Free Thinking

Latest Episodes:

Free Thinking: Rachel Seiffert. James Hawes,Richard Nelson. 2017 New Gen Thinker Alistair Fraser on gangs May 17, 2017

Show notes

Anne McElvoy talks to the Tony award-winning playwright Richard Nelson about bringing his trilogy depicting a US family over the 2016 election year to the Brighton Festival. Novelist Rachel Seiffert was shortlisted for the Booker prize with her book The Dark Room. Her new novel is inspired by the arrival of the Nazis in a Ukrainian village. The political novelist, James Hawes, explains why a lack of a clear eastern border has informed German history for two thousand years. Plus the etymology of gangs explained by 2017 New Generation Thinker Alistair Fraser, a lecturer in criminology and sociology at the University of Glasgow.

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 a collection of films and broadcasts on the Free Thinking website.

The Gabriel Trilogy runs at the Brighton Festival from May 20th to May 27th. Rachel Seiffert's novel A Boy in Winter is out now. James Hawes 'The Shortest History of Germany' is out now.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Free Thinking - Artist Taryn Simon. Deglobalisation. 2017 New Generation Thinker Eleanor Lybeck on the circus. May 16, 2017

Show notes

Artist Taryn Simon, Master of Photography at this year's Photo London Art Fair, speaks to Matthew Sweet about her work including her latest project Image Atlas inspired by the top image results for given search terms across local engines throughout the world.

2017 New Generation Thinker Eleanor Lybeck from the University of Oxford on the artist Edward Seago and running away to the circus.

What if globalisation isn't as unstoppable as once thought? As manufacturing technology advances will the push for cheap labour abroad cease? How will that change the location of factories? And how might that affect you? We consider the idea of deglobalisation with Finbarr Livesey, author of From Global To Local, and Stephanie Flanders, former BBC Economics Editor, now Chief Market Strategist for UK and Europe at J P Morgan.

Taryn Simon's art work is on show as part of Photo London at the Embankment Gallery East in Somerset House.

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 information, films and broadcasts on the Free Thinking website. From Global To Local: The making of things and the end of globalisation by Finbarr Livesey is published 18 May 2017.

Producer: Zahid Warley

Free Thinking: Laurent Binet; the rise of blockchain tech. May 11, 2017

Show notes

Anne McElvoy talks to the French novelist Laurent Binet about his playful novel The 7th Function of Language, inspired by the death of Roland Barthes which has won the Prix de la FNAC and Prix Interallié. Emile Chabal considers what's next for France and Europe after the election of Emmanuel Macron. Plus, why blockchains, the technology underpinning cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, have the potential to revolutionize the world economy. Or do they? Three experts - Ajit Tripathi, Colin Platt and Izabella Kaminska - discuss.

The 7th Function of Language by Laurent Binet, translated by Sam Taylor, is out now.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

Free Thinking: Salomé, Angels in America, Queer British Art May 10, 2017

Show notes

Playwright Mark Ravenhill and critic Matt Wolf debate desire and politics with Philip Dodd as Tony Kushner's Angels in America is revived at the National Theatre in London. Writer and theatre director Yaël Farber explains her vision of the story of Salomé as one set in an occupied desert country where a radical is on hunger strike and a girl's dance is at the centre of a revolution. Peggy Reynolds and Matt Cook discuss the exhibition Queer British Art 1861-9167.

Salomé is at the National Theatre from May 2nd to July 15th with an NT live broadcast around the UK on June 22nd. Angels in America: part one Millennium Approaches is an NT live broadcast on July 20th and runs in rep until August 19th. Angels in America: part two Perstroika is an NT live broadcast on July 27th and runs in rep until August 19th. Queer British Art 1861-9167 runs at Tate Britain until October 1st 2017. A Gay History of Britain: Love and Sex Between Men Since the Middle Ages by Matt Cook is out now.

Tony Kushner's drama Caroline, or Change is at the Chichester Theatre until June 3rd in a production starring Sharon D. Clarke

The Russell-Cotes Museum in Bournemouth opens Refracted: Collection Highlights, which has been co-curated with members of the local LGBT+ community May 13th which runs until September 8th and includes a photography exhibition opening in August.

Desire Love Identity: exploring LGBTQ histories is a free display in Room 69a which runs at the British Museum until October 15th.

Producer: Fiona McLean

Free Thinking: The Wolfson Prize May 09, 2017

Show notes

Rana Mitter is joined by the 6 shortlisted authors and an audience at the British Academy for a discussion about writing history. This is the first year that the Wolfson History Prize has announced a shortlist. The winner will be named on May 15th.

Daniel Beer, THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD: SIBERIAN EXILE UNDER THE TSARS

Chris Given-Wilson, HENRY IV

Christopher de Hamel, MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE MANUSCRIPTS

Sasha Handley, SLEEP IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND

Lyndal Roper, MARTIN LUTHER: RENEGADE AND PROPHET

Matthew Strickland, HENRY THE YOUNG KING, 1155-1183

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Free Thinking: Breaking Free: Landmark - Paradise Lost May 05, 2017

Show notes

Professor John Carey joins New Generation Thinkers Islam Issa and Joe Moshenska and presenter Philip Dodd to discuss Milton's poem, the first version of which was published in 1667. The discussion explores the influence of Protestant thinking, the Reformation and the Renaissance on Milton's depiction of religious and political beliefs as part of Radio 3's Breaking Free series of programmes exploring the impact of Martin Luther's Revolution.

Dr Islam Issa from Birmingham City University has written Milton in the Arab-Muslim World Professor John Carey has written The Essential Paradise Lost. He is an Emeritus professor at Merton, Oxford - an Honorary Professor of Liverpool University, a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Literature. Dr Joe Moshenska is the author of A Stain In The Blood: The Remakable Voyage of Sir Kenelm Digby and teaches at the University of Cambridge. Dr Mandy Green from Durham University is the author of Milton's Ovidian Eve.

Reader: Kerry Gooderson

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Free Thinking: Breaking Free - Martin Luther’s Revolution. New Research into the Reformation May 03, 2017

Show notes

Rana Mitter looks at new research into the way daily life changed in Britain after the Reformation for Radio 3's series of programmes exploring Martin Luther's Revolution. His guests are:

Alec Ryrie, Professor in Religion and Theology at the University of Durham and author of: Protestants: The Faith that Made the Modern World 201; Tom Charlton, New Generation Thinker is currently studying the history of Protestant nonconformity at Dr Williams's Library, London Elizabeth Goodwin from the University of Sheffield and Birmingham is an expert on Nuns in the Reformation Tara Hamling from the University of Birminghamb is the author of Decorating the Godly Household: Religious Art in Protestant Britain c.1560-c.1660.

Producer Jacqueline Smith

Free Thinking - Breaking Free: Martin Luther's Revolution May 02, 2017

Show notes

Peter Stanford, Ulinka Rublack and Diarmaid MacCulloch join Anne McElvoy to explore the question Martin Luther - Fundamentalist, Reactionary or Enlightened Creator of the Modern World? The discussion was recorded in front of an audience at theLiterary Festival for Radio 3's Breaking Free series of programmes exploring Martin Luther's Revolution. 500 years ago Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation when he nailed a sheet of paper to the door of a church in a small university town in Germany. That sheet and the incendiary ideas it contained flared up into religious persecution and war, eventually burning a huge hole through 16th century Christendom. And yet the man who sparked this revolution has somehow been lost in the glare of events. Peter Stanford is the author of a new biography of Luther Ulinka Rublack is the author of Reformation Europe Diarmaid MacCulloch's most recent book is All Things Made New - Writings on the Reformation Producer Zahid Warley.

Free Thinking - Wellcome Book Prize, Civil Wars: Susan Buck-Morss and A.C. Grayling, Louisa Egbunike and Akachi Ezeigbo. Apr 27, 2017

Show notes

A novel by Maylis de Kerangal which traces a heart transplant is the winner of this year's Wellcome Book Prize and the inspiration for a film out in the UK this week. Also, Anne McElvoy discusses nation states and war with US Professor of Political Philosophy Susan Buck-Morss and Professor AC Grayling. The 50th anniversary of the Biafran war and fictional representations of it are explored with New Generation Thinker Louisa Egbunike - organiser of the Igbo Conference at SOAS - and Professor Akachi Ezeigbo.

Maylis de Kerangal is the author of 'Mend The Living'. The film is called 'Heal the Living' and is in UK cinemas from Friday 28 April. 'War: An Enquiry' by AC Grayling is out now. Susan Buck Morss's talk at the London School of Economics is available to listen to as a download from their website. Professor Akachi Ezeigbo is the author the Biafran War novel 'Roses and Bullets'. Further information about the Igbo Conference at SOAS is available from the conference website.

Producer: Karl Bos Editor: Robyn Read

Free Thinking - What now for environmentalism? With Paul Kingsnorth, James Thornton and Martin Goodman Apr 26, 2017

Show notes

Paul Kingsnorth, former deputy-editor of The Ecologist, co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project and author of novels including The Wake and Beast, talks about his changing attitude to the environmental movement. Environmental lawyer James Thornton and writer Martin Goodman recount their travels from Poland to Ghana, Alaska to China, to see how citizens are using public interest law to protect their planet. Plus, critic Maria Delgado and biographer Adam Feinstein consider the lost poems of that Chilean lover of nature, Pablo Neruda. Client Earth by James Thornton and Martin Goodman is published on the 11th of May. Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist by Paul Kingsnorth is out now. The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry selected and introduced by Paul Kingsnorth is out now. Then Come Back: The Lost Neruda Poems, by Pablo Neruda is published on Thursday 27 April 2017. Neruda a film by Pablo Larraín starring Gael García Bernal as a policeman searching for the Chilean politician Pablo Neruda played by Luis Gnecco is out in cinemas across the UK now. Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Free Thinking

Related Podcasts

1

2

3

4

5

6