Ex marine and journalist Elliot Ackerman talks with Iraq war political advisor Emma Sky. A novel by Shiromi Pinto tracing the life of Sri Lankan architect Minnette de Silva. New Generation Thinker Christina Faraday researches the history of pop-up anatomy books. Rana Mitter presents.

Elliot Ackerman has written Places and Names.

You can hear a Free Thinking discussion about Why We Fight with Former army officer Dr Mike Martin and Priya Satia https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b1pyn4

Producer: Fiona McLean

The Belgian theatre director Ivo van Hove on staging Ayn Rand's ideas in The Fountainhead. 'The theme of my novel', said Ayn Rand, 'is the struggle between individualism and collectivism, not in the political arena but in the human soul. Plus Shahidha Bari meets Lesley Nneka Arimah, the winner of the 2019 Caine Prize for African Writing and looks at sex lives on screen and in print. How much do women share and how quickly do ideas about shame and acceptance come into play? Zoe Strimpel researches dating and sexual relationships and Lisa Taddeo has spent 8 years finding and tracking Three Women prepared to speak frankly about their desires.

The Fountainhead runs at MIF July 10th - 13th performed by Ivo van Hove's Internationaal Theater Amsterdam ensemble.

You can read all the stories shortliste for the Caine Prize here http://caineprize.com/ and hear interviews with past winners on Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b89ssp

Louise Egbunike looks at Afrofuturism in this Radio 3 Sunday Feature https://bbc.in/2LkSmR9

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo is out now.

Irenosen Okojie's film on Black Joy is here https://bbc.in/2Nx5IeY

Free Thinking on Consent https://bbc.in/2XCH5St

Free Thinking on Women, relationships and the law https://bbc.in/2C3svH1

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Matthew Sweet and guests look at the thought and writing of Iris Murdoch 100 years on from her birth, re-reading her work of moral philosophy she published in 1970, drawing on lectures she had given at universities in England and America.

The Iris Murdoch Research Centre is at the University of Chichester.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Philip Dodd hosts a special programme recorded in Cleveland, Ohio. Once a booming manufacturing metropolis located on the southern shore of Lake Erie, this 'rust belt' city has for many years been synonymous with industrial decay and high unemployment. For many the city's fortunes changed in 1969 when industrial pollution on the Cuyahoga river caught fire causing an environmental catastrophe, earning the city the moniker 'the mistake on the lake', a pejorative term it still struggles to shake off today.

To find out how Cleveland is reinventing itself in the 21st century, Philip is joined by banker and civic leader Justin Bibb, historian David Stradling, and Colette Jones, one of a team running Destination Cleveland, which attracts visitors to the city.

Plus, Philip meets Cai Guo-Qiang, to hear how the artist has used gunpowder and water to mark the 50th anniversary of the Cuyahoga river fires.

David Stradling is the author of Where the River Burned

Chinese-raised New York artist Cai Guo-Qiang has been commissioned as part of Cuyahoga50.

You can find a Free Thinking discussion with writer Adam Gopnik and others about gentrification here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09gyg4q

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

Rana Mitter considers fearing Russia past and present with Mark B Smith, and the way Russia controlled fears over Chernobyl. Plus Tamar Koplatadze from the University of Oxford on her research into contemporary post-Soviet/colonial women writers’ responses to the fall of the Soviet Union, Victoria Donovan from the University of St Andrews outlines her project in the Donbass region of Ukraine that attempts to reconcile an industrial, Soviet past with an uncertain future and Yu Jie, Research Fellow at Chatham House, gives an account of the Chinese view of Russia.

Mark B Smith teaches at the University of Cambridge and is the author of The Russia Anxiety.

Chernobyl the TV miniseries was created and written by Craig Mazin, directed by Johan Renck and produced by HBO in association with Sky UK

You can hear a Free Thinking discussion of Soviet history featuring the authors Svetlana Alexievich and Stephen Kotkin

This discussion of Tarkovsky's 1979 film Stalker hears research into tourism in Chernobyl https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0775023

Cundill Prize winning historian Daniel Beer, Masha Gessen and Mary Dejevsky consider Totalitarianism and Punishment

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Preti Taneja talks to the winner of the 2019 Dylan Thomas Prize, Guy Gunaratne, Egyptian graphic novelist Deena Mohamed, poet and broadcaster, Michael Rosen, Iranian-American author Dina Nayeri and Somali-British poet Momtaza Mehri.

Guy Gunaratne's first novel In Our Mad and Furious City imagines events over 48 hours on a London council estate evoking the voices of different residents. It was the winner of the International Dylan Thomas Prize, the Jhalak Prize as well as the Authors Club Best First Novel Award in 2019.

You can find Preti Taneja talking to Arundhati Roy and a debate about books in translation here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b5hk01

Producer: Zahid Warley

Amitav Ghosh on linking refugees, climate change, Venice & Bengali forests in his fiction. New Generation Thinker Islam Issa on Epstein's Lucifer sculpture. Rana Mitter presents.

Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh weaves the ancient legend about the goddess of snakes, Manasa Devi into a journey between America, the Sundarbans and Venice. You can also find Amitav Ghosh talking to Free Thinking about the need for fiction to reflect climate change here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07z7bnd

The emotional epic that is Layla and Majnun is the subject of events at the Bradford Literature Festival https://www.bradfordlitfest.co.uk/ which runs until July 7th and the Shubbak Festival which runs until July 14th https://www.shubbak.co.uk/ Film maker Soraya Syed and story-teller and producer Alia Alzougbi discuss the story's eternal attraction and ability to speak to contemporary issues.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio. Islam Issa teaches at Birmingham City University. His books include Milton in the Arab-Muslim World.

Free Thinking Landmarks on Paradise Lost https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08nf037

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

The art of Cindy Sherman; art critic Laura Cumming on finding out the history behind the days her mother disappeared as a child on a Lincolnshire beach, New Generation Thinker Susan Greaney on local history museums. Naomi Paxton presents and joining her to talk about Cindy Sherman are Laura Cumming, the actor Adjoa Andoh, photographer Juno Calypso and New Generation Thinker Joe Moshenska from the University of Oxford.

Laura Cumming's memoir is called On Chapel Sands and it is being read as the Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qftk

Susan Greaney works part-time for English Heritage and researches at Cardiff University. She is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.

You can find more about Juno Calypso here https://www.junocalypso.com/

In our archives you can hear Laura Cumming and Joe Moshenska on Velasquez https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03dx7tw

Producer: Fiona McLean

Jane Goodall is giving a talk at the British Academy on the work of the Jane Goodall Foundation with chimpanzees, protecting the environment with local communities and improving health and education for girls in rural Africa.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

New Generation Thinker Alistair Fraser on the fates and fortunes of Glaswegian tough guys. Recorded with an audience at the York Festival of Ideas. To hear audience questions download the Essay as an episode of the BBC Arts&Ideas podcast.

The image of the hard man runs like an electric current through Glasgow's history. Unafraid, unabashed, with outlaw swagger, he stalks the pages of countless crime novels and TV dramas. The unpredictable tough guy, schooled in both fist and knife, a symbol of the city's industrial past. But what does being a hard man mean in the Glasgow of today, now call-centre capital of Europe? And what lessons can be drawn from his changing fates and fortunes to understand masculinity and violence elsewhere?

Alistair Fraser is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, University of Glasgow and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. He has spent the last fifteen years studying youth gangs and street culture around the world, and is author of two academic books, Urban Legends: Gang Identity in the Post-Industrial City (2015, Oxford University Press), and Gangs & Crime: Critical Alternatives (2017, Sage). He makes regular contributions to public debate on gangs and youth violence, and has appeared on BBC Radio 3 and 4 on Thinking Allowed, More or Less, and Free Thinking.

Alistair Fraser in a Free Thinking Festival debate about gangs https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09w7qqg

Producer; Jacqueline Smith