The power of humour in protest. Read more
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Egyptian Satire
The power of humour in protest.
How do we build a new masculinity ?
Sunil Gupta, CN Lester, Tom Shakespeare & Alona Pardo with Matthew Sweet
Magic
Matthew Sweet and guests conjure a conversation about the importance and appeal of magic
New Thinking:Nature Writing
From Gilbert White to lockdown blogs - why we need to spend more time in nature.
Proms Lecture - Daniel Levitin: Music and Our Brains
Daniel Levitin explores new thinking about the relationship between music and memory
Dada and the power of Nonsense
A project to re-imagine the Dada arts movement now, and reflections on satire and nonsense
Anne Applebaum, Ingrid Bergman, Herland
Politics and friendship and the lives of Ingrid Bergman and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Bernard-Henri Lévy, Stella Sandford, Homi K Bhabha
Shahidha Bari talks to Bernard-Henri Lévy, Stella Sandford, Homi K Bhabha
Wole Soyinka's writing
Ben Okri, Louisa Egbunike & Oladipo Agboluaje discuss the Nigerian author's life and work
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
The Radiophonic Workshop
Matthew Sweet meets members of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
Piranesi and disturbing archecture
Susanna Clarke, author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is one of Matthew Sweet's guests
New Thinking: The Mayflower and Native American History
Eleanor Barraclough explores the significance of the much mythologised Pilgrim voyage.
Family ties and reshaping history
From Neanderthals to Sikh warriors to the idea of ‘WEIRD’ people, 3 authors look at kin
Get Carter
Digging beneath the surface of the classic Brit noir film with director Mike Hodges
New Thinking: The impact of being multilingual
John Gallagher looks at creating in multiple tongues and the slipperiness of metaphor
Conservatism, Philanthropy, Liberal and socialist futures
Anne McElvoy surveys current thinking on big political ideas and ideology.
Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize 2020
Tales of indigenous people battling for their land; colonialism & anthropology pioneers
Cows in culture and soil
Are cows the answer to depleted soil or the problem? With farmer and author James Rebanks
Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Seamus Heaney. Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
How knowledge of poets’ lives shapes how we view their work; Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
Writing a Life: Hermione Lee, Daniel Lee and Rachel Holmes
Biographers of Tom Stoppard, Sylvia Pankhurst and a little known SS soldier compare notes
New Thinking: African Europeans; Fidel Castro & African leaders; WEB Du Bois
Professors Olivette Otele and Simon Hall on understanding connections in black history
The Frieze BBC Radio 3 Debate: Museums in the 21st Century
Gallery directors from Russia, USA and Singapore compare notes, hosted by Anne McElvoy
New Thinking about Museums
From VR Vikings & military museums to bakelite - new research into a range of collections
Poet Daljit Nagra and crime writer Val McDermid
Daljit Nagra and Val McDermid talk about their writing, as part of Durham Book Festival
Post Truth & Derrida
What is Derrida's influence in the 'post-truth' age?
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
Polari Prize winners
Pleasure & responsibility in LGBTQ+ art with the Polari Prize & photographer Sunil Gupta
The Writing of Aime Cesaire
Cesaire's poetry, politics, and ideas on anti-colonialism and black consciousness
The post-Covid city
How the pandemic has transformed our use and experience of urban space
Individualism and Community
From Enlightenment conscience to New Deal USA, carers and refugees. Anne McElvoy hosts.
Thinking about audiences in a time of pandemic
Shahidha Bari discuss the audience in the arts with Kwame Kwei Armah and guests
War in fact and fiction
Historians and authors discuss their own work and reflections on conflict and violence.
New Thinking: Depicting disability in history and culture
A history of disability: court fools, political activism, and the 19th century novel.
Billy Wilder
Novelist Jonathan Coe and others discuss the director of Some Like It Hot
Charity shop history, our relationship with 'stuff', and musical typewriters
Matthew Sweet on charity shops, 'stuff', musical typewriters and the Being Human Festival
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?
Postcolonial Derby: Privateers, Pieces of Eight and the Postwar Playhouse
What connects a "double elephant" sized map, an academy of dissenters and Daniel Defoe?
New Thinking: Face Transplants and Researching Nose Injuries
Would you change your nose if you could? What about an entire face transplant?
New Thinking: Films and Research
Films investigating melting glaciers, to refugee camps, public bathrooms, & more.
Helen Mort and Blake Morrison, Oulipo
Helen Mort and Blake Morrison talk mentoring. Oulipo: rules for writing in 1960s Paris.
Democracy, Hong Kong and USA
Democracy and dissent in Hong Kong & USA. Is confrontational politics is here to stay?
Should biographers imitate their subjects?
The perils of writing biographies of scientist JS Haldane & Indian mystic Mother Meera
Byron, celebrity and fan mail
Would Byron have embraced Twitter?
Bedrooms
How have our bedrooms changed from sleeping space to work space?
Beastly Politics
Is man the only political beast?
Politician and Pioneer
Writing the Life of Arthur Kavanagh
Leadership & authority
From Tudor courts to plantations to the Arab Spring: a Bristol Festival of Ideas Debate.
When Shakespeare Travelled with Me
Shakespeare from 1916 Egypt to Arabic pop songs.
Mould-Breaking Writing
Max Porter, Chloe Aridjis, Will Harris and Xine Yao on writing the breaks the mould
Times of Change
Can the Industrial Revolution and the end of the Aztecs help us shape a post COVID world
The 1920s - Philosophy's Golden Age
Matthew Sweet on Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Benjamin, Carnap and other philosophical greats
New Thinking: Ways of Talking about Health
The winners of the AHRC and Wellcome Trust Medical Humanities Awards 2020
New Thinking: Hey Presto!
Magic in medicine, surgery & business; panto cross-dressing; and panto & magic history
Ancient wisdom & remote living
From medieval science to the ingenuity of Arctic peoples & the resilience of island life
Hegel's Philosophy of Right
Anne McElvoy listens for echoes of Beethoven in Hegel
Winter Light
From paintings and folk tales to Brian Cox on the stars & Susan Greaney on Stonehenge.
Marlene Dietrich
Tracing the sensual and radical Marlene Dietrich from Europe to Hollywood.
Mildred Pierce
James M Cain's classic novel and its film adaptation discussed by Matthew Sweet & guests
Dostoevsky
Rana Mitter explores Dostoevsky as a thriller writer and comedian
New Thinking: Aphra Behn
John Gallagher's guests decode changes in Behn's loyalties from her plays and dedications
Autism, film and patterns
From Rain Man to Atypical - Matthew Sweet looks at autism on screen and in everyday life
New Thinking: Women and Slavery
Research on women owners, women on plantations, and the daughter of a slave trader
Witchcraft, Werewolves, and Writing The Devil
Conjuring fear, discussed by historians and by novelists Jenni Fagan and Salena Godden
