Arts & Ideas

Anne McElvoy is joined by New Generation Thinker Seán Williams and writer Rachel Hewitt to consider Friedrich Schiller’s essay On Naïve and Sentimental Poetry and what it means to be sentimental in that period?

Will Abberley asks novelist Charlotte Mendelson why writers seem reluctant to engage with happiness and why so much literature is full of unhappy people; they are joined by psychologist and broadcaster Claudia Hammond.

Rana Mitter is joined by Sir Barry Cunliffe and Professor Edith Hall to consider epic sea journeys in history.

Novelist Lawrence Norfolk makes a selection of European writers who have considered the idea of ‘Europe’, with readings performed by Peter Marinker. Hosted by New Generation Thinker Nandini Das.

From Thomas De Quincy via Coleridge to Berlioz, a second-generation opium addict, Daisy Hay and Richard Davenport-Hines discuss why drugs were thought integral to creativity first in England and later in France. They tell Matthew Sweet and an audience at Imperial College London about opium as pain relief and creator of dreams and constipation, why arsenic was the Viagra of its day, and why it's just possible that Paris was as revolutionary as it was in the 19th century because it was full of drug-taking rebels.

Thomas Dixon, Director of the Centre for the History of Emotions, and musicologist Wiebke Thormählen look at mood: how composers and writers have engaged with themes of sentimentality, happiness and sorrow in their work, presented by Matthew Sweet.Producer: Fiona McLean

Rana Mitter talks to geologist Iain Stewart and geographer Nicholas Crane about the concept of "Deep Time".

Simon Heffer, novelist and co-director of the Fun Palaces campaign Stella Duffy, New Generation Thinker Will Abberley and the writer and sociologist Tiffany Jenkins join Matthew Sweet and an audience at the University of Sussex to debate the ideas explored by Matthew Arnold and their resonance today. The series of periodical essays were first published in Cornhill Magazine, 1867-68, and subsequently published as a book in 1869.Arnold argued that modern life was producing a society of 'Philistines' who only cared for material possessions and hedonistic pleasure. As a medicine for this moral and spiritual degradation, Arnold prescribed 'culture', which he defined as 'the best which has been thought and said in the world', stored in Europe's great literature, philosophy and history. By engaging with this heritage, he argued, humans could develop towards a higher state of mental and moral 'perfection'.Simon Heffer is the author of books including High minds: the Victorians and the birth of modern Britain; Moral Desperado: A Life of Thomas Carlyle and Nor Shall My Sword: The Reinvention of England.Tiffany Jenkins is Culture Editor for the journal Sociology Compass. Her books include Contesting Human Remains in Museum Collections, Keeping Their Marbles and she is editor of a collection of essays from various writers called Political Culture, Soft Interventions and Nation Building. Will Abberley is a Lecturer in English at the University of Sussex and the author of English Fiction and the Evolution of Language, 1850-1914 Stella Duffy is a writer and the co-director of the Fun Palaces campaign for wider participation in all forms of arts and culture.;Producer: Fiona McLean

Tate Modern offers a retrospective on the Art of the Black Power Movement in America and explores how 'Black Art' was defined by artists across the United States and its interplay with the civil rights movement. Rana Mitter is joined by Gaylene Gould, writer and artist and Head of Cinema and Events at the BFI, who reviews the 'Soul of A Nation' exhibition. Rana is also joined by the reggae poet and recording artist, Linton Kwesi Johnson "Writing was a political act and poetry was a cultural weapon"', as well as the film director H O Nazareth to talk about the artists and intellectuals who made up the British Black Panther leadership. Also joining in the conversation, Sandeep Parmar, a prize-winning poet and New Generation Thinker who argues that a new generation of critics and reviewers must be found to highlight the work of poets of colour in the UK. Also, Rana Mitter talks to intellectual historian Ibram X Kendi as his award-winning account of racist ideas in the United States comes out in the UK. Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power at London's Tate Modern 12/07/2017 - 22/10/2017Pres: Rana Mitter Guests: Linton Kwesi Johnson Gaylene Gould H O Nazareth Sandeep Parmar 'Eidolon', Winner of the inaugural Ledbury Forte Prize for Second Collections, is out now. Ibram X Kendi 'Stamped from the Beginning: A Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America' is out now.

Shahidha Bari discusses LGBTQ in the history of philosophy.As part of the BBC's Queer Icons series Philosopher Sophie-Grace Chappell discusses Plato's Symposium, and novelist Adam Mars-Jones talks about Bruce Bagemihl's book Biological Exuberance which explored homosexuality in the animal kingdom. Plus, we hear from the winner of this year's Caine Prize for African Writing. Queer Icons is a project to mark the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in which 50 leading figures choose an LGBTQ artwork that is special to them. You can find more details on the Front Row website on BBC Radio 4. You can find the BBC's Gay Britannia season of programmes on radio and tv collected on the website. They include documentaries, Drama on 3 from Joe Orton and exploring Victim the 1961 film starring Dirk Bogarde, episodes of Words and Music and more editions of Free Thinking including Philip Hoare on Cecil Beaton, Jake Arnott on Joe Orton and Peggy Reynolds on Sappho. Producer: Luke Mulhall