Arts & Ideas

With extreme weather events expected to become more frequent in the future, are there any lessons we can learn from the past? Environmental historians have been looking at droughts, floods and hurricanes - and, considering the impact they had on communities and how they responded. Des Fitzgerald asks Georgina Endfield and Jean Stubbs how both local and international stories of extreme weather can encourage public awareness and engagement with preparing for the realities of climate change. Georgina Endfield is Professor of Environmental History at the University of Liverpool. Her AHRC-funded research project, ‘Spaces of Experience and Horizons of Expectation: Extreme weather in the UK, past, present and future’ explores how people have been affected by extreme weather through time. You can read a blog post about the project here: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/history/blog/2018/extreme-weather-stories And you can also access a database about extreme weather, which spans 500 years of weather events and history and is based on Professor Endfield’s research, here: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/geography/extreme-weather/search/Professor Jean Stubbs (School of Advanced Studies) is co-director of the Commodities of Empire Project. In 2019, she co-produced the AHRC-funded documentary Cuba: Living Between Hurricanes with Michael Chanan and Jonathan Curry-Machado. You can watch the film here: https://www.livingbetweenhurricanes.orgProfessor 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 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: 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: Marcus Smith

Lisa Mullen is joined by Imani Jacqueline Brown of Forensic Architecture, whose exhibition for the Manchester International Festival explores the links between power and the air we breathe; journalist James Nestor, whose best selling book traces his search for medical answers to his sleeping and breathing problems; jazz saxophonist and MC Soweto Kinch; and New Generation Thinker Tiffany Watt Smith, who has been considering the cultural history of sighing and book The Anatomy of Melancholy.Cloud Studies exhibits investigations by Forensic Architecture - part of Manchester International Festival, it runs at the Whitworth in Manchester 2 July-17 October and is online.Breathe: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor is out in paperback.The Anatomy of Melancholy has been republished by Penguin.The Black Peril by Soweto Kinch is available now.Soweto Kinch will perform with the London Symphony Orchestra as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival on 19 Nov 2021 at the Barbican in London.Producer: Emma Wallace

Festivals are a key part of our culture and economy, but traditionally they’ve had a big ecological footprint. Festivals attendees have long been heavy consumers of resources from travel to food and disposable plastic. But, researchers are turning their attention to assessing the environmental impacts of major sport and cultural events – and making them more sustainable. Des Fitzgerald asks Dr Andrea Collins and Steve Muggeridge about the latest research and practice on making festivals and events greener. Dr Andrea Collins is a Senior Lecturer at Cardiff University where she is Programme Director for MSc in Sustainability, Planning and Environmental Policy. She is a member of Cardiff University’s Festival research Group. Her research has informed the development UK Sport's eventIMPACT Toolkit. Steve Muggeridge is Director of the Green Gathering charity and Optimistic Trout Productions (OTP), a not-for-profit Community Interest Company where he runs the Green Gathering festival.Professor 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 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/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: Marcus Smith

Lawrence's dad was a butty - a contractor who put together a team to mine coal for an agreed price. His 1913 novel Sons and Lovers drew on this heritage. Frances Wilson's new biography focuses on the decade following, when The Rainbow had been subject to an obscenity trial, he travelled to Cornwall and Mexico and then the discovery that he had tuberculosis. In a non-Covid year, this weekend would have seen the Durham Miners' Gala take place. Poet Jake Morris-Campbell writes a postcard about the traditions of this annual gathering of banners and brass bands. Prabhakar Pachpute's family worked in the coal mines of central India for three generations. For his contribution as one of the artists taking part in Artes Mundi 9, he's drawn on this shared cultural heritage with the Welsh mining community to create an installation of paintings, banners and objects that comment on protest and collective action. Matthew Sweet presents.Burning Man: The Ascent of DH Lawrence by Frances Wilson is out now. Artes Mundi is on show at the National Museum Cardiff, Chapter and g39 Dr Jake Morris-Campbell teaches at the University of Newcastle and is a visiting Lecturer at the University of Chester. He is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. You can find a collection of programmes from the past ten years of the scheme on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35Producer: Luke Mulhall

Lawrence's dad was a butty - a contractor who put together a team to mine coal for an agreed price. His 1913 novel Sons and Lovers drew on this heritage. Frances Wilson's new biography focuses on the decade following, when The Rainbow had been subject to an obscenity trial, he travelled to Cornwall and Mexico and then the discovery that he had tuberculosis. In a non-Covid year, this weekend would have seen the Durham Miners' Gala take place. Poet Jake Morris-Campbell writes a postcard about the traditions of this annual gathering of banners and brass bands. Prabhakar Pachpute's family worked in the coal mines of central India for three generations. For his contribution as one of the artists taking part in Artes Mundi 9, he's drawn on this shared cultural heritage with the Welsh mining community to create an installation of paintings, banners and objects that comment on protest and collective action. Matthew Sweet presents.Burning Man: The Ascent of DH Lawrence by Frances Wilson is out now. Artes Mundi is on show at the National Museum Cardiff, Chapter and g39 Dr Jake Morris-Campbell teaches at the University of Newcastle and is a visiting Lecturer at the University of Chester. He is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. You can find a collection of programmes from the past ten years of the scheme on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35Producer: Luke Mulhall

A horoscope from 1411, a portrait of a woman blowing bubble gum and a gold griffin-headed armlet: art collector Ina Sarikhani Sandmann, historian Ali Ansari and New Generation Thinker Julia Hartley join Rana Mitter to look at Epic Iran, an exhibition exploring 5,000 years of art, design and culture at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Author Annalee Newitz discusses the rise and fall of four 'lost' cities and we have a postcard exploring the author Marcel Proust's fascination with Iran ahead of the 150th anniversary of his birth on July 10th 1871.Epic Iran exploring 5,000 years of art, design and culture runs at the Victoria and Albert Museum until September 12th 2021. Four Lost Cities by Annalee Newitz is out now. It explores the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Central Turkey, the Roman vacation town of Pompeii on Italy’s southern coast, the medieval megacity of Angkor in Cambodia, and the indigenous metropolis Cahokia, which stood beside the Mississippi River where East St. Louis is today. Annalee is also founder of the popular io9 science and science fiction blog.Dr Julia Hartley is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Warwick, where her project is called ‘West-Eastern Encounters: Iran in French Literature (1829-1908)’. She is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. You can find more discussions in a playlist on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35Marcel Proust (10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was the author of novels including À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time). A Free Thinking discussion about Proust brought together Jane Smiley, Jane Haynes and Christopher Prendergast and insights from French author Marie Darrieussecq https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04lpxj2Producer: Torquil MacLeod

It’s sixty years since the house party at Cliveden where Christine Keeler encountered Minister of War, John Profumo and the Soviet Naval attaché, Yevgeny Ivanov. The events of that weekend, a heady mix of sex, politics and espionage have filled newspapers, books, films and TV dramas. But that weekend was just one in a long line of intrigue and scandal at Cliveden. In fiction and reality, a weekend in the country has often involved far more than a simple retreat - from the appeasement talks imagined in Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day to a formal invitation from the Prime Minister to Chequers. Anne McElvoy explores the social history of the grand country house gathering and its hold on the English imagination.Julie Gottlieb is Professor of Modern History at the University of Sheffield and the author of ‘Guilty Women’, Foreign Policy, and Appeasement in Inter-War Britain and Feminine Fascism: Women in Britain's Fascist Movement, 1923-1945Natalie Livingstone is a journalist and historian and the author of The Mistresses of Cliveden: Three Centuries of Scandal, Power and Intrigue.Kate Williams is a broadcaster, historian and Professor of Public Engagement with History at the University of Reading. She is the author of Rival Queens and her trilogy of novels about the De Witt family.Producer: Ruth Watts

The Oscar winning Midnight Cowboy was followed up by this drama about an artist who has relationships with a female job consultant and a male doctor. Director John Schlesinger, writer Penelope Gilliatt, actors Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch were all nominated for Academy Awards but it performed poorly at the box office. Was the film - released on July 1st 1971, ahead of its times? Matthew Sweet re-watches it with guests including Glenda Jackson, playwright Mark Ravenhill, film historian Melanie Williams and BFI archivist Simon McCallum. They discuss the different elements of the film, including the score, which features the trio Soave sia il vento from Mozart's opera Così fan tutte, the very precise decor and evocation of late '60s London and filming inside a Jewish synagogue.Producer: Fiona McLeanSunday Bloody Sunday is available on Blu-rayYou can find Matthew Sweet discussing other classics of British Cinema in the Free Thinking archives including British New Wave Films of the 60s - Joely Richardson and Melanie Williams evaluate the impact and legacy of Woodfall Films, the company behind Look Back in Anger, A Taste of Honey and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09ysnl2 An extended interview with Mike Leigh, recorded as he released his historical drama Peterloo, but also looks back at his film from 1984 Four Days in July https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000tqw Early Cinema looks back at a pioneer of British film Robert Paul and at the work of Alice Guy https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dy2b Philip Dodd explores the novel and film of David Storey's This Sporting Life with social historian Juliet Gardiner, journalist Rod Liddle, writer Anthony Clavane and the author's daughter Kate Storey https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09j0rt6 Samira Ahmed convenes a discussion about British Social Realism in Film https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pz16k

HIV's origins and colonial history have inspired the collection of poems by Kayo Chingonyi, which has been nominated for the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2021. Paisley Rekdal is currently the Poet Laureate of Utah. Her latest collection of poems was inspired by Ovid. She's been thinking about where stories come from and what we mean by appropriation. Dr Nasser Hussain is interested in ‘lost’ fragments of language and in what we notice and what we ignore. New Generation Thinker Florence Hazrat studies punctuation. They join host Sandeep Parmar for a conversation about experimentation ahead of the Ledbury Poetry Festival.Sandeep Parmar is a poet and Professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. She has been running the Ledbury Poetry Critics scheme alongside Sarah Howe. This project encourages diversity in poetry reviewing culture, aimed at new critical voices. Ledbury Poetry Festival runs from 2 - 11 July 2021.Kayo Chingonyi's book is called A Blood Condition. You can find the full list of poets shortlisted for the Forward Prize at https://www.forwardartsfoundation.org/Paisley Rekdal's collection of poems, Nightingale, re-writes many of the myths in Ovid's The Metamorphoses. She has published an Essay Appropriate: A Provocation https://www.paisleyrekdal.com/Dr Nasser Hussain teaches poetry at Leeds Beckett University. He published ‘SKY WRI TEI NGS’, a book of conceptual writing that composes poetry from IATA airport codes, and is working on an autobiographical poetic project Playing with Playing with Fire and The Life of Form.Dr Florence Hazrat is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Sheffield studying rhetoric, punctuation and Shakespeare's use of music. She is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select academics to turn their research into radio.This episode was made in partnership with the AHRC, part of UKRI. You can find a playlist exploring New Research on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90You can find more discussions in playlists on the Free Thinking programme website, featuring Prose and Poetry, and Ten Years of the New Generation Thinker Scheme.Producer: Emma Wallace

Cities produce more than half the world’s carbon emissions and are home to more than half the world’s population. So what role might cities play in tackling the climate emergency and how can their inhabitants be inspired to help design their own solutions? Des Fitzgerald asks Nicole Metje and Andy Gouldson how engineering, finance and local projects might combine to make city living greener and more sustainable. Professor Nicole Metje is Head of Enterprise, Engagement and Impact and Head of the Power and Infrastructure Research Group in the School of Engineering at the University of Birmingham. She is also Deputy Director for Sensors of the UKCRIC National Buried Infrastructure Facility at Birmingham.Professor Andy Gouldson is one of the directors of the Centre for Climate Change, Economics and Policy at the University of Leeds and founder of the Place-based Climate Action Network. Professor 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 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/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: Marcus Smith