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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Proms Extra: Cuneiform 07082017
Tue 8 Aug 2017
Irving Finkel and Shahidha Bari on Mesopotamian writing, jokes and boat building specs
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Proms Extra: Ella Fitzgerald
Mon 7 Aug 2017
Kevin LeGendre and Claire Martin discuss Ella Fitzgerald
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Proms Extra: Sentimentality
Thu 3 Aug 2017
Anne McElvoy, Dr. Se谩n Williams & writer Rachel Hewitt discuss sentimentality.
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Proms Extra: Happiness
Wed 2 Aug 2017
Literature & unhappy people with Will Abberley, Charlotte Mendelson & Claudia Hammond.
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Proms Extra: Sea Journeys and Voyages
Tue 1 Aug 2017
Rana Mitter considers epic sea journeys in history with Barry Cunliffe & Edith Hall.
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Proms Extra: Europe in Writing
Tue 1 Aug 2017
Nandini Das & novelist Lawrence Norfolk discuss European writers & the idea of 鈥楨urope鈥�.
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Proms Extra: Opium and Creativity in the 19th c.
Mon 24 Jul 2017
Matthew Sweet, Daisy Hay, Richard Davenport-Hines at Imperial College, London
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Proms Extra: Music and Moods
Tue 18 Jul 2017
Thomas Dixon and musicologist Wiebke Thorm盲hlen discuss music, literature and emotion.
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Proms Extra - Deep Time
Mon 17 Jul 2017
Geologist Iain Stewart and geographer Nicholas Crane consider the concept of "Deep Time"
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Free Thinking: Landmark: Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy
Thu 13 Jul 2017
Simon Heffer and Tiffany Jenkins join Matthew Sweet and an audience at Sussex University.
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Free Thinking: Art in the Age of Black Power; History of Racist Ideas in US
Wed 12 Jul 2017
Rana Mitter and Linton Kwesi Johnson and Ibram X Kendi
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Free Thinking - Queer Icons: Plato's Symposium. Part of Gay Britannia.
Tue 11 Jul 2017
Shahidha Bari discusses LGBTQ in the history of philosophy + the Caine Prize winner
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Free Thinking 鈥� Writing Love: Jonathan Dollimore, Heer Ranjha. Queer Icons: Sappho. Part of Gay Britannia
Thu 6 Jul 2017
The Punjabi "Romeo and Juliet"; and founding the Centre for the Study of Sexual Dissidence
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Free Thinking 鈥� Philip Hoare and Elizabeth Jane Burnett on wild swimming. Jake Arnott on Joe Orton
Wed 5 Jul 2017
Philip Hoare and Elizabeth Jane Burnett swim in the literary and poetic power of the sea
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Free Thinking: Canada 150: Sydney Newman and British TV; Vahni Capildeo; Shubbak Festival 2017
Thu 29 Jun 2017
Matthew Sweet investigates the Canadian dynamo who transformed British TV drama
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Free Thinking: Canada 150: Identity Robbie Richardson, Alison MacLeod, Deborah Pearson + Rupi Kaur and Kevan Funk.
Thu 29 Jun 2017
New Generation Thinkers Shahidha Bari & Laurence Scott look at Canada in TV, poems + art
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Free Thinking - Canada 150: Robert Lepage, Katherine Ryan.
Tue 27 Jun 2017
The French Canadian playwright/performer and the stand up comedian talk to Philip Dodd
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Free Thinking - Man and Machine: Garry Kasparov, Wyndham Lewis. 2017 New Generation Thinker Simon Beard
Thu 22 Jun 2017
Philip Dodd looks at AI with Garry Kasparov, Vorticism and research into overpopulation.
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Free Thinking - Terrorism: Richard English, Baroness Warsi, 2017 New Generation Thinker Thomas Simpson.
Thu 22 Jun 2017
Rana Mitter and guests look at fact and fiction as they explore how terrorism works.
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Free Thinking: Tom McCarthy. Jacobitism; Satirical Indexes; A Museum of Modern Nature
Tue 20 Jun 2017
Anne McElvoy looks at Bonnie Prince Charlie and Nature exhibitions & meets Tom McCarthy.
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Free Thinking: Churchill, Pocahontas and The Idiot
Thu 15 Jun 2017
Anne McElvoy considers Churchill on the big screen and the legacy of Pocahontas.
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Free Thinking: Narcissism
Wed 14 Jun 2017
Shahidha Bari and Laurence Scott explore our obsession with the self.
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Free Thinking: Will Self, R. D. Laing and Mandy.
Tue 13 Jun 2017
Matthew Sweet talks to Will Self about the mind, consciousness and R. D. Laing.
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Free Thinking: Political Sketch Writing. Enclosure Acts. 2017. Branwell Bronte. Pushkin House Book Prize 2017
Thu 8 Jun 2017
Anne McElvoy and guests look at the style of the election and the job of sketch writers.
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Free Thinking - Revenge: My Cousin Rachel, Natalie Haynes, 2017 New Generation Thinker Islam Issa.
Wed 7 Jun 2017
Matthew Sweet sees a film version of Daphne Du Maurier's novel, and revenge in Shakespeare
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Free Thinking - Arundhati Roy
Tue 6 Jun 2017
The Man Booker prize winning author and campaigner is in conversation with Philip Dodd.
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Free Thinking - Hay 2017: Writing History with Sebastian Barry, Jake Arnott, Madeleine Thien.
Thu 1 Jun 2017
New Generation Thinker Sarah Dillon chairs a discussion recorded at the Hay Festival.
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Free Thinking: Ecstasy. Carpe Diem. 2017 New Generation Thinker Hetta Howes on medieval ecstasy.
Thu 1 Jun 2017
Jules Evans and Roman Krznaric discuss living in the moment and trances with Rana Mitter.
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Free Thinking: Hay 2017: Women's Voices in the Classical World.
Tue 30 May 2017
Writers and historians join Catherine Fletcher for a discussion recorded at Hay.
