Free Thinking

Latest Episodes:

Free Thinking: Political Sketch Writing. Enclosure Acts. 2017. Branwell Bronte. Pushkin House Book Prize 2017 Jun 08, 2017

Show notes

Anne McElvoy looks at the style of the election campaign and how it's been reflected by political sketch writers with John Crace and Quentin Letts. As Common by DC Moore opens at London's National Theatre, Simon Jenkins and Jonathan Healey discuss the impact of the Enclosure Acts. New Generation Thinker Emma Butcher from the University of Hull marks 200 years since Branwell Brontë was born. The winner of this year's Pushkin House Russian Book Prize - Rosalind Blakesley - talks to Anne along with one of the judges, writer Charlotte Hobson.

Rosalind Blakesley's prize-winning book is The Russian Canvas: Painting in Imperial Russia 1757-1881

You can find more information about events including talks and guided walks for the Branwell Brontë anniversary at the Bronte Parsonage Museum and as part of the Bradford Lit Fest where a statue is being unveiled.

https://www.bronte.org.uk/https://www.bradfordlitfest.co.uk/

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

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Free Thinking - Revenge: My Cousin Rachel, Natalie Haynes, 2017 New Generation Thinker Islam Issa. Jun 07, 2017

Show notes

Matthew Sweet sees a film version of Daphne Du Maurier's novel directed by Roger Michell and looks at revenge in Shakespeare and Greek drama with 2017 New Generation Thinker Islam Issa and classicist and author Natalie Haynes. Andrew O'Hagan discusses his new book of essays exploring his relationship with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and the Australian web developer who may or not be the inventor of the Bitcoin.

Natalie Haynes new novel is called The Children of Jocasta. Andrew O'Hagan's new book is called The Secret Life. My Cousin Rachel starring Rachel Weisz is in cinemas around the UK. Islam Issa is a 2017 New Generation Thinker who teaches at Birmingham City University. He is the author of Milton in the Arab-Muslim World and you can hear him in the Free Thinking Landmark exploring Paradise Lost.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC with 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: Fiona McLean

Free Thinking - Arundhati Roy Jun 06, 2017

Show notes

Arundhati Roy, the Man Booker prize winning author and campaigner is in conversation with Philip Dodd as she publishes her second novel 20 years after The God of Small Things.

Arundhati Roy's new novel is called The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. It is being read on BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime.

Producer: Zahid Warley

Free Thinking - Hay 2017: Writing History with Sebastian Barry, Jake Arnott, Madeleine Thien. Jun 01, 2017

Show notes

The authors of three historical novels discuss the way research and family history have informed their fiction in a discussion recorded at the Hay Festival chaired by New Generation Thinker Sarah Dillon from the University of Cambridge.

Jake Arnott has set novels in the 1960s, the 1940s and the 1900s and in his latest novel The Fatal Tree he depicts the criminal world in 18th century London. Madeleine Thien’s novel Do Not Say We Have Nothing explores the impact of the Cultural Revolution on two generations of musicians. It has won prizes in her native Canada and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Sebastian Barry won the Costa Book of the Year for his novel Days Without End, which imagines the gay relationship between soldiers caught up in the American Civil War.

Producer: Zahid Warley.

Free Thinking: Ecstasy. Carpe Diem. 2017 New Generation Thinker Hetta Howes on medieval ecstasy. Jun 01, 2017

Show notes

Why we need to seize the moment and lose control more often is discussed by philosophers Jules Evans and Roman Krznaric and Canon Angela Tilby. And presenter Rana Mitter is joined by 2017 New Generation Thinker Hetta Howes, whose research looks at medieval attitudes to ecstasy.

'Carpe Diem Regained: The Vanishing Art of Seizing the Day' by Roman Krznaric is out now www.carpediem.click Jules Evans is a 2013 New Generation Thinker who blogs at http://www.philosophyforlife.org/ His book The Art of Losing Control is out now. Canon Angela Tilby is a contributor to Radio 4's Thought for the Day. Her website is http://www.angelatilby.co.uk/Index/Welcome.html Dr Hetta Howes is at Queen Mary The University of London.

You can hear Haemin Sunim at the Free Thinking Festival here http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08jb1mp

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

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Free Thinking: Hay 2017: Women's Voices in the Classical World. May 30, 2017

Show notes

Colm Toibin, Bettany Hughes and Paul Cartledge join New Generation Thinker Catherine Fletcher for a discussion recorded at Hay.

Colm Toibin’s new novel House of Names explores the story of Clytemnestra and the murder of her husband Agamemnon. His other novels include The Testament of Mary, Brooklyn and Nora Webster. Paul Cartledge is A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture Emeritus at the University of Cambridge and the author of many books which look at the classical world including Ancient Greece: A Very Short Introduction, Ancient Greece: A History in Eleven Cities and Democracy: A Life Bettany Hughes has presented many TV and Radio programmes exploring the classical world including Divine Women, Genius of the Ancient World, Banishing Eve and The Ideas That Make Us. Her books include Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore, The Hemlock Cup and Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities

Catherine Fletcher is a New Generation Thinker who has presented Essays and documentaries for BBC Radio 3. She is the author of The Black Prince of Florence The Spectacular Life and Treacherous World of Alessandro de' Medici

Producer: Zahid Warley

Part of Radio 3's week-long residency at Hay Festival, with Lunchtime Concert, In Tune, Free Thinking, The Verb and The Listening Service all broadcasting from the festival.

Free Thinking: Artist Tom Phillips at 80; How do we save our plants? May 25, 2017

Show notes

The artist Tom Phillips talks to Philip Dodd about his career as he marks his 80th birthday. His works range from sculptures, like a tennis ball with his own hair, to commissions for the Imperial War Museum and Peckham, and portraits of subjects including Sir Harrison Birtwistle and the Monty Python team. His interest in literature is seen in his version of Dante's Inferno and art made from reworking the text of a Victorian novel, in addition to his post card collection, photographic diaries and his role as a Royal Academician.

Plus, as scientists and policymakers gather at Kew to take stock of the world's plant diversity, Philip is joined by botanist Pippa Greenwood, conservationist Murphy Westwood, and the 'Plant Messiah' Carlos Magdalena to consider the lilies.

The Plant Messiah: Adventures in Search of the World's Rarest Species by Carlos Magdalena is published on the 1st of June.

Connected Works by Tom Phillips runs at the Flowers Gallery, Kingsland Road, London from May 26th to July 1st. The South London Gallery hosts the world premiere performance and an audio-visual installation of his opera Irma on the 16 and 17 September 2017, drawn from his Victorian novel artwork A Humument.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

Free Thinking - Japan and Korea. Hokusai May 24, 2017

Show notes

Chris Harding discusses the work of Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai with Tim Clark, curator of a new exhibition at the British Museum and explores the relationship between Korea and Japan through the visual arts with art historian Angus Locker, Charlotte Horlyck, chair of the Centre for Korean Studies at the School of Oriental & African Studies, and Je Yun Moon, a curator at the Korean Cultural Centre UK overseeing a year-long festival of Korean arts. Plus Aidan Foster-Carter on the US involvement in the formation of North and South Korea.

Hokusai: beyond the Great Wave runs at the British Museum from May 25th to August 13th. You can find out more about Hokusai on BBC Radio 4's In Our Time.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Free Thinking - Bella Bathurst. Mike Figgis. Birds in British literature. 2017 New Generation Thinker Daisy Fancourt. May 23, 2017

Show notes

Author and photojournalist Bella Bathurst suddenly began to lose her hearing as an adult in 1997. Twelve years later, an operation enabled her to recover it. She has written a book about her experience, insights gained about listening and the science behind deafness.

2017 New Generation Thinker Daisy Fancourt researches the effect of the arts on immune response and public health.

New Generation Thinker Will Abberley has curated an exhibition exploring birds in British literature.

Director, screenwriter and composer Mike Figgis encourages writers to rethink plotting in his new book, The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations.

Sound: Stories of Hearing Lost and Found by Bella Bathurst is available now. Stories on the Wing: British Birds in Literature runs at the Booth Museum in Brighton from 19 May to 21 September 2017. Free admission. The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations by Mike Figgis is published on 1 June 2017.

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

Producer: Karl Bos

Free Thinking: Fiona Shaw and Mark Ravenhill on Brecht, John Knox, 2017 New Generation Thinker Joanne Paul. May 18, 2017

Show notes

As dramas about John Knox and Galileo open at theatres in Edinburgh and London, Philip Dodd talks to Fiona Shaw and Mark Ravenhill about performing and staging Brecht and to Edinburgh Lyceum director David Greig. He's also joined by 2017 New Generation Thinker Joanne Paul, from the University of Sussex, who researches the idea of parrhesia or 'speaking truth to power'. And satirist Nev Fountain and stand-up comedian Simon Evans discuss whether comedy is still an effective weapon with which to attack the powerful.

Bertold Brecht's Life of Galileo directed by Joe Wright in a translation by John Willlett runs at the Young Vic Theatre in London from May 6th - July 1st. Glory on Earth runs at the Royal Lyceum Edinburgh from May 20th to June 10th. Written by Linda McLean the drama is directed by David Greig and stars Jamie Sives.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

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