Free Thinking

Latest Episodes:

Free Thinking: Food Jul 04, 2017

Show notes

Can going out for a meal really be an aesthetic experience, like going to a gallery or a theatre? What kind of statement are we making when we say we don’t like beetroot? And what can the great thinkers of history – the philosopher David Hume, the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss – tell us about table manners? And which thousand islands are we talking about when we talk about a thousand island dressing?

Matthew Sweet explores the joys of food with philosopher Barry Smith, restaurant critic cum trainee chef Lisa Markwell, literary critic Alex Clark, and food historian Elsa Richardson

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Free Thinking: Canada 150: Sydney Newman and British TV; Vahni Capildeo; Shubbak Festival 2017 Jun 29, 2017

Show notes

Matthew Sweet looks at the Canadian influence on British TV drama in the early 1960s, with director Alvin Rakoff, Sydney Newman biographer, Ryan Danes, and Graeme Burk, contributor to the publication of Newman's memoirs. Newman was instrumental in setting up Armchair Theatre, The Avengers and Doctor Who and The Wednesday Play at a time when broadcasting was in an excitingly fluid state.

The British-Trinidadian poet Vahni Capildeo on her Forward Prize winning collection Measures of Expatriation and a new Poetry Prize for Second Collections, the Ledbury Forte Prize.

Artists Larissa Sanour and Jonathan May discuss the Survival of the Artist as this year's Shubbak, London's festival of Contemporary Arab Culture opens.

Presenter: Matthew Sweet Guests: Graeme Burk 'Head of Drama: The Memoir of Sydney Newman' by Sydney Newman (Author), Ted Kotcheff (Foreword, Contributor), Graeme Burk (Contributor) out in September Ryan Danes 'The Man Who Thought Outside the Box: The Life and Times of Doctor Who Creator Sydney Newman' out now Vahni Capildeo 'Measure of Expatriation' out now.

The Ledbury Poetry Festival 30th June to 9th July 2017

The Survival of the Artist presented by The Mosaic Rooms, at the British Museum July 2nd, part of Shubbak, London's Festival of Contemporary Arab Culture 1–16 July 2017 .

Producer: Jaqueline Smith.

Free Thinking: Canada 150: Identity Robbie Richardson, Alison MacLeod, Deborah Pearson + Rupi Kaur and Kevan Funk. Jun 29, 2017

Show notes

Shahidha Bari and Laurence Scott look at images of Canada from First Nations art through Anne of Green Gables on TV to poems and art posted on Instagram and Twitter by Rupi Kaur. Their studio guests are author Alison MacLeod, Robbie Richardson and Deborah Pearson. Plus film maker Kevan Funk.

Rupi Kaur has published a book called Milk and Honey and you can find images of her art via her website https://www.rupikaur.com/

Robbie Richardson from the University of Kent is writing a book about the connections between representations of First Nations people in 18th-century British literature and the rise of modern British identity.

Kevan Funk's film Hello Destroyer is on a tour of UK cinemas along with other films from the Canada Now Festival and it is also available from Curzon Home Cinema.

Alison MacLeod has published a short story collection all the beloved ghosts.

Deborah Pearson's documentary History History History is screening as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from August 5th to 10th.

Anne of Green Gables, the 1908 novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery, has recently been remade for TV in a CBC-Netflix adaptation

Part of Canada 150: a week of programmes marking the 150th anniversary of the founding of the nation. You can find links to concerts and other broadcasts on the Radio 3 website.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Free Thinking - Canada 150: Robert Lepage, Katherine Ryan. Jun 27, 2017

Show notes

Philip Dodd explores the influence of Canadian history and the difference between stand up and performing a one man show. Katherine Ryan is based in the UK and about to perform at summer festivals and in an autumn tour. The French Canadian playwright, performer and opera director Robert Lepage recently staged his autobiographical "memory play", 887, at the Barbican in London. He has directed a ring cycle for the Metropolitan Opera which was featured in a 2012 documentary Wagner's Dream and productions of Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust and Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress and has also worked on shows for Cirque Du Soleil.

http://www.katherineryan.co.uk/http://lacaserne.net/index2.php/robertlepage/

Part of Radio 3's Canada 150: a week of programmes marking the 150th anniversary of the founding of the nation. You can find links to concerts and other broadcasts on the Radio 3 website.

Producer: Robyn Read

Free Thinking - Man and Machine: Garry Kasparov, Wyndham Lewis. 2017 New Generation Thinker Simon Beard Jun 22, 2017

Show notes

Garry Kasparov talks to Philip Dodd about being defeated by a supercomputer in the chess match he played in 1997 and how this affected his view of AI. 100 years ago, Wyndham Lewis was first commissioned as a war artist; Richard Slocombe, curator of a new exhibition and art historian Anna Grueztner Robins discuss his art with John Keane who was a war artist in the Gulf War. 2017 New Generation Thinker Simon Beard outlines his research into overpopulation and our attitude towards death.

Garry Kasparov's book is called Deep Thinking: Where Artificial Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins.

Wyndham Lewis: Life, Art, War is a display of 160 artworks, books, journals and pamphlets which runs at the Imperial War Museum North in Salford from 23 June 2017 – 1 January 2018

Simon Beard is based at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Cambridge researching existential risk. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio and television. You can find more on the Free Thinking website.

Free Thinking - Terrorism: Richard English, Baroness Warsi, 2017 New Generation Thinker Thomas Simpson. Jun 22, 2017

Show notes

Rana Mitter goes to a drama which asks the audience to play jury in a trial following the hijacking of a plane. He's joined by Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, whose book 'The Enemy Within' looks at attitudes towards the Islamic community in Britain, Richard English author of 'Does Terrorism Work?: A History', Faisal Devji, author of several studies of political Islam and the ideology of Jihad, and 2017 New Generation Thinker Thomas Simpson.

'Terror' by Ferdinand von Schirach in a translation by David Tushingham is directed at the Lyric Hammersmith by Sean Holmes running from 14 Jun ‐ 15 Jul 2017

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi's book is called 'The Enemy Within'. Richard English is the author of Does Terrorism Work?: A History Faisal Devji's books include 'Landscapes of the Jihad: Militancy, Morality, Modernity' (2005) and 'The Terrorist in Search of Humanity: Militant Islam and Global Politics' (2009) Tom Simpson is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio and television. You can find more on the Free Thinking website.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Free Thinking: Tom McCarthy. Jacobitism; Satirical Indexes; A Museum of Modern Nature Jun 20, 2017

Show notes

Essayist Tom McCarthy joins presenter Anne McElvoy, academics Dennis Duncan + Peter Mackay and the curator of A Museum of Modern Nature.

As a new exhibition opens in Edinburgh, 'Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites', poet and New Generation Thinker Peter Mackay explores the hundreds of artefacts gathered from home and abroad and gives us his reflections on the old old story of the Kings over the Water.

Dennis Duncan from The Bodleian Centre for the Study of the Book brings a tale of how indexes were used to expose British Jacobite sympathisers in the decades following the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

Plus a new exhibition called 'A Museum of Modern Nature' features objects offered by members of the public who were asked to reflect on what connected them to the natural world and their sense of the presence of nature in their own lives with Rosie Stanbury and Rebekah Shaman

Tom McCarthy's Essay Collection is called Typewriters, Bombs, Jellyfish. Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites: National Museum of Scotland 23 June - 12 November 2017 A Museum of Modern Nature: Wellcome Trust exhibition in London 22 June - 8 October 2017

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Free Thinking: Churchill, Pocahontas and The Idiot Jun 15, 2017

Show notes

Anne McElvoy is joined by screenwriter Alex von Tunzelmann who discusses her new film, Churchill. New Generation Thinker Christopher Bannister, an expert on the propaganda unit The Ministry of Information, reveals the influence it still wields today. Academic Nandini Das and Stephanie Pratt, an art historian with Native American heritage, consider the complicated legacy of Pocahontas 400 years after her death. Plus, writer Elif Batuman offers a linguistic guide to the nuisances of the Turkish language and explains why she's so in love with the book titles of Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Elif Batuman's The Idiot is out now.

You can find information about Pocahontas events from Gravesend Council http://www.visitgravesend.co.uk/events/pocahontas-400/ and http://www.bigideascompany.org/project/pocahontas-2017/

Churchill is on general release from Friday.

Christopher Bannister is based at the School of Advanced Study at University College London.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3, BBC Arts and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio and television. You can find more on the Free Thinking website.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

Free Thinking: Narcissism Jun 14, 2017

Show notes

Shahidha Bari and Laurence Scott explore our obsession with the self. Take a look in the mirror with author and photographer Will Storr, the novelist, Olivia Sudjic, Tom Jackson, creator of Postcard from the Past and the neuroscientist, Sophie Scott. Producer: Zahid Warley Will Storr's book Selfie is published by Picador Olivia Sudjic's novel, Sympathy is published by One - the Pushkin Press imprint Tom Jackson's Postcard from the Past is published by Fourth Estate and @PastPostcard Sophie Scott is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London

Free Thinking: Will Self, R. D. Laing and Mandy. Jun 13, 2017

Show notes

Will Self joins Matthew Sweet to discuss the mind, consciousness, ADHD, Alzheimer’s and PTSD - all woven together in his new novel Phone. Mad to be Normal director, Robert Mullan, talks about the man at the centre of his film, controversial psychiatrist R. D. Laing. Critic Melanie Williams considers Mandy, Alexander Mackendrick's 1952 film about a deaf child learning to find her way in post-war Britain. Mandy was played by the child actress Mandy Miller who recalls her starring role from sixty five years ago.

Will Self's new novel, Phone is out now.

Mad to be Normal is in selected cinemas, certificate 15.

A new restoration of Mandy is out now on Blu-Ray and DVD.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

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