Free Thinking

Tuesday 8th May 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Former army officer Dr Mike Martin discusses Why We Fight. Plus 2018 New Generation Thinker Dafydd Mills Daniel looks at the lessons about crowd control from a London riot on May 10th 1768.

Tuesday 15th May 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Matthew Sweet looks at the impact of French philosophy and talks belief with John Gray.

Tuesday 29th May 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

The power of fiction, translating history and the public role of writer are debated as Shahidha Bari chairs a discussion recorded with an audience at the Hay Festival.

Tuesday 5th June 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Arundhati Roy talks about literary translation, the subject of her WG Sebald lecture, with Preti Taneja, and Anne McElvoy investigates the UK's apparent language learning crisis.

Tuesday 12th June 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

US commentator Mark Lilla says truth is under attack. Anne McElvoy talks to 2018 New Generation Thinker Gulzaar Barn about medical trials, plus Owen Hatherley's European travels.

Tuesday 19th June 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Ursula Le Guin's idea of the forest is explored by Rupert Read. Plus Matthew Sweet talks to artist Francis Alys about turbulence, from dust devils in a tornado to political change.

Tuesday 10th July 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

The philosophy of tennis, Cardiff's hidden beach, and the life and times of Eleanor Marx are explored by New Generation Thinker Des Fitzgerald. Matthew Sweet presents.

Thursday 12th July 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Writer Howard Jacobson delivers a keynote lecture on why we need the novel and talks to presenter Shahidha Bari and an audience at a festival at London's Southbank Centre marking the 50th anniversary of the Man Booker Prize.

Monday 30th July 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Stephen Johnson explores Sigmund Freud's enigmatic relationship with music. He talks to American cultural analyst Michelle Duncan, psychoanalysts and writers Darian Leader and Julie Jaffee Nagel, music critic David Nice, whose first job it was to take tours around the Freud Museum in Hampstead, and Barcelona-based neurologist Josep Marco-Pallares, who is studying amusia and music-specific anhedonia, which he proposes might have been the root cause of Freud's problem with music. With excerpts from Freud's writings read by actor Nicholas Murchie.

Monday 20th August 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

The Population Bomb.

Professors Danny Dorling and Stephen Emmott join author Lionel Shriver to look at the warnings of a 1968 book and whether we should heed its view of an overpopulated planet. episode 3.

Tuesday 21st August 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Are We Afraid of Being Alone?

Sara Maitland, Lionel Shriver and John-Henry Clay explore solitude, in the modern city, online, in the medieval monk's cell and the asylum. episode 7.

Tuesday 28th August 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Are pets therapeutic? Is it moral to domesticate animals? Anne McElvoy explores the history of our relationship with pets with John Bradshaw author of Cat Sense and Dog Sense, Philip Howell who has researched the role of the domestic dog in Victorian Britain, bioethicist and writer Jessica Pierce who questions whether we should keep pets at all and novelist Laura Purcell. John Bradshaw has written The Animals Among Us: The New Science of Anthrozoology; Cat Sense: The Feline Enigma Revealed and Dog Sense: How the New Science of Dog Behavior Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Pet. He is director of the Anthrozoology Institute at the University of Bristol. Laura Purcell published the ghost story The Silent Companions earlier this year. The Animal's Agenda : Freedom, Compassion, and Coexistence in the Human Age by Jessica Pierce and Marc Bekoff was published this year - her other books include Run Spot Run: The Ethics of Keeping Pets. Philip Howell is a Senior Lecturer at Fellow at Emmanuel College Cambridge who has published At Home and Astray: The Domestic Dog in Victorian Britain. Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Wednesday 29th August 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 20:30 to 21:30 (1 hour long)

'There are three urgent and indeed great problems that we face today... that is the problem of racism, the problem of poverty and the problem of war.' The words of Martin Luther King in 1967 when he visited Newcastle upon Tyne to receive an honorary degree. Words that underlie a discussion about poetry and protest which features in the festival marking the 50th anniversary of that visit. The poets Jackie Kay, Fred D'Aguiar and Major Jackson join Shahidha Bari and an audience at Newcastle University to explore the nature of protest poetry and to launch a poetry anthology celebrating the spirit of Dr King. Producer: Zahid Warley. MAJOR JACKSON Going to Meet the Man As if one day, a grand gesture of the brain, an expired subscription to silence, a decision raw as a concert of habaneros on the lips: a renewal to decency like a trash can smashing a storefront or the shattering glass face of a time-clock: where once a man forced to the ground, a woman spread-eagled against a wall, where a shot into the back of an unarmed teen: finally, a decisive spark, the engine of action, this civilian standoff: on one side, a barricade of shields, helmets, batons, and pepper spray: on the other, a cocktail of fire, all that is just and good "Going to Meet the Man" originally published by W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. in Holding Company,(c) Major Jackson, 2010 The Mighty Stream: Poems in Celebration of Martin Luther King edited by Carolyn Forché and Jackie Kay is published by Bloodaxe.

Friday 7th September 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:15 to 23:00 (45 minutes long)

Have recent events made you wonder if the world is coming to an end? When you hear someone in the media talk in apocalyptic terms, do you respond with scorn, scepticism, or a nagging feeling that they may just be right. Are we in fact hard-wired to think apocalyptically? History suggests that we might be. Myths and stories of "end times" recur at many different times and in many different cultures. Scholar, cultural historian and New Generation Thinker Eleanor Barraclough sets out to explore some of the less familiar visions of the world's end and what these beliefs tell us about ourselves. On Hadrian's wall we find out from historian John Henry Clay how the prophecy of the twelve vultures that foretold the end of the Roman Empire proved uncannily accurate. On the mystic Isle of Lindisfarne we learn from medieval historian James Palmer why the Christian Anglo-Saxons believed Doomsday was terrifyingly near. Old Norse expert Heather O'Donoghue shows Eleanor images carved on a 10th-century cross depicting the terrible scenes of Ragnarok, meaning 'the doom of the gods': One wolf swallows the sun and another swallows the moon, the mountains fall down and the world collapses. The Norse regarded Ragnarok as something far off and mythical, rather than an imminent threat. Flor Edwards, however, grew up believing the world would end in 1993 when she was twelve. She and her parents were members of a Christian apocalyptic cult called The Children of God. Flor explains how she attempted to come to terms with knowing she and her parents would die before she reached adulthood. Malise Ruthven, historian of Muslim theology, examines the links between apocalyptic thinking and early Islam. The political philosopher John Gray discusses how George W Bush responded to the 9/11 terrorist attacks by evoking traditions of apocalyptic myth which Gray believes had their roots in Puritan fundamentalism. He explains how, in his opinion, Christian apocalyptic thinking introduced the idea of progress in history. But how do Eastern faiths see the end of the world? Theodore Proferes from the University of London explains how Hinduism and other ancient eastern religions emphasise a cyclical perspective on time. He tells Eleanor about the World Ages, or Yugas, where worlds die and are reborn in a continuous rotation. Tim Barrett, a specialist in the religions of China, reveals how scriptures from many centuries ago are now coming to light and yielding surprising details about Daoist ideas of apocalypse. Author Naomi Alderman is the co-creator of a fitness app called Zombies, Run! She explains why the idea of the zombie apocalypse became a popular theme in the 1960s and tells Eleanor about Jewish visions of the end of the world and the great battle between Leviathan and Behemoth. At the end of this cataclysmic journey Eleanor asks whether humans have a predisposition towards "end times" thinking, and if so, what purpose does it serve? Does she come to a suitably apocalyptic conclusion? Presenter: Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough Reader: John Dougall Producer: Philippa Ritchie Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough of Durham University has just published 'Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas'. Four years ago she was one of the New Generation Thinkers, a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten people who can turn their research into radio and television.

Thursday 13th September 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

The author of Birdsong talks to Anne McElvoy in one of the first conversations about his new novel. Sebastian Faulks discusses depicting France past and present from World War I to Algeria and immigration now as he publishes his latest novel called Paris Echo. Recorded with an audience at the BBC Proms. Producer: Fiona McLean.

Wednesday 26th September 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Can causing offence be a good thing? Philip Dodd explores this question with the Slovenian philosopher, the American author and the Danish journalist. Camille Paglia is a Professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia whose Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson was rejected by seven publishers before it became a best-seller. Flemming Rose was Culture Editor at the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten when in September 2005 it published a series of cartoons of Muhammad which caused controversy. The latest book from Slavoj Žižek looks at Big Tech and the impact of the internet. Like A Thief In Broad Daylight: Power in the Era of Post-Human Capitalism by Slavoj Zizek is out now. Provocations: Collected Essays by Camille Paglia will be available from October 9th. Producer: Zahid Warley.

Thursday 27th September 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Lisa Appignanesi, prize-winning writer and Freudian scholar, with a personal memoir that explores public and private loss and anger. Presenter Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough also looks at a Festival of Canadian and North American writing meeting authors Heather O'Neill and Cherie Dimaline whose novels explore the meaning of family in dystopian visions of Canada, urban and rural. And, as the Oceania exhibition opens at the Royal Academy in London and a new Pacific Gallery opens at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, Jo Walsh, artist and art producer, and cultural adviser, explains about the cultural protocols and disciplines which should be taken into account when mounting exhibitions of art from the Pacific nations. Everyday madness: On Grief, Anger, Loss and Love by Lisa Appignanesi is out now. Heather O'Neill is one of Canada's best known fiction writers. Also a poet and journalist, the prize-winning author's latest novel, The Lonely Hearts Hotel, is out now. Cherie Dimaline is a writer and editor from the Georgian Bay Metis Community in Ontario. Dimaline's latest book, The Marrow Thieves, Jo Walsh, (Maori / Pakeha) is a London-based artist and arts producer, and works with major institutions, including the British Library and National Maritime Museum.. She is the current Chairperson for the New Zealand Studies Network, UK and Ireland Festival America was founded in Paris in 2002 as a biennial focus on writing from the North American continent. It launches in London this September following the Paris programme. Oceania at The Royal Academy, London, 29 September - 10 December 2018. Sackler Gallery: Pacific Encounters, one of four new galleries at National Maritime Museum, now open. Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

Wednesday 10th October 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Anne McElvoy looks at the future of Capitalism, the Scottish Clearances and a farm as a microcosm of Colombia's history talking to Paul Collier, Tom Devine and Hector Abad. The Future of Capitalism by Paul Collier, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government and a Professorial Fellow of St Antony's College, is out now The Scottish Clearances by Tom Devine, Professor Emeritus, University of Edinburgh, out now The Farm, a new novel by Hector Abad trs. Anne McLean is out now.

Tuesday 16th October 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Putting women back into the C20th history of British philosophy. Shahidha Bari talks to Alex Clark about the 2018 Man Booker Prize and looks at Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley and Iris Murdoch who were undergraduates at Oxford University during WWII. The In Parenthesis project asks whether you can call them a philosophical school. http://www.womeninparenthesis.co.UK/about/ Producer: Luke Mulhall

Wednesday 24th October 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

The film director talks to Matthew Sweet about his career and his approach to dramatising history. His new film Peterloo depicts the 1819 massacre at a rally in Manchester where a crowd of 60,000-80,000 were demanding the reform of parliamentary representation. It follows his film about the painter Mr Turner and the 2004 film Vera Drake which depicted the 1950s - a period when abortions were illegal in England. Producer: Debbie Kilbride.

Tuesday 6th November 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Gillian Clarke, Sabrina Mahfouz and Michael Symmons Roberts respond to the war poet Wilfred Owen with their own new commissions from the Royal Society of Literature. Shahida Bari hosts a discussion recorded with an audience at the British Library on the 100th anniversary of Owen's death during the crossing of the Sambre-Oise Canal on 4 November 1918, exactly 7 days (almost to the hour) before the signing of the Armistice which ended World War I. Born in Cardiff, Gillian Clarke's work has been on the GCSE and A Level exam syllabus for the past thirty years. She was the first woman to win the Wilfred Owen Award - for a sustained body of work that includes memorable war poems - in 2012. Sabrina Mahfouz was brought up in London and Cairo, and is a playwright, poet, novelist and editor. She was elected an RSL Fellow in 2018. Poet and Professor of Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, Michael Symmons Roberts grew up less than a mile from Greenham Common and has often written about the Cold War 'peace'. Producer: Fiona McLean.

Wednesday 7th November 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Better than Proust -- the man who made literature out of colloquial French -- the arch chronicler of human depravity --- some of the things that are said about Louis Ferdinand Céline, author of Journey to the End of the Night - one of the masterpieces of 20th century literature. His semi- autobiographical novel, first published in 1932, is a ferocious assault on the hypocrisy and idiocy of his time. It follows its anti hero Ferdinand Bardamu from the battlefields of the First World War to Africa and America before returning to Paris and a chilling confrontation with his demons. The book established Céline as a an original and dangerous voice amongst the generation of writers who emerged from the carnage of the Great War. The fluency of his prose, its tone and bristling attitude has won him many admirers among them Philip Roth and Joseph Heller. He's entered popular culture too -- being quoted by Jim Morrison in the Doors' song End of the Night. But as well as the praise there's been criticism - not least for the vicious anti-Semitism that surfaces in some of his later work. To explore the novel and the man Rana Mitter is joined by the writers, Marie Darrieussecq and Tibor Fischer, the literary historian, Andrew Hussey, and Céline's latest biographer, Damian Catani. Marie Darrieussecq is the author of novels including Pig Tales, Tom is Dead and her latest Our Life in the Forest Andrew Hussey is the author of The French Intifada : The Long War Between France and its Arabs Tibor Fischer is the author of the novels, How to Rule the World, Under the Frog and The Thought Gang. Damian Catani teaches at Birkbeck College in London and is writing a biography of Céline that will be published in 2020 by Reaktion Books. Producer: Zahid Warley.

Thursday 8th November 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Journalist Peter Hitchens; the Rector of St James's Church Piccadilly Lucy Winkett; performer and director Neil Bartlett and Professor Steve Brown from the Open University join Anne McElvoy at the Imperial War Museum for their 2018 Remembrance Lecture. In 1919, the first national silence was observed to commemorate the end of the First World War. Organised silences were designed to remember the human impact of conflict, but do twentieth century collective silences fulfil that purpose? This debate brings together a panel of speakers to discuss the role of organised silences and what it means to be silent about conflict in 2018. Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Wednesday 21st November 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

Eric Kaufmann talks to Philip Dodd about white identity, immigration and populism. Plus Hungarian politics with cultural historian, Krisztina Robert, journalist, Matyas Sarkozi and Zsuzsa Szelenyi of the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna. Eric Kaufmann's book is called Whiteshift: populism, immigration and the future of White majorities. Krisztina Robert teaches at the University of Roehampton Producer: Zahid Warley.

Wednesday 28th November 2018 (starting this evening)
Time: 22:00 to 22:45 (45 minutes long)

A long lost classic by William Melvin Kelley, who coined the term "woke" back in 1962 in a New York Times article, Esi Edugyan's Booker shortlisted novel and new research. Laurence Scott presents. A Different Drummer was the debut novel of Kelley - first published when he was 24. Compared to William Faulkner and James Baldwin, it was forgotten until an article about it earlier this year. Kelley died aged 79 in 2017. His story imagines the day the black population of a Southern US town decide to get up and all go. Canadian writer Esi Edugyan has imagined a black slave becoming a scientist in her novel Washington Black. Producer: Luke Mulhall.