Travel, pleasure and peril

From preventing strangulation on the railways to guide maps and the art of travel posters.

• 44 mins

Game playing

Shahidha Bari finds out how to win at rock, paper, scissors and to make a Windrush game.

• 44 mins

Essay writing

From Montaigne to modern Scottish writing - Rana Mitter discusses what makes a good essay.

• 44 mins

Dust, dirt and domesticity

From mould to desertification Naomi Paxton and guests on the impact of dirt,heat and damp

• 44 mins

Shakespeare's Women

The women who crop up in Shakespeare's life, his plays and who helped conserve his legacy.

• 44 mins

What is normal?

Sarah Chaney, Louise Creechan and Robert Chapman discuss neurodiversity with Matthew Sweet

• 44 mins

Heidegger and Anti-Semitism

Matthew Sweet discusses the influential German philosopher's relationship with Nazism.

• 44 mins

The Kyoto School

Chris Harding investigates the flourishing of Japanese philosophy in the 1930s and beyond.

• 44 mins

Holocaust history

Ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day (Jan 27) Anne McElvoy hears testimony and new research.

• 44 mins

Secrets, lies and Irish History

Clair Wills, Martin Doyle, Scott McKendry and Louise Brangan discuss secrets and conflict.

• 44 mins

East/West religious connections

Authors Rowan Williams & Christopher Harding and artist Gayle Chong Kwan join Rana Mitter.

• 44 mins

On the Silver Globe

Matthew Sweet and guests discuss Andrzej Zulawski's compelling science fiction film.

• 44 mins

Picnics

From Picnic at Hanging Rock to an Iron Curtain Pan European picnic

• 44 mins

The Greenwich Outrage

Matthew Sweet and guests discuss an attempt to blow up the Royal Observatory in 1894.

• 44 mins

Chocolate

Shahidha Bari discusses the confection that has conquered the world.

• 44 mins

The Condom and VD

Matthew Sweet and guests talk about sexual health, VD clinics, sex work and condoms.

• 44 mins

Myths, ships and history

Anna McKay, Lloyd Belton and Oliver Finnegan delve in the deep for seafaring histories.

• 44 mins

Can - Future Days

Matthew Sweet and guests take a deep dive into the influential German group's 1973 album

• 44 mins

Stitching Stories

Shahidha Bari visits a textile art show + research on embroidery, stage outfits & vintage

• 44 mins

The Dutch connection

John Gallagher hears about new research into Anglo-Dutch trade and early publishing.

• 44 mins

Sarah Maldoror, Storm Jameson, The Hague Congress

Ahead of International Women's Day, Shahidha Bari hears stories linking women with war.

• 44 mins

New Thinking : Muses and women's creativity

From Pre-Raphaelite models to the daughter of Maud Gonne: Naomi Paxton with new research.

• 44 mins

Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation

Matthew Sweet and guests look at the 1974 Gene Hackman film about surveillance and murder.

• 44 mins

Images of Persia

Poetry by Hafez, Nowruz (New Year) and the Haft Sin table, the Mongol invasion, music.

• 44 mins

Sleep justice and sleeplessness

Laurence Scott talks to researchers exploring how we sleep and the idea of sleep justice

• 44 mins

Edward Bond

Matthew Sweet and guests discuss the playwright Edward Bond (18 July 1934 – 3 March 2024)

• 44 mins

Free speech, censorship and modern China

The writings of Chinese women, from Ding Ling to coming of age in the 1990s

• 44 mins

Scottish Kingship

Medieval myth making, the kings of Scotland and the Stone of Destiny.

• 44 mins

Happiness

Matthew Sweet investigates the history, politics and economics of this elusive concept.

• 44 mins

Approaches to death

Archaeologists Marianne Hem Eriksen, Pauline Harding: historians Cat Byers, Harriet Soper

• 44 mins