Arts & Ideas

Is it ever okay to pass off someone else’s work as your own? What if it’s a computer programme faking it? And how are our perceptions of ownership and Identity influenced by the apparent power of digital technology?These are some of the big questions Chris Harding discusses with :Rebecca Kuang, author of a new novel, ‘Yellowface’, which is largely a story about plagiarism and publishing, but also touches on identity, social media and use of digital technology in perpetuating misinformation.New Generation Thinker Kerry McInerny, who researches the impact of AI. Amongst other aspects she’s looking at how it can get things wrong, and its misuse in racial profiling. https://www.gender.cam.ac.uk/technology-gender-and-intersectionality-research-project/kerry-mackerethAnd, MIT economist Daron Acemoglu, whose new book ‘Power and Progress’ says advances in technology don’t always equate with positive outcomes. He discusses the way AI algorithms have been used in social media to make money and spread hate, but also outlines how we can harness tech for good Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity written by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson is out nowGhislaine Boddington is a curator and director, specialising in the future human, body responsive technologies and digital intimacy. She is a Reader in Digital Immersion at the University of Greenwich. https://ghislaineboddington.com/You can find more from Kerry on the Arts and Ideas podcast as part of our strand New Thinking – made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council which focuses specifically on research being done in UK universities – And the AHRC is also behind a big project involving academics in Edinburgh and the Ada Lovelace Institute looking at AI ethics And if you want to hear about AI in music – composers Robert Laidlow and Emily Howard talked to Radio 3’s Music Matters programme and you can find that on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001l4d8

Le Mépris in 1963 brought fame to Michel Piccoli. Jean-Luc Godard's new wave film was based on an Italian novel about a love triangle and power dynamics involving a playwright asked to work on a film script. Piccoli (1925-2020) went on to work with many other directors, including Buñuel, Chabrol, Varda, Rivette, Demy and Sautet in roles which run from a weak priest to a confused pope, with a host of rebels, cynics, lovers and losers mixed in. Matthew Sweet is joined by Geoff Andrew, Muriel Zagha, Phuong Le and Adam Scovell to look at this remarkable career that spanned seven decades.Producer: Torquil MacLeodMichel Piccoli: A Fearless Talent, is running at BFI Southbank from 1-29 June You can find a series of discussions about film stars and key films available as Arts & Ideas podcasts and on BBC Sounds including Marlene Dietrich, Jacques Tati, Audrey Hepburn, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Sidney Poitier, Laurel and Hardy's The Music Box, Charlie Chaplin's City Lights. Each Saturday on Radio 3 Matthew Sweet presents Sound of Cinema looking at film music relating to the week's new film releases - all the episodes are on BBC Sounds.

From Pakistan to Bulgaria to swimming the waterways of Britain: Rana Mitter is joined by a panel of writers to look at our relationship with particular landscapes and the natural world. Kapka Kassabova’s latest book Elixir: In the Valley at the End of Time details her stay in a remote valley by the River Mesa in Bulgaria and the knowledge of herbalism she finds there. Patrick Barham's latest book is about Roger Deakin, the environmentalist who co-founded Common Ground and was passionate about wild swimming. New Generation Thinker Noreen Masud from the University of Bristol has written a memoir called A Flat Place which details the impact of displacement from her Pakistani roots and her pilgrimage to the low lying landscapes of Orkney, Morecambe Bay and Orford Ness. The programme is part of Radio 3's broadcasts from the 2023 Hay Festival and was recorded in front of an audience there earlier this week.You can find a collection of discussions about Green Thinking all available to download or on BBC Sounds on the Free Thinking programme website of BBC Radio 3. Radio 3 is also broadcasting a series of lunchtime concerts from this year's Hay Festival and you can find past Hay festival discussions about Prose, Poetry and Drama in a collection on the Free Thinking programme website Producer: Luke Mulhall.

From dockworkers in Poland to meetings with European prime ministers and presidents and witnessing the fall of the Berlin Wall - the latest book by Timothy Garton Ash is a memoir called Homelands: A Personal History of Europe. He is joined by the Turkish writer now in exile from her home country Ece Temelkuran, by journalist Ben Judah who has been interviewing citizens across different European countries and by Misha Glenny, who has written on the former Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe and presents for BBC Radio 4 a history series about different countries called The Invention of …. Rana Mitter chairs the discussion which is recorded in front of an audience as part of BBC Radio 3's programming from the Hay Festival.Producer: Luke MulhallYou can find a series of concerts from Hay, an episode of the Verb and other BBC discussions all available on BBC Sounds.Ece Temelkuran was born into a political family and after her work as an investigative journalist and author of a series of books exploring Turkey’s history and politics, including How to Lose a Country and Ten Choices for a Better Now. She now lives outside the country. Ben Judah has written This is Europe: The Way We Live Now which draws on a series of interviews with a range of European citizens detailing their experiences of life. Misha Glenny's books include The Balkans 1804-2012 and McMafia.

The Imperial War Museum in London is putting on display recently collected objects and new first-hand testimony describing life in Northern Ireland during The Troubles in its first show to look at this topic. Anne McElvoy explores what it means to explore this history in writing, music and museum displays. The author Louise Kennedy's novel Trespasses is a 1970s love story. Poet Maria McManus and composer Keith Acheson have collaborated on a piece called Ellipses which they describe as being about "doubling back and reclaiming the sense of wonder, awe and timelessness that came before all the grimness". And Maria Fusco has worked on a new opera film which highlights the experiences of working class women in Belfast.Producer: Robyn Read Louise Kennedy's books include the short story collection The End of the World is a Cul de Sac and a novel set during 1970s Belfast called Trespasses which is now out in paperback. Northern Ireland: Living with the Troubles is a free exhibition at the IWM London curated by Craig Murray Ellipses is being performed at the Belfast International Arts Festival in November History of the Present an opera film was made on 35mm and SD video in the streets of Belfast, the Ulster Museum and the Royal Opera House in London. It was co-directed by Maria Fusco and Margaret Salmon with music by composer Annea Lockwood and will be screened 24.06.23 at Art Night, Dundee 02.07.23 The Royal Opera House, London and 11.08.23 for the Edinburgh Art Festival [live version]

The profound effects of losing our sense of smell, why historians should think more about the smells of the past and some thoughts on sneezing from Montaigne and La Condamine. Rana Mitter is joined by philosopher and wine-taster Barry Smith, Chrissi Kelly who founded the charity AbScent following her own experience of anosmia (the loss of smell), sensory historian William Tullett and New Generation Thinker Gemma Tidman.William Tullett's book Smell and the Past: Noses, Archives, Narratives is out now.Producer: Torquil MacLeodYou can find previous Free Thinking discussions about other body parts available on BBC Sounds and as the Arts & Ideas podcast. We have looked at Knees From dance to prayer, knees ups to kneeling https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gv2t Hands Matthew Sweet explores hands with psychoanalyst Darian Leader, an art historian and a computer scientist https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07gnj18 Barry Smith discussed what gives us Pleasure https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000tf72 Novelist Michele Roberts discussed evoking smell in fiction https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08n24f5

A Baltic forest in 1913, Soho and the suburbs of Liverpool and the Jewish community that grows up there are the settings for Linda Grant's new novel The Story of the Forest. She joins presenter John Gallagher, Rachel Lichtenstein and Julia Pascal for a conversation about writing and Jewish identity in the North West as we also hear about Julia Pascal's play Manchester Girlhood and look at the re-opening of the Manchester Jewish Museum with curator Alex Cropper .Producer in Salford: Nick Holmeshttps://www.manchesterjewishmuseum.com/ has re-opened after a £6 million redevelopment Dr Rachel Lichtenstein is a writer, curator who teaches at Manchester Metropolitan University and is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Manchester’s Centre for Jewish Studies http://www.juliapascal.org/ has links to Julia's new play You can find other Free Thinking discussions about Jewish history and identity including Jonathan Freedland, Hadley Freeman, Howard Jacobson and Bari Weiss on Jewish Identity in 2020 Simon Schama and Devorah Baum on Jewish history and jokes Howard Jacobson delivering a lecture on Why We Need The Novel and talking to Philip Dodd about his dystopian novel J Rabbi Baroness Julia Neuberger and New Generation Thinker Brendan McGeevor from the Pears Institute discussing stereotypes and also anti-Semitism Matthew Sweet in conversation with David Grossman Jonathan Freedland exploring Jewish identity in fiction from Amos Oz, Ayelet Gundar-Goshen & Jonathan Safran Foer Linda Grant alongside AD Miller, Boris Dralyuk, and Diana Vonnak discussing Odessa Stories and the writing of Isaac Babel

Disney's The Little Mermaid and a musical adaptation of a Caribbean version of the story kick off our conversation as Shahidha Bari is joined by director Ola Ince, historian and Sarah Peverley, who is writing a cultural history of mermaids. "Mermaid hunter" Sacha Coward considers mermaids as queer icons and Claudy Op den Kamp talks us through Disney copyright history.Producer: Sofie VilcinsOnce On This Island directed by Ola Ince runs at the Regent's Park Theatre until June 10th. It's the story of peasant girl Ti Moune and a boy called Daniel, and it's based upon a novel by Rosa Guy called My Love, My Love or The Peasant Girl which takes its inspiration from the Hans Christian Andersen story The Little Mermaid Disney's The Little Mermaid starring Halle Bailey and directed by Rob Marshall is in cinemas from May 26th.

Thanks in part to the birth of those enduring caricatures - Essex Man & Essex Girl - in the 1990s, this is a county that has struggled to break free from a whole raft of stereotypes and assumptions. Matthew Sweet and his guests - all Essex residents - are here to present a more nuanced, complicated and historically rich vision of this woefully misunderstood part of England.Tim Burrows has written The Invention of Essex: The Making of an English County Elsa James is an artist whose work includes the Forgotten Black Essex project Simon Heffer is a historian and journalist who first coined the term 'Essex Man' Dan Taylor is a New Generation Thinker. He lectures in Social and Political Thought at the Open University and his most recent research has taken him along the route of the A13, from east London to Southend on SeaProducer: Torquil MacLeodComposer William Byrd has strong Essex connections - and you can hear his music daily on Essential Classics between 9am and 12 as part of Radio 3's Byrd spotting series to mark the anniversary of his birth in July 1623 In the Free Thinking archives you can find Matthew Sweet talking to Essex born author Sarah Perry in conversations about spookiness and fear and her book The Essex Serpent https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000kk2 and a Covid conversation about Melmoth the Wanderer https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jgcs

Premiered to 63 people at the Royal Court back in 1973, the Rocky Horror Show is marking its anniversary with a production touring the UK. New Generation Thinkers Louise Creechan and Joan Passey explore its links with Frankenstein and the Gothic tradition and Paul Baker discusses its place in a history of camp. Shahidha Bari presents.Camp: The Story of the Attitude that Conquered the World is out now. Paul Baker is a Professor at Lancaster University. Rocky Horror runs at Sadlers Wells Peacock Theatre in Holborn, London until June 10th and then moves on to venues including Crewe, Leeds, Truro, Belfast, Nottingham and Eastbourne. For more details https://rockyhorror.co.uk/tour-dates You can find other conversations about LGBTQ+ culture and history in the Free Thinking collection of episodes called Identity Discussions on the programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06jngzt Programmes include The politics of fashion and drag https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09zcjch Polari Prize winners from 2020 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nmrl Queer Histories https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000f74j New Thinking: Raiding Gay’s the Word & Magnus Hirschfeld https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0ff53xv