Arts & Ideas Podcast
Leading thinkers discuss the ideas shaping our lives 鈥� looking back at the news and making links between past and present. Broadcast as Free Thinking, Fridays at 9pm on 蜜芽传媒 Radio 4. Presented by Matthew Sweet, Shahidha Bari and Anne McElvoy.
Episodes to download
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Pause for Thought
Thu 5 May 2022
From the bracket & exclamation mark to emojis - Florence Hazrat's history of punctuation
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Opium Tales
Thu 5 May 2022
Ways of seeing the trade triangle from Confessions of an Opium Eater to modern novels.
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New Generation Thinkers: Alexander and the Persians
Wed 4 May 2022
Julia Hartley asks why we call Alexander "the Great".
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Windows
Wed 4 May 2022
From Rear Window to stained glass, TB to paintings at Dulwich: Shahidha Bari hosts.
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Kawanabe Ky艒sai and Yukio Mishima
Tue 3 May 2022
Japanese cultural experimentation: painter, Ky艒sai 1831-1889 & writer, Mishima 1925-1970
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A Brazilian soprano in jazz-age Paris
Mon 2 May 2022
Adjoa Osei celebrates Elsie Houston, who mixed Afro-Brazilian folk with European opera.
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John Baptist Dasalu and fighting for freedom
Fri 29 Apr 2022
Jake Subryan Richards reads the letter sent by a captured man who arrived in Cuba in 1854
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May Day rituals
Fri 29 Apr 2022
Matthew Sweet and guests explore ideas about community, collective action and May revels.
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New Generation Thinkers: African cinema, nationhood, and liberation
Wed 27 Apr 2022
Sarah Jilani on the lessons about power in films by Ousmane Sembene and Souleymane Ciss茅
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New Generation Thinkers: Walking with the ghosts of the Durham coalfield
Mon 25 Apr 2022
Jake Morris-Campbell carries the ashes of the poet Bill Martin from Sunderland to Durham.
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Teaching and Inspiration
Thu 21 Apr 2022
Novelist Julian Barnes, historian Daisy Hay and New Generation Thinker Louise Creechan.
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Shakespeare, history, pathology and dissonant sound
Wed 20 Apr 2022
Shahidha Bari on a new staging of Shakespeare's Henry VI. Why is Warwick a key figure?
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New Thinking: Preserving Our Heritage
Tue 19 Apr 2022
From knitting patterns to greetings cards: Naomi Paxton looks at a series of UK archives
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Housework
Fri 15 Apr 2022
Gender, class & domestic tasks-Matthew Sweet pulls on his rubber gloves and gets stuck in
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Ships and History
Wed 13 Apr 2022
Artist Hew Locke plus historians Sarah Caputo, Jake Subryan Richards, and Tom Nancollas
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Grief
Fri 8 Apr 2022
Matthew Sweet and guests look at the role of ritual, laments and how we express grief.
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China: world politics, ink art & insomnia
Wed 6 Apr 2022
Kevin Rudd talks about avoiding catastrophic conflict between China and the USA
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Bridgerton and Georgian Entertainment
Wed 6 Apr 2022
Shahidha Bari with Ian Kelly, Sophie Coulombeau, Brianna Robertson-Kirkland, Hannah Greig
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New Generation Thinkers 2022
Thu 31 Mar 2022
Laurence Scott introduces the ten academics chosen to share their research on radio
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Leopoldo Torre Nilsson's Hand in the Trap
Wed 30 Mar 2022
Confronting the man who jilted you is the plot of this 1960s Argentine expressionist film
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Bruce Lee and Enter The Dragon
Tue 29 Mar 2022
Matthew Sweet watches the 1973 film that made Bruce Lee an international star
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After Dark Festival: Dark Places
Fri 25 Mar 2022
A poet, crime writer, theologian & marine biologist join Matthew Sweet to explore darkness
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After Dark Festival: Equinox
Fri 25 Mar 2022
Matthew Sweet looks for meaning in the moment when the length of day and night is equal.
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John Maynard Keynes
Tue 22 Mar 2022
From HM Treasury to Versailles and Bloomsbury: a look at the life and legacy of JM Keynes
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Vikings
Thu 17 Mar 2022
Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough talks to scholars with new insights on the Viking period
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The Stasi poetry circle, Nazi schools and German culture
Wed 16 Mar 2022
How an East German creative writing class fought the cold war: was their poetry any good?
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Fashion Stories: Boy with a Pearl Earring
Mon 14 Mar 2022
Lauren Working explores the Cavalier look from Charles I to Harry Styles
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Fashion Stories: Uniforms - an alternative history
Mon 14 Mar 2022
Tom Smith links school blazers and clothes worn by East German soldiers to clubbing
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Fashion Stories:Drama, Dressing Up and Droopy & Browns
Mon 14 Mar 2022
Jade Halbert looks at the designs inspired by English history created by Angela Holmes
