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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Caruso, Elsie Houston, Peter Brathwaite
Thu 13 Apr 2023
Exploring the flow of cultural influences in both directions across the Atlantic.
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Land and soil politics
Thu 13 Apr 2023
Jim Scown on the links between Goethe, George Eliot and the storming of the US Capitol
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Ginger Rogers
Wed 12 Apr 2023
Matthew Sweet and guests discuss the Hollywood star's dancing, comic timing and "sass".
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Children of the Waters
Tue 11 Apr 2023
Sabina Dosani looks at the ritual of Mizuko Kuyo and modern ceremonies marking miscarriage
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Pirates
Tue 11 Apr 2023
From Treasure Island to Kynance Cove, Anne Bonney to Captain Pugwash: Anne McElvoy hosts
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Revolutionary free speech
Fri 7 Apr 2023
Clare Siviter looks at attempts to liberate and then censor expression in 1790s France.
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Fugitive slaves, Victorian justice
Thu 6 Apr 2023
Oskar Jensen tells the tall tale of a court case inspired by a best-selling novel
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A family of witches
Thu 6 Apr 2023
Emma Whipday explores the demonisation of single mothers in English witch trials.
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New Thinking: Raiding Gay’s the Word & Magnus Hirschfeld
Wed 5 Apr 2023
Diarmuid Hester hears about Operation Tiger & early 1900s queer life writing
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The Rossettis and Walter Pater
Wed 5 Apr 2023
Matthew Sweet and guests visit a Tate Britain show and look at Pater's Renaissance ideas
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Introducing New Generation Thinkers 2023
Tue 4 Apr 2023
Chris Harding meets the 10 academics who will make programmes from their research in 2023
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Charles Babbage and broadcasting the sea
Tue 4 Apr 2023
The father of modern computing thought the sea could communicate. Joan Passey explains.
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Translating Cultures
Tue 28 Mar 2023
Composer Alex Ho, novelist Xiaolu Guo, curator George Young and director Anthony Lau
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East Germany
Tue 28 Mar 2023
Katja Hoyer on East Germany, behind the Berlin Wall and the Cold War caricature
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The culture of Albania
Thu 23 Mar 2023
Matthew Sweet is joined by Lea Ypi, Adela Demetja, Ani Kokobobo and Aurel Qirjo
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New Thinking: AI, feminism, human/machines
Thu 23 Mar 2023
Kerry McInerney, Eleanor Drage and Kendra Briken share their research with Laurence Scott
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Busking and Billy Waters
Tue 21 Mar 2023
The early 19th century street performer Billy Waters, Streetwise Opera and street ballads
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The wicked? stepmother
Thu 16 Mar 2023
Ahead of Mother's Day Matthew Sweet and guests discuss new ways of looking at stepmothers
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Decadent Art
Wed 15 Mar 2023
New research into ideas about decadence and connections with France, England and Iran.
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Debt
Tue 14 Mar 2023
As Budget day approaches, Anne McElvoy looks at debt from the South Sea Bubble to Sunak
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New Thinking: British Sign Language
Mon 13 Mar 2023
Kate Rowley and Gerardo Ortega talk about new research into British Sign Language
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Making Your Voice Heard
Wed 8 Mar 2023
Shahidha Bari is joined by Dina Nayeri, Kirsty Sedgman, Michelle Assay and Alberta Whittle
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Anarchism and David Graeber
Tue 7 Mar 2023
Matthew Sweet and guests look at the ideas of American anthropologist (1961-2020).
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Dom Sylvester Houédard
Thu 2 Mar 2023
Matthew Sweet and guests on the career of the C20th concrete poet and Catholic mystic
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Sesame Street and Soviet culture
Thu 2 Mar 2023
Anne McElvoy looks at Russian punk protest + a version of US TV's Big Bird, Bert and Ernie
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Tin cans, cutlery and sewing
Tue 28 Feb 2023
New research into the history of stainless steel cutlery, tinned food and sewing machines
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Ghosts of Caribbean History
Fri 24 Feb 2023
New writing by Colin Grant and Kevin Jared Hosein; art by Mary Evans and Michael Elliott
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Climate change and empire building
Thu 23 Feb 2023
The long history of climate change and empire: historians Nandini Das and Peter Frankopan
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Phaedra, Cretan palaces and the minotaur
Tue 21 Feb 2023
Knossos - birthplace of myths and tragedies - explored by Rana Mitter and Natalie Haynes
