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Free Thinking Episodes

  1.

    Fighting Women

    Maaza Mengiste, Christina Lamb, Julie Wheelwright & Shawn Sobers join Eleanor Barraclough.

  2. Jewish Identity in 2020

    Howard Jacobson, Bari Weiss, Hadley Freeman, Jonathan Freedland and Matthew Sweet.

  3. Maths and philosophy puzzles

    Shahidha Bari looks at the legacy of 20th-century polymath Frank Ramsey (1903-1930).

  4. Anne Enright, The value of gossip

    The Irish novelist talks to Laurence Scott, plus a discussion of gossip past and present.

  5. How architecture shapes society

    Ricky Burdett, Liza Fior, Des Fitzgerald, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Edwin Heathcote at LSE

  6. Women Behaving Badly?

    Helen Lewis joins Shahidha Bari to talk feminist pioneers, dating, and power dynamics.

  7. Genes, racism, ageing and evidence

    Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin and geneticist Adam Rutherford join Rana Mitter.

  8. African Empire stories

    Petina Gappah and Sarah LeFanu on Livingstone, Kipling and Mary Kingsley in Africa.

  9. Japan Now 2020

    Hiromi Ito, Tomoko Sawada, Yukiko Motoya and Motoyuki Shibata

  10. The Surreal World of Alejandro Jodorowsky

    Matthew Sweet talks to Chilean-French director Alejandro Jodorowsky and to critics.

  11. Queer Histories

    How do we apply modern LGBT+ language and identities to historical figures?

  12. How we talk about sex and women's bodies

    Fern Riddell, Kate Lister and Robin Mitchell discuss their research with Matthew Sweet.

  13. The shadow of slavery

    Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough talks to a panel about slavery, sugar and the costs.

  14. Early Cinema

    Matthew Sweet looks back at an early female film director and a British film pioneer.

  15. Samuel Beckett & the purpose of culture

    If we want the arts to be a comfort blanket, where does Beckett fit in? Lisa Dwan responds

  16. Mocking power past and present

    The German joker Tyll Ulenspiegel. Anne McElvoy, Daniel Kehlmann and Karen Leeder discuss.

  17. Fungi: An Alien Encounter

    Are fungi out to get us or here to help? A look at mushrooms in art, food, and psychology.

  18. How we see pregnancy past and present

    Anne McElvoy hears the story of a woman who gave birth to rabbits and the news from Davos.

  19. Remembering Auschwitz

    Rana Mitter marks the anniversary of the 1945 liberation and talks to author Anne Michaels

  20. What is good listening?

    Matthew Sweet with New York Times journalist Kate Murphy, Anne Karpf and David Toop.

  21. Poetry and Science

    Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Greg Tate, Sam Illingworth & Sunayana Bhargava join Anne McElvoy.

  22. Pioneering women: academics and classics

    Nikita Gill & Francesca Wade on classicist Jane Harrison, goddesses and LSE's Eileen Power

  23. Psychohistory: Isaac Asimov and guiding the future

    Matthew Sweet asks if the fictional science of psychohistory changed the future of humans.

  24. Simplify your life - ideas from 20th-century radicals

    Laurence Scott looks at the rise of vegetarianism, a basic income, world peace and nudism.

  25. Why we read and the idea of the 'woman writer'

    From Elizabethan poet Anne Dowriche and Anne Bronte to what women say they read now.

  26. Philosophy, imagination and film

    Rana Mitter, Sally Potter and philosophers discuss thought experiments and cinema.

  27. Could there be a private language?

    Shahidha Bari investigates how Wittgenstein meets the challenge of scepticism.

  28. Panpsychism - Is everything conscious?

    Matthew Sweet lifts the lid on a radical movement in philosophy.

  29. The Strange Case of the Huge Country Pile

    Matthew Sweet and guests are upstairs and downstairs in the stately home.

  30. The culture wars and politics now

    Philip Dodd with Douglas Murray, David Goodhart, Beatrix Campbell and Maya Goodfellow.

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