Free Thinking

Latest Episodes:

Testosterone. The grey zone. Indian science. Sep 20, 2017

Show notes

Cordelia Fine debates the effects of testosterone. Adrian Owen explores the “grey zone” of consciousness. Curator Matt Kimberley and Jahnavi Phalkey discuss scientific discoveries made in India and how they should be displayed at the London Science Museum. Plus Chair of the Judges for the Royal Society Science Book Prize Richard Fortey joins in the round table with presenter Matthew Sweet exploring whether it’s good to personalise science stories.

Diplomacy: Sir John Jenkins, Gabrielle Rifkind, Michael Burleigh, Dr Beyza Unal. Sep 20, 2017

Show notes

Philip Dodd and guests explore the art of negotiation and discuss JT Rogers' play Oslo which opens at the National Theatre this week. It draws on the experiences of Norwegian diplomat Mona Juul and her husband, social scientist Terje Rød-Larsen who fixed secret meetings between the State of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Sir John Jenkins is a former diplomat and Executive Director of The International Institute for Strategic Studies - Middle East. He's been HM Consul-General in Israel, and Ambassador to Syria, Iraq and Saudia Arabia. Gabrielle Rifkind is a senior consultant to the Middle East Programme, which she founded and directed until 2015. She is the Director of the Oxford Process, an independent preventive diplomacy initiative pioneered through her dialogue work with Oxford Research Group (ORG). Michael Burleigh is a historian and author of books including A Cultural History of Terrorism; Small Wars, Far Away Places: The Genesis of the Modern World and Moral Combat: A History of World War Two. Dr Beyza Unal is a research fellow with the International Security Department at Chatham House. She specializes in nuclear weapons policies and leads projects on chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons. Dr Unal is also conducting research on cybersecurity. Oslo plays at the National Theatre from 5 - 23 September. It opens in the West End at the Harold Pinter Theatre from 2 October to 30 December. Producer: Eliane Glaser.

Free Thinking: Russian Nationalism. Scythians. Hull and Port Talbot on stage. Sep 15, 2017

Show notes

Anne Applebaum talks to Anne McElvoy about Russian nationalism and Ukrainian history in a programme exploring the importance of borders and the way identities are bound up with a sense of place. Nick Tandavanitj and Rhiannon White discuss creating drama out of the specific histories of Hull and Port Talbot. St John Simpson, curator of a British Museum exhibition devoted to a nomadic culture of antiquity, explains the ethos of the Scythians.

Anne Applebaum is a Professor at LSE and a columnist for The Washington Post. Her new book is called Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine and covers the period from 1917 to the present.

Rhiannon White is co-artistic director of Common Wealth which is staging We're Still Here in Port Talbot at the Byass Works, Dock Road between 15 - 30 September in conjunction with National Theatre Wales. It's 6 years since they staged The Passion there.

Nick Tandavanitj has worked with Blast Theory since 1994. 2097:We Made Ourselves Over comprises five short science fiction films – each accompanied by an interactive film for smartphones – and live events across both Hull and Aarhus.

Scythians: warriors of ancient Siberia runs at the British Museum from 14 September 2017 – 14 January 2018.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Free Thinking: Social Conservatism, Kathe Kollwitz and John Ashbery Sep 14, 2017

Show notes

Philip Dodd and Joanna Kavenna discuss the challenges of art in an age of irony as the work of Käthe Kollwitz goes on display in Birmingham at the Ikon Gallery. Lawrence Norfolk pays tribute to the work of the great American poet, John Ashbery, who died last week. Plus a discussion of social conservatism in the USA, Europe and the UK with Sophie Gaston from the think tank, Demos and the political commentators, Tim Stanley and Charlie Wolf.

Kollwitz was born in Königsberg in East Prussia in 1867 and the show gathers together 40 of her drawings and prints under the themes of social and political protest, self-portraits and images she made in response to the death of her son Peter in October 1914.

Portrait of the Artist: Käthe Kollwitz A British Museum and Ikon Partnership Exhibition runs from 13 September 26 November 2017 with a fully illustrated catalogue.

John Ashbery (July 28, 1927 – September 3, 2017) is the author of collections including Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror which won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1976

Image: Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945) Self Portrait, (1924) Woodcut Copyright: The Trustees of the British Museum

Producer: Zahid Warley

Free Thinking: Washing in public. Sir Peter Hall (1930 - 2017) Sep 12, 2017

Show notes

Public pools, the "steamie" and the Turkish bath; debates about hygiene and the role and revival of these public spaces are explored by Matthew Sweet and guests as Scottish theatres host a 30th anniversary tour of Tony Roper's play depicting 1950s Glasgow women washing their clothes in a public washhouse.

Joining Matthew will be Chris Renwick, author of 'Bread for All: The Origins of the Welfare State', and Claire Launchbury, who has studied women's use of public baths in Middle Eastern cities. We'll also be introduced to the joy of the shmeiss at London's Porchester Spa with columnist and steam-rooms enthusiast Matthew Norman.

Following the announcement today of the death of Peter Hall, we'll hear an extract from an interview he recorded with Philip Dodd for Night Waves in 2011, and David Warner remembers being directed by Peter Hall in a landmark production of Hamlet in 1965. The full recording of Peter Hall's interview with Philip Dodd is available on the Free Thinking website.

The Steamie tours to Kirckaldy, Aberdeen, Dundee, Ayr, Inverness, Stirling, Glasgow and Edinburgh between September 6th and November 11th. It features Libby McArthur, Mary McCusker, Steven McNicoll, Carmen Pieraccini and Fiona Wood.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Free Thinking: Landmark: Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy Jul 13, 2017

Show notes

Simon Heffer, novelist and co-director of the Fun Palaces campaign Stella Duffy, New Generation Thinker Will Abberley and the writer and sociologist Tiffany Jenkins join Matthew Sweet and an audience at the University of Sussex to debate the ideas explored by Matthew Arnold and their resonance today. The series of periodical essays were first published in Cornhill Magazine, 1867-68, and subsequently published as a book in 1869.

Arnold argued that modern life was producing a society of 'Philistines' who only cared for material possessions and hedonistic pleasure. As a medicine for this moral and spiritual degradation, Arnold prescribed 'culture', which he defined as 'the best which has been thought and said in the world', stored in Europe's great literature, philosophy and history. By engaging with this heritage, he argued, humans could develop towards a higher state of mental and moral 'perfection'.

Simon Heffer is the author of books including High minds: the Victorians and the birth of modern Britain; Moral Desperado: A Life of Thomas Carlyle and Nor Shall My Sword: The Reinvention of England.

Tiffany Jenkins is Culture Editor for the journal Sociology Compass. Her books include Contesting Human Remains in Museum Collections, Keeping Their Marbles and she is editor of a collection of essays from various writers called Political Culture, Soft Interventions and Nation Building.

Will Abberley is a Lecturer in English at the University of Sussex and the author of English Fiction and the Evolution of Language, 1850-1914

Stella Duffy is a writer and the co-director of the Fun Palaces campaign for wider participation in all forms of arts and culture.;

Producer: Fiona McLean

Free Thinking: Art in the Age of Black Power; History of Racist Ideas in US Jul 12, 2017

Show notes

Tate Modern offers a retrospective on the Art of the Black Power Movement in America and explores how 'Black Art' was defined by artists across the United States and its interplay with the civil rights movement. Rana Mitter is joined by Gaylene Gould, writer and artist and Head of Cinema and Events at the BFI, who reviews the 'Soul of A Nation' exhibition. Rana is also joined by the reggae poet and recording artist, Linton Kwesi Johnson "Writing was a political act and poetry was a cultural weapon"', as well as the film director H O Nazareth to talk about the artists and intellectuals who made up the British Black Panther leadership. Also joining in the conversation, Sandeep Parmar, a prize-winning poet and New Generation Thinker who argues that a new generation of critics and reviewers must be found to highlight the work of poets of colour in the UK. Also, Rana Mitter talks to intellectual historian Ibram X Kendi as his award-winning account of racist ideas in the United States comes out in the UK.

Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power at London's Tate Modern 12/07/2017 - 22/10/2017

Pres: Rana Mitter Guests: Linton Kwesi Johnson Gaylene Gould H O Nazareth Sandeep Parmar 'Eidolon', Winner of the inaugural Ledbury Forte Prize for Second Collections, is out now. Ibram X Kendi 'Stamped from the Beginning: A Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America' is out now.

Free Thinking - Queer Icons: Plato's Symposium. Part of Gay Britannia. Jul 11, 2017

Show notes

Shahidha Bari discusses LGBTQ in the history of philosophy.As part of the BBC's Queer Icons series Philosopher Sophie-Grace Chappell discusses Plato's Symposium, and novelist Adam Mars-Jones talks about Bruce Bagemihl's book Biological Exuberance which explored homosexuality in the animal kingdom.

Plus, we hear from the winner of this year's Caine Prize for African Writing.

Queer Icons is a project to mark the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in which 50 leading figures choose an LGBTQ artwork that is special to them. You can find more details on the Front Row website on BBC Radio 4.

You can find the BBC's Gay Britannia season of programmes on radio and tv collected on the website. They include documentaries, Drama on 3 from Joe Orton and exploring Victim the 1961 film starring Dirk Bogarde, episodes of Words and Music and more editions of Free Thinking including Philip Hoare on Cecil Beaton, Jake Arnott on Joe Orton and Peggy Reynolds on Sappho.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Free Thinking – Writing Love: Jonathan Dollimore, Heer Ranjha. Queer Icons: Sappho. Part of Gay Britannia Jul 06, 2017

Show notes

The Punjabi "Romeo and Juliet" is explored at Bradford Lit Fest plus New Generation Thinker Catherine Fletcher talks to Jonathan Dollimore about his memoir and the influence of the Centre for the Study of Sexual Dissidence which he set up at Sussex University. The Greek poet Sappho is championed by Professor Margaret Reynolds as part of Queer Icons - a project to mark the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in which 50 leading figures choose an LGBT artwork that is special to them. And Rohit Dasgupta from Loughborough University talks about his research published in Digital Queer Cultures in India.

Jonathan Dollimore's Memoir is called Desire. Waris Shah's Heer Ranja is discussed at Bradford Lit Fest by Mahmood Awan, Avaes Mohammad and Pritpal Singh on Saturday, 8th July 2017 2:45 pm - 4:00 pm at Bradford College - ATC. One of the definitive works of the Sufiana tradition it's an epic love poem set in 18th-century undivided Punjab.

You can find more information about Queer Icons on the Front Row website. You can hear Catherine Fletcher chairing a Free Thinking discussion about Women's Voices in the Classical World recorded with Bettany Hughes, Paul Cartledge and Colm Toibin at the Hay Festival on the Free Thinking website. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08rsrlt

You can find the BBC's Gay Britannia season of programmes on radio and tv collected on the website. They include documentaries, Drama on 3, episodes of Words and Music and more editions of Free Thinking including Philip Hoare on Cecil Beaton, Jake Arnott on Joe Orton and Sophie-Grace Chappell on Plato.

Producer Craig Smith

Free Thinking – Philip Hoare and Elizabeth Jane Burnett on wild swimming. Jake Arnott on Joe Orton Jul 05, 2017

Show notes

Matthew Sweet talks to Philip Hoare about literary history and the ocean. Poet Elizabeth Jane Burnett performs snippets from her collection, Swims. Writer Jake Arnott reassesses the film Prick Up Your Ears as it's re-released in cinemas. Continuing the 'Queer Icon' series, Philip Hoare plumps for Cecil Beaton's image of Stephen Tennant.

Philip Hoare's new book is called RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR

The BFI is holding a series of Joe Orton events: Obscentities in Suburbia through August when Prick Up Your Ears is re-released in cinemas along with a Gross Indecency Season focusing on television and film made after the 1968 Act which partially decriminalised homosexuality.

Drama on 3 - a Joe Orton double bill: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08wn0lm

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

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