Free Thinking

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America: Inequality & Race May 01, 2018

Show notes

Jesmyn Ward - author of Sing, Unburied Sing talks to Christopher Harding about editing a collection of essays called The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race and about the depictions of family life and poverty and the influence of Greek drama on her prize winning novels. Sarah Churchwell traces the history of the use and meaning of the phrases 'the American Dream' and 'America First'. John Edgar Wideman explains what he was seeking to do by blurring fact and fiction in his new short story collection American Histories.

Jesmyn Ward's novels include Salvage the Bones, Where the Line Bleeds and Sing, Unburied Sing - and a memoir called Men We Reaped. She has received a MacArthur Genius Grant and won two National Book Awards for Fiction. She has edited a collection of Essays called The Fire This Time which takes its inspiration from James Baldwin's 1963 examination of race in America, The Fire Next Time.

Professor Sarah Churchwell is the author of books including Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby and Behold America: A History of America First and the American Dream

John Edgar Wideman's work includes the novels The Cattle Killing and Philadelphia Fire and the memoir Brothers and Keepers. His new collection of short stories - American Histories - weaves real characters including Frederick Douglass and Jean-Michel Basquiat into imaginary narratives.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Tokyo Idols and Urban life. Apr 26, 2018

Show notes

Tokyo used to be presented as the ultimate hyper-modern city. But after years of economic recession the Tokyo of today has another side. A site of alienation and loneliness, anxiety about conformity and identity, it is a place where self-professed 'geeks' (or 'otaku'), mostly single middle-aged men, congregate in districts like Akibahara to pursue fanatical interests outside mainstream society, including cult-like followings of teenage girl singers known as Tokyo Idols.

Novelist Tomouki Hoshino, photographer Suzanne Mooney, writer/photographer Mariko Nagai and film-maker Kyoko Miyake look at life in the city for the Heisei generation. Presented by Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough.

Director Kyoko Miyake has made a film called Tokyo Idols which looks at the obsession of middle aged men with superstar teenage girls who make a living online Suzanne Mooney's photographs depict the urban landscapes of Tokyo. Novelist Tomouki Hoshino's latest book to be translated into English is called ME. It's about rootless millennials and suicide. Mariko Nagai is an author and photographer who has written for children and adults. Her books include Instructions for the Living and Irradiated Cities.

The translator was Bethan Jones and the speakers were all in the UK to take part in events as part of Japan Now - a festival at the British Library in London, and in Manchester, Sheffield, Norwich. Programmed by Modern Culture in partnership with the Japan Foundation and Sheffield University.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Landmark: Rashōmon Apr 25, 2018

Show notes

David Peace, Natasha Pulley, Yuna Tasaka and Jasper Sharp join Rana Mitter.

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's short story 'In a Grove', published in 1922, became the basis for the 1950 film from Akira Kurosawa 'Rashōmon', one of the first Japanese films to gain worldwide critical acclaim. 'The Rashōmon Effect' has become a byword for the literary technique where the same event is presented via the different and incompatible testimonies from the characters involved. David Peace's new book 'Patient X' is a novelised response to Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's last years and his death by suicide at the age of 35. Natasha Pulley is a novelist and Japanophile with a particular interest in Japanese literature of the 1920s, and in the unreliable narrator implied by use of the Rashōmon Effect. And Jasper Sharp is a writer and curator, author of the Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Japan and Nature Apr 25, 2018

Show notes

Photographer Mika Ninagawa talks to Christopher Harding about the artificiality of her images of cherry blossoms. A plane crash in the mountains is explored in the new novel Seventeen from Hideo Yokoyama, translated by Louise Heal Kawai. And presenter Anne McElvoy is also joined by Eiko Honda from the University of Oxford and Professor Stephen Dodd from SOAS, the University of London for an exploration of the way nature has been depicted across the decades in Japanese writing and political thought.

Seventeen by Hideo Yokoyama translated by Louise Heal Kawai is out in English now.

Producer: Robyn Read

Learning from Sweden Apr 19, 2018

Show notes

What do meatballs, The Square and Henning Mankell have in common? The answer is Sweden as you’ve no doubt guessed. As ABBA’s Cold War musical, Chess, is poised to return to the British stage Matthew Sweet considers what Sweden’s taught us – whether in films such as I am Curious Yellow or in the aisles at IKEA - and what the Swedes might have gained from their brushes with Britain. His guests include Anders Sandberg from the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford, the Swedish cultural attache, Pia Lundberg, Lars Blomgren, one of the people behind The Bridge, the social scientist, Tom Hoctor and Kieran Long - once of the V&A but now the director of the Swedish centre for Architecture and Design.

Chess runs at English National Opera from 26 Apr - 02 Jun 2018

Producer: Zahid Warley

Shakespeare, Creativity and the Role of the Writer Apr 18, 2018

Show notes

The real Cleopatra examined by New Generation Thinker Islam Issa plus Ros Barber on Warwickshire words in Shakespeare's verse, two leading neurologists, Suzanne O'Sullivan and Jules Montague explore the intricacies of the brain and the infinite capacity for experience and imagination, the playwright Ella Hickson on her new production in which she explores the personal cost of creative gain and Philip Horne on the notebooks left behind when the novelist Henry James died. Anne McElvoy presents.

Brainstorm by Suzanne O'Sullivan published by Chatto and Windus Lost and Found by Jules Montague published by Sceptre Tales from a Master's Notebook edited by Philip Horne published by Vintage The Writer by Ella Hickson runs at the Almeida Theatre in London from April 14 to May 26. It stars Romola Garai and Samuel West and is directed by Blanche McIntyre.

Producer: Fiona McLean

The Politics of Fashion and Drag Apr 18, 2018

Show notes

Scrumbly Koldewyn remembers the '60s San Francisco theatre scene; Jenny Gilbert & Shahdiha Bari debate environmentalism and fashion at the V&A and Clare Lilley Director of Programmes at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park looks at the use of thread and textiles in art. Plus drag at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern in London with performers Lavinia Co-op and Rhys Hollis, plus Ben Walters who is researching this history.

The environmental impact of fashion over more than 400 years is examined in the first UK exhibition to look at this topic. That's how the V&A is billing its new show Fashioned From Nature. Jenny Gilbert from De Montfort University visits the display and talks to Shahidha Bari about her research into textiles.

Fashioned from Nature runs at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London from April 21st to January 27th 2019. The Yorkshire Sculpture Park is displaying Beyond Time an installation in the C18th chapel by Chiharu Shiota until September 2nd.

Scrumbly Koldewyn is one of the founding members of the Cockettes, the legendary psychedelic hippie theatre troupe based in San Francisco in the 60s

The tenth season of RuPaul's Drag Race has just started to air on Netflix. The Royal Vauxhall Tavern is South London's oldest surviving gay venue and is the UK's first building to be Grade II listed in recognition of its importance to LGBTQ community history.

Producer: Debbie Kilbride

Marilynne Robinson Apr 12, 2018

Show notes

When President Obama met the American essayist and fiction writer Marilynne Robinson they discussed shared values, citiizenship and Christianity. She talks to Rana Mitter about her definition of Puritanism, the radical history of the mid west states, the use of religion in current American political rhetoric and the biblical cadences of her fiction.

Marilynne Robinson is the author of novels including Gilead, Lila, Home and her new collection of Essays is called What Are We Doing Here ?

Producer: Fiona McLean

Macbeth and Things Fall Apart Apr 11, 2018

Show notes

Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbø on his novel based on Macbeth; playwright Mark Ravenhill on why the play rarely works on stage, James Shapiro on the contemporary events which shaped it and Emma Whipday on the elements that Shakespeare borrowed from 16th century domestic dramas. Plus Ellah Wakatama Allfrey on rereading Chinua Achebe's 1958 novel and the echoes of Macbeth she found there. Presented by Shahidha Bari

A 60th anniversary reading of Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe and abridged by Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, Publishing Director at The Indigo Press, is taking place at London's Southbank Centre in the Queen Elizabeth Hall on April 15th, with readers including Lucian Msamati, Chibundu Onuzo, Margaret Busby and Olu Jacobs.

Jo Nesbø's Macbeth is published now and the plot summary reads: When a drug bust turns into a bloodbath it’s up to Inspector Macbeth and his team to clean up the mess. He’s also an ex-drug addict with a troubled past.

Macbeth - starring Rory Kinnear and Anne-Marie Duff - is on stage at London's National Theatre until June 23rd and will be broadcast live to cinemas on 10 May. It's also at the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon - starring Christopher Eccleston and Niamh Cusack - until September 18th and will transfer to London between Oct 15th and Jan 18th 2019. Mark Bruce Company are on tour with their dance-theatre version visiting Ipswich, Blackpool, Exeter, Salisbury and Milton Keynes. Macbeth directed by Kit Monkman is in cinemas around the UK.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

British New Wave Films of the '60s Apr 10, 2018

Show notes

Matthew Sweet talks to the painter, Maggi Hambling about Cedric Morris one of British art's lost masters and with Joely Richardson and Melanie Williams, evaluates the impact and legacy of Woodfall Flims - the company that gave Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay and Rita Tushingham their first breaks and introduced us to films such as Look Back in Anger, A Taste of Honey and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. To round things off he'll also be talking to Daniel Kalder about his fascination with the literary works of politicians such as Lenin, Mao, Hitler and Kim Jong-Un.

The BFI is having a season focusing on Woodfall films, which are also being released on DVD.

Daniel Kalder's book is published as Dictator Literature in Britain and as The Infernal Library in the US.

Producer: Zahid Warley

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