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