Free Thinking Episodes Episode guide
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Belief, Habit and Religion
Rana Mitter discusses religion, evolution, neuroscience and history.
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Late works
Dame Sheila Hancock, viola player Rachel Stott and writer Geoff Dyer on endings.
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ETA Hoffmann
Anne McElvoy and guests look at the writing of the German Romantic writer and musician.
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Sheffield
Reimagining the city through Chris Bush's drama trilogy about its oldest scissor factory.
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Slow film and ecology
Matthew Sweet discusses environmental thinking and a film about rice made over 18 years.
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Bloomsday, Dalloway Day and 1922
Shahidha Bari looks at the writing of Woolf and Joyce and what was really popular in 1922.
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South African writing
Damon Galgut discusses his Booker Prize-winning novel, The Promise, with Anne McElvoy
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Victorian Streets
Is that strong, inescapable image of 19th-century city streets in our heads the right one?
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John McGrath's Scottish Drama
Anne McElvoy revisits the 1973 play The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil
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The Wolfson Prize 2022
Rana Mitter interviews the shortlisted authors for the Wolfson Prize for history writing.
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Amia Srinivasan and Philosophical Genealogy
The Right to Sex is the title of Amia Srinivasan's new book. Christopher Harding hosts.
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Oceans and the Sea
Abdulrazak Gurnah, Emily Shuckburgh and Joan Passey join Rana Mitter at Hay Festival.
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Tudor families
Tangled bloodlines, executions and a big, gold inflatable thing belonging to Henry VIII.
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The Tudor Mind
Donne, Hamlet, mathematics and the Tudor portraits composed by Vaughan Williams.
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Tattoos
Shahidha Bari traces the move from markings on convicts and aristos to today's body art.
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Goddesses
Christopher Harding investigates the feminine divine with Ronald Hutton and others.
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Gandhi, Indian architecture
Rana Mitter looks at a new play at the National Theatre about the man who murdered Gandhi.
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Soho
Matthew Sweet is joined by Jingan Young, Benjamin Halligan and David McGillivray.
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Soil
John Gallagher and guests dig deep into the significance of soil.
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Mental Health
Anne McElvoy looks at ASMR, clean air, loneliness and a memoir exploring mental health.
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Odessa Stories
Linda Grant and Boris Dralyuk discuss the writer Isaac Babel with Matthew Sweet.
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Windows
From Rear Window to stained glass, TB to paintings at Dulwich. Shahidha Bari hosts.
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Kawanabe Ky艒sai and Yukio Mishima
Japanese cultural experimentation: painter Ky艒sai 1831-1889 and writer Mishima 1925-1970.
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May Day Rituals
Matthew Sweet and guests explore ideas about community, collective action and May revels.
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Rainer Maria Rilke
Anne McElvoy discusses the visionary poet with a composer and two literature experts.
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Speaking Welsh
Catherine Fletcher explores the relationship between Cymru and Cymraeg - Wales and Welsh.
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Teaching and Inspiration
Novelist Julian Barnes, historian Daisy Hay and New Generation Thinker Louise Creechan.
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Shakespeare, history, pathology and dissonant sound
Shahidha Bari on a new staging of Shakespeare's Henry VI. Why is Warwick a key figure?
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Preserving our heritage
From knitting patterns to greetings cards: Naomi Paxton looks at a series of UK archives
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Housework
Gender, class and domestic tasks. Matthew pulls on his rubber gloves and gets stuck in.
