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

Left and Right - still relevant in British and Global Politics?

Margaret MacMillan, David Aaronovitch, Phillip Blond and Gisela Stuart join Matthew Sweet.

• 57 mins

The Insurrectionists' Guide to the Movies

Stephen Bush, Dr Sarah Jilani, Kate Maltby and Keith Shiri join Matthew Sweet.

• 57 mins

Generations - D-Day - Global Instability

Eliza Filby, Rana Mitter, Jo Hamya, Tom Simpson, plus Gaby Hinsliff.

• 57 mins

History - the long and short of it

Peter Frankopan, Alison Light, Bronwen Maddox and Zeinab Badawi join Matthew Sweet.

• 57 mins

The illusion of time, the summer solstice & the philosophy of comedy

Mark Miodownik, Emily Herring, Rob Newman and Fay Dowker consider Time with Matthew Sweet.

• 57 mins

Escapism

Matthew Sweet and guests question whether you can ever really escape.

• 57 mins

Carl Schmitt, democracy and dictatorship

Anne McElvoy with guests including David Runciman and Gisela Stuart

• 57 mins

Crisis & Decision

Do we live in a time of crisis? Matthew Sweet gets to grips with the present moment.

• 57 mins

The eternal dynamic of Rivalry, Fredric Jameson, the newly reopened Warburg Institute

Michael Crick, Helen Castor, David Edmonds, Kate Maltby and Roger Luckhurst.

• 57 mins

Why we read

Shahidha Bari and guests discuss the value of reading fiction and of writing history.

• 57 mins

Childhood and innocence

Katherine Rundell, Emily Baughan, Grace Lockrobin, Miriam Cates, Andrew Cooper

• 57 mins

Insiders & Outsiders

Matthew Sweet and guests explore the secret languages of the internet and beyond.

• 57 mins

Are we all American now?

Freddy Gray, Dr Katie McGettigan, Amanda Taub, Kit Davis and Rana Mitter join Anne McElvoy

• 57 mins

Ghosts, death and ecstatic states

Shahidha Bari with Irving Finkel, Simon Critchley, Chris Harding and Hetta Howes.

• 57 mins