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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New Thinking: Playhouses and opera-going
Mon 6 Nov 2023
What spectacles did Elizabethan playhouses stage other than plays? Is opera really posh?
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New Thinking: Food
Sun 5 Nov 2023
Lisa Mullen hears about new research into eating habits and ideas about hospitality
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New Thinking: Writing exile and overcoming statelessness
Thu 2 Nov 2023
The lives of Bengalis in Pakistan/a novel about a Lebanese boy wanting to be an astronaut
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African identity via China and photography
Thu 2 Nov 2023
Teju Cole, Noo Saro-Wiwa and Tate curator Osei Bonsu talk to Laurence Scott.
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Robert Aickman
Thu 2 Nov 2023
For Halloween, Matthew Sweet & guests discuss supernatural fiction, bad teeth & canals
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Eliza Flower and non-conformist thinking
Fri 27 Oct 2023
Matthew Sweet hears about research into the singer & friend of JS Mill feat. live songs!
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Sleep
Tue 24 Oct 2023
John Gallagher gets sleeping tips from research pioneers and early modern history
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Sankofa and Afrofuturism
Mon 23 Oct 2023
Curator Ekow Eshun, academic Sarah Jilani, sculptor Zak Ové with Shahihda Bari
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Valis and Philip K Dick
Fri 20 Oct 2023
A weirdly autobiographical science fiction novel from 1981 inspired by hallucinations.
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Humours and The Body
Wed 18 Oct 2023
From mitochondrial medicine to 17th century cancer treatments, via Bach's Cantatas
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Victorian colour, jewellery and metalwork
Tue 17 Oct 2023
Nandini Das visits Colour Revolution at the Ashmolean in Oxford and talks to a jeweller
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New Thinking: Work and protest
Fri 13 Oct 2023
From Luddite protests in 1811 in textile mills to school strikes in 1911
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The Frieze/Radio 3 Museum Directors Debate 2023
Wed 11 Oct 2023
The art museum as community space, immersive art experiences & other hot topics.
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Art, Kew, a symphony and nature
Tue 10 Oct 2023
Artist Mat Collishaw, composer Jimmy López Bellido, academics Vid Simoniti & Sarah Casey
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New Thinking: Modernism, exile and homelessness
Mon 9 Oct 2023
Nathan Waddell and Laura Ryan talk to Jade Munslow Ong about writers depicting precarity
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Faith, consciousness and creating meaning in life
Thu 5 Oct 2023
Philosophers Daniel Dennett, Philip Goff, podcaster Liz Oldfield & a faith museum curator
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Refuge and National Poetry Day
Wed 4 Oct 2023
Poets Momtaza Mehri, Julianknxx and historian Jesús Sanjurjo join Matthew Sweet
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Slavic culture and myth
Tue 3 Oct 2023
Matthew Sweet looks at the origins of creatures like Baba Yaga, Banniks and Rusalkas.
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Hobbes and New Leviathans
Thu 28 Sep 2023
John Gray on why re-reading Hobbes can help us understand contemporary politics
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Childbirth and parenthood: Contains Strong Language Festival
Tue 26 Sep 2023
Testament, Hannah Silva, historian Jessica Cox and Thackray museum curator Laura Sellers
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Betty Miller and Marghanita Laski
Tue 26 Sep 2023
Howard Jacobson, Lara Feigel and Lisa Mullen with Matthew Sweet
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Notebooks and new technology
Thu 21 Sep 2023
Authors Jonathan Coe, Roland Allen, Lesley Smith and art book maker Gill Partington
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Why go into space?
Wed 20 Sep 2023
Christopher Harding investigates the history, culture and science of space exploration
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Black Atlantic
Tue 19 Sep 2023
Artist Jaqueline Bishop and curator of an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge
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The Red Shoes
Thu 14 Sep 2023
Ahead of a BFI festival, Matthew Sweet and guests discuss Powell and Pressburger's film
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Queer history, new narrative in San Fransisco
Wed 13 Sep 2023
Diarmuid Hester & Dodie Bellamy on a '70s US writing group. Lauren Elkin on art monsters
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Wolfson Prize 2023
Tue 5 Sep 2023
Rana Mitter talks to the six authors shortlisted for the UK's main history writing prize
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Writing and Place: The Cairngorms
Mon 4 Sep 2023
Amanda Thomson and Merryn Glover talk to Kate Molleson about Scots nature writing
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