Free Thinking

Laurence Sterne's subjective travel book was published in 1768. Mary Newbould and Duncan Large discuss its influence. Plus novelist Philip Hensher on his new book The Friendly Ones and writing fiction about neighbourliness, families and the Bangladesh Liberation War. Walker Nick Hunt discusses his journeys following the pathways taken by European winds such as the Mistral and the Foehn and the conversations he had about nationalism, immigration and myths. Presented by New Generation Thinker Seán Williams.

The Friendly Ones by Philip Hensher is published on March 8th.

‘Alas, Poor Yorick!’: A Sterne 250-Year Anniversary Conference takes place at Cambridge 18 - 21 March and an Essay Collection is being published called ‘A Legacy to the World’: New Approaches to Laurence Sterne’s ‘A Sentimental Journey’ and other Works to be edited by W.B Gerard, Paul Goring, and M-C. Newbould.

An evening of music and readings to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the funeral of Laurence Sterne in the church where the original service took place.

The archaeologist Francis Pryor tells Shahidha Bari about a lifetime of building vistas of our history and prehistory through the evidence of pottery shards, holes in the mud and broken bones and palaeo-archaeologist Paul Pettitt who co-discovered Britain's first cave art explains why darkness informed a critical component in the development of the human brain and archaeologist Ruth Whitehouse reflects on the use of caves for ritual. They are joined by Sharon Robinson-Calver who has been tasked with the on-going conservation of a piece of London's fatberg and poet Sean Borodale whose latest collection arises from field studies in grave yards, caves and mines. Together they discuss why the past draws them back and how that past signposts itself.

Francis Pryor 'Paths to the Past' is out on March 1st 2018

Red tape or accountability? Matthew Sweet is joined by Lord Robin Butler, former head of the home Civil Service, writer and lecturer Eliane Glaser and Professor André Spicer whose recent book looks at meaningless management speak. Deborah McAndrew talks about her stage adaptation of Charles Dickens' Hard Times which examines the results of purely utilitarian education. And journalist Richard Lloyd Parry's new book is an account of the tsunami of 2011 - Japan's biggest loss of life since the bombing of Nagasaki.

Richard Lloyd Parry’s Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster is out now

Business Bullshit by André Spicer is available now

Hard Times is at The Viaduct Theatre, Halifax, until 24 February, then The Dukes, Lancaster, from 27 February until 3 March - check the Northern Broadsides website for further dates.

We should ignore newspaper headlines, believe that things are getting better and defend Enlightenment values. That's the message from Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He debates his defence of progress and his optimistic outlook with Philip Dodd. Plus culture wars in Britain. Are the divisions we are seeing today different to previous culture wars? Eliza Filby, Alex Massie & Tarjinder Gill debate.

Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker is out now.

Eliza Filby is the author of God and Mrs Thatcher and a Visiting Lecturer at Kings College, London.

Producer: Robyn Read

From Napoleon impersonators, his image in caricature and ballads, to a play which asks what if he didn't die in exile - presenter Anne McElvoy is joined by actor and director Kathryn Hunter, biographer Michael Broers, historians Oskar Cox Jensen and Laura O'Brien and journalist Nabila Ramdani who looks at how Napoleon is viewed in 21st century France.

Napoleon Disrobed - a play performed by Told By an Idiot which is based on the novel The Death of Napoleon by Simon Leys - is on tour visiting Plymouth, London, Birmingham and Scarborough.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Film maker Clio Barnard and novelist Amanda Craig on rural life. Matthew Sweet presents.

American artist, Mark Dion has a new exhibition on in London: Theatre of the Natural World . Dion is exhilarated by the natural world but tells Anne McElvoy why his art is about how we classify it and what that says about us.

Mark Dion: Theatre of the Natural World at Whitechapel Gallery, London until May 13th

Presenter: Anne McElvoy

David Willetts, Polly Toynbee, Baroness Simone Finn, Julia Black and Adrian Wooldridge join Anne McElvoy for a debate recorded with an audience at the LSE Festival Beveridge 2.0

Philip Dodd talks to Michael Ignatieff about the political landscape of central Europe.

1968 was one of the most seismic years in recent history -- Vietnam, the Prague spring, Black Power at the Olympics and protests on the streets of Paris and London so this evening's programme -- Rana Mitter's extended interview with Tariq Ali -- is part commemoration, part reassessment. What remains of that turbulent time and where can we discern its features in our political landscape today? Rana takes Tariq back to his life as a boy in Lahore - a city where his radical parents regularly hosted the likes of Pakistan's great 20th century poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz and brings him via his first hand experience of wartime Vietnam and his intellectual engagement with the Russian revolution to the present where he offers assessments of the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn and the US President, Donald Trump. There's time too for a diversion into literature. Tariq shares his love of Kipling and in the longer version of the interview available as one of our Arts and Ideas podcasts - he reads from his novel Night of the Golden Butterfly featuring a character based on the painter, Tassaduq Sohail.

Tariq Ali has chosen a mixtape for Radio 3's Late Junction broadcast this week.

Producer: Zahid Warley