Arts & Ideas

Writers Sheila Heti, Jessie Greengrass and Jacqueline Rose compare notes on motherhood & presenter Anne McElvoy looks at depictions of Mrs Noah with New Generation Thinker Daisy Black. Jacqueline Rose has written Mothers: An Essay on Love and Cruelty. Her previous books include Women in Dark Times Sheila Heti's latest book is called Motherhood. Her previous books include How Should a Person Be...

Self help, identity politics and the influence of postmodernists are on the agenda as Philip Dodd meets the YouTube star and Canadian clinical psychologist, Jordan B. Peterson. 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson is out now. Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

Shahidha Bari looks at British design pioneers Enid Marx, Edward Bawden and Charles Rennie Mackintosh with curators Alan Powers and James Russell and design historian Eleanor Herring. 2018 New Generation Thinker Lisa Mullen visits The Future Starts Here at the V&A. Alan Powers is the author of a new book Enid Marx:The Pleasures of Pattern and is curating an exhibition at the House of Illustrat...

The relationship between intellectuals, nations and spies debated by Agnes Poirier, Maria Dimitrova, and Jefferson Morley. Plus philosopher John Gray explores atheism and doubt with Matthew Sweet. Seven Types of Atheism by John Gray is out now. Producer: Luke Mulhall

Matthew Sweet discusses talking, speech and having a voice, with Trevor Cox, Professor of Acoustic Engineering at the University of Salford; Rebecca Roache, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London; actress and impressionist Jessica Martin; and Maurice McLeod, social commentator, director of Media Diversified, and Labour councillor for Queenstown Battersea. Trevor Cox...

Each generation creates its own myths and in Free Thinking, Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough talks to three writers whose novels and stories spring bright and fresh from a compost of classical legend and British folk stories. Madeline Miller, the American writer who re-created Achilles for the 21st century, now turns her attention to Circe, nymph, lowest-of-the-low goddess or witch, who possesses a un...

Former army officer Dr Mike Martin on Why We Fight. Historian Priya Satia argues that guns were the drivers behind the industrial revolution. The mob as a political entity and the Massacre of St George's Fields of 10 May 1768 is considered in an opinion piece from 2018 New Generation Thinker Dafydd Mills Daniel. We also look at night time - curator Anna Sparham selects some nocturnal views of the...

Pauline Dakin spent her childhood on the run. Sally Bayley grew up in a house where men were forbidden and a charismatic leader ruled. They compare notes with presenter Matthew Sweet. New Generation Thinker Iain Smith discusses his research into the history of a film known as the Turkish Star Wars. Plus Canadian poet Gary Geddes on his poem sequence The Terracotta Army. And the pioneering Hungaria...

Anne Applebaum, Gregory Claeys, Jane Humprhies and Richard Seymour join Rana Mitter to assess the legacy of Marx 200 years after his birth. Do his ideas have currency and if so where is he an influence in the world? Academic Emile Chabal reports on researching Marxism in India and Brazil. Gregory Claeys is the author of Marx and Marxism Richard Seymour has written Corbyn - The Strange Rebirth of R...

Jesmyn Ward - author of Sing, Unburied Sing talks to Christopher Harding about editing a collection of essays called The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race and about the depictions of family life and poverty and the influence of Greek drama on her prize winning novels. Sarah Churchwell traces the history of the use and meaning of the phrases 'the American Dream' and 'America First'...

Tokyo used to be presented as the ultimate hyper-modern city. But after years of economic recession the Tokyo of today has another side. A site of alienation and loneliness, anxiety about conformity and identity, it is a place where self-professed 'geeks' (or 'otaku'), mostly single middle-aged men, congregate in districts like Akibahara to pursue fanatical interests outside mainstream society, in...

David Peace, Natasha Pulley, Yuna Tasaka and Jasper Sharp join Rana Mitter. Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's short story 'In a Grove', published in 1922, became the basis for the 1950 film from Akira Kurosawa 'Rashōmon', one of the first Japanese films to gain worldwide critical acclaim. 'The Rashōmon Effect' has become a byword for the literary technique where the same event is presented via the different a...

Photographer Mika Ninagawa talks to Christopher Harding about the artificiality of her images of cherry blossoms. A plane crash in the mountains is explored in the new novel Seventeen from Hideo Yokoyama, translated by Louise Heal Kawai. And presenter Anne McElvoy is also joined by Eiko Honda from the University of Oxford and Professor Stephen Dodd from SOAS, the University of London for an explor...

What do meatballs, The Square and Henning Mankell have in common? The answer is Sweden as you’ve no doubt guessed. As ABBA’s Cold War musical, Chess, is poised to return to the British stage Matthew Sweet considers what Sweden’s taught us – whether in films such as I am Curious Yellow or in the aisles at IKEA - and what the Swedes might have gained from their brushes with Britain. His guests inclu...

The real Cleopatra examined by New Generation Thinker Islam Issa plus Ros Barber on Warwickshire words in Shakespeare's verse, two leading neurologists, Suzanne O'Sullivan and Jules Montague explore the intricacies of the brain and the infinite capacity for experience and imagination, the playwright Ella Hickson on her new production in which she explores the personal cost of creative gain and Phi...

Scrumbly Koldewyn remembers the '60s San Francisco theatre scene; Jenny Gilbert & Shahdiha Bari debate environmentalism and fashion at the V&A and Clare Lilley Director of Programmes at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park looks at the use of thread and textiles in art. Plus drag at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern in London with performers Lavinia Co-op and Rhys Hollis, plus Ben Walters who is researchi...

When President Obama met the American essayist and fiction writer Marilynne Robinson they discussed shared values, citiizenship and Christianity. She talks to Rana Mitter about her definition of Puritanism, the radical history of the mid west states, the use of religion in current American political rhetoric and the biblical cadences of her fiction. Marilynne Robinson is the author of novels inclu...

Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbø on his novel based on Macbeth; playwright Mark Ravenhill on why the play rarely works on stage, James Shapiro on the contemporary events which shaped it and Emma Whipday on the elements that Shakespeare borrowed from 16th century domestic dramas. Plus Ellah Wakatama Allfrey on rereading Chinua Achebe's 1958 novel and the echoes of Macbeth she found there. Presented...

Matthew Sweet talks to the painter, Maggi Hambling about Cedric Morris one of British art's lost masters and with Joely Richardson and Melanie Williams, evaluates the impact and legacy of Woodfall Flims - the company that gave Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay and Rita Tushingham their first breaks and introduced us to films such as Look Back in Anger, A Taste of Honey and The Loneliness of the Long Di...

Former Bishop Richard Holloway, author of My Father’s Wake Kevin Toolis and palliative care consultant Kathryn Mannix join Philip Dodd to consider mortality. “In this world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes” Benjamin Franklin once wrote, but as we face the final curtain what can death teach us about ourselves and the ones we love? Richard Holloway is a writer, broadcaster an...

Kit de Waal, Darren McGarvey, Adelle Stripe and Michael Chaplin join Shahidha Bari to examine what we mean by ‘working class writing’. Crowd funding has helped bring a new generation of authors into print but is this because mainstream publishing has neglected diverse voices? What experiences do we want to see on the page and stage? Recorded at Sage Gateshead. Kit de Waal’s short stories include “...

The New Generation Thinkers is an annual competition run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. In this event, recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead, the 2018 selection make their first public appearance together. Hosted by Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough of the University of Durham and a New Generation Thinker class of 2013. This year’s specialisms include explorations in...

In a space of less than a mile, seven bridges link Newcastle with Gateshead including the distinctive shape of the Tyne Bridge. But what kind of human endeavour goes into imagining and realising such man-made wonders? Newcastle University’s Sean Wilkinson, Erica Wagner author of Chief Engineer, and architect Simon Roberts look at the bond between the visionaries and the grafters with Rana Mitter a...

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Afua Hirsch and Tarjinder Gill debate activism, social change and identity with Philip Dodd. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is a journalist and broadcaster who regularly comments on immigration, diversity, and multiculturalism. She’s a founding member of British Muslims for Secular Democracy and the author of books including, Exotic England: The Making of A Curious Nation and Refusing...

Comedians Alexei Sayle, Jen Brister and Sanjeev Kohli join Matthew Sweet to offer a masterclass in making the many laugh. Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead. Jen Brister is a stand-up comedian, writer and actor. She is a regular performer on the UK and international comedy circuits. She has written for BBC Scotland, presented for BBC 6 Music and Juice FM, and has been a regular contributo...