Arts & Ideas

A hundred years ago, Ernest Shackleton set out on his Trans-Antarctic expedition which ended when his ship Endurance became trapped in packed ice. The lure of this polar region remains strong both in our imaginations and in terms of understanding what is happening to the planet. Rana Mitter discusses the Antarctica of our imaginations and the reality of the landscape with writer Meredith Hooper, p...

The Spin Doctors of 19th-Century America. Embracing the emerging sciences of the age, 19th-century Americans thought they might be able to combine physiognomy (the science of reading faces) and the techniques of photography to uncover the true characters of leaders and statesmen. Joanna Cohen from Queen Mary, the University of London explores their efforts and the lessons for voters now. This even...

Drawing on Shakespeare's plays and Indian translations of them from recent times - and on writing by Saadat Hasan Manto and Rabindranath Tagore, the voices of partition and independence - Preti Taneja from Jesus College Cambridge explores the power of gibberish to upset fixed notions of language and identity. This event was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage, Ga...

Animals: Watching Us Watching Them Watching Each Other. Rana Mitter talks to the primatologist, Andrew Whiten, Professor of Evolutionary and Development Psychology at St Andrews, to Dr Katie Slocombe of York University and to the social anthropologist, Professor Alex Bentley of Bristol University, about chimps and imitation, culture and evolution - from the deep past to our digital present. This e...

Naomi Paxton from the University of Manchester explores the international movement for a Women's Theatre from the 1890s to the start of the First World War, and considers how their ideas may have changed how theatre is experienced today. This event was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage, Gateshead on 02.11.14.

John Lanchester talks to Matthew Sweet about his novel Capital, our understanding of the economy and whether the language of money creates barriers between bankers and borrowers. This event was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage, Gateshead on 01.11.14

Where did language come from? It's often been described as the fundamental barrier between humans and animals. However, many scientists now believe speech evolved gradually from animal communication. Will Abberley from the University of Oxford argues that some of the most compelling efforts to picture this evolution have been in science fiction, and that these stories still impact on debates about...

Turkey's best selling female writer, Elif Shafak, talks to Anne McElvoy about imagination and storytelling as she publishes her new novel The Architect's Apprentice. Her cosmopolitan voice is of particular importance in a year when the Middle East has been undergoing enormous shifts, and both nationalism and xenophobia are on the rise around the world. This event was recorded in front of an audien...

Is man the only political beast? Can other animals be regarded as members of our democratic communities, with rights to political consideration, representation or even participation? Alasdair Cochrane from Sheffield University believes that the exclusion of non-humans from civic institutions cannot be justified, and explores recent attempts to re-imagine a political world that takes animals seriou...

Anne McElvoy explores whether it is worth getting hot under the collar about blue collar history with historian Alison Light, David Almond and Eliza Carthy. Once upon a time the working class were heroes; their close-knit communities were celebrated. Has this working class disappeared along with the great industries- steel -coal and ship building - that brought them into being? Is the working clas...

Historian Alun Withey says beards can shed light on a whole range of things from medicine to the military. Pogonotomy - or the art of shaving - is about more than fashion. Recorded in front of an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas at Sage, Gateshead. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the AHRC to find the brightest academic minds with the potential to...

Daisy Hay from Exeter University explores the way in which Disraeli invented the modern politician as a man or woman of feeling, and asks whether the image he projected as an emotionally in-touch everyman stemmed from fact or fiction? Recorded in front of an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas at Sage, Gateshead. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the...

Which historical 'facts' should be burned on the fire? How do you comb ancient and recent times for evidence? Rana Mitter is joined by Helen Castor and Laura Thompson to discuss the ways mythmaking can cloud history. Recorded in front of an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas at Sage, Gateshead. All the discussions and essays from the Free Thinking festival are available as R...

Sophie Coulombeau on the origins of the custom for women to take their husband's name. Recorded in front of an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas at Sage Gateshead. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the AHRC to find the brightest academic minds with the potential to turn their ideas into broadcasts.

David Willetts MP and the writer and philosopher Roger Scruton discuss the best way to foster knowledge in schools and universities and whether politicians have become too professionalised. In an age when many politicians have never had other jobs, are we better off with representatives who have specialist knowledge from careers forged outside Westminster? The conversation is chaired by Anne McElv...

New Generation Thinker Tom Charlton on what 17th-century ideas about censorship share with the Leveson report. Recorded in front of an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas at Sage Gateshead. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the AHRC to find the brightest academic minds with the potential to turn their ideas into broadcasts.

Matthew Sweet explores the way digital media have transformed our cultural tastes with poet Kei Miller, author and online games creator Naomi Alderman, music journalist Dave Hepworth and Prospect Magazine's Digital Editor, Serena Kutchinsky. Recorded in front of an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas at Sage Gateshead.

New Generation Thinker Tiffany Watt-Smith explores mirroring and a nineteenth-century fascination with imitation. Recorded in front of an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas at Sage Gateshead. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the AHRC to find the brightest academic minds with the potential to turn their ideas into broadcasts.

Anne McElvoy chairs a discussion about conciliation in an age of uprisings recorded in front of an audience at the BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking Festival of Ideas at Sage Gateshead. Best-selling Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov joins journalist John Kampfner and conflict resolution expert Gabrielle Rifkind.

Karen Armstrong, one of the world's leading thinkers about religion, gives the Free Thinking Lecture, arguing that, in the current global situation, a recognition of how little we know is the only way to peace. She talks to Rana Mitter and takes questions from the audience. Recorded on 31.10.14 in front of an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas 2014 from Sage Gateshead.

Choreographer Akram Khan talks to Anne McElvoy about curating a festival at the Lowry, the relationship between dance and visual art and his interest in flamenco. Professor Diane Purkiss reviews Eileen Atkins performance at the RSC in The Witch of Edmonton. Deanna Petherbridge discusses an exhibition of prints showing witches that she's curated at the British Museum.

Orhan Pamuk talks to Philip Dodd about his writing career and his views of modern Turkey. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2006, his novels include The Black Book, Snow, My Name is Red and The Museum of Innocence - a book and a real building created by the author which earlier this year was awarded the European Museum of the Year award.

Orhan Pamuk talks, in an extended conversation with Philip Dodd, about his writing career and his views of modern Turkey. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2006 his novels include The Black Book from 1990, the magisterial Snow marinaded in politics and religion and set in a remote Turkish town and The Museum of Innocence a book and a real building created by the author. There’s also his non...

Mike Leigh discusses his film about Turner. Steve Connor and Matthew Sweet discuss an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge which brings together 180 paintings and models to explore the way mannequins have been used by artists - from a technical tool to a fetishised object. And New Generation Thinker Naomi Paxton discusses Guy Fawkes traditions.

Anne McElvoy talks to celebrated Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood whose most recent novel MaddAddam completed her dystopian trilogy that began a decade ago with Oryx and Crake and continued six years later with The Year of the Flood. Originally broadcast on 17.09.2013.