Digging Deep

Susan Greaney asks whether Neolithic attitudes to the earth could shape our thinking.

• 14 mins

Not Quite Jean Muir

How does sewing a dress add to Jade Halbert's understanding of disappearing skills

• 14 mins

Dam Fever and The Diaspora

How do large dam projects attract such adoration, despite lessons of twentieth century?

• 14 mins

Frank Cottrell-Boyce

The screenwriter and novelist talks to Matthew Sweet about depicting Britain in his work.

• 44 mins

Gambling, good leadership and economic history

Anne McElvoy looks at betting, economics and the leadership of US presidents

• 45 mins

Facing Facts

From duelling injuries to eye patches - Emily Cock asks how we respond to peoples' faces

• 12 mins

Prison Break

New Generation Thinker Jeffrey Howard asks is it ever ok to escape from prison?

• 14 mins

What does a black history curriculum look like?

Whose life stories are missing from the British history we write and teach?

• 45 mins

The consolation of philosophy and stories

Matthew Sweet talks to Kylie Murray, Prof Seth Lerer and former Bishop Richard Holloway

• 45 mins

Pogroms and prejudice

Brendan McGeever looks at anti-semitism from Russian attacks to the present day

• 14 mins

Egyptian Satire

The power of humour in protest.

• 12 mins

How do we build a new masculinity ?

Sunil Gupta, CN Lester, Tom Shakespeare & Alona Pardo with Matthew Sweet

• 43 mins

Magic

Matthew Sweet and guests conjure a conversation about the importance and appeal of magic

• 46 mins

New Thinking:Nature Writing

From Gilbert White to lockdown blogs - why we need to spend more time in nature.

• 43 mins

Proms Lecture - Daniel Levitin: Music and Our Brains

Daniel Levitin explores new thinking about the relationship between music and memory

• 59 mins

Dada and the power of Nonsense

A project to re-imagine the Dada arts movement now, and reflections on satire and nonsense

• 45 mins

Anne Applebaum, Ingrid Bergman, Herland

Politics and friendship and the lives of Ingrid Bergman and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

• 45 mins

Bernard-Henri Lévy, Stella Sandford, Homi K Bhabha

Shahidha Bari talks to Bernard-Henri Lévy, Stella Sandford, Homi K Bhabha

• 45 mins

Wole Soyinka's writing

Ben Okri, Louisa Egbunike & Oladipo Agboluaje discuss the Nigerian author's life and work

• 45 mins

Greek classics and the sea plus a pair of novels byTolstoy and Dostoevsky

Pat Barker & Giles Fraser on Russian lit/Edith Hall & Barry Cunliffe on the classical sea

• 41 mins

The Radiophonic Workshop

Matthew Sweet meets members of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

• 43 mins

Piranesi and disturbing archecture

Susanna Clarke, author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is one of Matthew Sweet's guests

• 45 mins

New Thinking: The Mayflower and Native American History

Eleanor Barraclough explores the significance of the much mythologised Pilgrim voyage.

• 48 mins

Family ties and reshaping history

From Neanderthals to Sikh warriors to the idea of ‘WEIRD’ people, 3 authors look at kin

• 44 mins

Get Carter

Digging beneath the surface of the classic Brit noir film with director Mike Hodges

• 45 mins

New Thinking: The impact of being multilingual

John Gallagher looks at creating in multiple tongues and the slipperiness of metaphor

• 44 mins

Conservatism, Philanthropy, Liberal and socialist futures

Anne McElvoy surveys current thinking on big political ideas and ideology.

• 44 mins

Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize 2020

Tales of indigenous people battling for their land; colonialism & anthropology pioneers

• 44 mins

Cows in culture and soil

Are cows the answer to depleted soil or the problem? With farmer and author James Rebanks

• 54 mins

Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Seamus Heaney. Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

How knowledge of poets’ lives shapes how we view their work; Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

• 45 mins

Writing a Life: Hermione Lee, Daniel Lee and Rachel Holmes

Biographers of Tom Stoppard, Sylvia Pankhurst and a little known SS soldier compare notes

• 44 mins

New Thinking: African Europeans; Fidel Castro & African leaders; WEB Du Bois

Professors Olivette Otele and Simon Hall on understanding connections in black history

• 44 mins

The Frieze BBC Radio 3 Debate: Museums in the 21st Century

Gallery directors from Russia, USA and Singapore compare notes, hosted by Anne McElvoy

• 45 mins

New Thinking about Museums

From VR Vikings & military museums to bakelite - new research into a range of collections

• 44 mins

Poet Daljit Nagra and crime writer Val McDermid

Daljit Nagra and Val McDermid talk about their writing, as part of Durham Book Festival

• 44 mins

Post Truth & Derrida

What is Derrida's influence in the 'post-truth' age?

• 53 mins

Seances, Science and Art - A Haunting, A Telepathy Experiment, and an Exhibition of Supernormal Art.

A haunting & artists as mediums - Kate Summerscale, Richard Wiseman & Matthew Sweet

• 49 mins

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