Arts & Ideas Podcast
Leading thinkers discuss the ideas shaping our lives 鈥� looking back at the news and making links between past and present. Broadcast as Free Thinking, Fridays at 9pm on 蜜芽传媒 Radio 4. Presented by Matthew Sweet, Shahidha Bari and Anne McElvoy.
Episodes to download
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New Generation Thinkers: Ruffs in Jamestown
Fri 27 May 2022
Lauren Working on what fashion reveals about C16th English settlers in America
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Tudor families
Thu 26 May 2022
Tangled bloodlines, executions and a big, gold inflatable thing belonging to Henry VIII
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The Tudor Mind
Wed 25 May 2022
Donne, Hamlet, 16th century psychology and mathematics, Tudor portraits
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Tattoos
Thu 19 May 2022
Shahidha Bari traces the move from markings on convicts and aristos to today's body art.
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Goddesses
Wed 18 May 2022
Christopher Harding explores the feminine divine with Ronald Hutton and others
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Gandhi, Indian Architecture
Wed 18 May 2022
Rana Mitter looks at a new play at the National Theatre about the man who murdered Gandhi
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Speaking Welsh
Mon 16 May 2022
Catherine Fletcher with Richard King, Caryl Lewis, Elen Ifan and Seiriol Davies
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New Thinking: Flooding and Energy
Mon 16 May 2022
Can old field names and labelling energy sources help us cope better with climate change?
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Soho
Fri 13 May 2022
130 acres of central London synonymous with sex and shadiness immortalised in film
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Mental Health
Fri 6 May 2022
Anne McElvoy looks at ASMR, clean air, loneliness and a memoir exploring mental health.
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Odessa Stories
Thu 5 May 2022
Matthew Sweet explores the work of Soviet Ukrainian writer Isaac Babel
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Pause for Thought
Thu 5 May 2022
From the bracket & exclamation mark to emojis - Florence Hazrat's history of punctuation
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Opium Tales
Thu 5 May 2022
Ways of seeing the trade triangle from Confessions of an Opium Eater to modern novels.
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New Generation Thinkers: Alexander and the Persians
Wed 4 May 2022
Julia Hartley asks why we call Alexander "the Great".
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Windows
Wed 4 May 2022
From Rear Window to stained glass, TB to paintings at Dulwich: Shahidha Bari hosts.
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Kawanabe Ky艒sai and Yukio Mishima
Tue 3 May 2022
Japanese cultural experimentation: painter, Ky艒sai 1831-1889 & writer, Mishima 1925-1970
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A Brazilian soprano in jazz-age Paris
Mon 2 May 2022
Adjoa Osei celebrates Elsie Houston, who mixed Afro-Brazilian folk with European opera.
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John Baptist Dasalu and fighting for freedom
Fri 29 Apr 2022
Jake Subryan Richards reads the letter sent by a captured man who arrived in Cuba in 1854
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May Day rituals
Fri 29 Apr 2022
Matthew Sweet and guests explore ideas about community, collective action and May revels.
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New Generation Thinkers: African cinema, nationhood, and liberation
Wed 27 Apr 2022
Sarah Jilani on the lessons about power in films by Ousmane Sembene and Souleymane Ciss茅
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New Generation Thinkers: Walking with the ghosts of the Durham coalfield
Mon 25 Apr 2022
Jake Morris-Campbell carries the ashes of the poet Bill Martin from Sunderland to Durham.
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Teaching and Inspiration
Thu 21 Apr 2022
Novelist Julian Barnes, historian Daisy Hay and New Generation Thinker Louise Creechan.
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Shakespeare, history, pathology and dissonant sound
Wed 20 Apr 2022
Shahidha Bari on a new staging of Shakespeare's Henry VI. Why is Warwick a key figure?
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New Thinking: Preserving Our Heritage
Tue 19 Apr 2022
From knitting patterns to greetings cards: Naomi Paxton looks at a series of UK archives
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Housework
Fri 15 Apr 2022
Gender, class & domestic tasks-Matthew Sweet pulls on his rubber gloves and gets stuck in
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Ships and History
Wed 13 Apr 2022
Artist Hew Locke plus historians Sarah Caputo, Jake Subryan Richards, and Tom Nancollas
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Grief
Fri 8 Apr 2022
Matthew Sweet and guests look at the role of ritual, laments and how we express grief.
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China: world politics, ink art & insomnia
Wed 6 Apr 2022
Kevin Rudd talks about avoiding catastrophic conflict between China and the USA
