Neurodiversity, madness and disability are at the centre of the work being undertaken by three academics who join Matthew Sweet to look at the history of ideas about "normality". Dr Robert Chapman is Assistant Professor of Critical Neurodiversity Studies at Durham University and author of Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism. Dr Louise Creechan is also at Durham University and is working on a book about literacy in the nineteenth century. Dr Sarah Chaney researches the history of emotions at Queen Mary University of London and is the author of Am I Normal?: The 200-Year Search for Normal People (and Why They Don’t Exist). Producer: Julian Siddle You can find other Free Thinking discussions featuring Louise Creechan exploring How We Read, and looking at accents in Language, the Victorian and us.

What is normal?

Leading thinkers discuss the ideas shaping our lives – looking back at the news and making links between past and present. Broadcast as Free Thinking, Fridays at 9pm on BBC Radio 4. Presented by Matthew Sweet, Shahidha Bari and Anne McElvoy.

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Marshmallows and Kant, ideas about girl power from Mary Wollstonecraft (born April 27th 1759) to the Spice girls; and galloping horses, sea-gull sounds and life as a goat. On today's Free Thinking Shahidha Bari is joined by literary historian Alexandra Reza, philosophers Angela Breitenbach, John Callanan and journalist Tim Stanley to look back at the week and discuss ideas about our relationship with birds and beasts; and how the philosophy of Immanuel Kant (born 22nd April 1724) outlined ideas about peace, reason and finding ways to have rational discussion. Plus we hear from Thomas Thwaites, author of Goatman: How I Took a Holiday from Being Human. Tim Stanley is a journalist. You can hear him discussing rationality and tradition with Steven Pinker, the argument against democracy, and the ideas of John Henry Newman on Free Thinking episodes available on the programme website and BBC Sounds 
Alexandra Reza teaches comparative literature at the University of Bristol. You can hear her in Free Thinking episodes discussing the ideas of Aimee Cesaire, Frantz Fanon and the film-making of Susan Maldoror
Dr John Callanan teaches philosophy at Kings College London
Angela Breitenbach is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge Producer: Luke Mulhall

Kant today, Spice Girls Reunited, Impersonating an Animal

Women made up 10-15% of the workforce in the early days of the post office. Looking at a series of different records from the 17th century onwards, Sarah Ward Clavier has discovered stories about spying, how pubs, the links between pubs and post offices. Research suggests that communities with a local newspaper are more likely to vote in local elections. Rachel Matthews, who worked as a journalist in local news before turning to academia, explores the relationship between newspapers, readers, and advertisers across time and asks how the role of the local press is changing in the digital age. Anna Muggeridge has been looking into the hidden history of women politicians in local politics, in the first half of the twentieth century. This was an age when many important decisions on education and welfare were made at a local level – and where the story of women in local politics became intertwined with arguments around female suffrage. Producer in Cardiff: Fay Lomas Presenter Dr Joan Passey teaches English at Bristol University and is a New Generation Thinker working with the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to share research on radio.  Dr Sarah Ward Clavier, from the University of the West of England, researches the expansion and travails of the early Post Office, early modern news and communications, and Wales in the seventeenth century. Her most recent book is Royalism, Religion and Revolution: Wales, 1640-1688.   Dr Rachel Matthews, from Coventry University, researches the impact of local journalism on the people and places to which it relates, both across history and in a contemporary context. She is the author of The History of the Provincial Press in England.   Dr Anna Muggeridge is Lecturer in History at the University of Worcester and is currently researching a history of women in local government in interwar England and Wales. She also researches women’s political activism in the 20th century.   This New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the AHRC, part of UKRI. You can find more conversations about new research available on the website of Radio 4’s Free Thinking programme and on BBC Sounds

New Thinking: Exploring the local

Classicist Mary Beard picks Tacitus as a figure who still has relevance if we're thinking about satire, power and celebrity. Shahidha Bari is joined by Mary, historian Helen Carr, who co-edited What is History Now? political sketch-writer from The Times newspaper Tom Peck and Konnie Huq, writer and former presenter of the children's TV show Blue Peter. On April 21st 1964, the tv channel BBC 2 launched with an episode for children of Play School and programmes like Bluey and Peppa Pig, have been making headlines so what do we want from kids TV? Plus - poet Lord Byron died 200 years ago this week - scholar Dr Corin Throsby has been reading the fan mail he received. Listen out for Mary Beard and the new series of Being Roman coming to BBC Radio 4 in May - and the first series is available on BBC Sounds.
And if you're a fan of Oliver Postgate - The Clangers, Bagpuss and Noggin you can find a Free Thinking episode exploring those programmes. Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
Studio Manager: Tim Heffer

Tacitus, Byron's fanmail and Bluey

"The times they are a changin" or are they? In politics people are talking about an appetite for change, or being a candidate for change but how radical can you be? With climate change, seasonal change and a change of broadcast time for this programme, Matthew Sweet and his guests discuss change, play a new collaborative version of scrabble, and after Richard Dawkins gave an interview talking about "cultural Christianity" - what do we understand by that phrase? Kate Maltby is a critic, columnist and cultural historian who holds a PhD in Elizabethan literature
Sophie Grace Chappell is a Professor of Philosophy at the Open University, whose books include Epiphanies: An Ethics of Experience and Trans Figured
Takeshi Morisato teaches philosophy at the University of Edinburgh
Dorian Lynskey is a journalist, author and one of the hosts of the politics podcast Oh God, What Now? His books include The Ministry of Truth: A Biography of George Orwell's 1984 and Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World Gemma Tidman is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Queen Mary University London researching A History of French Literary Play, 1635–1789. You can hear more from her in a Free Thinking episode called Game Playing Producer: Luke Mulhall

Change, scrabble and cultural christianity

What do you owe the state and what does it provide for us? Writing during the English civil war, Thomas Hobbes came up with an outline for the social contract between individuals and the sovereign – on Free Thinking, Matthew Sweet and guests unpick his ideas and come up with a version for now. They also explore the politics of butter, margarine and scones and seek guidance about history from Abba lyrics. Barry Smith is Director of the Institute of Philosophy at the University of London’s School of Advanced Study and founding director of the Centre for the Study of the Senses. For BBC Radio 4 he presented a 10 part series called The Uncommon Senses. You can find him on previous Free Thinking conversations about Pleasure, and Futurism.
Joanne Paul is the author of The House of Dudley: A New History of Tudor England. She's Honorary Senior Lecturer in Intellectual History at the University of Sussex and was a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker and presented her research in a Radio 3 Essay exploring Speaking truth to power
James Kirkup is a Senior Fellow at the Social Market Foundation think tank and he writes for publications including The Times
Sophie Scott-Brown is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, where she teaches intellectual history. She is the author of The Histories of Raphael Samuel - A Portrait of A People’s Historian. You can find her in the Free Thinking programme archive discussing anarchism and David Graeber, and Happiness Dr Stu Eve is Archaeological Director of the Waterloo Uncovered project. Previous episodes of Free Thinking are available on the programme website and BBC Sounds and as the BBC Arts & Ideas podcast. Producer: Robyn Read

What is normal?

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