Free Thinking

"A hermit in the middle of Los Angeles" is one way she described herself - born in 1947, Butler became a writer who wanted to "tell stories filled with facts. Make people touch and taste and know." Since her death in 2006, her writing has been widely taken up and praised for its foresight in suggesting developments such as big pharma and for its critique of American history. Shahidha Bari is joined by the author Irenosen Okojie and the scholar Gerry Canavan and Nisi Shawl, writer, editor, journalist – and long time friend of Octavia Butler.

Irenosen Okojie's latest collection of short stories is called Nudibranch and she was winner of the 2020 AKO Caine Prize for Fiction for her story Grace Jones. You can hear her discussing her own writing life alongside Nadifa Mohamed in a previous Free Thinking episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k8sz

Producer: Luke Mulhall

You might be interested in the Free Thinking episode Science fiction and ecological thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000h6yw

Montaigne's literary self portraits led to him popularising the Essay form in the mid 1500s. With online articles, long reads in newspapers and magazines and a number of publishing houses interested in promoting essays and reprinting authors, Rana Mitter and guests look at what makes a good Essay drawing on examples from the past and present. Rana's guests are the author Kirsty Gunn; the essayist Chris Arthur, author of Hidden Cargoes; Paul Lay, Senior Editor at Engelsberg Ideas and a former editor of History Today and Emma Claussen is a lecturer in French at Trinity College, University of Cambridge who studies the work of Montaigne.

Producer: Ruth Watts

In the Free Thinking archives you can find a collection of episodes available as Arts and Ideas podcasts exploring Prose, Poetry and Drama including discussions about libraries, the history of paper, and what makes a good lecture

Henry VIII's encounter with Brazilian royalty, Inuit hunting in the Somerset countryside, Aztecs at the court of Charles V: Caroline Dodds Pennock's research flips history to focus on the impact of indigenous Americans on early modern Europe. And how is this kind of approach influencing museum displays? Anthropologist Adam Kuper has written a history of The Museum of Other People, charting the changing ethnological approaches to colonialism, cultural appropriation, and scientific authority. Plus musicologist Rupert Till has co-created a virtual sound map of the ancient Mexican city of Teotihuacán. John Gallagher hosts.

On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe by Caroline Dodds Pennock is out now and can also be found serialised on BBC Sounds.

You might also be interested in conversations available as Arts & Ideas downloads asking What language did Columbus speak ? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0d0tk22

Producer in Salford: Ruth Thomson

Going on a trip ? get ready to get uncomfortable, pack grease to treat your sore bum, and laudanum for the inevitable travel sickness - and perhaps you might also be in need of an anti-strangulation collar to ward off those potential murderers?

Emily Stevenson, Lecturer in Renaissance and Early Modern Literature at the University of York, is researching women travellers as far back as the 1550s. Some set out on religious pilgrimages, others on trade missions, smoothing the way for their husband’s wheeler-dealing. It’s a picture of heroines and hardship.

Alun Withey, lecturer in History at the University of Exeter is opening the suitcases of the time, what did travellers take with them and why ? How have the accoutrements of travel changed or remained the same over the last 400 years?

Art Historian Rebecca Savage from the University of Birmingham, looks at the artistic legacy of travel poster designers from before the second world war. Many were artists in their own right and many were women. Their iconic images of country picnics and modernist landscapes evoke a sense of rural Britain lost in time.

And as we move from the era of the railway to the car, Social Historian Tim Cole from the University of Bristol takes us on a journey inspired by paternalistic travel guides and maps given out freely as part of the 1951 Festival of Britain. How relevant are they now, how much of what they describe is lost in the past or still with us?

Producer: Julian Siddle

Mickey Mouse in his first incarnation in a short film from 1928 becomes available for public viewing without infringing Disney's copyright next year. In a programme looking back at the copyright history which affected authors including Charles Dickens and at current questions around legislation, Matthew Sweet is joined by David Bellos, author of Who Owns This Sentence? – A History of Copyrights and Wrongs, Katie McGettigan, lecturer in C19th American literature and Hayleigh Bosher, Reader in Intellectual Property Law at Brunel University London.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

What links carol singing with dogs? Medieval musicologist Micah Mackay reveals that carols aren’t just for Christmas – they began life as communal songs for anything from lullabies to drinking songs. She explains the detective work required to bring to life a fundamentally oral culture from a small number of manuscript sources, and what the origin of carols can tell us about the concept of Englishness in the medieval period. Englishness is also a key point of interrogation for Dr Caroline Lesemann Elliott, whose research explores the fascinating world of exiled English convents in Continental Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries, focusing especially on their musical sound world. We hear from the Basilinda Consort, an ensemble Caroline founded in order to perform the music they discovered and reconstructed as part of their research.

Dr Caroline Lesemann Elliott recently completed a PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London and a Bodleian Visiting Fellowship in Music. They are founder and director of the Basilinda Consort, an early music ensemble dedicated to exploring the lives of English Christian women religious. They are also a composer.

Micah Mackay is a writer and historian who recently submitted her PhD at the University of Oxford as part of the ‘Hearing the Page’ project in the Publication Beyond Print Doctoral Centre. She is also a theatre maker, screenwriter, and presenter based in Edinburgh.

This New Thinking episode of the Arts & Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find more on BBC Sounds and in a collection on Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme website called New Research with discussions on topics ranging from diverse classical music to how and why we talk.

Greek goddesses are the focus of Natalie Haynes' most recent book. She joins Ian Collins, curator of an exhibition at Pallant House celebrating the paintings made by John Craxton, who relocated from England to Crete after visiting in 1947; Minna Moore Ede, curator of an exhibition inspired by Leda and the Swan at the Victoria Miro Gallery and Dr Lucy Jackson talks about her research into the chorus in Greek drama. Shahidha Bari hosts

Natalie Haynes' books include Divine Might, A Thousand Ships, Pandora's Jar, Stone Blind, The Children of Jocasta, The Amber Fury and The Ancient Guide to Modern Life

Producer: Robyn Read

You can find Natalie Haynes discussing Phaedra, Cretan Palaces and the Minotaur in a Free Thinking episode in our Women in the World collection on the programme website

Cultural revolution memories, European resistance in occupied Poland and France and early attempts to establish trade with Mughal leaders in India are the topics explored in prize winning history books. Rana Mitter talks to authors Tania Branigan, Halik Kochanski and Nandini Das about digging in the archives and seeking out interviewees to help shape our understanding of these different periods in world history. Plus prize winning science books by John Vaillant, who considers the incredible power of fire as it consumes a city in Alberta built on the extraction of fossil fuels, and Ed Yong who reveals the extrodinary range of senses which humans don't have, but other animals do, from navigating using smell to the ability to detect electromagnetic waves.

Tania Branigan is the 2023 winner of the Cundill History Prize for Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China's Cultural Revolution

Producer: Julian Siddle

You can hear more from Nandini Das talking to Rana alongside Peter Frankopan, author of The Earth Transformed: An Untold History in a Free Thinking episode called Climate change and empire building

Popularising calypso music, performing with Sinatra's Rat pack, Nana Mouskouri, Miriam Makeba and Charlie Parker, starring in films including Otto Preminger's Carmen Jones, the hip hop film he produced called Beat Street, Robert Altman's Kansas City and Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman: Harry Belafonte's career in film and music ran from 1949 to 2018 but he was also a tireless political activist who was inspired by Paul Robeson. As the BFI programmes a season of his films in December, Matthew Sweet is joined by Candace Allen, Kevin Le Gendre and Susanne Rostock.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

On the Free Thinking website you can find Matthew Sweet's interview with Harry Belafonte, recorded in 2012 after the publication of his autobiography My Song and the release of Susanne Rostock's documentary Sing Your Song. Susanne is currently working on another film that she made with Belafonte - Following Harry - that sees him meeting and talking to young activists.

Scientist, novelist, poet, philosopher, feminist, it's 400 years since the birth of Margaret Cavendish.

Nandini Das looks at the life, work and influence of Margaret Cavendish with:

Dr Emma Wilkins who has followed the rise in interest in the work and life of Margaret Cavendish in recent times, and has a particular focus on her science.

Professor Anne Thell, Vice President of the International Margaret Cavendish Society who is leading work on interpreting and presenting Margaret Cavendish’s writing for wider audiences.

Francesca Peacock, whose new biography of Margaret Cavendish ‘Pure Wit’ sets her in a modern feminist context.

And Emeritus Professor of Physics Athene Donald, who includes Margaret Cavendish in her book on women in science ‘ Not just for the boys’ arguing that the treatment of Margaret Cavendish by the 17th century scientific establishment illustrates negative attitudes and issues which have still to be addressed for women in science today.

In the Free Thinking programme archive you can find a collection of episodes exploring women in the world including programmes about Aphra Behn, Chaucer's the Wife of Bath, Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, Gwendolyn Brooks and Phillis Wheatley.

Producer: Julian Siddle