Free Thinking

Thursday 1st October 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi.

Shahidha Bari leads a discussion for National Poetry Day on the image of poets, prompted by new biographies of Sylvia Plath and Seamus Heaney and a reissue of Anne Sexton's verse. Shahidha also talks to Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi about her new novel which mixes modern feminism and Ugandan folk beliefs.

Tuesday 6th October 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Writing a Life: Hermione Lee, Daniel Lee and Rachel Holmes.

Biographers of Tom Stoppard, Sylvia Pankhurst and a little known SS soldier compare notes. How does the process differ if your subject is alive, if their story has already been enshrined in history, if they were active in the Nazi regime? Anne McElvoy talks to three authors about researching and writing a life history and the journeys it has taken them on from a Nazi letter discovered in an armchair, to the play scripts by a living dramatist who fled Nazi occupation in Czechoslovakia and has become part of the British arts establishment to the campaigning travels of a suffragette to Soviet Russia, Scandinavia, Europe & East Africa.

Thursday 15th October 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Derrida and Post Truth.

Is the crisis of truth a result of the ideas put forward by French philosopher Jacques Derrida? Matthew Sweet talks to biographer Peter Salmon about the influence of Derrida on what people value.

Thursday 22nd October 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

The Writing of Aimé Césaire.

Rana Mitter discusses the writing of Aimé Césaire, whose critique of European colonial racism and hypocrisy Discours sur le Colonialisme was published in 1955. He is joined by Césaire's Sudhir Hazareesingh, who has just published a biography of Toussaint, New Generation Thinker Alexandra Reza, from the University of Oxford, and poet André Naffis-Sahely.

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

War in Fact and Fiction.

From East Africa to Arabia, the First World War to Mozambique, Rana Mitter discusses the impact of war on society and culture. Margaret MacMillan's most recent book is called War: How Conflict Shaped Us and takes a deep dive into the history of conflict. Rob Johnson considers what we gain by exploring the overlooked side of Lawrence of Arabia - his thoughts on warfare and military strategy. And, the end of the Gaza empire, and the clash in East Africa between Belgian, German, British and French forces are explored in novels by Mia Couto and Abdulrazak Gurnah. They compare notes about the way fiction can trace changes in relationships due to war.

Wednesday 18th November 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Helen Mort, Blake Morrison, Oulipo.

Writing mentors Helen Mort and Blake Morrison compare notes. Also, the rules of writing proposed by the Oulipo group, founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais.

Thursday 26th November 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Leadership.

Shahidha Bari is joined by Jeffrey Howard, Joanne Paul, Dina Rezk and Christienna Fryar for a debate on leadership, from Tudor courts and plantations to the Arab Spring and modern political philosophy. Presented in partnership with Bristol Festival of Ideas.

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Times of Change.

Rana Mitter and guests look back at times of upheaval in history for lessons in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic.

Tuesday 8th December 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

1920s - Philosophy's Golden Age.

Wittgenstein changed his mind, Heidegger revolutionised philosophy (and the German language), and both the Frankfurt School and the Vienna Circle were in full swing. Matthew Sweet is joined by Wolfram Eilenberger, David Edmonds and Esther Leslie. Plus, a report on the plight of the Lukacs Archive in Budapest.

Tuesday 15th December 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Hegel's Philosophy of Right.

What links Beethoven & Hegel's philosophy of freedom? Anne McElvoy talks to New Generation Thinker Seán Williams, Christoph Schuringa, Gary Browning, and Alison Stone about Hegel's discussion of freedom, law, family, markets and the state in his Principles of the Philosophy of Right 1820.

Tuesday 5th January 2021 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Mildred Pierce.

Mildred Pierce, James M Cain's 1941 novel, was turned into a noir film starring Joan Crawford which earnt her an Academy Award. Matthew Sweet and his guests crime writers Denise Mina and Laura Lippman plus academics Sarah Churchwell and Lizzie Mackarel have been re-watching the film and comparing it with the novel as they consider how the social realism and depiction of suburban female life differs from his other books which became hit films The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity.

Wednesday 6th January 2021 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Dostoevsky.

Rana Mitter and his guests Alex Christofi, Muireann Maguire and Claire Whitehead look at the life and writing of Fyodor Dostoevsky, from exile in Siberia to the novels which set a template.

Thursday 7th January 2021 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Aphra Behn.

From spy to one of the first professional woman writers in Britain - Aphra Behn was a prolific playwright, poet, translator and fiction writer in the Restoration period. John Gallagher and his guests decode changes in Behn's loyalties from her plays and dedications.

Thursday 21st January 2021 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

John Rawls's Theory of Justice.

In his 1971 book, A Theory of Justice, John Rawls argued that just societies should allow everyone to enjoy basic liberties while limiting inequality and improving the lives of the least well off. He argued that `the fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they did not know how much power they would have". For decades, this philosophical book defined American intellectual debates about freedom and equality. Anne McElvoy discusses how his case for a liberal egalitarianism has fared since.

Tuesday 26th January 2021 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Food, The Environment + Richard Flanagan.

Anthony Warner is author of Ending Hunger: The Quest to Feed the World without Destroying It. Cassandra Coburn is the author of Enough: How Your Food Choices will Save the Planet. New Generation Thinker Alasdair Cochrane from the University of Sheffield is the author of Should Animals Have Political Rights? They join Anne McElvoy for a conversation about food and sustainability. Plus, novelist Richard Flanagan's latest book called The Living Sea of Waking Dreams recalls the devastating fires in Australia and Tasmania and against this dying world depicts a dying woman and her three children in a magical realist fable.

Tuesday 2nd February 2021 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Eco-Criticism.

Lisa Mullen and guests analyse links between literature and nature as an increasing number of university departments offer eco-criticism courses looking at the way writers past and present have thought about the environment. Samuel Solnick specialises in environmental humanities at the University of Liverpool, and is particularly interested in the relationship between literature and science. His books include Poetry and the Anthropocene: Ecology, Biology and Technology in Contemporary British and Irish Poetry. Samantha Walton, who is an academic at Bath Spa University, worked on a project called Cultures of Nature and Wellbeing: Connecting Health and the Environment through Literature. Harriet Tarlo, is both a poet and a critic at Sheffield Hallam University, where she practices and preaches the importance of radical nature writing. Published work includes On Ecopoetics: Harriet Tarlo and Jonathan Skinner in Conversation and Off Path, Counter Path: Contemporary Walking Collaborations in Landscape, Art and Poetry, and a Shearsman Press book Poems 2004-2014.

Thursday 4th February 2021 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Class and Social Mobility.

Matthew Sweet asks about the experience of social mobility in the past century. He talks to Professor Selina Todd about her latest book, Snakes and Ladders, which explores the myths and realities of climbing out of the working class.

Wednesday 10th February 2021 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Darwin: The Descent of Man (1871).

Matthew Sweet is joined by a panel of guests, Christine Yao, Joe Cain, and Ruth Mace, who've been re-reading Charles Darwin's 1871 book - The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. When first published it went immediately into a second printing but it has always had its critics.

Thursday 18th February 2021 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Adoption, Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Anne McElvoy talks about Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning with biographer Fiona Sampson and Peggy Reynolds, who began her academic career studying Browning's Aurora Leigh.

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Saint John Henry Newman.

Catherine Pepinster, Kate Kennedy, Tim Stanley and New Generation Thinker Dafydd Mills Daniel join Rana Mitter to look at the poet, theologian and now Saint John Henry. The programme marks 175 years since Newman's conversion from the high church tradition of Anglicanism and the Oxford Movement to the Catholic faith on 23 Feb 1846, with a conversation exploring his thinking and poetic writing. Catherine Pepinster is former editor of the Tablet and the author of The Keys and the Kingdom: The British and the Papacy Dafydd Mills Daniel is McDonald Departmental Lecturer in Christian Ethics at the University of Oxford and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. His book is called Ethical Rationalism and Secularisation in the British Enlightenment Tim Stanley is a columnist and leader writer for the Daily Telegraph who studied history at Cambridge and who is a contributing editor for the Catholic Herald. Dr Kate Kennedy is Oxford Centre for Life-Writing Associate Director and a music specialist who has written on Ivor Gurney, and co-edited The Silent Morning: Culture and Memory after the Armistice and The First World War: Literature, Music, Memory. You can find a playlist Free Thinking explores religious belief. Including contributions from Ziauddin Sardar, Richard Dawkins, Karen Armstrong, Rabbi Sacks, Marilynne Robinson and Simon Schama.

Thursday 25th February 2021 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Foucault: The History of Sexuality 4.

Shahidha Bari looks at a new translation of Foucault's History of Sexuality, which looks at ideas about pleasure and the flesh among the early Christians in Medieval Europe. Contributors include Stuart Elden, who has written several books on Foucault.

Wednesday 3rd March 2021 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Horatio Clare, Stevie Smith.

Author Horatio Clare talks to Laurence Scott about his new memoir, Heavy Light: A Journey through Madness, Mania and Healing. Plus, New Generation Thinker Noreen Masud looks at the poetry of Stevie Smith.

Thursday 11th March 2021 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Edward Said's Thinking.

Rana Mitter explores the life and legacy of Edward Said, talking to Timothy Brennan, who has put his ideas into context in the first biography since Said's death in 2003.

Wednesday 17th March 2021 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Introducing New Generation Thinkers 2021.

Lisa Mullen talks to the ten academics whose ideas will become programmes for BBC Radio 3 as she introduces the 2021 New Generation Thinkers, run in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks.

Matthew Sweet and guests re-read Frantz Fanon's book from 1958, Black Skin, White, which explores the way black people have been affected by colonial subjugation.

Thursday 25th March 2021 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Churchill's Reputation.

Anne McElvoy and guests discuss Churchill's changing reputation.

Wednesday 7th April 2021 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Milton: Samson Agonistes.

Blind, and with his hair cut and his strength shorn - in Milton's dramtic poem Samson has already been betrayed by Delilah. It goes on to explore ideas about violence, revenge and tragedy. Published on May 29th 1671 alongside Paradise Regained, Milton's notes show that he started thinking of ideas for this work 30 years earlier. In 1741 Handel finished writing his version - a three act oratorio called Samson. Rana Mitter is joined by New Generation Thinker Islam Issa, music expert Professor Suzanne Aspden, poet Nuala Watt and classics expert Simon Goldhill to look at the poetic language of Samson Agonistes, the politics it was reflecting, the imagery of blindness and what Handel took from Milton's writing. Dr Islam Issa from Birmingham City University is a New Generation Thinker and author of Milton in the Arab-Muslim and Milton in Translation and Digital Milton.

Thursday 8th April 2021 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Deleuze and Guattari, Capitalism and Schizophrenia.

Capitalism and Schizophrenia is a major text of French poststructuralist thought by Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Made up of the two volumes Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, it articulates a new way of doing both philosophy and psychoanalysis that insists on the concrete relevance and transformative potential of the disciplines for day-to-day life. Matthew Sweet is joined by Henry Somers-Hall, Reader in Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London and editor of A Thousand Plateaus and Philosophy; Claire Colebrook, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English, Philosophy, and Woman's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Penn State University; and Ian Parker, practicing psychoanalyst and managing editor of the Annual Review of Critical Psychology.