Free Thinking

By BBC Radio 4Society & Culture

Favorites
573
Followers
Typical duration
57 min
per episode

Based on Podcast App listening data

Free Thinking episodes

November 22, 2024 Diplomacy from Ancient Greece to Trump
Anne McElvoy and guests discuss the art of diplomacy from Ancient Greece to the Tudors and today's shifting international security as well as how its portrayed on screen in dramas like the BBC's Wolf Hall and the Netflix series The Diplomat. Her guests include:
Former EU and US Ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald .
Bronwen Maddox from the think tank Chatham House.
Historian Professor Clare Jackson who is the author of Devil Land England Under Siege 1588-1688.
Dr Holly Furneaux, Professor at Cardiff University talks about her research into "enemy intimacy" which is part of a new exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London called War and the Mind.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
57 min
November 15, 2024 Cosy comfort reading or Nietzsche?
A cosy cottage with warming fireplaces, comfort food, crime dramas on tv: Matthew Sweet and guests discuss art, literature and drama that are comfortable to engage with and how difficulty, a dedication to campaigning or the reading of Nietzsche might disrupt this. Does a theatre critic tell audiences they are in for a thought provoking show? And what role does it play in social and politial thinking today? Our guests include:
Deborah Sugg Ryan, writer and broadcaster and Professor Emerita of Design History at the University of Portsmouth.
Sir Alexander McCall Smith prolific author of the best selling Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency series.
Bioethicist and Fellow of the British Academy Tom Shakespeare
Theatre Critic Susannah Clapp.
Philosopher and Nietzsche expert Hugo Drochon.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
57 min
November 08, 2024 Milton and our modern world
Political upheaval, the role of the press and free speech, attitudes towards divorce: the poet John Milton thought and wrote about all of these issues which also concern us today. Milton (9th Dec 1608-8th Nov 1674) might be best known to us today as the man behind the epic poem Paradise Lost, dictated after he had become blind, and published in 1674, but he was also the author of The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates and Eikonoklastes (1649) which examined the right of the people to hold authority to account and provided a defence of regicide. He also attacked pre-printing censorship in Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc'd Printing, to the Parlament of England (1644). Matthew Sweet and his guests look at the resonances of Milton's writing now.
Andrew Doyle writes plays, performs stand-up, hosts a show on GB news and has written articles for Spiked. He is the co-author with Tom Walker of Jonathan Pie: Off the Record and has published a book called The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World. He has a doctorate in early Renaissance poetry from the University of Oxford.
Professor Alice Hunt is based at the University of Southampton and is working on a book titled England’s Republic: The Lost Decade, 1649–1660 supported by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship
Dr Kate Maltby is a lead columnist for The i newspaper and a theatre critic. She is also a Senior Research Associate at Jesus College, Cambridge working on Renaissance literature.
Professor Islam Issa is based at Birmingham City University. His books include Alexandria, the City that Changed the World, Milton in the Arab-Muslim World and Milton in Translation, ed. with Angelica Duran and Jonathan Olson
Producer: Luke Mulhall
57 min
November 01, 2024 Ghosts, death and ecstatic states
With Day of the Dead, Halloween and All Souls Day being marked in different countries around the world - Shahidha Bari's guests discuss the belief in ghosts and the search for meaning in mysticism. They are:
Dr Chris Harding is a cultural historian of Japan, India and East-West connections and is based at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of The Japanese and Japan Story.
Dr Hetta Howes is a Senior Lecturer in English Literature at City, University of London and Deputy Programme Director for the BA in English. She is a BBC Radio 3 and 4 New Generation Thinker and the author of a new book “Poet Mystic Widow Wife: The Extraordinary Lives of Medieval Women.”
Simon Critchley is a philosopher and the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York, USA. His latest book is On Mysticism: The Experience of Ecstasy.
Dr Iriving Finkel is Assistant Keeper of Ancient Mesopotamian script, languages and cultures in the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum and has published The First Ghosts: A rich history of ancient ghosts and ghost stories
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
58 min
October 25, 2024 Are we all American now?
Does the reach of the USA and its cultural influence mean "we're all American now?" Anne McElvoy and her guests discuss the similarities and differences across the Anglosphere and think about the changing dynamics on the international stage. They are:
Freddy Gray, Deputy Editor of the Spectator Magazine and host of the Americano podcast.
Dr Katie McGettigan, Senior Lecturer in American Literature and co-editor of the Journal of American Studies.
Amanda Taub writes The Interpreter, an explanatory column and newsletter about world events for The New York Times.
Kit Davis, an American living in London, an anthropologist and Emeritus Professor at SOAS.
Rana Mitter ST Lee Chair in US-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
57 min
October 18, 2024 Insiders & Outsiders
The philosopher Leo Strauss claimed that many of the great texts of Western philosophy can be read in two ways. There's the message intended for everybody, but also a deeper level, accessible only to those who can see it. Taking this as a starting point, Matthew Sweet grapples with the closed world of social media tribes, the challenges posed by conspiracy theory, and the history of thinking in allegorical symbols.
With:
Marianna Spring, the BBC's Disinformation Correspondent
Lisa Bortolotti, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham
Daniel Herskowitz, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Theology & Religion, University of Oxford
Hugh Cullimore, PhD student at the Warburg Institute
And Constantine Sandis, Director of Lex Academic discusses the shortlist for the 2024 Nayef Al-Rodhan Book Prize in Transdisciplinary Philosophy. The shortlisted books are:
Chris Armstrong, Global Justice and the Biodiversity Crisis (Oxford University Press).
Mazviita Chirimuuta, The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience (The MIT Press).
Shannon Vallor, The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking (Oxford University Press).
https://royalinstitutephilosophy.org/book-prize/
Producer: Luke Mulhall
57 min
October 11, 2024 Childhood and innocence
Can we still be idealistic about childhood? How do we square the impact of war, stories of sexual abuse, the impact of time spent on screens with the idea of children's experiences being about play, learning to be social, listening and creating stories ? Anne McElvoy's guests include:
Katherine Rundell, author of the Waterstones book of 2023 Impossible Creatures, her series about children's literature is on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds next week. It's called The Lion, the Witch and the Wonder.
Emily Baughan, Senior Lecturer in 19th/20th Century British History at the University of Sheffield and author of Saving the Children: Humanitarianism, Internationalism and Empire. She is a New Generation Thinker working with BBC Radio 4 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to share her research on radio.
Miriam Cates former Conservative MP who is now Senior Fellow at the Centre for Social Justice.
Andrew Cooper, Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Warwick who teaches courses on philosophy of nature, philosophy of mind, and existentialism.
Grace Lockrobin who is Co-Director of SAPERE - a UK charity that works to realise the benefits of a philosophical education as widely and equitably as possible.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
57 min
October 04, 2024 Why we read
"I never read novels" is something you hear people say. What is the point of reading - be it histories or fiction? Does it help us empathize with the situation of other people or shed insights into our historical moment? With the news story that university students these days are, apparently, unaccustomed to reading entire books, cover to cover, favouring excerpts, abridgements, and introductions and ahead of the biggest date in the publishing calendar (Super Thursday on Oct 10th)
Shahidha Bari is joined by
novelist Elif Shafak - winner of the British Academy's President's Medal, her latest novel is called There Are Rivers in the Sky;
journalist Gabriel Gatehouse - host of the podcast and Radio 4 series The Coming Storm;
New Generation Thinkers Janine Bradbury - a poet, and Jonathan Egid - a philosopher;
Tiffany Watt Smith - a historian of emotions and author of a book on schadenfreude
and by the historian of China Professor Rana Mitter - chair of the judges for this year's Cundill History Prize. The winner will be announced on October 30th and the books in contention are:
Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia by Gary J. Bass
Native Nations: A Millennium in North America by Kathleen DuVal
Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights by Dylan C. Penningroth
Producer: Luke Mulhall
57 min
September 27, 2024 The eternal dynamic of Rivalry, Fredric Jameson, the newly reopened Warburg Institute
Sibling rifts, leadership battles in politics and history, philosophical schools of thoughts and their key players all come into our discussion of the way rivalry shapes the world. Roger Luckhurst reflects on the legacy of the American literary critic and philosopher Fredric Jameson who died earlier this week. Plus a report from the Warburg Institute Library which holds over 360,000 volumes available to scholars studying the afterlife of antiquity and the survival and transmission of culture.
Matthew Sweet is joined by the journalist Michael Crick, historian Helen Castor, Philosopher David Edmonds and the writer and academic Kate Maltby.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
57 min
September 20, 2024 Crisis & Decision
Climate, trust, politics, communication. Some would say we live in a period of crisis several areas of society and life. How can we make sense of the present moment, and where do we go from here?
Plus, we hear about the short list for this year's Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize and ask what that tells us about scientific publishing.
Matthew Sweet is joined by
Timothy Morton, whose most recent book is Hell: In Search of a Christian Ecology
Jessica Frazier, Lecturer in the Study of Religion at the University of Oxford
Clare Chambers, Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Cambridge
Jessica Wade, Royal Society University Research Fellow and Lecturer in Functional Materials at Imperial College London and one of the judges for
They are all appearing at the How the Light Gets in Festival of Ideas this weekend in London - more information at howthelightsgetsin.org
Plus
Mark Solms, neuroscientist and editor of the newly published Revised Standard Edition of the Complete Works of Sigmund Freud
The Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize 2024 which will be announced on October 24th. The books shortlisted are:
Eve: How The Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon
Your Face Belongs to Us: The Secretive Startup Dismantling Your Privacy by Kashmir Hill
The Last of Its Kind: The Search for the Great Auk and the Discovery of Extinction by Gísli Pálsson
Why We Die: The New Science of Ageing and the Quest for Immortality by Venki Ramakrishnan
A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith
Everything Is Predictable: How Bayes’ Remarkable Theorem Explains the World by Tom Chivers
Producer: Luke Mulhall
57 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…