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

Writing Place

Sylvia Townsend Warner's move to Dorset, Heidegger's Heimat and the River Arun in Sussex.

• 44 mins

Pranks

Matthew Sweet and guests assess the value of pranks and what purpose they may serve.

• 44 mins

Hobbes, Abba, Waterloo and margarine

Matthew Sweet and guests look back at the week exploring the ideas shaping our lives today

• 57 mins

Change, Scrabble and Cultural Christianity

Matthew Sweet and guests look at ideas about change: political, climate, personal.

• 57 mins

Tacitus, Byron's fanmail and Bluey

Mary Beard, Konnie Huq, Helen Carr and Tom Peck join Shahidha Bari.

• 57 mins

Kant today, Spice Girls Reunited, Impersonating an Animal

Girl power past and present, the wisdom of goats and seagulls and Kant's ideas on reason.

• 57 mins

Winning and Losing, Plato scroll, the decline of Nightlife

Winning and losing with Lea Ypi, Peter Hitchens, Michael Mansfield KC and Cath Bishop.

• 57 mins

Life expectations, philosophy in the world, protest

Matthew Sweet with David Willetts, Elizabeth Oldfield, Will Davies and Tiffany Watt Smith.

• 57 mins

Positive and negative politics, 'intellectual vices' and the face you bring to work

Sir Richard Evans, Margaret Heffernan, Isabel Oakeshott, Quassim Cassam join Anne McElvoy.

• 57 mins