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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The illusion of time, the summer solstice & the philosophy of comedy
Fri 21 Jun 2024
Mark Miodownik, Emily Herring, Rob Newman & Fay Dowker consider Time with Matthew Sweet
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History - the long and short of it
Fri 14 Jun 2024
Peter Frankopan, Alison Light, Bronwen Maddox & Zeinab Badawi join Matthew Sweet
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Generations - D-Day - Global Instability
Fri 7 Jun 2024
Eliza Filby, Rana Mitter, Jo Hamya, Tom Simpson, plus Gaby Hinsliff
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The Insurrectionists' Guide to the Movies
Fri 31 May 2024
Stephen Bush, Dr Sarah Jilani , Kate Maltby and Keith Shiri join Matthew Sweet
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Left and Right - still relevant in British and Global Politics?
Sat 25 May 2024
Margaret MacMillan, David Aaronovitch, Phillip Blond and Gisela Stuart join Matthew Sweet
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Positive & negative politics, "intellectual vices" and the face you bring to work.
Tue 21 May 2024
Sir Richard Evans, Margaret Heffernan, Isabel Oakeshott, Quassim Cassam join Anne McElvoy
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New Thinking: 2024鈥檚 New Generation Thinkers
Thu 16 May 2024
Introducing ten academics who鈥檒l be sharing their research as part of a 蜜芽传媒/AHRC scheme
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Life expectations, philosophy in the world, protest
Fri 10 May 2024
Matthew Sweet with David Willetts, Elizabeth Oldfield, Will Davies, Tiffany Watt Smith
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Winning & Losing, Plato Scroll, the Decline of Nightlife
Sat 4 May 2024
Winning and losing with Lea Ypi, Peter Hitchens, Michael Mansfield KC and Cath Bishop.
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Kant today, Spice Girls Reunited, Impersonating an Animal
Fri 26 Apr 2024
Girl power past and present, the wisdom of goats and seagulls and Kant's ideas on reason
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New Thinking: Exploring the local
Fri 26 Apr 2024
New research into local politics, newspapers and the history of the post office
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Tacitus, Byron's fanmail and Bluey
Fri 19 Apr 2024
Mary Beard, Konnie Huq, Helen Carr and Tom Peck join Shahidha Bari
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Change, scrabble and cultural christianity
Fri 12 Apr 2024
Matthew Sweet and guests look at ideas about change: political, climate, personal
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Hobbes, Abba, Waterloo and margarine
Fri 5 Apr 2024
Matthew Sweet and guests look back at the week exploring the ideas shaping our lives today
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Unravelling plainness
Fri 29 Mar 2024
Isabella Rosner explains why needlework challenges our idea of Quaker simplicity
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Pranks
Fri 29 Mar 2024
Matthew Sweet and guests assess the value of pranks and what purpose they may serve.
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What does feminist art mean?
Thu 28 Mar 2024
Ana Baeza Ruiz shares reflections from artists in the '70s women's liberation movement
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New Thinking: Light and Darkness
Thu 28 Mar 2024
Darkness and how it affects those with dementia, to light in modernist literature
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Approaches to death
Wed 27 Mar 2024
Archaeologists Marianne Hem Eriksen, Pauline Harding: historians Cat Byers, Harriet Soper
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New Thinking: East West artistic connections
Wed 27 Mar 2024
A war captive turned musician in the Ottoman court and Islamic influences in Rubens' art
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Rock, Paper, Saints and Sinners
Wed 27 Mar 2024
Gemma Tidman describes a game created by a Jesuit missionary seeking Mohawk converts.
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Writing Place
Wed 27 Mar 2024
Sylvia Townsend Warner's move to Dorset, Heidegger's Heimat and the Arun river in Sussex.
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Arteries of tomorrow
Tue 26 Mar 2024
Dan Taylor considers the way communities along the A13 are looking to the future
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New Thinking: How water shapes our history and environment
Fri 22 Mar 2024
From the aqueducts of ancient Rome to 19th century river Nile and today's running water
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The Legacy of the Laundries
Fri 22 Mar 2024
Louise Brangan reflects on the uncovering of the secret lives lived in Irish laundries
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Gas, oil and the Essex blues
Fri 22 Mar 2024
Sam Johnson-Schlee draws links between Dr Feelgood, Canvey Island and energy policies
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Weird Viking Bodies
Thu 21 Mar 2024
Marianne Hem Eriksen on the meaning of a skull bone carved with "pain" thrown onto a tip
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From algorithms to oceans
Thu 21 Mar 2024
Kerry McInerney explores the promise of the 鈥榮ustainable AI鈥� movement and how AI develops
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Germany鈥檚 Mary Wollstonecraft
Wed 20 Mar 2024
Andrew Cooper on the school teacher who tried to ignite a feminist revolution in Germany
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Scottish Kingship
Wed 20 Mar 2024
Medieval myth-making, the kings of Scotland and the Stone of Destiny
