Polari Prize winners

Pleasure & responsibility in LGBTQ+ art with the Polari Prize & photographer Sunil Gupta

• 44 mins

The Writing of Aime Cesaire

Cesaire's poetry, politics, and ideas on anti-colonialism and black consciousness

• 44 mins

The post-Covid city

How the pandemic has transformed our use and experience of urban space

• 45 mins

Individualism and Community

From Enlightenment conscience to New Deal USA, carers and refugees. Anne McElvoy hosts.

• 45 mins

Thinking about audiences in a time of pandemic

Shahidha Bari discuss the audience in the arts with Kwame Kwei Armah and guests

• 45 mins

War in fact and fiction

Historians and authors discuss their own work and reflections on conflict and violence.

• 44 mins

New Thinking: Depicting disability in history and culture

A history of disability: court fools, political activism, and the 19th century novel.

• 43 mins

Billy Wilder

Novelist Jonathan Coe and others discuss the director of Some Like It Hot

• 45 mins

Charity shop history, our relationship with 'stuff', and musical typewriters

Matthew Sweet on charity shops, 'stuff', musical typewriters and the Being Human Festival

• 45 mins

The Imperial War Museum BBC Radio 3 Remembrance Debate 2020

What is the role of artists in shaping our understanding of history by commemorating war?

• 44 mins

Postcolonial Derby: Privateers, Pieces of Eight and the Postwar Playhouse

What connects a "double elephant" sized map, an academy of dissenters and Daniel Defoe?

• 45 mins

New Thinking: Face Transplants and Researching Nose Injuries

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

• 43 mins

New Thinking: Films and Research

Films investigating melting glaciers, to refugee camps, public bathrooms, & more.

• 43 mins

Helen Mort and Blake Morrison, Oulipo

Helen Mort and Blake Morrison talk mentoring. Oulipo: rules for writing in 1960s Paris.

• 45 mins

Democracy, Hong Kong and USA

Democracy and dissent in Hong Kong & USA. Is confrontational politics is here to stay?

• 44 mins

Should biographers imitate their subjects?

The perils of writing biographies of scientist JS Haldane & Indian mystic Mother Meera

• 13 mins

Byron, celebrity and fan mail

Would Byron have embraced Twitter?

• 14 mins

Bedrooms

How have our bedrooms changed from sleeping space to work space?

• 44 mins

Beastly Politics

Is man the only political beast?

• 13 mins

Politician and Pioneer

Writing the Life of Arthur Kavanagh

• 13 mins

Leadership & authority

From Tudor courts to plantations to the Arab Spring: a Bristol Festival of Ideas Debate.

• 45 mins

When Shakespeare Travelled with Me

Shakespeare from 1916 Egypt to Arabic pop songs.

• 13 mins

Mould-Breaking Writing

Max Porter, Chloe Aridjis, Will Harris and Xine Yao on writing the breaks the mould

• 44 mins

Times of Change

Can the Industrial Revolution and the end of the Aztecs help us shape a post COVID world

• 51 mins

The 1920s - Philosophy's Golden Age

Matthew Sweet on Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Benjamin, Carnap and other philosophical greats

• 44 mins

New Thinking: Ways of Talking about Health

The winners of the AHRC and Wellcome Trust Medical Humanities Awards 2020

• 53 mins

New Thinking: Hey Presto!

Magic in medicine, surgery & business; panto cross-dressing; and panto & magic history

• 44 mins

Ancient wisdom & remote living

From medieval science to the ingenuity of Arctic peoples & the resilience of island life

• 44 mins

Hegel's Philosophy of Right

Anne McElvoy listens for echoes of Beethoven in Hegel

• 44 mins

Winter Light

From paintings and folk tales to Brian Cox on the stars & Susan Greaney on Stonehenge.

• 45 mins

Marlene Dietrich

Tracing the sensual and radical Marlene Dietrich from Europe to Hollywood.

• 44 mins

Mildred Pierce

James M Cain's classic novel and its film adaptation discussed by Matthew Sweet & guests

• 45 mins

Dostoevsky

Rana Mitter explores Dostoevsky as a thriller writer and comedian

• 44 mins

New Thinking: Aphra Behn

John Gallagher's guests decode changes in Behn's loyalties from her plays and dedications

• 44 mins

Autism, film and patterns

From Rain Man to Atypical - Matthew Sweet looks at autism on screen and in everyday life

• 45 mins

New Thinking: Women and Slavery

Research on women owners, women on plantations, and the daughter of a slave trader

• 43 mins

Witchcraft, Werewolves, and Writing The Devil

Conjuring fear, discussed by historians and by novelists Jenni Fagan and Salena Godden

• 45 mins

Harlots & 18th Century Working Women

History & Harlots: Hallie Rubenhold & Moira Buffini on the C18th sex worker TV drama

• 44 mins

James Baldwin and race in USA

Rana Mitter & guests re-read James Baldwin's writing as a new US President is inaugurated

• 44 mins

John Rawls's A Theory of Justice

The lasting impact of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice on philosophy and politics.

• 44 mins

Food, The Environment & Richard Flanagan

How food impacts on the environment; Richard Flanagan on his novel about a dying planet

• 44 mins

Yiddish and Rotwelsch, Nazi France

Michael Rosen and Martin Puchner talk to Matthew Sweet about a lost language of the road

• 43 mins

What Makes a Good Lecture?

From Aristotle to TED talks: Mary Beard, Homi Bhabha and Seán Williams with Shahidha Bari

• 45 mins

New Thinking: Eco-Criticism

Exploring the points where literature and ecological thinking meet

• 44 mins

Patricia Lockwood and André Aciman

Two American authors talk to Laurence Scott about their sense of time, place and self

• 44 mins

Class and social mobility

Selina Todd, David Goodhart, Timandra Harkness and Sadie Ryan talk with Matthew Sweet.

• 44 mins

New Thinking: Fashion Stories in Museums

Shahidha Bari & V&A fashion curator Claire Wilcox on costumes, couture, and wardrobes

• 44 mins

Darwin's The Descent of Man (1871)

Matthew Sweet and guests assess Darwin's arguments about the human species, sex, and race

• 44 mins

Coins, the magic money tree and a cashless world

In February 1971 the UK went decimal. Anne McElvoy and guests look at money old and new.

• 44 mins

Pakistan, Politics and Water Supplies

Samira Shackle , Ejaz Haider and Majed Akhter talk about Karachi, power, crime and energy

• 44 mins

Turkey: Adnan Menderes, populism, and history

Having survived a plane crash, the Turkish Prime Minister 1950-60 died in an execution

• 45 mins

Adoption, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Renée Vivien & Violette Leduc

Fiona Sampson, Peggy Reynolds and Anne McElvoy talk poetry and writing personal stories

• 45 mins

Humans, Animals, Ecologies

Matthew Sweet in conversation with two radical thinkers: Joanna Bourke and Anna Tsing

• 56 mins

Foucault: The History of Sexuality 4

Shahidha Bari reads Robert Hurley's new English translation

• 44 mins

Saint John Henry Newman

Newman's thought: Kate Kennedy, Tim Stanley, Catherine Pepinster and Dafydd Mills Daniel

• 45 mins

New Thinking: Girls

New research into ideas about girlhood and growing up - in film, fiction, art and society

• 43 mins

Breakdown: Horatio Clare, Stevie Smith

Horatio Clare talks to Laurence Scott about mania and healing + Stevie's Smith's writing

• 44 mins

Speech, Voice, Accents and AI Free Thinking

Lynda Clark, Allison Koenecke and Sadie Ryan discuss their research with Matthew Sweet

• 44 mins

New Thinking: From life on Mars to space junk

Seb Falk talks to researchers about our attitude to Mars,seeing colour and Skylab's crash

• 44 mins

The Vietnam Paris connection

Author Viet Thanh Nguyen, film critic Phuong Le and Peter Salmon join Matthew Sweet

• 44 mins

Edward Said's thinking

Rana Mitter reads the first biography of the Palestinian academic, pianist and negotiator

• 45 mins

Books to Make Space For on the Bookshelf: The Black Lizard

New Generation Thinker Christopher Harding reads the Japanese equivalent of Conan Doyle

• 14 mins

New Thinking: what do we learn from census stats?

John Gallagher talks to four researchers uncovering lives from past census records

• 44 mins

Books To Make Space For On The Bookshelf: John Halifax, Gentleman

2/5 Clare Walker Gore explores how Dinah Mulock Craik subverted Victorian expectations

• 13 mins

Books to Make Space For on the Bookshelf: Sindhubala

Preti Taneja on the writing and politics of Bengali author and activist Mahasweta Devi

• 13 mins

Introducing New Generation Thinkers 2021

Ten researchers look at colonial history, alphabets, punctuation, poetry, art terminology

• 44 mins

Books to Make Space For On The Bookshelf: Closer

New Generation Thinker Diarmuid Hester on the transgressive writing of Dennis Cooper

• 14 mins

Syria: hope and poetry

An architect who lived in Homs during the war, a translator of Adonis and a media analyst

• 45 mins

Books to Make Space For on the Bookshelf: There's No Story There

Lisa Mullen looks at depictions of war-time factory workers in this novel by Inez Holden

• 13 mins

Frantz Fanon

Re-reading the major 20th century theorist of decolonisation

• 44 mins

Pleasure

Cooking, nature, music, colour - what's your lockdown pleasure?

• 46 mins

Churchill's reputation

Anne McElvoy and guests on attitudes to the politician, his rhetoric and foreign policies

• 44 mins

Writing About Faith

Stand-up Frank Skinner and novelists Jeet Thayil and Yaa Gyasi talk to Laurence Scott

• 45 mins

From Blackface to Beyoncé

From the theatre stage to the Superbowl, in praise of Black performance

• 44 mins

Spy talk

From a secret Iraqi spy cell to new revelations of cold war exploits. Rana Mitter hosts.

• 45 mins

The Liverpool Biennial debate

How to reflect Liverpool's history in new artworks: Anne McElvoy hosts a discussion.

• 44 mins

John Milton's Samson Agonistes

Rana Mitter looks at how politics, blindness and the Bible fed into this dramatic poem

• 44 mins

Milton: Samson Agonistes

How do we look at blindness in poetic writing, classics, in Milton's and Handel's life?

• 44 mins

Deleuze and Guattari, Capitalism and Schizophrenia

Matthew Sweet re-reads a classic of French postmodern theory

• 44 mins

Octavia Butler's Kindred

A novel from 1979 that uses time travel to explore race, slavery and trauma

• 44 mins

Jacques Tati's Trafic

Matthew Sweet, Adam Scovell, Muriel Zagha and Phuong Le on the 1971 French comedy.

• 45 mins

The Battle of Culloden, Outlander, Peter Watkins

Matthew Sweet with Outlander creator Diana Gabaldon, historian Tom Devine and John Cook

• 44 mins

New Generation Thinkers: The Feurtado's Fire

Christienna Fryar looks at Caribbean fires and earthquakes and lessons for rebuilding now

• 13 mins

Maryse Condé's writing plus Suzanne O'Sullivan

Shahida Bari reads I Tituba, the story of the West Indian slave accused in Salem.

• 45 mins

The Essay New Generation Thinkers Jean Rhys's Dress

Sophie Oliver on motherhood, a old dress and rereading Wide Sargasso Sea

• 13 mins

New Thinking: Shakespeare's Life Lessons

Scholars Emma Smith, Patrick Gray, and Emma Whipday find examples in different dramas

• 44 mins

New Generation Thinkers: A social history of soup

Tom Scott-Smith uses four recipes to track social reforms and changes in what we value.

• 13 mins

Bombing and morals, Flooding and the future

Malcolm Gladwell, Satyajit Ray's film Jalsaghar, Jessie Greengrass. Rana Mitter hosts.

• 45 mins

New Generation Thinkers: Hoarding or Collecting?

Diarmuid Hester muses on the thin line between inspiration and a compulsive disorder.

• 14 mins

New Generation Thinkers: The Inscrutable Writing of Sui Sin Far

Xine Yao suggests that a poker Chinese face can be a good way of fighting back

• 13 mins

New Generation Thinkers: Battlefield Finds

Seren Griffiths tells the story of the soldier turned archaeologist Francis Buckley.

• 13 mins

New Generation Thinkers: Colonial Papers

Alexandra Reza's Essay considers the Gilet Noirs, Ousmane Sembène, and Nathalie Quintane

• 13 mins

Epistemic Injustice

Shahidha Bari investigates how theory of knowledge can address real world problems

• 44 mins

Links between Judaism and Christianity

Rector Giles Fraser tells Matthew Sweet how a crisis led to discovering his Jewish roots

• 46 mins

New Generation Thinkers: Beyond the betting shop

Darragh McGee considers the history of gambling from 18th century card games to apps

• 14 mins

New Generation Thinkers: A Norwegian Morality Tale

Lucy Weir learns dark lessons from newspaper coverage of Black Metal and satanic rituals

• 13 mins

Northern Ireland

Anne McElvoy marks the 1921 creation of Northern Ireland with historians and writers

• 45 mins

Samuel Johnson's circle

Patience Agbabi's novel time travels back to eighteenth century London - so do we

• 45 mins

Napoleon the gardener and art thief

Ruth Scurr, Emma Rothschild and Natasha Pulley look at French history with Rana Mitter

• 45 mins

Alison Bechdel

American graphic novelist Alison Bechdel talks mushrooms, therapy and Adrienne Rich

• 45 mins