Free Thinking Episodes Episode guide
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Ibsen
New interpretations of the Norwegian dramatist's plays by Lucinda Coxon and Steve Waters.
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The Black Country, past and present
Matthew Sweet and guests record with an audience at the Contains Strong Language Festival.
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The Normans
Rana Mitter and guests look at Norman history, misconceptions and echoes heard today.
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Cuba, cold war and RAF Fylingdales
Novelist Ian McEwan and researchers into early warning system archives join Anne McElvoy
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Immortality
Matthew Sweet and guests explore ideas about never ending life in literature film and myth
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The Lindisfarne Gospels and new discoveries
An archaeologist, a historian and a poet join Shahidha Bari as the gospels return North.
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What language did Columbus speak?
John Gallagher and guests explore language in the 15th-century Age of Exploration.
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Satyajit Ray's films
Tariq Ali, Sarah Jilani, Sangeeta Datta and Chandak Sengoopta and Rana Mitter discuss Ray.
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The Daleks
Matthew Sweet's guests include the voice of the Daleks and the Doctor's granddaughter.
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France, music hall and history
An outdoor history of France and a look inside popular French theatre's view on Britain.
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Women Warriors and Power Brokers
Shobana Jeyasingh, Cat Jarman and Janina Ramirez share new research with Shahidha Bari.
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The Black Fantastic
How the speculative and the mythical have shaped and continue to shape Black art.
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Writing about money
Orwell Prize finalist Kojo Koram plus poetry interested in economics
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Vampires and the Penny Dreadful
Matthew Sweet, Joan Passey, Roger Luckhurst and Sam George look at Varney the Vampire
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David Chalmers and Iain McGilchrist
Two leading thinkers who are investigating the nature of mind and its place in the world.
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Belief, Habit and Religion
Rana Mitter discusses religion, evolution, neuroscience and history.
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Late works
Dame Sheila Hancock, viola player Rachel Stott and writer Geoff Dyer on endings.
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ETA Hoffmann
Anne McElvoy and guests look at the writing of the German Romantic writer and musician.
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Sheffield
Reimagining the city through Chris Bush's drama trilogy about its oldest scissor factory.
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Slow film and ecology
Matthew Sweet discusses environmental thinking and a film about rice made over 18 years.
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Bloomsday, Dalloway Day and 1922
Shahidha Bari looks at the writing of Woolf and Joyce and what was really popular in 1922.
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South African writing
Damon Galgut discusses his Booker Prize-winning novel, The Promise, with Anne McElvoy
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Victorian Streets
Is that strong, inescapable image of 19th-century city streets in our heads the right one?
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John McGrath's Scottish Drama
Anne McElvoy revisits the 1973 play The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil
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The Wolfson Prize 2022
Rana Mitter interviews the shortlisted authors for the Wolfson Prize for history writing.
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Amia Srinivasan and Philosophical Genealogy
The Right to Sex is the title of Amia Srinivasan's new book. Christopher Harding hosts.
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Oceans and the Sea
Abdulrazak Gurnah, Emily Shuckburgh and Joan Passey join Rana Mitter at Hay Festival.
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Tudor families
Tangled bloodlines, executions and a big, gold inflatable thing belonging to Henry VIII.
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The Tudor Mind
Donne, Hamlet, mathematics and the Tudor portraits composed by Vaughan Williams.
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Tattoos
Shahidha Bari traces the move from markings on convicts and aristos to today's body art.
