Arts & Ideas

Matthew Sweet is joined by critics Ryan Gilbey and Ellen E Jones to look at the films nominated for this year's Academy Awards and the tradition of films with a campaigning message. Film historian Vanda Krefft charts the complicated life of William Fox, the man who founded the Fox Film Corporation. Comedian Lucy Porter and author Steve Massa celebrate the women of the silent era who starred alongside the likes of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. The Man Who Made the Movies: The Meteoric Rise and Tragic Fall of William Fox is by Vanda Krefft. Slapstick Divas: The Women of Silent Comedy is by Steve Massa. Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

Fiona Sampson, Daisy Hay, Christopher Frayling and David H. Guston join Matthew Sweet to discuss Mary Shelley's story in film, fiction and the view of AI scientists now.In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein by the poet and writer Fiona Sampson is out now.Christopher Frayling has published Frankenstein: The First Two Hundred YearsDr Daisy Hay is Senior Lecturer, English Literature and Archival Studies at the University of Exeter and a BBC Radio 3 and AHRC New Generation Thinker who will be publishing later this year a book on The Making of Frankenstein. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Annotated for scientists, engineers and creators of all kinds edited by David H. Guston, Ed Finn and Jason Scott Robert Late Junction tonight is looking at music and AI, asking can we create a digital version of the ideal Late Junction collaborator using computer code alone?The Radio 3 Sunday feature Select, Edit, Paste presented by Clemency Burton-Hill has been exploring new technologies and the arts. Producer: Zahid Warley

Leïla Slimani, a celebrated French author known for her novel 'Lullaby,' shares insights on her new role in promoting French culture. Emile Chabal, an academic from the University of Edinburgh, discusses Sabri Louatah's 'Savages: The Wedding,' exploring themes of identity and political tension in modern France. They delve into the complexities of caregiving relationships in post-colonial contexts, the impact of colonialism on literature, and the vital role writers play in shaping political discourse and cultural identity.

A car race around Australia is fictionalised in Peter Carey's latest novel. He talks to Rana Mitter about depicting race and racing. Josephine Quinn questions whether the Phoenicians existed as she looks at the way ancient texts and artworks helped construct an identity for the ancient civilization on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, stretching through what is now Syria, Lebanon and northern Israel. Classicist and novelist Natalie Haynes discusses Ovid's tales and Rana Mitter speaks to this year's TS Eliot Prize winner Ocean Vuong.Peter Carey's latest novel is called A Long Way Home.Josephine Quinn has published In Search of the Phoenicians. Natalie Haynes most recent novel is called The Children of Jocasta. Radio 3's The Essay this week consists of five retellings of Ovid. Ocean Vuong's Night Sky with Exit Wounds is out now.Producer: Debbie Kilbride

Matthew Sweet discusses protests like the 1968 uprising at Columbia University, 1985's Battle of the Beanfield and the acid house movement with guests Paul Hartnoll of Orbital, novelist Tony White, editor Paul Cronin and writer Tessa DeCarlo. The Fountain in the Forest by Tony White is available nowA Time To Stir: Columbia '68 edited by Paul Cronin is out nowProducer: Debbie Kilbride

Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough explores the uncanny possibilities of the In Between with the neuroscientist Dean Burnett, award-winning poet Vahni Capildeo, artist Alexandra Carr, writer and walker of London and other wastelands, Iain Sinclair, and the philosopher, Emily Thomas. How do our brains and bodies react in the In Between spaces of the airport lounge or the station platform where we're waiting to move on but temporarily in stasis and why have so many artists, writers and poets used these places to explore the uncanny, the strange and ourselves?

Amit Chaudhuri, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Daniel Mendelsohn and Emily Wilson join Philip Dodd to explore translating, rewriting and using Homer's epic work to frame a memoir. Emily Wilson has published a new translation of The Odyssey Daniel Mendelsohn has written An Odyssey: A Father, A Son and An Epic Karen McCarthy Woolf wrote Nightshift as part of a BBC Radio 4's Odyssey Project which commissioned ten writers to create a contemporary response. Her most recent collection is called Seasonal Disturbances. Amit Chaudhuri has written a novel called Odysseus Abroad which draws on A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and The Odyssey.

Diving from Tudor times through the Brooklyn Naval Yard in the Second World War to present day deep water sculpture parks and swimming with whales. Rana Mitter talks to prize-winning writer Jennifer Egan about the Sea as metaphor and how the research for her latest novel, Manhattan Beach, was the inspiration for its time-shifting, punky, award-laden predecessor, The Goon Squad. He hears from historian Miranda Kaufmann about the existence of a black population of skilled workers in Tudor England, one of whom dived salvage on the wreck of the Mary Rose after she sank laden with cannons on her way to wage war against the French. And he's joined by marine biologist, Alex Rogers, writer and whale lover Philip Hoare, and Jason de Caires Taylor, creator of the world's first underwater sculpture parks to discuss why decades after we first saw our blue and watery planet hanging in space, we still find it easier to ignore our oceans than explore them.

When Philip Astley and his trick riders performed in 1768 in a circle not a straight line in a field behind where Waterloo station is now, the idea of the circus ring was born. Matthew Sweet looks at the career of the impresario, his 42 foot diameter ring which is still the big top template and 250 years of circus with historian Vanessa Toulmin, performer Andrew Van Buren whose family have worked for 35 years to bring Astley's name to greater public attention, writer Naomi Frisby whose research focuses on women's bodies in relation to circuses and sideshows and Tom Rack, artistic director of NoFit State circusCircus250 is a celebration with events around the UK and Ireland. Producer Torquil MacLeod.

Philip Dodd is joined by Roger Scruton, Haroon Mirza, Kevin Davey and Kirsty Gunn to explore writing, modernism and experiment from T. S. Eliot onwards. Roger Scruton's books include 'How to be a Conservative' and 'England: An Elegy'. His most recent is 'Where We Are'. Kevin Davey's novel 'Playing Possum' was shortlisted for the 2017 Goldsmiths Prize - a prize for writing which embodies the spirit of invention Kirsty Gunn is the author of novels including 'The Big Music' and 'The Boy and the Sea'Haroon Miza has new work at the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne from 20th January-8th April Producer: Debbie Kilbride Main Image: L-R: Kevin Davey, Haroon Mirza, Kirsty Gunn, Roger Scruton and presenter Philip Dodd.