Arts & Ideas

Anne McElvoy investigates the role of culture within historic Soviet expansionism and current Russian geopolitics. She talks to Charles Clover, author of Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of Russia's New Nationalism about Eurasianism, an old idea with considerable traction in Putin's Russia and why bad ideas tend to win out over good ones . Historian Polly Jones, author of Myth Memory Trauma: Rethi...

The novelist, Karl Ove Knausgård , talks to Philip Dodd as the fifth instalment of his acclaimed My Struggle series is published in the UK. The programme also considers what it means to be Scandinavian today with the Swedish journalist, Ingrid Carlberg - author of a new biography of Raoul Wallenberg; the Danish writer and translator, Dorthe Nors; and Nicholas Aylott, an expert on models of democra...

The novelist, Karl Ove Knausgård , talks to Philip Dodd as the fifth instalment of his acclaimed My Struggle series is published in the UK. The programme also considers what it means to be Scandinavian today with the Swedish journalist, Ingrid Carlberg - author of a new biography of Raoul Wallenberg; the Danish writer and translator, Dorthe Nors; and Nicholas Aylott, an expert on models of democra...

Rana Mitter discusses religion and modernity, including a conversation with Buddhist thinker Stephen Batchelor on how ancient traditions can adapt to meet modern needs. They are joined by Kader Abdolah, who's recently produced a new translation of The Qur'an, classicist Tim Whitmarsh, who has written on atheism in the Ancient Greek World, and the sociologist of religion Linda Woodhead who has inve...

Is politics about building a better world, or simply the art of the possible? In a special debate recorded at the London School of Economics to mark the anniversary of Thomas More's Utopia, politicians and historians debate the balance between idealism and realism in politics, international relations and political history. Chaired by Anne McElvoy. With Justin Champion, Professor of the History of...

Jonathan Lynn, author of Yes, Minister talks to Philip Dodd about his new play Patriotic Traitor which imagines the relationship between Petain and de Gaulle as that of father and son and follows them from their first meeting in World War I to the end of the Second World War, by which time, each had sentenced the other to death. Suhdir Hazareesingh, author of In The Shadow of the General: Modern F...

Tom Shakespeare, film director Peter Greenaway and art historian Matthijs Ilsink join Matthew Sweet in Holland for an exhibition marking the 500th anniversary of the death of artist Hieronymus Bosch. Matthew also talks to Plebaan Geertjan van Rossem, priest at St John's Cathedral in 's-Hertogenbosch, to get a religious perspective on Bosch's work. Het Noordbrabants Museum in 's-Hertogenbosch, Holl...

Playwright James Graham talks to Anne McElvoy about his new comedy which puts Screaming Lord Sutch on stage. Graham's previous plays include The Vote, The Angry Brigade, This House. Historian Margaret MacMillan explores the question 'what difference do individuals make to history?' in her book History's People: Personalities and the Past. Figures include Bismarck, Babur and Roosevelt. Steve Furber...

Long Matthew Sweet looks at the founding of the Dada movement 100 years ago in Zurich, as the city celebrates the anniversary with a series of exhibitions and cabarets which run throughout the year. New Generation Thinker Will Abberley visits an exhibition in Oxford that plays with our notion of time as Modern Art Oxford begins a year-long celebration of 50 years, Kaleidoscope, with a show called...

Matthew Sweet looks at the founding of the Dada movement 100 years ago in Zurich, as the city celebrates the anniversary with a series of exhibitions and cabarets which run throughout the year. New Generation Thinker Will Abberley visits an exhibition in Oxford that plays with our notion of time as Modern Art Oxford begins a year-long celebration of 50 years, Kaleidoscope, with a show called The I...

Matthew Sweet looks at the founding of the Dada movement 100 years ago in Zurich, as the city celebrates the anniversary with a series of exhibitions and cabarets which run throughout the year. New Generation Thinker Will Abberley visits an exhibition in Oxford that plays with our notion of time as Modern Art Oxford begins a year-long celebration of 50 years, Kaleidoscope, with a show called The I...

Anne McElvoy profiles the painter Joseph Crawhall (1861-1913). Born in Northumberland, he exhibited alongside Degas and Whistler and has been credited as the leader of the young radical Scottish painters The Glasgow Boys. His father was also an artist who published "A Beuk o' Newcassell Sangs Collected by Joseph Crawhall" in 1888 - a pictorial book illustrating the lyrics and music with woodcuts....

Philip Dodd interviews John Irving - author of novels including The World According to Garp, The Cider House Rules, A Prayer for Owen Meany. His new book is called Avenue of Mysteries and imagines the life of a crippled street-child from Mexico, Juan Diego, and his sister Lupe, who can read minds. The action cuts between Diego's present as a globe trotting, best selling writer visiting the Philipp...

As Dad's Army inspires a new film, Matthew Sweet looks at the history of the fifth column with historians Juliet Gardiner and Steven Fielding. He also meets robot designer Lola Cañamero who, along with writer Laurence Scott, talks about modelling emotions and how interacting with AI affects us. New Generation Thinker Jonathan Healey explores utopia in sci-fi as a series of events mark the 500th an...

As Radio 3 broadcasts Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun as the Sunday Drama hear theatre directors Kwame Kwei-Armah, Yael Farber and Dawn Walton and historians Kit Davis and Althea Legal Miller on her life, work and its resonances today.

Gardening writer Anna Pavord visits the Royal Academy exhibition Painting the Modern Garden and talks to Anne McElvoy about her new book Landskipping. New Generation Thinker Peter Mackay joins the conversation about landscapes and - as Radio 3 marks the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow with a focus on folk - he explores the way folk traditions have fed into Scottish poetry. As arguments abou...

Philip Dodd presents a programme for Holocaust Memorial Day. Howard Jacobson discusses reinventing Shylock and exploring anti-semitism as he publishes his new novel. Historian Karen Leeder has been reading about Stefan Zweig and Joseph Roth in Ostend 1936 - and a collection of Zweig's writings Messages From a Lost World: Europe on the Brink. Sculptor Michael Sandle is known for creating memorials....

Matthew Sweet and guests explore the art of the con.... If you've ever fallen for a scam, you'll be reassured by Maria Konnikova's new book The Confidence Game, in which she explains why most of us are easy prey to con artists. Orson Welles was infamous early in his career for a radio broadcast of HG Wells' War of the Worlds which - it's said - caused genuine panic that aliens were invading earth....

Anne McElvoy looks at what happened to the Arab Spring five years on, talking to Egyptian novelist Alaa Al-Aswany - whose new novel is called The Automobile Club of Egypt - and to satirist and critic Karl Sharro. They will be joined by Lebanese actress Sahar Assaf talking about performing in Dario Fo and Franca Rame's monologue An Arab Woman Speaks. Also in the programme, Owen Hatherley discusses...

Rana Mitter goes underground to discover a world which long fed the human imagination and which fulfils all humanity's practical needs outside of food and yet which has become something we like to ignore, hide, conceal and forget. Counting the potential costs for all our futures, three enthusiasts for all that lies beneath, the engineer Professor Paul Younger from Glasgow University ; Ted Nield ed...

Merlin Holland, Will Self and Fiona Shaw join Matthew Sweet for a discussion about Oscar Wilde's novel which was published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in the July 1890 issue and then as a book 121 years ago in 1891. It prompted discussions about censorship and hedonism and went on to play a considerable part in the writer's downfall. Endlessly filmed, The Picture of Dorian Gray seems to commu...

Matthew Sweet is joined by Professor Christopher Frayling to look at the revival of Westerns and Bryony Hanson and Laurence Scott consider the 2016 Oscar contenders.

Philip Dodd wrestles with an especially knotty question – does France have to stop being French to survive? Its a question which owes its urgency to recent events from the massacres of last year to the rise of the Right and an apparent erosion of the secular values that underpin the Fifth Republic. What price the France of Camus and New Wave Cinema in the face of globalisation? To answer these que...

Anne McElvoy talks to the winner of this year's TS Eliot poetry prize Sarah Howe - who won for her first collection; Anne talks to leading physicist Lisa Randall - author of Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs and explores new architecture with Douglas Murphy and Owen Hopkins. New Generation Thinker Jonathan Healey looks at what history can tell us about coping with flooding.

Anne McElvoy looks at changing fashions and values in the art world as she talks to Observer critic Laura Cumming about her researches into a 19th-century court case involving a Velázquez portrait. New Generation Thinker Joe Moshenska joins the conversation to explain more about the trip to Spain during which the future Charles I was painted by the Spanish artist. Curator Liz Gilmore and dealer Ju...