Arts & Ideas Podcast
Leading thinkers discuss the ideas shaping our lives – looking back at the news and making links between past and present. Broadcast as Free Thinking, Fridays at 9pm on BBC Radio 4. Presented by Matthew Sweet, Shahidha Bari and Anne McElvoy.
Episodes to download
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Edward Bond
Fri 15 Mar 2024
Matthew Sweet and guests discuss the playwright Edward Bond (18 July 1934 – 3 March 2024)
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Sleep justice and sleeplessness
Wed 13 Mar 2024
Laurence Scott talks to researchers exploring how we sleep and the idea of sleep justice
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Images of Persia
Tue 12 Mar 2024
Poetry by Hafez, Nowruz (New Year) and the Haft Sin table, the Mongol invasion, music
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Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation
Thu 7 Mar 2024
Matthew Sweet and guests look at the 1974 Gene Hackman film about surveillance and murder
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Muses and women's creativity
Wed 6 Mar 2024
From Pre-Raphaelite models to the daughter of Maud Gonne: Naomi Paxton with new research
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Sarah Maldoror, Storm Jameson, the Hague Congress
Tue 5 Mar 2024
Ahead of International Women's Day Shahidha Bari hears stories linking women with war
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The Dutch Connection
Thu 29 Feb 2024
John Gallagher hears about new research into Anglo-Dutch trade and early publishing
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Hitchhiking
Wed 28 Feb 2024
Matthew Sweet considers examples from Texas Chainsaw Massacre to a system of Polish tokens
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New Thinking: Stitching Stories
Tue 27 Feb 2024
Shahidha Bari visits a textile art show + research on embroidery, stage outfits, vintage
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Can - Future Days
Thu 22 Feb 2024
Matthew Sweet and guests take a deep dive into the influential German group's 1973 album.
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Myths, ships and history
Tue 20 Feb 2024
Anna McKay, Lloyd Belton and Oliver Finnegan delve in the deep for seafaring histories
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The Condom and V.D.
Thu 15 Feb 2024
Matthew Sweet and guests talk about sexual health, VD clinics, sex work and condoms
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The Greenwich Outrage
Fri 9 Feb 2024
The attempt by an anarchist to blow up the Royal Observatory in 1894 and its consequences
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Iris Murdoch's The Sovereignty of Good
Mon 5 Feb 2024
Matthew Sweet and guests on Iris Murdoch's thought and writing (15 July 1919-8 Feb 1999)
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On The Silver Globe
Fri 2 Feb 2024
Take a mind-bending trip to a distant planet with Andrzej Zulawski's cult 1987 SF film
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East West religious connections
Wed 31 Jan 2024
Authors Rowan Williams & Christopher Harding and artist Gayle Chong Kwan join Rana Mitter
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Secrets, Lies & Irish History
Tue 30 Jan 2024
Clair Wills, Martin Doyle, Scott McKendry & Louise Brangan discuss secrets and conflict
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Holocaust history
Fri 26 Jan 2024
Ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day (Jan 27) Anne McElvoy hears testimony and new research
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The Kyoto School
Wed 24 Jan 2024
Chris Harding investigates the flourishing of Japanese philosophy in the 1930s and beyond
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Heidegger & Antisemitism
Tue 23 Jan 2024
Matthew Sweet discusses the influential German philosopher's relationship with Nazism
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What is normal?
Fri 19 Jan 2024
Sarah Chaney, Louise Creechan and Robert Chapman on neurodiversity, with Matthew Sweet
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Shakespeare's Women
Wed 17 Jan 2024
The women who crop up in Shakespeare's life, his plays and who helped conserve his legacy
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Dust, dirt and domesticity
Tue 16 Jan 2024
From mould to desertification Naomi Paxton and guests on the impact of dirt,heat and damp
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Octavia Butler's Kindred
Thu 11 Jan 2024
A novel from 1979 which uses time travel to explore race, slavery and trauma
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Essay writing
Wed 10 Jan 2024
From Montaigne to modern Scottish writing - Rana Mitter discusses what makes a good Essay
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Travel, pleasure and peril
Wed 3 Jan 2024
From preventing strangulation on the railways to guide maps and the art of travel posters
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Dickens, Disney and copyright
Thu 21 Dec 2023
Matthew Sweet looks at copyright rules for Mickey Mouse & Dickens in C19th America
