Free Thinking

New critical biographies of Sylvia Plath and Seamus Heaney and a reissue of Anne Sexton's poems prompt a conversation for National Poetry Day about our image of a poet. Is it possible to separate a poet's life from their work? Shahidha Bari is joined by New Generation Thinkers Sophie Oliver and Peter Mackay, and by Plath biographer Heather Clark. And she talks to Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi about her new novel, The First Woman – a coming of age story of a young girl in Uganda, mixing modern feminism and folk beliefs against a backdrop of Idi Amin’s regime.

The First Woman is out now. Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi teaches creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University, and her other books are Kintu and the short story collection Manchester Happened.

Mercies: Selected Poems by Anne Sexton is being issued in the Penguin Modern Classics series in November 2020

On Seamus Heaney by Roy Foster is published by Princeton University Press

Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark is published in October by Vintage.

Sophie Oliver teaches at the University of Liverpool and researches women and modernist writers, including Jean Rhys. She also writes for the TLS, Burlington Magazine, and The White Review.

Peter Mackay teaches at the University of St Andrews and has published writing on Sorley MacLean; an anthology, An Leabhar Liath: 500 years of Gaelic Love and Transgressive Verse; and his own collection of poems Gu Leòr / Galore.

Free Thinking has a playlist of conversations about prose and poetry on the website - all available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts.

If you have been affected by the mental health issues in this programme, you can find details of support organisations from the BBC Action Line website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4WLs5NlwrySXJR2n8Snszdg/emotional-distress-information-and-support

Producer: Emma Wallace

From Cuyp's paintings, to Wordsworth's wanderings to modern dairy management and soil fertility via Victorian Industrial farming and talking Swiss satirical cows - Cumbrian farmer James Rebanks joins Matthew Sweet in a programme marking the anniversary of the poet Wordsworth, who helped shape attitudes to landscape. Other guests include New Generation Thinker Seán Williams from the University of Sheffield and Professor Karen Sayer from Leeds Trinity University who is writing Farm Animals in Britain, 1850-2001 and is part of a team of academics working on the project https://field-wt.co.uk/

James Rebanks is the author of English Pastoral: An Inheritance; The Shepherd's Life and The Illustrated Herdwick Shepherd.

Sean read his own translation from the 1850 Novel "The Cheese Dairy in Cattlejoy" by Jeremias Gotthelf.

The contemporary cow-art Karen mentions is in an online exhibition at Reading's Museum of English Rural Life

Producer: Alex Mansfield

You might also be interested in the Free Thinking Collection of episodes Green Thinking which includes discussions about soil, Rachel Carson's influential book Silent Spring, a Free Thinking festival discussion with James Rebanks and anthropologist Veronica Strang, Peter Wohlleben on trees, George Monbiot on the Green Man myth, Chris Packham on music https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2

You can find a discussion about Wordsworth with the directors of Lancaster University's Wordsworth Centre for the Study of Poetry https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p087kr4n

Radio 3 is broadcasting new writing from the 2020 Contains Strong Language Festival in Cumbria on The Verb and as the Radio 3 Drama.

The tribe of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, having a Jamaican Welsh identity, the idea of freedom and anti-colonial resistance, the alarming rise of youth suicide among Indigenous people in Canada and how a group of pioneering cultural anthropologists – mostly women – shaped our interpretation of the modern world: these are the topics tackled in the shortlist for the 2020 prize for a book fostering global understanding. Rana Mitter talks to the authors.

Imperial Intimacies: A Tale of Two Islands by Hazel V. Carby

The international book prize, worth £25,000, and run by the British Academy, rewards and celebrates the best works of non-fiction that have contributed to global cultural understanding, throwing new light on the interconnections and divisions shaping cultural identity worldwide. Over 100 submissions were received and the winner is announced on Tuesday 27 October.

Producer: Karl Bos

The winner in 2019 was Toby Green for A Fistful of Shells – West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution and other previous winners include Kapka Kassabova, Neil MacGregor and Karen Armstrong. You can find interviews with the winenrs and the other shortlisted authors for the 2019 prize (Ed Morales, Julian Baggini, Julia Lovell, Aanchal Malhotra and Kwame Anthony Appiah in this Free Thinking collection https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07p3nxh

Edmund Fawcett's latest book focuses on the historic and contemporary conflicts in Conservatism. He describes how the constant tensions within the Conservative political thought have been exposed and what it might mean for the continuation of the tradition.

Paul Vallely argues that philanthropy is about more than mere altruism. It is always an expression of power, regardless of any desire to make the world a better place.

Ian Dunt and Grace Blakeley have written about the challenges facing Liberals and Socialists respectively. They discuss how these big intellectual traditions might survive contact with the current moment.

Conservatism: The Fight for a Tradition by Edmund Fawcett is published by Princeton University Press

Philanthropy: From Aristotle to Zuckerberg by Paul Vallely is published by Bloomsbury

How to be a Liberal: Thinking for Yourself in a Populist World by Ian Dunt is published by Canbury Press

Socialist Futures: The Pandemic and the Post-Corbyn Era edited by Grace Blakeley is published by Verso

The Corona Crash: How the Pandemic Will Change Capitalism by Grace Blakeley is published by Verso

Producer: Ruth Watts

How German argument differs from English, the links between Arabic and Chinese and different versions of The 1001 Nights to the use of slang and multiple languages in the work of young performers and writers in the West Midlands: John Gallagher looks at a series of research projects at different UK universities which are exploring the impact and benefits of multilingualism.

Katrin Kohl is Professor of German Literature and a Fellow of Jesus College. She runs the Creative Multilingualism project. https://www.creativeml.ox.ac.uk/about/people/katrin-kohlhttps://www.creativeml.ox.ac.uk/creative-multilingualism-manifesto

Wen-chin Ouyang is a professor of Arabic literature and comparative literature at SOAS, University of London. Her books include editing an edition for Everyman's Library called The Arabian Nights: An Anthology and Politics of Nostalgia in the Arabic Novel: Nation-State, Modernity and Tradition.

Rajinder Dudrah is Professor of Cultural Studies & Creative Industries at Birmingham City University. His books include the co-edited South Asian Creative and Cultural Industries (Dudrah, R. & Malik, K. 2020) and Graphic Novels and Visual Cultures in South Asia (Dudrah, R. & Dawson Varughese, E. 2020).

Saturday, 26 September is the European Day of Languages 2020 and Wednesday, 30 September is International Translation Day 2020 which English PEN is marking with a programme of online events https://www.englishpen.org/posts/events/international-translation-day-2020/

You might also be interested in this Free Thinking conversation about language and belonging featuring Preti Taneja with Guy Gunaratne, Dina Nayeri, Michael Rosen, Momtaza Mehri and Deena Mohamed. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07fvbhn

Here is a Free Thinking episode that looks at the language journey of the 29 London bus https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00014qk

This episode of Free Thinking is put together in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI as one of a series of discussions focusing on new academic research also available to download as New Thinking episodes on the BBC Arts & Ideas podcast feed. You can find the whole collection here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90

Producer: Karl Bos

The film starring Michael Caine was adapted from a 1970 Ted Lewis novel set in an underworld of gangsters and teenage pornography. Mike Hodges, Nick Triplow, Pamela Hutchinson and John Gray talk with Matthew Sweet about the influence of the book and film.

Originally set in Scunthorpe, Lewis' novel Jack's Return Home was relocated to Newcastle/Gateshead for the film which Mike Hodges adapted and directed. A series of events marking what would have been Ted Lewis's 80th birthday are taking place at Scunthorpe, Newcastle, Barton-upon-Humber and Hull.

Jack's Return Home (1970) was published in 1971 as Carter and later re-published as Get Carter after the film was made.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

From the influential part played by Sikh queens, through the ties of marriage and religion which helped shape the Western world, back to the links between Neanderthals and early man: Rana Mitter talks to Priya Atwal, Joseph Henrich, and Rebecca Wragg Sykes about family ties, power networks, and history.

Priya Atwal has published Royal and Rebels: The Rise and Fall of the Sikh Empire. Dr Atwal is a Teaching Fellow in Modern South Asian History at King's College London.

You might be interested in other Free Thinking conversations with Rutger Bregman author of Human Kind https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08d77hx

Producer: Robyn Read

From fancy dress parties using native American head-dresses to the continuing significance of Wampum belts made of shells - how do particular objects help us tell the story of the colonisation of America and what is the legacy of the ideas brought by Puritan settlers who left English port cities like Plymouth and Southampton 400 years ago? Eleanor Barraclough talks to 3 academics whose research helps us answer these questions - Sarah Churchwell, Kathryn Gray and Lauren Working - and we hear contributions from the Wampanoag Advisory Committee who have worked with curators at The Box museum in Plymouth on a touring exhibition.

Professor Sarah Churchwell's books include Behold, America: A History of America First and the American Dream. She is Director of the Being Human Festival which puts on public events focusing on research taking place at universities across the UK. This year's festival (Nov 12th - 22nd) includes Mayflower related events. https://beinghumanfestival.org/us/

Dr Kathryn Gray from the University of Plymouth has consulted on exhibitions commissioned for https://www.mayflower400uk.org/

Lauren Working is the author of The Making of an Imperial Polity: Civility and America in the Jacobean Metropolis and works as a researcher on the TIDE project which explores Travel, Transculturality and Identity in England c1550 - 1700. http://www.tideproject.uk/

This episode of Free Thinking is put together in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI as one of a series of discussions focusing on new academic research also available to download as New Thinking episodes on the BBC Arts & Ideas podcast feed. You can find the whole collection here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90

You might also be interested in this conversation with Nandini Das and Claudia Rogers on their research into First Encounters: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kpgp

Producer: Robyn Read

Susanna Clarke, Adam Scovell, Lucy Arnold and Anton Bakker are Matthew Sweet's guests. Susanna Clarke talks about the inspiration behind the follow up to her best-selling first novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Piranesi is the springboard for a discussion about haunted spaces and mind-bending architecture in film, fiction and art from MC Escher to Christopher Nolan's Inception, Shirley Jackson to Mervyn Peake. The print maker Giovanni Battista Piranesi, who was born 300 years ago on Oct 4th 1720, became known for his etchings of Rome and images of imagined prisons.

Piranesi drawings: visions of antiquity is an exhibition planned by the British Museum now due to open early in 2021.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

The BBC Radiophonic workshop was founded in 1958 by Desmond Briscoe and Daphne Oram. This group of experimental composers, sound engineers and musical innovators provided music for programmes including The Body in Question, Horizon, Quatermass, Newsround, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Chronicle and Delia Derbyshire's iconic Doctor Who Theme before being shut down by Director General John Birt in 1998. Tying into the 2020 celebration of classic Prom concerts, this episode of Free Thinking is being rebroadcast

It was recorded in 2014, as the Workshop prepared to release an album, and tour the UK, Matthew Sweet brought together Radiophonic Workshop members Dick Mills, Paddy Kingsland, Roger Limb, Peter Howell, and Mark Ayres to reflect on the days and nights they spent in the workshop, coaxing ageing machines into otherworldly life, and pioneering electronic music. Also in the programme, producer and former drummer with The Prodigy Kieron Pepper, Oscar winning Gravity composer Steven Price, Vile Electrodes, and Matt Hodson, on the influence the Radiophonic Workshop had on them.

Producer: Laura Thomas