On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks at Germany's role in Europe. Katinka Barysch argues that despite the crisis, support for EU integration still dominates, and that unlike Britain, the ability to compromise is seen as a skill, not a weakness. Two British MPs, from left and right, Gisela Stuart and Douglas Carswell, remain sceptical about the EU, but German-born Stuart understands her birth country's emotional connection to it. Carswell argues that the digital revolution calls for smaller, not larger governments, and Karen Leeder believes that despite Germany's belief in the European project it still has not laid to rest the ghosts of unification. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week, Andrew Marr explores how Britain trains the artists and designers of the future. Christopher Frayling and Sarah Teasley celebrate the 175th anniversary of the Royal College of Art, the world's oldest art and design school. But one of its former teachers, the industrial designer Ron Arad argues for a broader arts education which doesn't split sculpture from painting, architecture from design. And the artist Antony Gormley redefines the limits of sculpture and building. Producer: Edwina Pitman

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to the award-winning director Kevin Macdonald whose films often focus on real events or people, from Touching the Void, to Marley. The filmmaker Roger Graef discusses the ethical issues in documenting real life. And the Indian writer Aman Sethi explores the margins of society with his study of the world of itinerant labourers in a Delhi market. Producer: Katy Hickman.

Start the Week is at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival in Gateshead to debate whether the world is becoming a more divided place. Andrew Marr discusses the state of politics with the former President of Ireland Mary Robinson and the writer-turned-politician Michael Ignatieff, while the Israeli author Amos Oz asks whether entrenched ideas have increasingly polarised debate. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week the journalist Ian Cobain reveals how torture has been systematically used by the British from WWII to the War on Terror, via Kenya and Northern Ireland. David Anderson QC reviews the risks posed by terrorism in the UK. Extraordinary rendition and the language of concealment form the heart of Clare Bayley's new play, and there are more secrets uncovered by the criminal barrister-turned-crime writer, MR Hall. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks at the legacy of modernism. Kevin Jackson returns to 1922, the year he argues changed the literary world with publications of Joyce's Ulysses and TS Eliot's The Waste Land. And Ali Smith reveals how her writing today melds different forms to explore style, love, death and the art of writing. But Will Gompertz and the composer Julian Anderson argue that art and music respectively embraced modernism earlier and more profoundly than the world of literature. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to two American authors, Richard Ford and Lionel Shriver about the state of the US. In the run-up to the Presidential elections, the journalist Edward Luce argues that the country's politics are broken, and America is facing the spectre of decline. But the chair of Republicans Abroad UK, Thomas Grant, disputes such a negative assessment. Producer - Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses the dying art of handwriting with the novelist Philip Hensher. As the typewriter has taken over from the pen, so email is killing off letter-writing, and Diana Athill celebrates the art of correspondence. But the poet Wendy Cope, who has just left thousands of emails to the British Library, welcomes the advent of digital communication, and the philosopher Nigel Warburton tweets, blogs and podcasts. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses Central Europe from the Soviet occupation to membership of the EU. Anne Applebaum looks back at what happened when the Iron Curtain came down after WWII. Victor Sebestyen and Helen Szamuely disagree over the benefits of European integration after 1989. And Mark Mazower explores the chequered history of international government, and the vision of harmony at the heart of the European project. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr celebrates myth and fairy tales. With the coming 200th anniversary of the first edition of the Grimm Brothers' Tales, Philip Pullman presents new versions of his favourite stories, from the classic quests and romance to the lesser-known tales of villainous kings and wicked wives. Sara Maitland explores the idea that these fairy tales are intimately connected to forests. The theatre director, Tim Supple looks east to the tales of life and death in One Thousand and One Nights. And at the Royal Opera House, Keith Warner, presents his production of the vast, mythical world of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle. Producer: Katy Hickman.