Free Thinking

Anne McElvoy talks to the French novelist Laurent Binet about his playful novel The 7th Function of Language, inspired by the death of Roland Barthes which has won the Prix de la FNAC and Prix Interallié. Emile Chabal considers what's next for France and Europe after the election of Emmanuel Macron. Plus, why blockchains, the technology underpinning cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, have the potential to revolutionize the world economy. Or do they? Three experts - Ajit Tripathi, Colin Platt and Izabella Kaminska - discuss.

The 7th Function of Language by Laurent Binet, translated by Sam Taylor, is out now.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

Playwright Mark Ravenhill and critic Matt Wolf debate desire and politics with Philip Dodd as Tony Kushner's Angels in America is revived at the National Theatre in London. Writer and theatre director Yaël Farber explains her vision of the story of Salomé as one set in an occupied desert country where a radical is on hunger strike and a girl's dance is at the centre of a revolution. Peggy Reynolds and Matt Cook discuss the exhibition Queer British Art 1861-9167.

Salomé is at the National Theatre from May 2nd to July 15th with an NT live broadcast around the UK on June 22nd.

Tony Kushner's drama Caroline, or Change is at the Chichester Theatre until June 3rd in a production starring Sharon D. Clarke

The Russell-Cotes Museum in Bournemouth opens Refracted: Collection Highlights, which has been co-curated with members of the local LGBT+ community May 13th which runs until September 8th and includes a photography exhibition opening in August.

Desire Love Identity: exploring LGBTQ histories is a free display in Room 69a which runs at the British Museum until October 15th.

Producer: Fiona McLean

Rana Mitter is joined by the 6 shortlisted authors and an audience at the British Academy for a discussion about writing history. This is the first year that the Wolfson History Prize has announced a shortlist. The winner will be named on May 15th.

Daniel Beer, THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD: SIBERIAN EXILE UNDER THE TSARS

Chris Given-Wilson, HENRY IV

Christopher de Hamel, MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE MANUSCRIPTS

Sasha Handley, SLEEP IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND

Lyndal Roper, MARTIN LUTHER: RENEGADE AND PROPHET

Matthew Strickland, HENRY THE YOUNG KING, 1155-1183

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Professor John Carey joins New Generation Thinkers Islam Issa and Joe Moshenska and presenter Philip Dodd to discuss Milton's poem, the first version of which was published in 1667. The discussion explores the influence of Protestant thinking, the Reformation and the Renaissance on Milton's depiction of religious and political beliefs as part of Radio 3's Breaking Free series of programmes exploring the impact of Martin Luther's Revolution.

Dr Islam Issa from Birmingham City University has written Milton in the Arab-Muslim World

Reader: Kerry Gooderson

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Rana Mitter looks at new research into the way daily life changed in Britain after the Reformation for Radio 3's series of programmes exploring Martin Luther's Revolution. His guests are:

Alec Ryrie, Professor in Religion and Theology at the University of Durham and author of: Protestants: The Faith that Made the Modern World 201;

Producer Jacqueline Smith

Peter Stanford, Ulinka Rublack and Diarmaid MacCulloch join Anne McElvoy to explore the question Martin Luther - Fundamentalist, Reactionary or Enlightened Creator of the Modern World? The discussion was recorded in front of an audience at theLiterary Festival for Radio 3's Breaking Free series of programmes exploring Martin Luther's Revolution. 500 years ago Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation when he nailed a sheet of paper to the door of a church in a small university town in Germany. That sheet and the incendiary ideas it contained flared up into religious persecution and war, eventually burning a huge hole through 16th century Christendom. And yet the man who sparked this revolution has somehow been lost in the glare of events. Peter Stanford is the author of a new biography of Luther Ulinka Rublack is the author of Reformation Europe Diarmaid MacCulloch's most recent book is All Things Made New - Writings on the Reformation Producer Zahid Warley.

A novel by Maylis de Kerangal which traces a heart transplant is the winner of this year's Wellcome Book Prize and the inspiration for a film out in the UK this week. Also, Anne McElvoy discusses nation states and war with US Professor of Political Philosophy Susan Buck-Morss and Professor AC Grayling. The 50th anniversary of the Biafran war and fictional representations of it are explored with New Generation Thinker Louisa Egbunike - organiser of the Igbo Conference at SOAS - and Professor Akachi Ezeigbo.

Maylis de Kerangal is the author of 'Mend The Living'. The film is called 'Heal the Living' and is in UK cinemas from Friday 28 April.

Producer: Karl Bos

Paul Kingsnorth, former deputy-editor of The Ecologist, co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project and author of novels including The Wake and Beast, talks about his changing attitude to the environmental movement. Environmental lawyer James Thornton and writer Martin Goodman recount their travels from Poland to Ghana, Alaska to China, to see how citizens are using public interest law to protect their planet. Plus, critic Maria Delgado and biographer Adam Feinstein consider the lost poems of that Chilean lover of nature, Pablo Neruda. Client Earth by James Thornton and Martin Goodman is published on the 11th of May. Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist by Paul Kingsnorth is out now. The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry selected and introduced by Paul Kingsnorth is out now. Then Come Back: The Lost Neruda Poems, by Pablo Neruda is published on Thursday 27 April 2017. Neruda a film by Pablo Larraín starring Gael García Bernal as a policeman searching for the Chilean politician Pablo Neruda played by Luis Gnecco is out in cinemas across the UK now. Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

Michèle Roberts' latest novel evokes Victorian London. Matthew Sweet asks how it smelt and what do museums do to create past smells. Plus a cultural history of dentistry with the medical historian Richard Barnett. The Walworth Beauty by Michèle Roberts is out now. The Smile Stealers: The Fine and Foul Art of Dentistry by Richard Barnett is out now. Producer: Fiona McLean.

The American poet Mark Doty, Professor Sarah Churchwell and the young British poet Andrew McMillan join Matthew Sweet for a programme dedicated to one of the classics of American poetry, Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Readings performed by William Hope. Producer: Fiona McLean. Originally broadcast on Thu 8 Oct 2015.