Mildred Pierce

Matthew Sweet and guests discuss James M Cain's classic novel and its film adaptation.

• 44 mins

Dostoevsky

Rana Mitter reads from a new biography of Dostoevsky, 200 years after his birth.

• 44 mins

Aphra Behn

John Gallagher's guests decode changes in Behn's loyalties from her plays and dedications.

• 44 mins

Autism, Film and Patterns

From Rain Man to Atypical. Matthew Sweet looks at autism on screen and in everyday life.

• 44 mins

Women and Slavery

New research into female slave owners in Britain to women on Caribbean plantations.

• 44 mins

Witchcraft, Werewolves and Writing the Devil

New novels from Jenni Fagan and Salena Godden depict Mrs Death and the devil's daughter.

• 44 mins

Harlots and 18th-century working women

Hallie Rubenhold, Moira Buffini and Laura Lammasniemi discuss the TV series Harlots.

• 44 mins

James Baldwin and Race in the USA

Rana Mitter and guests re-read James Baldwin as a new US president is inaugurated.

• 44 mins

John Rawls's A Theory of Justice

Anne McElvoy and guests re-read this 1971 work of political philosophy about inequality.

• 44 mins

Food, the Environment and Richard Flanagan

Bush fires in novelist Richard Flanagan's new book, and Anne McElvoy looks at veganism.

• 44 mins

Yiddish and Rotwelsch Languages, Nazi France

Michael Rosen and Martin Puchner talk to Matthew Sweet about languages, codes and secrecy.

• 44 mins

What Makes a Good Lecture?

Ted talks, zoom and lectures :Mary Beard, Homi Bhabha and Seán Williams join Shahidha Bari

• 44 mins

Eco-Criticism

Who are the best writers past and present who give us an insight into the natural world?

• 44 mins

Patricia Lockwood and André Aciman

Two American authors talk to Laurence Scott about their sense of time, place and self.

• 44 mins

Class and Social Mobility

Selina Todd, David Goodhart, Timandra Harkness and Sadie Ryan talk with Matthew Sweet.

• 44 mins

Fashion Stories in Museums

Claire Wilcox, fashion curator of the V&A, talks to Shahidha Bari and other researchers.

• 44 mins

Darwin's The Descent of Man (1871)

Matthew Sweet and guests assess Darwin's arguments about the human species, sex and race.

• 44 mins

Coins, going cashless and the magic money tree

In February 1971, the UK went decimal. Anne McElvoy and guests look at money old and new.

• 44 mins

Pakistan Politics, Water Supplies

Samira Shackle, Ejaz Haider and Majed Akhter talk about Karachi, power, crime and energy.

• 44 mins

Turkey: Adnan Menderes, populism, and history

Having survived a plane crash, the Turkish prime minister 1950-60 died in an execution.

• 44 mins

Adoption, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Renée Vivien and Violette Leduc

Fiona Sampson, Peggy Reynolds and Anne McElvoy talk poetry and writing personal stories

• 44 mins

Saint John Henry Newman

Kate Kennedy, Tim Stanley, Catherine Pepinster and Dafydd Mills Daniel on Newman's thought

• 44 mins

Humans, Animals, Ecologies

Matthew Sweet talks to Joanna Bourke and Anna Tsing about the human and the non human.

• 44 mins

Foucault: The History of Sexuality 4

Shahidha Bari reads a new English translation by Robert Hurley.

• 44 mins

Girls

Shahidha Bari looks at research into girls in film and fiction to Malawi health projects.

• 44 mins

Breakdown: Horatio Clare, Stevie Smith

Horatio Clare talks to Laurence Scott about mania and healing. Plus Stevie Smith.

• 44 mins

Speech, Voice, Accents and AI

Sadie Ryan, Lynda Clark and Allison Koenecke talk about their research with Matthew Sweet.

• 44 mins

From Life on Mars to Dangerous Space Junk

Seb Falk talks to researchers about attitudes to Mars, seeing colour and Skylab's crash.

• 44 mins

The Vietnam-Paris Connection

Author Viet Thanh Nguyen, film critic Phuong Le and Peter Salmon join Matthew Sweet.

• 44 mins

Edward Said's thinking

Rana Mitter reads the first biography of the Palestinian academic, pianist and negotiator

• 44 mins