Plastic and Clay

Lisa Mullen and guests compare the extraordinary uses of two contrasting materials.

• 44 mins

Breakthroughs at Being Human 2022

New research on Benjamin Franklin in Cumbria, the Kenwood, lightbulbs and ganzflicker.

• 44 mins

Experimentation in the arts

Shahidha Bari talks to the winner of the Goldsmiths Prize, awarded for creative daring.

• 44 mins

George Bernard Shaw

Anne McElvoy and guests look at the arguments explored in the plays of Shaw (1856-1950).

• 44 mins

St Teresa/Vivekananda/Nietzsche

Rana Mitter discusses three major philosophers of religion and self-development

• 44 mins

Arabian queens, Bangladeshi mothers and women's tales

From the Arabian nights to refugee stories - female voices fictional and real.

• 44 mins

Morgan – A Suitable Case for Treatment

Stephen Frears, Matthew Reisz, Lucy Bolton and Matthew Sweet look at this 1966 film.

• 44 mins

Soil, Chickens and City Farms

Ahead of world soil day, Anne McElvoy looks at changes to both rural and urban farming.

• 44 mins

How do we look at art?

Turner Prize shortlist, the vogue for surround-sound projections, and shows about sight.

• 44 mins

Star Trek

Matthew Sweet with George Takei, Naomi Alderman, Una McCormack and José-Antonio Orosco.

• 44 mins

Language, the Victorians, and Us

From Lancashire dialect protest poetry to Hardy's Dorset vowels. John Gallagher hosts.

• 44 mins

Trapeze acts and circus celebrities

Shahidha Bari hears about aerialists Lillian Leitzel and Pablo Fanque.

• 44 mins

Depicting AIDS in Drama

Russell T Davies, Jill Nalder, Sabina Dosani and Matthew Sweet, recorded with an audience.

• 44 mins

Lists

Are lists a good way of organising chaos? Lisa Mullen and guests discuss

• 44 mins

Beasts and animals

Shahidha Bari investigates the human invention of animals.

• 44 mins

Landladies

Historical accounts and fictional depictions of the women who ran boarding houses.

• 44 mins

Katherine Mansfield and Mavis Gallant

Claire Harman, Kirsty Gunn, Laurence Scott and Shahidha Bari discuss short story writing.

• 44 mins

Amílcar Cabral

Rana Mitter and guests discuss the pan-Africanist poet and anti-colonial leader.

• 44 mins

Wilkie Collins and disability

How the Victorian author’s own pain and drug dependency fed into his sensational novels.

• 44 mins

Phillis Wheatley

Christienna Fryar explores the life and writing of the enslaved American poet (1753-1784).

• 44 mins

Anna Kavan

Matthew Sweet looks at the writer of a dystopian psychodrama, Ice, who died in 1968.

• 44 mins

Language Loss and Revival

John Gallagher is joined by Gwenno, who writes and sings in Cornish, and others.

• 44 mins

The Wife of Bath

Shahidha Bari is joined by Professor Marion Turner, poet Patience Agbabi and Hetta Howes.

• 44 mins

Higher education for women and working-class students

Anne McElvoy hosts a conversation about higher education and the history of its expansion.

• 44 mins

Audrey Hepburn

Matthew Sweet marks the 30th anniversary of the death of this icon of film and fashion.

• 44 mins

Aztecs and Otherness

Caroline Dodds Pennock discusses how Aztecs, Inuit, Mayans and others discovered Europe.

• 43 mins

William Stukeley

The English antiquarian (1687-1765) who may be the father of modern archaeology.

• 44 mins

Holocaust Memorial Day 2023

Matthew Sweet looks at the experiences of Portuguese Jewish and Roma communities.

• 44 mins

The English Civil War

The resonances of C17 history now, discussed by Jonathan Healey, Anna Keay, Clare Jackson.

• 44 mins

Crossroads and TV soaps

Russell T Davies and Paula Milne on the power of soap operas.

• 44 mins