen Mary University of London Olivia Laing is the author of 'The Lonely City' and her new novel is called 'Crudo'. 'Making Oscar Wilde' by Michèle Mendelssohn is out now. 'The Deer Hunter' is in cinemas from July 4th.

Producer: Fiona McLean

The body, past and present Jun 28, 2018

Show notes

Can beauty be an ethical ideal? What did being handsome mean in C18 England? How do we look at images by Egon Schiele and Francesca Woodman or a Renaissance nude and is that affected by changing attitudes towards the body now? Anne McElvoy talks to the painter, Chantal Joffe, the philosopher, Heather Widdows, the writer, performer and activist Penny Pepper and the New Generation Thinkers Catherine Fletcher and Sarah Goldsmith.

Chantal Joffe's solo show - Personal Feeling is the Main thing - is at the Lowry in Manchester until 2nd September. The Tate Liverpool exhibition Life in Motion: Egon Schiele and Francesca Woodman runs until September 23rd. The Italian Renaissance Nude by Jill Burke from the University of Edinburgh is out now from Yale University Press. Penny Pepper's book First in the World Somewhere, a memoir is published by Unbound

New Generation Thinkers is a 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. Sarah Goldsmith is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Leicester working on A History of the Eighteenth-Century Elite Male Body. Catherine Fletcher is Associate Professor at Swansea University who has published Diplomacy in Renaissance Rome and The Black Prince of Florence.

Producer: Zahid Warley

The Working Lunch and Food in History Jun 27, 2018

Show notes

Rana Mitter discusses food in history. James C Scott on the role of grain and coercion in the development of the first settled societies, and how the Victorians changed lunch, with New Generation Thinkers Elsa Richardson and Chris Kissane. Plus, following the death of American philosopher Stanley Cavell last week, Rana discusses his work and legacy with Stephen Mulhall and Alice Crary. New Generation Thinkers is a 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.

James C Scott is Stirling Professor of Political Science at Yale University. Elsa Richardson is a lecturer at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow who is researching the 19th-century history of vegetarianism. Chris Kissane is a Visiting Fellow in Economic History at the LSE who has written Food, Religion and Communities in Early Modern Europe.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Oliver Rackham and Wildwood Ideas Jun 21, 2018

Show notes

Our romantic attachment to the idea of wildwood, the impossibility of ever getting back to some primeval grove, and the possibilities opening up about the health and wellbeing of future forests, are debated by Rana Mitter with ecologist and conservationist, Keith Kirby, who knew and worked with Rackham, botanist Fraser Mitchell whose work with pollen is helping to uncover the deep history of trees and environmental archaeologist, Suzi Richer, who is assembling oral histories of woodcraftship and exploring different ways we have imagined the forest. Also celebrating the habitat where many good trees went to die, Donald Murray, author and poet, celebrates peat bogs, for themselves and their place in human cultures around the world. In midsummer week, Radio 3 enters one of the most potent sources of the human imagination. 'Into the Forest' explores the enchantment, escape and magical danger of the forest in summer, with slow radio moments featuring the sounds of the forest, allowing time out from today’s often frenetic world

Windrush. Forests in Art. South African Jazz Jun 21, 2018

Show notes

Colin Grant, Hannah Lowe and Jay Bernard discuss writing about Windrush 70 years on with Shahidha Bari. Plus Alexandra Harris looks at trees in art as part of Radio 3's Into the Forest season of programmes and Jonathan Eato and Nduduzo Makhintini discuss their research into South African jazz -- one of the subjects in the British Academy Summer Showcase.

Colin Grant has written books including Bageye at the Wheel, A Smell of Burning, I & I Natural Mystics and Negro with a Hat.

Hannah Lowe's poems include Ormonde, a specially produced chapbook charting the voyage of the 1947 SS Ormonde from Jamaica to the UK through the lens of her Chinese-Jamaican immigrant father, a passenger on the boat.

Jay Bernard was awarded the 2018 Ted Hughes award for new poetry for Surge: Side A, an exploration of the 1981 New Cross fire. More information about Windrush is at http://www.windrush70.com/

Alexandra Harris is the author of books including Weatherland, Virginia Woolf, Modernism on Sea and Romantic Moderns.

You can hear a Landmark discussion about Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway available on bbc.co.uk/FreeThinking and the The Royal Society of Literature is marking Dalloway Day at the British Library today.

The British Academy Summer Showcase - a new free festival of ideas - runs June 22nd - 23rd at 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AH . Opening times are 11am - 5pm with an evening opening on 22nd. And the South African Jazz Archive when it opens will be in Stellenbosch.

Producer: Zahid Warley

The Word For World Is Forest Jun 19, 2018

Show notes

Ursula Le Guin's idea of the forest is explored by philosopher and Green party politician Rupert Read and novelist Zen Cho. Plus Matthew Sweet talks to Ian Hislop about this year's winner of the Paul Foot Award for Investigative Journalism, and for Radio 3's 'Into the Forest' we ask whether, if a tree falls in the wood and nobody is around, it makes a sound.

Usula Le Guin (1929 - 2018) published her science fiction novella The Word for World Is Forest in 1972.

In midsummer week, Radio 3 enters one of the most potent sources of the human imagination. 'Into the Forest' explores the enchantment, escape and magical danger of the forest in summer, with slow radio moments featuring the sounds of the forest, allowing time out from today's often frenetic world.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

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