Free Thinking

Latest Episodes:

The 2018 Wolfson History Prize Debate May 23, 2018

Show notes

This year's authors are:

Robert Bickers for Out of China: How the Chinese Ended the Era of Western Domination Lindsey Fitzharris for The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine Tim Grady for A Deadly Legacy: German Jews and the Great War Miranda Kaufmann for Black Tudors: The Untold Story Peter Marshall for Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation Jan Rüger for Heligoland: Britain, Germany and the Struggle for the North Sea

Motherhood in fiction, memoir and on the analyst's couch May 22, 2018

Show notes

Writers Sheila Heti, Jessie Greengrass and Jacqueline Rose compare notes on motherhood & presenter Anne McElvoy looks at depictions of Mrs Noah with New Generation Thinker Daisy Black.

Jacqueline Rose has written Mothers: An Essay on Love and Cruelty. Her previous books include Women in Dark Times

Sheila Heti's latest book is called Motherhood. Her previous books include How Should a Person Be? and Women in Clothes.

Jessie Greengrass' novel, Sight, has been shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2018.

Daisy Black, Lecturer in English at the University of Wolverhampton, is one of the ten academics selected as New Generation Thinkers for 2018 in the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to help academics turn their research into radio programmes.

Producer: Fiona McLean

Jordan B Peterson May 17, 2018

Show notes

Self help, identity politics and the influence of postmodernists are on the agenda as Philip Dodd meets the YouTube star and Canadian clinical psychologist, Jordan B. Peterson.

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson is out now.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

Designing the future May 17, 2018

Show notes

Shahidha Bari looks at British design pioneers Enid Marx, Edward Bawden and Charles Rennie Mackintosh with curators Alan Powers and James Russell and design historian Eleanor Herring. 2018 New Generation Thinker Lisa Mullen visits The Future Starts Here at the V&A.

Alan Powers is the author of a new book Enid Marx:The Pleasures of Pattern and is curating an exhibition at the House of Illustration in London Print, Pattern and Popular Art which runs from May 25th to September 23rd 2018

James Russell has curated Edward Bawden which runs at the Dulwich Picture Gallery from May 23rd to September 9th 2018 and he is the author of The Lost Watercolours of Edward Bawden.

Eleanor Herring is interested in making, writing, teaching and talking about design with as broad an audience as possible. She is the author of Street Furniture Design: Contesting Modernism in Post-War Britain.

The Future Starts Here runs at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London until 4th November.

Mackintosh 150 marks the anniversary of the birth of Glaswegian architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Exhibitions include Making the Glasgow Style at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum until August 14th. His Oak Room will go on display when the V&A Dundee opens in September. Plus a new Mackintosh interpretation centre opens at The Mackintosh House, a series of film screenings is at The Lighthouse and exhibitions at Glasgow School of Art and other venues.

Lisa Mullen is the Steven Isenberg Junior Research Fellow at Worcester College, Oxford and one of the 2018 New Generation Thinkers in the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to turn their research into radio.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

John Gray, Atheism and Post-structuralism May 16, 2018

Show notes

The relationship between intellectuals, nations and spies debated by Agnes Poirier, Maria Dimitrova, and Jefferson Morley. Plus philosopher John Gray explores atheism and doubt with Matthew Sweet.

Seven Types of Atheism by John Gray is out now.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

What is Speech? May 10, 2018

Show notes

Matthew Sweet discusses talking, speech and having a voice, with Trevor Cox, Professor of Acoustic Engineering at the University of Salford; Rebecca Roache, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London; actress and impressionist Jessica Martin; and Maurice McLeod, social commentator, director of Media Diversified, and Labour councillor for Queenstown Battersea.

Trevor Cox has written Now You're Talking: The Story of Human Conversation from Neanderthals to Artificial Intelligence.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Charms: Madeline Miller; Zoe Gilbert; Kirsty Logan May 09, 2018

Show notes

Each generation creates its own myths and in Free Thinking, Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough talks to three writers whose novels and stories spring bright and fresh from a compost of classical legend and British folk stories. Madeline Miller, the American writer who re-created Achilles for the 21st century, now turns her attention to Circe, nymph, lowest-of-the-low goddess or witch, who possesses a unique sympathy for humanity. Zoe Gilbert's obsession with folk stories where strange things happen and no-one asks why has led her to create a new island replete with a population of selkies and hares, water bulls and human happiness and tragedy. Kirsty Logan's novel of The Gloaming, takes us to an island somewhere-sometime-never off the West Coast of Scotland where turning to stone and the mermaid life are all part and parcel of daily existence. Together they discuss the enduring nature of certain kinds of stories, why they still matter and so often enjoy a surge in popularity at times of social stress and confusion. Madeline Miller: Circe is out now Zoe Gilbert: Folk is out now Kirsty Logan: The Gloaming is out now Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Out of Control? May 08, 2018

Show notes

Former army officer Dr Mike Martin on Why We Fight. Historian Priya Satia argues that guns were the drivers behind the industrial revolution. The mob as a political entity and the Massacre of St George's Fields of 10 May 1768 is considered in an opinion piece from 2018 New Generation Thinker Dafydd Mills Daniel. We also look at night time - curator Anna Sparham selects some nocturnal views of the capital from a photography exhibition at the Museum of London, while Dr Gavin Francis explains how being up all night affects the human body and mind. Anne McElvoy presents.

Mike Martin is a visiting research fellow at the Department of War Studies, King's College London, having previously studied biology at Oxford. Between these experiences, he served as a British Army officer in Afghanistan. His book Why We Fight is out now.

Priya Satia is a Prof. of History at Stanford University. She is the author of Spies in Arabia: The Great War & the Cultural Foundations of Britain’s Covert Empire in the Middle East. Her latest book Empire of Guns is out now.

Dr Dafydd Mills Daniel, Lecturer in Theology, Jesus College at the Uni. of Oxford, is one of the ten academics selected as New Generation Thinkers for 2018 in the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to help academics turn their research into radio programmes.

Anna Sparham is Curator of Photographs at the Museum of London. London Nights runs from 11th May to 11th November.

Gavin Francis is a GP, and the author of True North and Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins, which won the Scottish Book of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize and Costa Prize. His new book Shapeshifters: Medicine and Human Change is out now.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Disrupted Childhood. Turkish Star Wars May 04, 2018

Show notes

Pauline Dakin spent her childhood on the run. Sally Bayley grew up in a house where men were forbidden and a charismatic leader ruled. They compare notes with presenter Matthew Sweet. New Generation Thinker Iain Smith discusses his research into the history of a film known as the Turkish Star Wars. Plus Canadian poet Gary Geddes on his poem sequence The Terracotta Army. And the pioneering Hungarian photographer László Moholy-Nagy and the birds eye view images which he created. Sarah Allen, co-curator of a new exhibition at Tate Modern discusses his impact.

Girl with Dove: A Childhood Spent Graphically Reading by Sally Bayley is out now. Pauline Dakin's memoir is called Run, Hide, Repeat. Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (The Man Who Saved the World) is the title of a 1982 Turkish science fantasy adventure film which is also described as Turkish Star Wars. Gary Geddes is the author of poetry collections including The Terracotta Army and War & Other Measures and his non-fiction books include Medicine Unbundled: A Journey through the Minefields of Indigenous Health Care. He is talking at Birmingham, Liverpool and Oxford universities and University College London. China's First Emperor and the Terracotta Warriors is an exhibition running at the World Museum Liverpool until October 28th 2018. Shape of Light: 100 Years of Photography and Abstract Art runs at Tate Modern until October 14th 2018.

Producer: Fiona McLean

Marxism May 02, 2018

Show notes

Anne Applebaum, Gregory Claeys, Jane Humprhies and Richard Seymour join Rana Mitter to assess the legacy of Marx 200 years after his birth. Do his ideas have currency and if so where is he an influence in the world? Academic Emile Chabal reports on researching Marxism in India and Brazil.

Gregory Claeys is the author of Marx and Marxism

Richard Seymour has written Corbyn - The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics

Anne Applebaum's latest book is called Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine

Jane Humphries' book is called Childhood and Child Labour

Emile Chabal is writing a biography of Eric Hobsbawm and teaches at the University of Edinburgh.

Producer: Zahid Warley