Free Thinking

Soil degradation threatens our ecosystem and is among the most significant problems at a global level for agricultural production, food security and sustainability. World Soil Day 2022 on December 5th aims to heighten soil awareness so ahead of this, Anne McElvoy explores changes to both rural and urban farming. Mike Collins charts the evolution of the city farm; Jim Scown considers the relationship between soils, science and literary realism in Victorian Britain; Catherine Oliver asks why a growing number of city dwellers are rising with the rooster & discovering community in chicken keeping and Peter Wright, a film director, discusses his documentary, Arcadia, which captures the magic of rural Britain and our changing views towards the land and has a soundtrack from Adrian Utley (Portishead) and Will Gregory (Goldfrapp).

Jim Scown is a New Generation Thinker and Post Graduate Researcher at Cardiff University

You can find more discussions about Green Thinking in a collection on the Free Thinking programme website also available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - programmes includes episodes about mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and designing the home https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2

The first interracial kiss on American TV, a decidedly internationalist cast of characters: Star Trek has always been a deeply political programme but what are those politics? How did they arise in the Cold War America in which the show was initially developed? And where does the vision of an international (or even intergalactic) Federation developed in the series fit into the politics of today?

George Takei's Allegiance is at the Charing Cross Theatre in London from 7th January - 8th April

Producer: Luke Mulhall

A smouldering gorilla suited man racing through London on a motorbike is one of many striking images from Karel Reisz's 1966 film that starred David Warner (who had just played Hamlet at the RSC) alongside Vanessa Redgrave and Robert Stephens. Matthew Sweet is joined by Stephen Frears who worked as assistant director on the film, the director's son Matthew Reisz and film historian Lucy Bolton to look back at the talents of both Karel Reisz (21 July 1926 - 25 November 2002) and David Warner (29 July 1941 – 24 July 2022).

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

You can find other episodes of Free Thinking focused on key films and TV programmes in a collection called Landmarks on the Free Thinking programme website including discussions of Enter the Dragon and Bruce Lee, Asta Nielsen and a silent Hamlet, Dirk Bogarde and The Servant, Glenda Jackson and Sunday Bloody Sunday https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44

Shahidha Bari looks at the voices of women emerging from new writing in novels, plays and histories. Zenobia, Mavia, and Khadijah are Arabian queens and noblewomen who feature in the new book by Emran Iqbal El-Badawi which looks at the way female rulers of Arabia were crucial in shaping the history of the region. Hannah Khalil's new play at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at the Globe in London imagines a writers room of women weaving the tales that will last Scheherazade for 1,001 nights. And, Abdul Shayek's new production at the Tara Theatre in London is based on the testimony of women who survived Bangladesh's war of independence, a subject familiar in the writings of Tahmima Anam, including her novel A Golden Age.

Queens and Prophets - How Arabian Noblewomen and Holy Men Shaped Paganism, Christianity and Islam by Emran Iqbal El-Badawi is published in December 2022

Hakawatis: Women of the Arabian Nights is co-produced by Tamasha and runs at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare's Globe from December 1st 2022 to January 14th 2023.

Amma runs at the Tara Theatre in Earlsfield, London from November 30th to December 17th 2022.

You can hear Tahmima Anam discussing her latest novel about a tech start up The Start Up Wife in this episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wc3p

On the Free Thinking programme website is a collection of discussions about women in the world from goddesses to Tudor families, women warriors to sisters, witchcraft to artists' models https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p084ttwp

Producer: Ruth Watts

House of the Dragon was inspired by a medieval period known as The Anarchy. What do the real historical conflicts tell us about power, succession, class, and the status of women in medieval times, and why are fantasy writers so drawn to them? New Generation Thinker Sarah Peverley is Professor English Literature at Liverpool University. She is joined by Professor Carolyne Larrington of St John’s College Oxford, and Danielle Park, lecturer in Late Medieval History at the University of York.

A 12th century war of succession between Empress Matilda, daughter of Henry I, and her cousin Stephen of Blois which caused widespread breakdown in law and order in England and Normandy inspired the premise of House of the Dragon, with King Viserys Targaryen I lobbying for his eldest daughter Rhaenyra to be his heir whilst his nobles prefer his son Aegon II. And the warring dynastic families of the Starks and Lannisters in Game of Thrones are based on the 15th century Houses of York and Lancaster who battled for the throne of England throughout of the Wars of the Roses.

Producer: Ruth Thomson

This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI

You can find other episodes showcasing New Research in a collection on the programme website of BBC Radio e’s Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90

House of the Dragon draws on ‘The Anarchy’ - a 12th century war of succession. What does this conflict tell us about power, succession, class, and the status of medieval women ? New Generation Thinker Sarah Peverley is joined by Professor Carolyne Larrington of St John’s College Oxford, and Danielle Park, lecturer in Late Medieval History at the University of York. A 12th century war of succession between Empress Matilda, daughter of Henry I, and her cousin Stephen of Blois which caused widespread breakdown in law and order in England and Normandy inspired the premise of House of the Dragon, with King Viserys Targaryen I lobbying for his eldest daughter Rhaenyra to be his heir whilst his nobles prefer his son Aegon II. And the warring dynastic families of the Starks and Lannisters in Game of Thrones are based on the 15th century Houses of York and Lancaster who battled for the throne of England throughout of the Wars of the Roses.

This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI

St Teresa formulated a specifically Catholic version of contemplative religion in response to the 16th-century Protestant Reformation; Vivekananda was a Hindu holy man who articulated a religious path that set the template for much 20th-century spiritual thinking; Friedrich Nietzsche set out to subvert 1,800 years of religious thinking in his iconoclastic book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which has been newly translated by poet Michael Hulse.

Rana Mitter is joined by New Generation Thinker Dafydd Mills Daniel, historian Ruth Harris, and philosopher Katrina Mitcheson to discuss.

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

On the Free Thinking progamme website you can find a collection of Free Thinking episodes exploring religious belief including programmes about Cardinal Newman, early Buddhism, the links between Judaism and Christianity, Islam Mecca and the Quaran and a collection exploring philosophy

As Nottingham’s network of 800 man-made caves inspire an exhibition called ‘Hollow Earth’ at the city’s contemporary art gallery, Shahidha Bari and guests explore the underground world. Archaeologist Chris King discusses discoveries under Nottingham's streets, literary historian Charlotte May suggests stories to read, curator Sam Thorne picks out images, and award-winning cave explorer Andy Eavis, tells us about his career discovering more territory on earth than anyone else alive - all of it underground.

Producer: Ruth Thomson

Hollow Earth: Art, Caves & The Subterranean Imaginary runs at Nottingham Contemporary until January 22nd 2023. Organised in collaboration with Hayward Gallery Touring, the exhibition features works by René Magritte, Santu Mofokeng, Kaari Upson, Jeff Wall and Aubrey Williams, as well as new commissions from Sofia Borges, Emma McCormick-Goodhart, Goshka Macuga, Lydia Ourahmane and Liv Preston. In 2023, the exhibition will tour to The Glucksman in Cork and to RAMM in Exeter.

The Being Human Festival which showcases academic research has several events in Nottingham exploring the city's caves and underground history throughout November 2022. You can find another Free Thinking episode exploring Breakthroughs in electricity research showcased at this year's Festival https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0dhyp89

The Green Thinking collection on the Free Thinking programme website features a host of discussions about the environment and our landscapes https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2

"Creative daring" is the quality rewarded by the Goldsmiths Prize, now in its tenth year. What does it mean for an artist or writer to be daring and experimental? Shahidha Bari is joined by this year's winners Natasha Soobramanien and Luke Williams who have co-written their novel Diego Garcia, composer Matthew Herbert whose latest project is making music from the skeleton of a horse, and poet Stephen Sexton who has written a poetry collection structured round every level of the 90s video game Super Mario World.

Producer in Salford: Ruth Thomson.

The Goldsmiths Prize of £10,000 is awarded to "a book that is deemed genuinely novel and which embodies the spirit of invention that characterises the genre at its best" https://www.gold.ac.uk/goldsmiths-prize/prize2022/

Matthew Herbert's new piece for the Estuary Sound Ark will have its interactive world premiere at the Gulbenkian Arts Centre in Canterbury on Sunday 27th November at 3pm before being archived and left untampered with in a carefully selected location for 100 years. https://thegulbenkian.co.uk/events/estuary-sound-ark/ He has also published a novel The Music: An Album in Words

Stephen Sexton won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2019 for If All the World and Love Were Young. This year he is judging the prize

You can find a collection of discussions exploring Prose and Poetry on the Free Thinking programme website including a discussion of mould-breaking writing featuring Max Porter and Chloe Aridjis, poet Will Harris and academic Xine Yao https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000pxn0 and a series of episodes exploring modernism hearing from Will Self and Alexandra Harris and looking at Mrs Dalloway, Finnegans Wake, Dada and Wittgenstein https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07p3nxh

The African American inventor Lewis Latimer who lived in South London and worked with Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison on developing light bulbs; Benjamin Franklin was one of the founders of the United States of America but what was he doing pouring oil on Derwent Water in the Lake District? How did theatrical department store demonstrations help sell Kenwood Chefs ? And Ganzflicker - the online experiment that depending on your neural pathways might make you see animals, fairies, and monsters – or nothing at all. Catherine Fletcher meets the academics whose research was showcased as part of the annual Being Human Festival of the Humanities which puts on a series of public events linked to universities across the UK.

Her guests are cultural historian Christopher Donaldson from Lancaster University, design historian Alice Naylor from the University of Portsmouth and the British Science Museum, Ayshah Johnston from the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton and the University of Surrey, and cognitive neuroscientist Reshanne Reeder from Edge Hill University in Ormskirk.

Benjamin Franklin’s Scientific Adventures in the English Lakes

Producer in Salford: Ruth Thomson

This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI

This includes information about research showcased in previous Being Human festivals available to listen or download