Free Thinking

By BBC Radio 4Society & Culture

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Free Thinking episodes

May 02, 2023 Sound, conflict and central heating
Recordings in sub-zero temperatures and the hottest day on record have fed into the sound of Erland Cooper's latest composition. Ahead of a performance at the Barbican Centre, he discusses the way his Folded Landscape piece thaws through seven movements.
New Generation Thinker Sam Johnson-Schlee is researching the social history of central heating, how its changed what we do in the home, and why climate change and global geopolitics are leading to questions about its' future.
Sarah Jilani has suggested reading for the Nigerian take on the impact of the oil industry, which has produced a new style of literature 'Petropoetry'.
And in her new book 'Nomad Century' science writer Gaia Vince looks at how global temperature changes are raising the prospect of mass migration in response to climate change .
Matthew Sweet presents.
Producer: Julian Siddle
Folded Landscapes by Erland Cooper is released as an album in May and performed with the Scottish Ensemble at the Barbican Centre from May 11th-13th
Sam Johnson-Schlee is a 2023 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put research on the radio. He teaches at London South Bank University and has written a book called Living Rooms
Dr Sarah Jilani is also on the scheme. She teaches at City University London
You can find out about books and articles from science writer Gaia Vince at https://wanderinggaia.com/about-me/
46 min
April 27, 2023 Lady Antonia Fraser
From Mary Queen of Scots - about whom her mother was going to write until she intervened - to her most recent biography of Caroline Lamb, out in mid May, Lady Antonia Fraser has had a career publishing prize winning books exploring historical figures. In this conversation, recorded at her London home with historian Rana Mitter, she reflects on what she calls "optical research", the crime fiction she has written, meeting figures from history including Clement Atlee dressed as Santa and the prize, established by her daughter Flora, in memory of her mother - The Elizabeth Longford Prize for historical biography.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The shortlist for the 2023 Elizabeth Longford Prize for historical biography is announced in May
Lady Antonia Fraser's books which are discussed include Mary Queen of Scots, Cromwell our Chief of Men, The Weaker Vessel: Woman's Lot in Seventeenth-century England, The Case of the Married Woman: Caroline Norton: A 19th Century Heroine Who Wanted Justice for Women, The King and the Catholics: The Fight for Rights
In May 2023 Lady Antonia Fraser publishes Lady Caroline Lamb: A Free Spirit
You can find other episodes hearing from historians who have been nominated for the Wolfson History Prize, the Cundill History Prize and the British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding on the Free Thinking website and available on BBC Sounds.
46 min
April 25, 2023 Queen Charlotte, fashion and music
Music making, fashion and behaviour at court in the Georgian period are the focus of new research by Sophie Coulombeau, Mary-Jannet Leith and Lizzy Buckle. As Bridgerton launches a spin off series about Queen Charlotte and an exhibition opens at the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace called Style and Society, Shahidha Bari hosts a discussion about soirées, soprano stardom and sexual scandals.
Producer: Julian Siddle
A Georgian inspired episode of Radio 3's weekly curation of Words and Music is available on BBC Sounds until May 25th 2023
You can find other conversations about Georgian history on BBC Sounds and Free Thinking and available as the Arts and Ideas podcast
Bridgerton and Georgian Entertainment heard from Brianna Robertson-Kirkland, Sophie Coulombeau, Ian Kelly and Hannah Greig https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015v3c
Harlots and 18th-century working women https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rdfz
Samuel Johnson's Circle https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000vq3w
The Value of Gossip https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fwfb
18th century crime and punishment https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b040hysp
Style & Society: Dressing the Georgians runs at the Queen's Gallery until October 8th
Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story launches on May 4th on Netflix
46 min
April 20, 2023 New Thinking: Fashion, sustainability and Earth Day
From unboxing and influencers to circular fashion and a new artwork unveiled for Earth Day: New Generation Thinker Xine Yao from University College London hosts a conversation about sustainable fashion ideas.
How does the London College of Fashion experiment with materials and teach design practices and fashion media which focus on sustainability? Monica Buchan-Ng is the Acting Head of Knowledge Exchange at the Centre for Sustainable Fashion and she tells us about online courses and innovations including material made from algae https://www.futurelearn.com/partners/lcf
Lucy Orta has been a Professor since 2002 and is currently the Chair of Art and the Environment at the University of the Arts London, where she founded the Art for the Environment Artist in Residency Program. She also runs her own studio in partnership with George Orta https://www.studio-orta.com/
Her artwork Fabulae Naturae, comprises three 60-foot draperies adorning the Granary Building behind Kings Cross station. A programme of events is taking place across Earth Day on April 22nd https://www.kingscross.co.uk/event/earth-day-at-kings-cross
Producer: Belinda Naylor
This New Thinking episode of the Arts & Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI
https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/ukri-circular-fashion-and-textile-programme-networkplus/
UCL is home to a People and Nature Lab https://www.ucl.ac.uk/biosciences/gee/people-and-nature-lab
East Bank is the new cultural quarter which is home to UCL, London College of Fashion, BBC Music Studios and other cultural partners https://www.queenelizabetholympicpark.co.uk/east-bank
You can hear on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds a special Earth Day concert featuring the music of Max Richter and find a whole collection of conversations about Green Thinking on the Radio 3 Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2 and if you want more discussions about fashion check out these New Thinking podcasts
Arts & Ideas: Fashion Stories in Museums https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p096hw0q
Arts & Ideas: Fashion AI and sustainability https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07nhbrd
28 min
April 20, 2023 Hilma af Klint
As a new Tate exhibition of paintings puts the work of Swedish painter Hilma af Klint alongside modernist giant, Piet Mondrian. Both were painters fascinated by esoteric and occult ideas that became more marginal with the ascendancy of modernism. Matthew Sweet and guests discuss these abstract art works, theosophy and a search for the spirit world.
Nabila Abdel Nabi is co-curator of Hilma Af Klint & Piet Mondrian: Forms of Life runs at Tate Modern in London
Jennifer Higgie is the author of The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World
Daniel Birnbaum is a Swedish art curator and an art critic. Since 2019, he has been director and curator of Acute Art in London
Sarah Kent is an art critic
Producer: Ruth Watts
Hilma Af Klint & Piet Mondrian: Forms of Life runs at Tate Modern in London from April 20 - September 3 2023
You can find a series of Radio 3's The Essay: Artists and the Spirit World written and read by Jennifer Higgie available on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001323q
46 min
April 19, 2023 Tartan, Kidnapped and Highland writing
Stevenson's swashbuckling Jacobite set novel has been translated into a play which is touring Scotland. Tartan and its history are on show at V&A Dundee, including a piece of tartan found in a peat bog in Glen Affric around forty years ago newly dated to circa 1500-1600 AD, making it the oldest known surviving specimen of true tartan in Scotland. The Highland Book prize has announced its shortlist. Anne McElvoy is joined by New Generation Thinker and poet Peter Mackay, fashion historian Jonathan Faiers and theatre director Isobel McArthur.
Kidnapped: a swash-buckling rom-com adventure is directed by Isobel McArthur and Gareth Nicholls for the National Theatre of Scotland and the tour visits venues in Greenock, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Inverness, Perth, Newcastle and Brighton
Presented by the Highland Society of London, and facilitated by Moniack Mhor Writers’ Centre, the Highland Book prize shortlist is:
Companion Piece by Ali Smith, Confessions of a Highland Art Dealer by Tony Davidson, Crann-Fìge/ Fig Tree: Short Stories by Duncan Gillies, WAH! Things I Never Told My Mother by Cynthia Rogerson. The winner will be announced on the 6th of June https://www.highlandbookprize.org.uk/
Tartan at V&A Dundee opened on April 1st and includes over 300 objects. The book Tartan: Revised and Updated by Jonathan Faiers is out now, published by Bloomsbury.
Producer: Harry Parker
46 min
April 18, 2023 Galatea and Shakespeare
John Lyly's play Galatea, first recorded in 1588, inspired Shakespeare to write As You Like It and A Midsummer Night's Dream. In Brighton, Emma Frankland is directing a rare professional revival of it, so she and the academic advisor on the project Andy Kesson join Globe Theatre head of research Will Tosh and New Generation Thinker Emma Whipday for a conversation about cross-dressing in Elizabethan dramas and about the plays gathered together in Shakespeare's First Folio. Shahidha Bari hosts.
Emma Frankland's Galatea is commissioned by and is on as part of Brighton Festival, from the 5-21 May, 2023
Dr Andy Kesson teaches at Roehampton University and runs a Before Shakespeare project
Dr Emma Whipday is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. She teaches at the University of Newcastle
Dr Will Tosh is Head of Research at Shakespeare's Globe, London. He is currently working on a book called Straight Acting: The Many Queer Lives of William Shakespeare
The Globe Theatre production of A Midsummer Night's Dream runs 27th April to 12th August
On the Free Thinking programme website you can find a collection of discussions about Shakespeare and the Shakespeare Sessions on BBC Sounds includes a whole series of plays available to listen to. The most recent addition is Henry IV part II which you can also hear as a Drama on 3 on Sunday night on Radio 3.
Producer: Harry Parker
46 min
April 13, 2023 Caruso, Elsie Houston, Peter Brathwaite
The singers Enrico Caruso and Elsie Houston, a new opera at ENO and links between musical and artistic traditions in Latin America, Europe and New York are explored by the academics Ditlev Rindom and New Generation Thinker Adjoa Osei. Plus the baritone Peter Brathwaite has an exhibition of lockdown photographs in which he recreates the poses of black people portrayed in paintings from the last 800 years opening in Bristol (the photographs have also been published in a book) and has a musical work in progress, shown at the ROH, which explores his family's Barbadian history. Shahidha Bari hosts
Blue runs at English National Opera from April 20th - May 4th
Adjoa Osei is organising a conference at Trinity College, the University of Cambridge on April 28th called Performing Black Womanhood
Dr Ditlev Rindom is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at King's College, London currently finishing his first book, Singing in the City: Opera, Italianità, and Transatlantic Exchange, 1887-1914
Peter Brathwaite's Insurrection: A Work in Progress was performed at the Royal Opera House and you can hear more about his research in this Sunday feature for BBC Radio 3 Rebel Sounds: Musical Resistance in Barbados https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001hg3t
An exhibition of his photographs Rediscovering Black Portraiture is at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery from April 14th to July 16th. A book accompanies the show.
You can find his Essay series about the portraits on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nbrl
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
46 min
April 13, 2023 Land and soil politics
From nature as "a living whole" in the ideas of Goethe and Alexander von Humboldt to the "Blood and Soil" ideas of Nazi Germany: New Generation Thinker Jim Scown, from Cardiff University, traces the links between ideas about the order of nature to more troubling views about links with the land that led organic pioneer Jorian Jenks to refer to "alien hands" tilling "British soil".
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
15 min
April 12, 2023 Ginger Rogers
‘Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did but backwards and in high heels’ said cartoonist Bob Thaves. Matthew Sweet is joined by Lucy Bolton, Pamela Hutchinson, David Benedict and Miles Eady to look at her life (1911-1995) and a film career that stretched far beyond the 10 movies she made with Astaire, including an Oscar winning performance in Kitty Foyle.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The BFI season runs to the end of April
Many of Ginger Rogers' RKO films are available to watch on iPlayer, including Primrose Path, Kitty Foyle, Vivacious Lady, Carefree and The Gay Divorcee.
You can find a whole series of episodes of Free Thinking devoted to film stars including Asta Nielsen, Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn.
46 min

About Free Thinking

From the publisher's feed

Leading thinkers discuss the ideas shaping our lives - looking back at the news and making links between past and present. Fridays at 9pm on BBC Radio 4. Presented by Matthew Sweet, Shahidha Bari…