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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Darwin's The Descent of Man (1871)
Wed 10 Feb 2021
Matthew Sweet and guests assess Darwin's arguments about the human species, sex, and race
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New Thinking: Fashion Stories in Museums
Tue 9 Feb 2021
Shahidha Bari & V&A fashion curator Claire Wilcox on costumes, couture, and wardrobes
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Class and social mobility
Thu 4 Feb 2021
Selina Todd, David Goodhart, Timandra Harkness and Sadie Ryan talk with Matthew Sweet.
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Patricia Lockwood and Andr茅 Aciman
Wed 3 Feb 2021
Two American authors talk to Laurence Scott about their sense of time, place and self
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New Thinking: Eco-Criticism
Tue 2 Feb 2021
Exploring the points where literature and ecological thinking meet
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What Makes a Good Lecture?
Sat 30 Jan 2021
From Aristotle to TED talks: Mary Beard, Homi Bhabha and Se谩n Williams with Shahidha Bari
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Yiddish and Rotwelsch, Nazi France
Wed 27 Jan 2021
Michael Rosen and Martin Puchner talk to Matthew Sweet about a lost language of the road
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Food, The Environment & Richard Flanagan
Tue 26 Jan 2021
How food impacts on the environment; Richard Flanagan on his novel about a dying planet
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John Rawls's A Theory of Justice
Thu 21 Jan 2021
The lasting impact of John Rawls鈥檚 A Theory of Justice on philosophy and politics.
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James Baldwin and race in USA
Wed 20 Jan 2021
Rana Mitter & guests re-read James Baldwin's writing as a new US President is inaugurated
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Harlots & 18th Century Working Women
Tue 19 Jan 2021
History & Harlots: Hallie Rubenhold & Moira Buffini on the C18th sex worker TV drama
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Witchcraft, Werewolves, and Writing The Devil
Thu 14 Jan 2021
Conjuring fear, discussed by historians and by novelists Jenni Fagan and Salena Godden
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New Thinking: Women and Slavery
Wed 13 Jan 2021
Research on women owners, women on plantations, and the daughter of a slave trader
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Autism, film and patterns
Tue 12 Jan 2021
From Rain Man to Atypical - Matthew Sweet looks at autism on screen and in everyday life
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New Thinking: Aphra Behn
Fri 8 Jan 2021
John Gallagher's guests decode changes in Behn's loyalties from her plays and dedications
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Mildred Pierce
Tue 5 Jan 2021
James M Cain's classic novel and its film adaptation discussed by Matthew Sweet & guests
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Marlene Dietrich
Thu 17 Dec 2020
Tracing the sensual and radical Marlene Dietrich from Europe to Hollywood.
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Winter Light
Wed 16 Dec 2020
From paintings and folk tales to Brian Cox on the stars & Susan Greaney on Stonehenge.
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Ancient wisdom & remote living
Thu 10 Dec 2020
From medieval science to the ingenuity of Arctic peoples & the resilience of island life
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New Thinking: Hey Presto!
Wed 9 Dec 2020
Magic in medicine, surgery & business; panto cross-dressing; and panto & magic history
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New Thinking: Ways of Talking about Health
Wed 9 Dec 2020
The winners of the AHRC and Wellcome Trust Medical Humanities Awards 2020
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The 1920s - Philosophy's Golden Age
Tue 8 Dec 2020
Matthew Sweet on Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Benjamin, Carnap and other philosophical greats
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Times of Change
Thu 3 Dec 2020
Can the Industrial Revolution and the end of the Aztecs help us shape a post COVID world
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Mould-Breaking Writing
Tue 1 Dec 2020
Max Porter, Chloe Aridjis, Will Harris and Xine Yao on writing the breaks the mould
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Leadership & authority
Thu 26 Nov 2020
From Tudor courts to plantations to the Arab Spring: a Bristol Festival of Ideas Debate.
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