Arts & Ideas

The Roman statesman Boethius wrote The Consolation of Philosophy around the year 524 when he was incarcerated. It advises that fame and wealth are transitory and explores the nature of happiness and belief. Former Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway has been wrestling with the way we understand belief. He joins Professor Seth Lerer and New Generation Thinker Kylie Murray in a discussion chaired b...

Whose life stories are missing from the British history we write and teach? How do we widen the way we look at episodes which are on the syllabus? Rana Mitter's panel comprises Kimberly McIntosh Senior Policy Editor from the Runnymede Trust, Lavinya Stennett founder of the Black Curriculum & New Generation Thinker Christienna Fryar, who runs the Black British History MA at Goldsmiths, Universi...

Anne McElvoy looks at leadership lessons from past US presidents, the parallels between the betting industry and fears over gambling in 1945 and now and she asks who are the key economic thinkers. Her guests are Callum Williams, senior economics writer at The Economist, 2020 New Generation Thinker Darragh McGee from the University of Bath and ahead of July 4th and Independence Day in the USA she r...

The screenwriter and novelist talks to Matthew Sweet about teaching creative writing to children in lockdown, attending mass on zoom, the changing meaning of community and the importance of family and he looks back to the image of Britain he created with Danny Boyle for the opening of the London 2012 Olympics. Frank Cottrell-Boyce is the author of books including Millions, Framed, Runaway Robot an...

Crime writer Ian Rankin talks with Tahmima Anam in a conversation organised in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature and the Bradford Literature Festival. Plus New Generation Thinker Xine Yao looks at the depiction of East Asian figures in science fiction films and writing. Shahidha Bari presents. Ian Rankin's latest Inspector Rebus novel A Song For the Dark Times comes out in October....

Arundhati Roy, the Man Booker prize winning author and campaigner, is in conversation with Philip Dodd about a life in the public eye and the novel she published 20 years after The God of Small Things. She discusses the politics of Kashmir, the influence of architecture and why she chose a graveyard setting for her novel and how writing a transgender character Anjum, who is a Hijra, helped her tel...

From a greater focus on Black history and poetry to classics in state school classrooms and an understanding of the history of science - Rana Mitter & guests debate the syllabus. Jade Cuttle is Arts Commissioning Editor at The Times, and a poet who both reviews and writes her own work https://www.jadecuttle.com Sandeep Parmar is Professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool an...

The writing life of two authors who should have been sharing a stage at the Bare Lit Festival. Irenosen Okojie and Nadifa Mohammed talk to Shahidha Bari in a conversation organised with the Royal Society of Literature. And 2020 New Generation Thinker Seren Griffiths describes a project to use music by composer at an archaeological site to mark the summer solstice and the findings of her dig. The S...

Francesca Wade and Paul Mendez talk to Shahidha Bari about Queer Bloomsbury in a conversation run in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature who set up events in mid-June to mark Dalloway Day, inspired by the 1925 novel from Virginia Woolf. Claudia Tobin from the University of Cambridge looks at Woolf's writing on art and the vogue for still lives and compares notes with 2020 New Generati...

Two hundred years ago, Antarctica was discovered by Russian explorers and throughout this year the the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust is marking that anniversary. As we approach the date in June which is celebrated as midwinter with a special meal on the research stations - here's a chance to hear Rana Mitter and guests discussing the lure of this polar region both in our imaginations and as an aid t...

What are the best shelters? the right language? how does our view of hosting families change if we look at refugee self help schemes and experiences in camps in Palestine and Syria ? A trio of researchers share their findings with John Gallagher as we mark Refugee Week 2020. Dr Rebecca Tipton, from the University of Manchester, works on Translating Asylum - an ongoing research project looking at l...

Can our theatrical landscape survive financially, and how might it need to creatively adapt to survive post pandemic? As part of the Lockdown Theatre Festival, Anne McElvoy's panel features: Bertie Carvel - actor and executive producer of Lockdown Theatre Festival, whose roles include Rupert Murdoch in Ink, Miss Trunchbull in Matilda The Musical, and Simon in BBC One drama Doctor Foster. Amit Laha...

How do you cope with a sense of failure? Michèle Roberts has been Booker shortlisted and has 12 novels under her belt but her latest book is a clear eyed account of a year spent rewriting after having a novel rejected. What sustained her in part were her female friends and cooking. Lara Feigel is the author of acclaimed non fiction books and her first novel takes the template of Mary McCarthy's 19...

Mathew Sweet with Linda Grant, Laurence Scott & Lucy Whitehead. Dickens died on June 9th 1870. In 1948, the critic FR Leavis published the Great Tradition and included only one Dickens novel but that same year saw the film of Oliver Twist by David Lean. Our panel have been re-reading novels including Bleak House, Martin Chuzzlewit and Great Expectations, looking at a form of Dickens fan fictio...

Naomi Paxton looks at the impact of the 2015 Modern Slavery Act, talking to researchers Katarina Schwarz and Alicia Kidd who are trying to measure and improve its effectiveness. Katarina Schwarz from the Rights Lab at Nottingham University works with the Wilberforce Institute at the University of Hull on a project looking into what makes people from particular countries vulnerable to being traffic...

Robin Askwith experienced isolation as a child with polio. In a conversation with Matthew Sweet, he reflects on a career running from the Confessions sex comedies to arthouse cinema working with directors including Lindsay Anderson and Pier Paolo Pasolini. His first film role was playing the schoolboy, Keating, in the film if.... and his most recent TV role has seen him appear on Coronation Street...

Actor Richard Wilson, Professor Naoko Shimazu and film critic Larushka Ivan-Zadeh join Rana Mitter to look at this cinematic classic which was one of the 53 films made by Yasujiro Ozu before his death in 1963. Tokyo Story follows an elderly couple who go to visit their busy grown up children and their widowed daughter-in-law. It is being rereleased this month by the BFI as part of their season of...

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has written about Auden, Dostoevsky and tragedy. At Hay Festival he talks to poet Simon Armitage about the imprint of landscapes in Yorkshire, West Wales, and the Middle East, the use of dialect words and reinterpreting myths. Chaired by Rana Mitter. Books by Rowan Williams include Dostoevsky: Language, Faith and Fiction and The Tragic Imagination. He...

Matthew Sweet talks to author Sarah Perry about her gothic imagination, writing about religion, rationalism and disease in novels including The Essex Serpent, After Me Comes The Flood and Melmoth. Recorded from her home in Norwich, Sarah discusses her experience of these times as someone who has an auto-immune condition, her interest in comets and the way she used sewing to overcome a temporary in...

Jay Griffiths, Vincent Deary, Louise Robinson and Matthew Smith discuss our mental health. How does depression affect our sense of time and the rhythms of daily life? Our body clocks have long been seen by scientists as integral to our physical and mental health - but what happens when mental illness disrupts or even stops that clock? Presenter Anne McElvoy is joined by those who have suffered dep...

Authors Anne Fine and Romesh Gunesekera are Fellows of the Royal Literature Society who signed the Register on the same day. In the first of a series of conversations with writers who would have been sharing a stage at a literary festival, they talk to Shahidha Bari. Plus a postcard from 2020 New Generation Thinker Diarmuid Hester on the saving of Derek Jarman’s house and garden - also the subject...

Rutger Bregman challenges ideas about the selfish gene, and survival of the fittest with stories of human co-operation and kindness as he publishes a book called Human Kind - A Hopeful History. Plus in Mental Health Awareness Week, Dr Sylvan Baker on rethinking the way we treat kids in care. And New Generation Thinker Christina Faraday on an anniversary of the fairground. You can hear a curated se...

From Indian cricket, a survey of the oceans to the women killed by Jack the Ripper: Rana Mitter with the second set of shortlisted authors for the history writing prize. David Abulafia The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans Hallie Rubenhold The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper Prashant Kidambi Cricket Country: An Indian Odyssey in the Age of Empire You can he...

From classical birds to Nazi legacies, Oscar Wilde to Queen Victoria in India, early building to maritime trading: Rana Mitter and an audience at the British Academy debate history writing and hear from the six historians on the 2019 shortlist. The books are: Building Anglo-Saxon England by John Blair Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice by Mary Fulbrook Trading in Wa...

New takes on Chaucer, the Bible and African trading - Rana Mitter presents the first of 2 prograrmmes featuring 3 of the historians shortlisted for this year's history writing prize. Marion Turner has written Chaucer: A European Life Toby Green is the author of A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution John Barton is nominated for A History of the B...