Arts & Ideas Podcast
Leading thinkers discuss the ideas shaping our lives – looking back at the news and making links between past and present. Broadcast as Free Thinking, Fridays at 9pm on Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Radio 4. Presented by Matthew Sweet, Shahidha Bari and Anne McElvoy.
Episodes to download
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The Imperial War Museum Remembrance discussion 2023
Tue 7 Nov 2023
As the IWM unveils its new art galleries, Anne McElvoy & guests discuss photographing war
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New Thinking: Playhouses and opera-going
Mon 6 Nov 2023
What spectacles did Elizabethan playhouses stage other than plays? Is opera really posh?
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New Thinking: Food
Sun 5 Nov 2023
Lisa Mullen hears about new research into eating habits and ideas about hospitality
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New Thinking: Writing exile and overcoming statelessness
Thu 2 Nov 2023
The lives of Bengalis in Pakistan/a novel about a Lebanese boy wanting to be an astronaut
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African identity via China and photography
Thu 2 Nov 2023
Teju Cole, Noo Saro-Wiwa and Tate curator Osei Bonsu talk to Laurence Scott.
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Robert Aickman
Thu 2 Nov 2023
For Halloween, Matthew Sweet & guests discuss supernatural fiction, bad teeth & canals
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Eliza Flower and non-conformist thinking
Fri 27 Oct 2023
Matthew Sweet hears about research into the singer & friend of JS Mill feat. live songs!
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Sleep
Tue 24 Oct 2023
John Gallagher gets sleeping tips from research pioneers and early modern history
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Sankofa and Afrofuturism
Mon 23 Oct 2023
Curator Ekow Eshun, academic Sarah Jilani, sculptor Zak Ové with Shahihda Bari
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Valis and Philip K Dick
Fri 20 Oct 2023
A weirdly autobiographical science fiction novel from 1981 inspired by hallucinations.
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Humours and The Body
Wed 18 Oct 2023
From mitochondrial medicine to 17th century cancer treatments, via Bach's Cantatas
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Victorian colour, jewellery and metalwork
Tue 17 Oct 2023
Nandini Das visits Colour Revolution at the Ashmolean in Oxford and talks to a jeweller
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New Thinking: Work and protest
Fri 13 Oct 2023
From Luddite protests in 1811 in textile mills to school strikes in 1911
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The Frieze/Radio 3 Museum Directors Debate 2023
Wed 11 Oct 2023
The art museum as community space, immersive art experiences & other hot topics.
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Art, Kew, a symphony and nature
Tue 10 Oct 2023
Artist Mat Collishaw, composer Jimmy López Bellido, academics Vid Simoniti & Sarah Casey
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New Thinking: Modernism, exile and homelessness
Mon 9 Oct 2023
Nathan Waddell and Laura Ryan talk to Jade Munslow Ong about writers depicting precarity
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Faith, consciousness and creating meaning in life
Thu 5 Oct 2023
Philosophers Daniel Dennett, Philip Goff, podcaster Liz Oldfield & a faith museum curator
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Refuge and National Poetry Day
Wed 4 Oct 2023
Poets Momtaza Mehri, Julianknxx and historian Jesús Sanjurjo join Matthew Sweet
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Slavic culture and myth
Tue 3 Oct 2023
Matthew Sweet looks at the origins of creatures like Baba Yaga, Banniks and Rusalkas.
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Hobbes and New Leviathans
Thu 28 Sep 2023
John Gray on why re-reading Hobbes can help us understand contemporary politics
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Childbirth and parenthood: Contains Strong Language Festival
Tue 26 Sep 2023
Testament, Hannah Silva, historian Jessica Cox and Thackray museum curator Laura Sellers
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Betty Miller and Marghanita Laski
Tue 26 Sep 2023
Howard Jacobson, Lara Feigel and Lisa Mullen with Matthew Sweet
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Notebooks and new technology
Thu 21 Sep 2023
Authors Jonathan Coe, Roland Allen, Lesley Smith and art book maker Gill Partington
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Why go into space?
Wed 20 Sep 2023
Christopher Harding investigates the history, culture and science of space exploration
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Black Atlantic
Tue 19 Sep 2023
Artist Jaqueline Bishop and curator of an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge
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The Red Shoes
Thu 14 Sep 2023
Ahead of a BFI festival, Matthew Sweet and guests discuss Powell and Pressburger's film
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Queer history, new narrative in San Fransisco
Wed 13 Sep 2023
Diarmuid Hester & Dodie Bellamy on a '70s US writing group. Lauren Elkin on art monsters
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Wolfson Prize 2023
Tue 5 Sep 2023
Rana Mitter talks to the six authors shortlisted for the UK's main history writing prize
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Writing and Place: The Cairngorms
Mon 4 Sep 2023
Amanda Thomson and Merryn Glover talk to Kate Molleson about Scots nature writing