Free Thinking

Bidisha, Peter Conradi and Lucy Bolton join Matthew Sweet to read the moral philosophy book published by Iris Murdoch in 1970. Murdoch, who died aged 79, 25 years ago on Feb 8th 1999, was a writer of novels and philosophy books which explored the nature of good/evil, the role of the unconscious and of sex and love. In 1978 she won the Booker prize for her story The Sea, The Sea and in 1987 she was made a Dame.

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

Producer: Luke Mulhall

The "best sci-fi film" never made? That's what Andrzej Zulawski's project has been called. Shut down by the Polish government before production had finished in 1977, the film wasn't completed and released until 1987. It's a visually stunning and wildly ambitious exploration of myth, religion and being human in an alien world. Zulawski (1940-2016) studied cinema in France and became known for art-house films working with actresses including Romy Schneider, Isabelle Adjani and Sophie Marceau. Matthew Sweet and his guests Daniel Bird, Sarah Dillon and David Hering, have been watching On the Silver Globe.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

The Light of Asia: A History of Western Fascination with the East is the new book from New Generation Thinker and historian Christopher Harding. In Passions of the Soul, the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams looks at the classics of Eastern Christian writing. At Compton Verney in Warwickshire, the artist Gayle Chong Kwan is preparing to unveil ‘shrines’ made up of newly cast bronze offerings, incorporating references to Chinese, Taoist and Buddhist cultures, as well as focusing on ideas around food, soil and the body. Rana Mitter hosts the conversation.

Producer: Julian Siddle

The Taotie runs at Compton Verney from 21 March 2024 – 31 March 2026

The stories told and secrets kept in Ireland north and south are the focus of a pair of deeply personal new non fiction books - Missing Persons Or My Grandmother's Secrets from University of Cambridge Professor of English Literature Clair Wills and Dirty Linen by Martin Doyle who is Books Editor of the Irish Times. They're joined by the criminologist Dr Louise Brangan who researches the sociology of punishment, including work on Ireland's Magdalene Laundries and the poet Scott McKendry whose work deals with generational trauma and social decay in Belfast. John Gallagher hosts a discussion of how the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and others can shape society and history itself.

Professor Clair Will's books include Lovers and Strangers: An Immigrant History of Post-War Britain and The Family Plot: Three Pieces on Containment.

You can find other episodes exploring Irish history and writing on the Free Thinking programme website under past episodes and Arts & Ideas podcasts including programmes about Emigration and "bad Bridgets"; Ireland's Hidden Histories and Secret Stories; Edna O'Brien; Colm Tóibín; Anne Enright.

Radio 3 has a three part series tracing music and composers from the island over the past two hundred years - Irish Classical, hidden in plain sight. Find it on BBC Sounds.

Producer in Salford: Olive Clancy

Historians continue to unearth documents, interpret new records accounts and reinterpret old ones in their light. In doing so they expand our understanding of unfolding antisemitism and the holocaust. Anne McElvoy speaks to Barbara Warnock the senior curator of the Wiener Holocaust Library, the world's oldest holocaust research institution as it marks its 90th anniversary this year. Rachel Pistol explores the emerging stories of the Jewish men interned in Britain during the Second World War. We hear from Liza Weber about what we can learn from the Jewish art looted by the Nazis. And, Daniel Lee tells us about the lives of resisters Missak and Mélinée Manouchian whose courage will be honoured in Paris this month.

Dr Rachel Pistol is a digital historian and National Coordinator of European Holocaust Research Infrastructure. She is also the Historical Advisor for World Jewish Relief

Producer: Ruth Watts

You can find previous episodes marking Holocaust Memorial Day with discussions about Nazis, Holocaust, Time and Memory with Richard J Evans, Jane Caplan, David Cesarani, Andre Singer and Eva Hoffman; Romani history, Portuguese Jewish experiences and a big academic literature research project in the 2023 episode hearing from Victoria Biggs, Richard Zimmler, Stuart Taberner and Daniel Lee; and episodes looking at Linda Grant and Jewish history; links between Judaism and Christianity, the writing of Betty Miller and Marghanita Laski; Jewish history, jokes and contemporary identity with Simon Schama and Devorah Baum.

In the first decades of the 20th century the Japanese philosopher Kitaro Nishida sent students to Europe and America to see what they could discover about Western philosophy. Keiji Nishitani went to Freiburg to study under Martin Heidegger, and became one of the leading figures in the Kyoto School, a project of synthesis that tried to read the Japanese intellectual tradition through the lens of European philosophy and vice versa. These thinkers took ideas from Christian mysticism, German idealism and Phenomenology, and combined them with an interest in direct experience shaped by Japanese Zen and other forms of Buddhism. But it was work carried out in Japan in the 1930s, in a society becoming increasingly militaristic and tending towards fascism. Chris Harding discusses the Kyoto School and its legacy with James Heisig, Professor Emeritus at Nanzan University, Graham Parkes, Professorial Research Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Vienna, Raquel Bouso, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, and Takeshi Morisato, Lecturer in Non-Western Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Martin Heidegger is widely viewed as one of the most significant philosophers of the 20th century. His 1927 book Being & Time took issue with the entire Western intellectual tradition since Aristotle and suggested a new beginning for philosophy, which has been widely influential in philosophy and beyond. But Heidegger was a card-carrying member of the Nazi party, and there is considerable evidence that he held anti-Semitic views. What is the relationship between the Epochal work, and the opinions and actions of the man? Matthew Sweet discusses, with Maximilian de Gaynesford, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading, Peter Osborne, Professor of Philosophy at Kingston University, Daniel Herskowitz, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in Theology at the University of Oxford, and Donatella Di Cesare, Professor of Philosophy at Sapienza Universita di Roma.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Neurodiversity, madness and disability are at the centre of the work being undertaken by three academics who join Matthew Sweet to look at the history of ideas about "normality". Dr Robert Chapman is Assistant Professor of Critical Neurodiversity Studies at Durham University and author of Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism. Dr Louise Creechan is also at Durham University and is working on a book about literacy in the nineteenth century. Dr Sarah Chaney researches the history of emotions at Queen Mary University of London and is the author of Am I Normal?: The 200-Year Search for Normal People (and Why They Don’t Exist).

Producer: Julian Siddle

You can find other Free Thinking discussions featuring Louise Creechan exploring How We Read, and looking at accents in Language, the Victorian and us.

From Lady Macbeth to Portia, Viola and Rosalind - Shakespeare's female characters continue to hold the highest appeal for actors, but less is known about the women in his own life. The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust is embarking on a year of events and exhibitions looking a the women who made Shakespeare, many of them forgotten, exploring their influence in his lifetime and the women who shaped his legacy beyond. Anne McElvoy hears about the latest research looking at the women in Shakespeare's life, his plays and his legacy. Sophie Duncan has looked at this first tragic heroine and the actress who did so much to promote his legacy, Ellen Terry. Hailey Bachrach has examined how Shakespeare used female characters in deliberate and consistent ways across his history plays. Emma Whipday has written Shakespeare's Sister, a play which follows Virginia Woolf's Room of One's Own in reimagining Shakespeare's sister as the playwright 'Judith Shakespeare'. And, Anouska Lester has looked at the role of Marie Corelli in Shakespeare heritage.

Sophie Duncan is a Research Fellow at Magdalen College, University of Oxford and the author of Searching for Juliet: The Lives and Deaths of Shakespeare's First Tragic Heroine.

Producer: Ruth Watts

You can find a collection of Free Thinking episodes exploring Shakespeare on the programme website and available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts and Radio 3 also has podcast versions of some of the dramas to listen to as The Shakespeare Sessions.

What is the composition dirt and dust? Is there a better place to hang the washing? And how can I make my home more comfortable? These are all questions which preoccupy our guests.

Jay Owens first became interested in the nature of dust around fifteen years ago. Her book entitled ‘Dust’ considers its global significance as a factor in both the dirt in our homes and major economic and political events from the dustbowls of the 1930s to the fallout from nuclear testing.

Architect Marianna Janowicz is thinking about what we do with our laundry, how buildings are not well designed to help dry it. The water vapor produced causes indoor mould and damp and yet in many places outside drying is banned. In an era where there’s great interest in finding low energy solutions to a range of humanity’s problems what can be done to alleviate the burden, the domestic drudgery of the washing cycle?

And are you comfortable with gas central heating, maybe you’d prefer a wood burner? How we heat our homes and what this means for the way we live is a long term research theme for Sam Johnson Schlee, but with increasing cost of fossil fuels and their role as key drivers of climate change what is the future for home comfort?

Producer: Julian Siddle

You might also be interested in Free Thinking episodes (available as the Arts and Ideas podcast) looking at Mid Century Modern and changes in the home; sneezing, smells and noses; Housework (and Hannah Gavron's The Captive Wife); and an episode called Breathe brought together writer James Nestor, saxophonist Soweto Kinch, Imani Jacqueline Brown of Forensic Architecture and New Generation Thinker Tiffany Watt Smith.