Arts & Ideas - Landmark: Iris Murdoch's The Sovereignty of Good - BBC Sounds

Why we read and the idea of the "woman writer"

From Elizabethan Anne Dowriche, Victorian Anne Bronte to why women say they read now.

• 45 mins

Psychohistory: Isaac Asimov and guiding the future

Matthew Sweet asks if the fictional science of psychohistory changed the future of humans

• 45 mins

New Thinking: About Face

Would you change your nose if you could? What about an entire face transplant?

• 40 mins

Goddesses of academia

Nikita Gill, Francesca Wade, Sandeep Parmar & Victoria Leonard talk goddesses & classics

• 46 mins

Poetry and Science: A 19th century metre on the (uni)verse

Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Greg Tate, Sam Illingworth & Sunayana Bhargava join Anne McElvoy.

• 45 mins

What is good listening?

Matthew Sweet with NYT journalist Kate Murphy, Anne Karpf, David Toop.

• 46 mins

Remembering Auschwitz

Rana Mitter marks the anniversary of the 1945 liberation & talks to author Anne Michaels

• 45 mins

How we see pregnancy past and present

Anne McElvoy hears the story of a woman who gave birth to rabbits and the news from Davos

• 45 mins

Fungi: An Alien Encounter

Are fungi out to get us or here to help? A look at mushrooms in art, food and psychology.

• 46 mins

New Thinking: It all begins here? Understanding the Industrial Revolution

John Gallagher discusses the Industrial Revolution with Emma Griffin and William Ashworth

• 46 mins

Mocking power past and present.

The German joker Tyll Ulenspiegel. Anne McElvoy, Daniel Kehlmann & Karen Leeder discuss.

• 44 mins

Samuel Beckett & the purpose of culture

If we want the arts to be a comfort blanket, where does Beckett fit in?

• 45 mins

Early cinema: why are we obsessed with firsts?

Matthew Sweet looks back at the early history of cinema

• 44 mins

The shadow of slavery

From sugar and spice, to reparations and memorials: slavery and how we acknowledge it

• 44 mins

The History of Sex

Fern Riddell, Kate Lister and Robin Mitchell discuss their research with Matthew

• 45 mins

Queer histories

How do we apply modern LGBT+ language and identities to historical figures?

• 49 mins

The Surreal World of Alejandro Jodorowsky

Matthew Sweet talks to the Chilean French director Alejandro Jodorowsky and to critics

• 46 mins

African Empire Stories

Petina Gappah & Sarah LeFanu on Livingstone, Kipling and Mary Kingsley in Africa

• 65 mins

Genes, racism, ageing and evidence

Daniel Levitin on ageing & Adam Rutherford on race and genetics.

• 44 mins

Japan Now 2020

Philip Dodd talks to Hiromi Ito, Tomoko Sawada, Yukiko Motoya, and Motoyuki Shibata

• 45 mins

New Thinking: Everything to Everybody - Shakespeare for the people

Islam Issa hears how Adrian Lester and Ewan Fernie are taking Shakespeare to the people

• 39 mins

How archictecture shapes society

Ricky Burdett, Liza Fior, Des Fitzgerald, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg Edwin Heathcote at LSE

• 45 mins

Yolande Mukagasana - women writers to put back on the bookshelf

Zoe Norridge describes translating the testimony of a Rwandan survivor

• 14 mins

Charlotte Smith - women writers to put back on the bookshelf

The Romantic poet who inspired Wordsworth is profiled by Sophie Coulombeau.

• 14 mins

Margaret Oliphant - women writers to put back on the bookshelf

The Scottish writer whose comic heroine Miss Marjoribanks bucks 19th-century conventions

• 13 mins

Lady Mary Wroth - women writer to put back on the bookshelf

The English Renaissance poet whose reputation at court was ruined by her writing.

• 14 mins

Anne Enright + the value of gossip

Anne Enright discusses acting with Daisy Black, Emily Butterworth and Marie Le Conte.

• 44 mins

New Thinking: Women in Virtual Reality

Hetta Howes learns how Sylvia Xueni Pan and Sarah Ellis are pushing the VR envelope

• 45 mins

Frank Ramsey

Shahidha Bari looks at the life and legacy of the 20th century polymath

• 62 mins

Storm Jameson - women writers to put back on the bookshelf

Yorkshire-born writer with a European outlook who campaigned for World War Two refugees.

• 14 mins