Dickens

Mathew Sweet, Linda Grant, Laurence Scott & Lucy Whitehead -150 years since Dickens' death

• 44 mins

Failure and female friendship

Lara Feigel, Michèle Roberts and New Generation Thinker Alexandra Reza with Shahidha Bari.

• 44 mins

The future of theatre debate

Bertie Carvel & Roy Alexander Weise are amongst Anne McElvoy's guests

• 44 mins

Queer Bloomsbury, Stillness in art and dance

From Virginia Woolf's writings on art to dance, stillness and movement in lockdown.

• 44 mins

Refugees

From building shelters to the language we use to discuss displacement we hear new research

• 44 mins

Irenosen Okojie and Nadifa Mohamed. Midsummer archaeology

Shahidha Bari talks to a pair of authors about the writing life. Plus a musical monument.

• 44 mins

Rethinking the Curriculum

Sandeep Parmar, Jade Cuttle, Edith Hall & Seb Falk talk to Rana Mitter about what we teach

• 44 mins

Ian Rankin and Tahmima Anam

A pair of authors due to be at the Bradford Literature Festival compare notes on writing.

• 44 mins

Frank Cottrell-Boyce

The screenwriter and novelist talks to Matthew Sweet about depicting Britain in his work.

• 44 mins

Gambling, good leadership and economic history

Anne McElvoy looks at gambling and at lessons from past US presidents.

• 44 mins

First Encounters

How do you decipher history when there isn't anything written down?

• 44 mins

What Does a Black History Curriculum Look Like?

Reports from The Runnymede Trust and The Black Curriculum call for wider history teaching.

• 44 mins

The consolation of philosophy and stories

Matthew Sweet talks to Kylie Murray, Prof Seth Lerer and former Bishop Richard Holloway.

• 44 mins

Magic

Matthew Sweet and guests conjure a conversation about the importance and appeal of magic

• 44 mins

Nature Writing

From Gilbert White to lockdown blogs - why we need to spend more time in nature.

• 44 mins

Anne Applebaum, Ingrid Bergman, Herland

Anne Applebaum, and the lives of Ingrid Bergman and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

• 44 mins

Dada and the power of nonsense

A project to reimagine the Dada arts movement now, and reflections on satire and nonsense.

• 44 mins

Bernard-Henri Lévy, Stella Sandford, Homi K Bhabha

How philosophy helps us understand the world reshaped by Covid-19. Shahidha Bari presents.

• 44 mins

Wole Soyinka's Writing

Ben Okri, Louisa Egbunike and Oladipo Agboluaje discuss Wole Soyinka's life and work.

• 44 mins

Piranesi and disturbing archecture

Susanna Clarke, author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, is one of Matthew Sweet's guests.

• 44 mins

The Mayflower and Native American history

Sarah Churchwell, Kathryn Napier Gray and Lauren Working with Eleanor Barraclough.

• 44 mins

Family Ties and Reshaping History

From Neanderthals to Sikh warriors to the idea of weird people, three authors look at kin.

• 44 mins

Get Carter

Digging beneath the surface of the classic Brit noir film with director Mike Hodges.

• 44 mins

The impact of being multilingual

Discussion ahead of the European Day of Languages and International Translation Day.

• 44 mins

Conservatism, Philanthropy, Liberal and socialist futures

Anne McElvoy talks to Edmund Fawcett about conflicts within Conservatism.

• 44 mins

Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize 2020

Tales of indigenous people battling for their land; colonialism & pioneers of anthropology

• 44 mins

Cows, farming and our view of nature

Are cows the answer to depleted soil or the problem? With farmer and author James Rebanks.

• 44 mins

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

Links between biography and poetry. Telling modern Ugandan stories. With Shahidha Bari.

• 44 mins

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

Biographers of Tom Stoppard, Sylvia Pankhurst and a little known SS soldier compare notes.

• 44 mins

African Europeans, Fidel Castro and African leaders, WEB Du Bois

Professors Olivette Otele and Simon Hall on understanding connections in black history

• 44 mins