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