Arts & Ideas

Should we consider nature economically, socially, spiritually or culturally? What is the financial worth of bees? And do whales value each other? Dr Rupert Read and Professor Steve Waters explore how humans value nature and how that can impact climate change, whether that’s setting a play in a nature reserve, or considering the fact that whales go on holiday.Dr Rupert Read is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, and a climate and environmental campaigner. You can find out about Rupert’s work, including his blog posts, videos and upcoming public events, here: https://rupertread.net/Professor Steve Waters is a Professor of Scriptwriting at the University of East Anglia, and has written numerous plays on climate change and human relationships with nature. He is also an AHRC Leadership fellow working on the project, ‘The Song of the Reeds: Dramatising Conservation’ in collaboration with Wicken Fen and Strumpshaw Fen nature reserves. You can listen to his seasonal drama, ‘Song of the Reeds’, which was produced in four parts for Radio 4 and features Sophie Okonedo and Mark Rylance, here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000x6pkProfessor Des Fitzgerald is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Exeter.You can find the podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: Responding to climate change – UKRI or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast. Producer: Sofie Vilcins

Could the modern world be built on the back of our craving for an addictive substance? Matthew Sweet marshals historians Mimi Goodall and Dexnell Peters, and artist and theorist Ayesha Hameed, to see how far we can push the idea that our desire for sugar led to the development of new forms of agriculture, as well as slavery, empire and capitalism, indeed the initiation of a new era in the earth's geological history and climate. And they consider how we can think through such massive, world-historical shifts.Ayesha Hameed is Co-Programme Leader for the PhD in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her video Black Atlantis: The Plantationocene is here: https://vimeo.com/415428776 Dexnell Peters is Teaching Fellow in History at the University of Warwick and Supernumerary Fellow at Exeter College, Oxford Mimi Goodall has just finished a DPhil in History at OxfordProducer: Luke MulhallYou might be interested in episodes exploring Black history available on the Arts & Ideas podcast or a playlist on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbp

A novel about Matisse, hand glazed ceramic panels, red ochre to Yves Klein blue, the story of female pioneers of colour theory: Laurence Scott is joined by the artist Lubna Chowdhary, author Michèle Roberts and art historians James Fox and Kelly Grovier to celebrate colour and find out more about the history of different colours and the way we look at them.Lubna Chowdhary's exhibition at Peer in London until November will be expanded when it goes on show in Middlesborough at MIMA in 2022 https://lubnachowdhary.co.uk/ James Fox's book is called The World According to Colour: A Cultural History Michèle Roberts' novel is called Cut, Out. You can hear Michèle talking about failure and female friendship in a previous Free Thinking discussion https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jvwp Kelly Grovier is writing about female pioneers of colour theory for bbc.com You can find more of his work at https://www.kellygrovier.com/In the Free Thinking visual arts playlist we talk to painter Sean Scully, a fashion expert and a neuro scientist about colour perception https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b046cs01 and Kelly thinks about how we look at art in this episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04xrzd5 And if you want to experience colour on the walls of galleries at the moment – the Royal Academy Summer show is ablaze with it, the Hayward Gallery has a display of painters, Frieze London art fair is on this week, Mit Jai Inn has created a Dreamworld at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, Charleston farmhouse in Sussex – the colourfully decorated home of the Bloomsbury gang - pairs the work of Duncan Grant with contemporary art and the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge has a show focusing on gold artefacts found in Kazakhstan.Producer: Jessica Treen

The National Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut were among the many arts institutions forced to close during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. How has this experience changed the running of these galleries and museums? Anne McElvoy talks to:Gabriele Finaldi - Director of the National Gallery in London, which filmed its Artemisia Gentileschi exhibition and then sold online passes to view the show. Courtney J. Martin - Paul Mellon Director, Yale Center for British Art. Daniel Weiss - President and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum in New York.You can find directors of museums and galleries in Singapore, Beijing, Paris, St Petersburg, Washington, Los Angeles, London and Dresden in previous Frieze/Free Thinking discussions. There's a playlist on the Free Thinking website called Visual Arts which also includes conversations about colour in art, slow looking, women's art, Black British art, the role of critics.Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Climate change presents new challenges to human health. As temperatures rise, tropical and sub-tropical diseases are already becoming more widespread. While climate change has consequences on human health, engaging with the natural world can also have benefits for physical and mental health. But, how do we best communicate and explain these issues and the choices we face. Des Fitzgerald talks to Samantha Walton and Christopher Sanders about their research and discuss the challenges the climate and nature emergency presents to human health, and how we might respond. Dr Christopher Sanders is a Fellow in Entomology, Epidemiology and Virology at the Pirbright Institute funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), which is part of UK Research and Innovation. His research focuses on the physiological and behavioural attributes that enable an insect species to transmit a pathogen. Since 2006, his work has explored the behaviour of Culicoides biting midges, a type of small insect which has the potential to be transported over long distances on prevailing winds, carrying viruses with it. https://www.pirbright.ac.uk/users/dr-christopher-sandersDr Samantha Walton is a poet and Reader in Modern Literature at Bath Spa University. Her research explores psychology and environmentalism; experimental poetics, fiction of the 1920s-30s; and the Scottish novelist and nature writer, Nan Shepherd. Walton is the author of The Living World: Nan Shepherd and Environmental Thought, and the forthcoming Everybody Needs Beauty: In Search of the Nature Cure. Between 2016-2018, Walton was an Early Career Leadership Fellow working on the AHRC-funded project, Cultures of Nature and Wellbeing: Connecting Health and the Environment through Literature. This project involved working with environment and health policymakers and wellbeing practitioners, and original research into what literature tells us about our emotional and ethical entanglements with the living world. You can read more about the project here: https://culturenaturewellbeing.wordpress.comProfessor Des Fitzgerald is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Exeter.You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to soil and sustainable transport.The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on festivals, rivers, eco-criticism and the weather. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2 For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: https://www.ukri.org/our-work/responding-to-climate-change/ or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.Producer: Ruth Watts

The theme of this year's National Poetry Day is choice. Shahidha Bari is joined by Marvin Thompson, winner of this year's Poetry Society National Poetry Competition, and poet and New Generation Thinker Jake Morris-Campbell to discuss the choices poets make in their work, and the choices audiences make in their reception of poetry too. But is choice an illusion? What does it mean to choose anyway? Philosopher Clare Carlisle discusses the analysis of choice offered by the 17th century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, and the economist Carol Propper discusses the concept of choice in economics.Marvin Thompson's prize winning poem is The Fruit of the Spirit Is Love (Galatians 5:22) https://poetrysociety.org.uk/poems/the-fruit-of-the-spirit-is-love-galatians-522 His poem for National Poetry Day is May 8th, 2020 https://nationalpoetryday.co.uk/poem/may-8th-2020/Clare Carlisle's book Spinoza's Religion is published by Princeton University Press on the 12th OctoberJake Morris-Campbell will be at the Durham Book Festival on the 17th October reading from his forthcoming collection Corrigenda for Costafine Town, tickets are available here https://durhambookfestival.com/programme/event/north-east-poetry-showcase-john-challis-jo-clement-and-jake-morris-campbell/Producer: Luke Mulhall

Names to put back into the conversation about the history of British Theatre are suggested by Naomi Paxton’s guests in this New Thinking podcast. Stephen Bourne is the author of Deep Are the Roots – Trailblazers Who Changed Black British Theatre. Nadine Deller is an academic whose research focuses on the place of Black women in the Black Plays Archive. She hosts That Black Theatre Podcast in collaboration with the National Theatre and is based at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.Naomi Paxton is also at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She has written an introduction to the new book 50 Women in Theatre and her own research looks at the links between theatre, entertainment and the suffrage movement.New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put research on the radio. This episode of New Thinking is made in partnership with the AHRC, part of UKRI. You can find a playlist with topics including women and slavery, eco-criticism, fashion stories in museums, magic, and Aphra Behn on the BBC Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90 Stephen’s book Deep Are the Roots – Trailblazers Who Changed Black British Theatre is published by The History Press and available now.You can listen to That Black Theatre Podcast in all podcast places.50 Women in Theatre is published by Aurora Metro and available now.Producer: Tim Bano

Racial injustice in USA; ghost towns in post-industrial Scotland; how maritime history looks from the viewpoint of Aboriginal Australians and Parsis, Mauritians and Malays; the roots of violence that has plagued postcolonial society. These are topics covered in the books shortlisted for the British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding. Rana Mitter talks to the four authors who are:Cal Flynn for Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape Eddie S. Glaude Jr. for Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Today Mahmood Mamdani for Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities Sujit Sivasundaram for Waves Across the South: A New History of Revolution and EmpireProducer: Ruth WattsPreviously known as the Al Rodhan prize - you can find interviews with previous winners and shortlisted authors on the Free Thinking website. The winner in 2020 was Hazel V. Carby for Imperial Intimacies: A Tale of Two Islands. Other previous winners include Toby Green, Kapka Kassabova, Neil MacGregor and Karen Armstrong.

The Full English or Continental? What does our breakfast choice signify and how has it been represented in culture? 60 years on from the opening of the film Breakfast at Tiffany's - taken from Truman Capote's novella - Matthew Sweet and his guests consider a range of examples from monks and nuns breaking the fast, through films and TV series depicting the upper class English choices to the clubs promoted by the Black Panthers and poverty campaigner Marcus Rashford. Matthew is joined by medieval expert and New Generation Thinker Hetta Howes, by the French cultural critic Muriel Zagha and food historian Annie Gray. Hetta Howes has published a book called Transformative Waters in Late Medieval Literature. Annie Gray is a food historian who appears regularly on BBC Radio 4's The Kitchen Cabinet and is the author of books including Victory in the Kitchen: The Life of Churchill's Cook http://www.anniegray.co.uk/ You can find the book Matthew recommends Round About a Pound a Week by Maud Pember Reeves here https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58691 You can find out more about the Black Panther breakfast clubs at http://www.itsabouttimebpp.com/index_PhotoGallery.html Muriel talks about films including Groundhog Day and Phantom Thread.In the Free Thinking archives you can find programmes about food hearing from: philosopher Barry Smith, restaurant critic-cum-trainee chef Lisa Markwell, book critic Alex Clark and food historian Elsa Richardson https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08wn51y Food, the Environment and Richard Flanagan : Cassandra Coburn, Anthony Warner and Alasdair Cochrane discuss food security, hunger and vegan politics https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rn6v The Working Lunch: James C Scott on the birth of cities and how the Victorians changed lunch, with New Generation Thinkers Elsa Richardson and Chris Kissane https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b7my5n Funghi: An Alien Encounter https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dr46Producer: Robyn Read

Children walking to school, or cycling is the aim of a project in Manchester which one of today's guests, Dr Sarah Mander, works on. She shares her ideas about how to change our patterns of transport use from the morning walk to work or school to worldwide shipping. Professor Tim Schwanen is exploring inclusive transition towards electric mobility and he heads up the transport studies unit at the University of Oxford. They talk to Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough Professor Tim Schwanen oversees various researchers exploring transport studies at https://www.tsu.ox.ac.uk/ Dr Sarah Mander is working with the CAST centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations https://cast.ac.uk/ and she talks about the experiences of working with a Manchester community to change school journeys https://ourstreetschorlton.co.uk/ This episode is part of the podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. These are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on topics including money, fashion, festivals, rivers, food, soils and the weather. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2 For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: https://www.ukri.org/our-work/responding-to-climate-change/ or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast. Producer: Ruth Watts