Arts & Ideas

Philip Dodd continues his exploration of the culture wars by investigating the tension between cosmopolitanism and the nation state and how this is playing out in Europe. He speaks to Dr Ayça Çubukçu from the LSE, writer Agata Pyzik, Phillip Blond from think-tank ResPublica and Dr Andrew Dowling from the University of Cardiff.

Philip Dodd talks to one of the icons of what used to be called the counter-culture, Peggy Seeger. Her voice and career are emblematic of a life lived against the establishment grain.

In the first of three programmes exploring fractures and faultlines in contemporary society, Philip Dodd and guests discuss the tension between secularism and religion. With philosopher and atheist Daniel Dennett, sociologist of religion Linda Woodhead, and the writer and 'futurist' thinker Ziauddin Sardar.

Anne McElvoy hears from young people involved in the BBC's School Report Day. School children who have come to north-east England from other countries describe what home means. Writer Bidisha and sociologist David Ralph discuss how migrants and refugees construct a sense of home. Also, ahead of a new exhibition, British Museum curator Ian Jenkins and classicist Edith Hall discuss ideas of beauty i...

Does the discipline of Sociology still have a role to play in the 21st century? To examine where we are at with Sociology in 2015, Philip Dodd is joined by three leading practitioners, the LSE's Richard Sennett, Frank Furedi from the University of Kent, and Monika Krause at Goldsmiths, as well as the journalist and author, Peter Oborne.

Matthew Sweet talks to Andrew Scull, author of Madness in Civilisation and Lisa Appignanesi about how different cultures around the world and through time have dealt with what we might call madness, insanity or the loss of reason. Matthew Beaumont also presents his history of an ancient crime but one still on the statute books of Massachussetts - Night Walking. Alongside, Deborah Longworth with a...

Anne McElvoy looks at what we mean by the idea of fairness. She also talks to novelist Tom McCarthy who was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his novel C. His new work Satin Island follows a man working for a consultancy trying to sum up our age - who wonders whether there is a logic which holds the world together.

An extended interview in which Philip Dodd is joined by novelist, screenwriter and dramatist Hanif Kureishi. He discusses subjects including immigration, sexuality and mortality.

Douglas Coupland, Shumon Basar and Hans Ulrich Obrist explain the Extreme Present to Matthew Sweet. Their co-authored book The Age of Earthquakes builds on Marshall McLuhan's analysis of how technology influenced culture in the 1960s and is described as "a new history of how we are feeling in the world today when the future seems to be happening much faster than we ever thought." Also, Mathematici...

Novelist Kazuo Ishiguro talks to Anne McElvoy about his latest book – The Buried Giant. And as two separate productions of Sophocles’ tragedy, Antigone, are performed on stage in London – the playwright Roy Williams and the Greek scholar and translator, Oliver Taplin assess the enduring appeal of the play.

Churchill famously commented that ‘democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.' Rana Mitter and his guests David Runciman, Professor of Politics, University of Cambridge; Duncan Kelly, Reader in Political Thought, University of Cambridge; Patricia Thornton, University Lecturer in the Politics of China, University of Oxford and...

John Gray talks to Matthew Sweet about why the Aztecs might have had a better understanding of freedom than we do and other human illusions about meaning and progress. Also we consider how artistic movements become successful as the National Gallery stages an exhibition devoted to Paul Durand-Ruel, the french art dealer who discovered the Impressionists. Matthew talks to National gallery curator C...

Rana Mitter talks to Tony Harrison, the winner of the biennial David Cohen prize - one of our most prestigious literary awards. Two other writers join Rana - Ru Freeman and Romesh Gunesekara. Both from Sri Lanka and both on the programme to discuss the role of the writer in a country recovering from civil war. Finally, as part of the BBC's Get Creative initiative, the mathematician, Marcus du Saut...

Philip Dodd looks at the value of the arts with the former Chief Scientific Advisor to the EU, biologist Anne Glover,and discusses the notion of belonging and social identity in Europe with Dutch author Tommy Wieringa, Hungarian film director Kornel Mondruczo and academics Eric Kaufmann and Vesna Popovski.

As this year's Paul Foot Awards are announced for campaigning and investigative journalism, Anne McElvoy reports from the ceremony and talks to this year's winner. Anne also talks to the Director of the London School of Economics, the sociologist Dr Craig Calhoun about the things that inspired him to take up a career in the social sciences. The artist Alinah Azadeh talks about her latest project,...

Matthew Sweet talks to the Israeli novelist David Grossman about his book Falling Out of Time which mixes poetry, drama and fiction to explore the emotion of grief and loss. His own son died in 2006. He is also the author of non fiction books including Death as a Way of Life: From Oslo to the Geneva Agreement. They discuss his fiction and the part he hopes it can play in the discourse about Israel...

Rana Mitter discusses Buddhism, in Western therapy and in Eastern politics with psychotherapist Mark Vernon, Rupert Gethin - Professor of Buddhist Studies in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies and co-director of the Centre for Buddhist Studies at the University of Bristol, Dr Anne Mette Fisker-Nielsen expert in religion and politics in Contemporary Japan and Christopher Harding – Cul...

It's three hundred years since the death of Antoine Galland, a French orientalist and archaeologist, whose translation of The One Thousand and One Nights kick-started its adventures in the West via the works of English orientalists, Richard Burton, Edward Lane and John Payne. Philip Dodd asks a panel of experts on these hugely influential tales, plus story-tellers who continue to wrest new life ou...

Will Hutton joins Anne McElvoy for a programme focusing on economics and wealth in Britain. They're joined by Richard Davies, The Economist's Economics Editor, Wendy Carlin, Professor of Economics and Macroeconomics at UCL and Luke Johnson the Chairman of Risk Capital Partners and the former Chairman of Channel 4 Television.

Karim Miské and Aatish Taseer discuss their recent novels, the French tradition of secularism and the influences of religion with Philip Dodd. They're joined by historians Dr Sudhir Hazareesingh and Dr Ruth Scurr.

Dylan Evans tells Matthew Sweet about his experimental community in the Scottish Highlands and why the Utopia Experiment failed. They are joined by Elaine Barker who has looked at communities set up by religious cults and Joe Duggan of Transition Town in Crystal Palace. Also our changing attitudes to eroticism on film. In the week when the release of the film Fifty Shades of Grey is causing much e...

Anne McElvoy assesses reports that members of the new Greek government are rediscovering age-old links between Greece and Russia. With Roderic Lynne, former British ambassador to Moscow; Mary Dejevsky, Professor Vassilis Fouskis and Spyros Economides. Plus as Sheffield Theatres begin a season looking back at the work of Sarah Kane, Director Daniel Evans discusses her writing and also a review of I...

Poet Paul Muldoon explores the history of Ireland in his new collection, One Thousand Things Worth Knowing. Historian Roy Foster's latest book is Vivid Faces: the Revolutionary Generation in Ireland 1890-1923. Rona Munro's new play Scuttlers runs at Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre from Feb 5th - March 7th directed by Wils Wilson. It depicts Manchester gangs and riots in the Industrial Revolution...

Andrew O'Hagan talks to Matthew Sweet about identity, capturing memories and the impact of war in his new novel The Illuminations. Eddie Marsan talks about creating his character in the new film Still Life and about how much we know about a person's identity. Critic Charlotte Mullins considers the artists' obsession with capturing their image and that of their friends, as the National Portrait Gal...

Joyce Carol Oates new novel The Sacrifice depicts an act of racial violence which shocks a New Jersey town. Selma dramatises on film the life of Martin Luther King. Timberlake Wertenbaker's new play Jefferson's Garden puts on stage the founding of the American state. Anne McElvoy talks to Joyce Carol Oates and Timberlake Wertenbaker and is also joined by New Generation Thinker Joanna Cohen who stu...