Arts & Ideas

"A hermit in the middle of Los Angeles" is one way she described herself - born in 1947, Butler became a writer who wanted to "tell stories filled with facts. Make people touch and taste and know." Since her death in 2006, her writing has been widely taken up and praised for its foresight in suggesting developments such as big pharma and for its critique of American history. Shahidha Bari is joined by the author Irenosen Okojie and the scholar Gerry Canavan and Nisi Shawl, writer, editor, journalist – and long-time friend of Octavia Butler.Irenosen Okojie's latest collection of short stories is called Nudibranch and she was winner of the 2020 AKO Caine Prize for Fiction for her story Grace Jones. You can hear her discussing her own writing life alongside Nadifa Mohamed in a previous Free Thinking episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k8sz Gerry Canavan is co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to American Science Fiction. Nisi Shawl writes about books for The Seattle Times, and also contributes frequently to Ms. Magazine, The Cascadia Subduction Zone, The Washington Post.Producer: Luke MulhallYou might be interested in the Free Thinking episode Science fiction and ecological thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000h6yw and on Ursula Le Guin's The Word for World is Forest https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b6yb37 and a playlist exploring Landmarks of Culture including Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks and the writing of Audre Lorde, and of Wole Soyinka https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44

Capitalism and Schizophrenia is a major text of French poststructuralist thought by Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Made up of the two volumes Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, it articulates a new way of doing both philosophy and psychoanalysis that insists on the concrete relevance and transformative potential of the disciplines for day-to-day life. Matthew Sweet is joined by Henry Somers-Hall, Reader in Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London and editor of A Thousand Plateaus and Philosophy; Claire Colebrook, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English, Philosophy, and Woman's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Penn State University; and Ian Parker, practicing psychoanalyst and managing editor of the Annual Review f Critical Psychology.Producer: Luke MulhallYou can find a playlist exploring philosophy on the Free Thinking programme website with episodes looking at Michel Foucault, Derrida, the Vietnamese thinker Tran Duc Thao who influenced Derrida, as well as editions on Hegel and on the quartet of female philosophers who helped shaped British philosophy in the twentieth century https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07x0twx

Blind, and with his hair cut and his strength shorn - in Milton's dramtic poem Samson has already been betrayed by Delilah. It goes on to explore ideas about violence , revenge and tragedy. Published on May 29th 1671 alongside Paradise Regained, Milton's notes show that he started thinking of ideas for this work 30 years earlier. In 1741 Handel finished writing his version - a three act oratorio called Samson. Rana Mitter is joined by New Generation Thinker Islam Issa, music expert Professor Suzanne Aspden, poet Nuala Watt and classics expert Simon Goldhill to look at the poetic language of Samson Agonistes, the politics it was reflecting, the imagery of blindness and what Handel took from Milton's writing.Dr Islam Issa from Birmingham City University is a New Generation Thinker and author of Milton in the Arab-Muslim and Milton in Translation and Digital Milton. You can hear him presenting this recent Radio 3 Sunday Feature on The Balcony from Shakespeare to these Covid times https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0972325Professor Suzanne Aspden from the University of Oxford is the author of The Rival Sirens: Performance and Identity on Handel’s Operatic Stage and co-editor of the Cambridge Opera Journal.Professor Simon Goldhill from the University of Cambridge is the author of How to Stage Greek Tragedy Today and Love, Sex & TragedyDr Nuala Watt has written on the role of partial sight in poetics. Her poems have appeared in Magma and Gutter and her work is included in the anthology Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (2017).Producer: Ruth Watts

Blind, and with his hair cut and his strength shorn - in Milton's dramtic poem Samson has already been betrayed by Delilah. It goes on to explore ideas about violence, revenge and tragedy. Published on May 29th 1671 alongside Paradise Regained, Milton's notes show that he started thinking of ideas for this work 30 years earlier. In 1741 Handel finished writing his version - a three act oratorio called Samson. Rana Mitter is joined by New Generation Thinker Islam Issa, music expert Professor Suzanne Aspden, poet Nuala Watt and classics expert Simon Goldhill to look at the poetic language of Samson Agonistes, the politics it was reflecting, the imagery of blindness and what Handel took from Milton's writing.Dr Islam Issa from Birmingham City University is a New Generation Thinker and author of Milton in the Arab-Muslim and Milton in Translation and Digital Milton. You can hear him presenting this recent Radio 3 Sunday Feature on The Balcony from Shakespeare to these Covid times https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0972325Professor Suzanne Aspden from the University of Oxford is the author of The Rival Sirens: Performance and Identity on Handel’s Operatic Stage and co-editor of the Cambridge Opera Journal.Professor Simon Goldhill from the University of Cambridge is the author of How to Stage Greek Tragedy Today and Love, Sex & TragedyDr Nuala Watt has written on the role of partial sight in poetics. Her poems have appeared in Magma and Gutter and her work is included in the anthology Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (2017).Producer: Ruth Watts

Slavery and empire building shaped Liverpool's development. Can art works help give a new understanding of the city's history? In a discussion organised in partnership with the Liverpool Biennial, Anne McElvoy is joined by the Festival curator Manuela Moscoso, by the artist Xaviera Simmons, the historian Dr Diana Jeater and the composer Neo Muyanga. The Biennial runs from 20 March to 6 June 2021 with art works sited around the city.Neo Muyanga is a composer and sound artist whose work traverses new opera, jazz improvisation, Zulu and Sesotho idiomatic songs. His project A Maze in Grace is a 12'' vinyl record and a video installation at the Lewis’s Building, inspired by the song “Amazing Grace”, composed by English slaver-turned-abolitionist John Newton, who lived in Liverpool. The piece was co-commissioned by Fundação Bienal São Paulo, echoing some of the trading links which operated in the transatlantic slave trade.Xaviera Simmons has previously spent two years on a walking pilgrimage retracing the transatlantic slave trade with Buddhist monks. Her installation at the Cotton Exchange Building uses images and texts set against backdrops of the American landscape to explore ideas about "whiteness". It's co-presented by Liverpool Biennial and PhotoworksCurator Manuela Moscoso has worked at the Tamayo Museo in Mexico City and has come up with a framework for the Biennial -The Stomach and the Port- that uses the body as an image to think about the cityHistorian Diana Jeater, from the University of Liverpool, is also Emeritus Professor of African History at the University of the West of England, Bristol, and teaches themes that help understand African history such as witchcraft and territorial cults, healing systems, nationalist movements and religious institutions.Producer: Torquil MacLeodYou can find a playlist of programmes exploring the visual arts on the Free Thinking website, include discussions with museum curators held in partnership with Frieze Art Fair and interviews with artists including Michael Rakowitz, Taryn Simon, William Kentridge and Sonia Boyce amongst others https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p026wnjlAnd our 2021 New Generation Thinker Vid Simoniti is hosting a podcast talking to some of the Biennial artists called Art Against the World which you can find here https://www.biennial.com/

One Cold War spy has his story retold by journalist Simon Kuper, while the granddaughter of another - Charlotte Philby - writes novels that explore the human side and cost of espionage. Nigel Inkster, former MI6 director of operations and intelligence, looks at the role of spying in present day relations between China and the US, while journalist Margaret Coker explains how old school intelligence gathering without any hi-tech bells and whistles has been reaping rewards in Iraq. Rana Mitter hosts a conversation about spying fact and fiction.The Happy Traitor: Spies, Lies and Exile in Russia - The Extraordinary Story of George Blake by Simon Kuper is out now. Charlotte Philby's most recent novel is A Double Life. The Great Decoupling: China, America and the Struggle for Technological Supremacy by Nigel Inkster is out now. Margaret Coker's book Spymaster of Baghdad is out now. Penguin Classics is re-issuing Len Deighton's novels.In our archives you can find Stella Rimington in discussion with Alan Judd https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b048ngpw John le Carré in conversation with Anne McElvoy https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b039q13n The links in the world of French philosophy and spies https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b2mfh3 And a playlist of programmes on War and Conflict https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06kgbybProducer: Torquil MacLeod

Hanif Abdurraqib, the American poet and essayist, has written a book in praise of black performance challenging stereotypes and recovering figures including the magician Ellen Armstrong who performed along the Atlantic seaboard in the 1900s, the dancer William Henry Lane described by Dickens and Merry Clayton, the gospel singer who performed on the Rolling Stones song Gimme Shelter. He joins New Generation Thinker Adjoa Osei and Dawn Walton, founder of Eclipse Theatre Company for a conversation with Matthew Sweet looking at how attitudes towards black performance have changed - or not.Hanif Abdurraqib's book is called A Little Devil in America: In Praise of Black Performance.Dawn Walton is directing The Death of a Black Man by Alfred Fagon at the Hampstead Theatre 28 May – 10 July. It premiered at that theatre in 1975.Adjoa Osei is a 2021 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to make radio from academic research. She researches at the University of Liverpool and her postcard looks at the Brazilian TV series on Netflix Coisa Mais Linda or Girls from Ipanema.You can find a playlist on the Free Thinking website exploring identity from speakers including Eddie Glaude Jr and Nadia Owusu on James Baldwin; the writers JJ Bola and Derek Owusu in an episode about masculinity; novelist Paul Mendez in a discussion about Queer Bloomsbury; a quartet of artists on the Black British Art movement, Le Gateau Chocolat in a discussion about the subversion of Cabaret and Suzan-Lori Parks on her play Father Comes Home from the Wars https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06jngzt and a second playlist offers other discussions exploring Black History https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbpThe Lights Up festival of performance is running across BBC Radio 3 and 4 and BBC TV. The opening drama Giles Terera's The Meaning of Zong is available now on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000tdk4Producer: Caitlin Benedict

In Frank Skinner's A Comedian's Prayer Book the broadcaster presents a series of prayers which read like a stand-up routine exploring questions of belief. A practising Roman Catholic, Skinner's questions include the correct way of addressing God, what it means to be humble, and an unpicking of some of the metaphors used in the Bible. Jeet Thayil was born into a Syrian Christian family in Kerala, and his latest novel, Names of the Women, imagines the New Testament from the viewpoint of the women who became followers of Jesus Christ - from Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, to Lydia of Thyatira, who is regarded as the first documented convert to Christianity in Europe. Yaa Gyasi’s second novel is called Transcendent Kingdom and it tells the story of a woman working in science who is negotiating her relationship both with her mother and with her beliefs and background. Laurence Scott talks to these three authors about how they approached writing about faith in fiction and for a mass audience.Producer: Emma WallaceYou can find a playlist exploring religious belief on the Free Thinking website, with speakers including Ziauddin Sardar, Richard Dawkins, Karen Armstrong, Rabbi Sacks, Marilynne Robinson, and Rowan Williams. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03mwxlp

Wartime saviour or the symbol of nostalgic imperialism ? David Reynolds, Priya Satia, Richard Toye and Allen Packwood join Anne McElvoy to look at the ways Churchill's story and legacy are being written now by both historians and in the press. How can we untangle the culture war that is raging over his reputation and what can we learn if we look at the research coming out of the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge?Richard Toye is Professor of History at the University of Exeter co-author of The Churchill Myths (2020) and author of Winston Churchill: A Life in the News (OUP, 2020) Priya Satia is Professor of International History at the University of Stanford, author of Time's Monster: How History Makes History (2020) and Empire of Guns: The Violent Making of the Industrial Revolution (2018) David Reynolds is Professor of International History at the University of Cambridge and author of One World Divisible: a Global History since 1945 (2000) and In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War (2004) which was the winner of the Wolfson Prize Allen Packwood is Director of the Churchill Archives Centre in CambridgeProducer: Ruth Watts

As lockdowns have forced us to forgo the delights of the outside world, have we developed a taste for simple pleasures? Many have reported enjoying cooking and eating more than usual, or appreciating simple treats such as a walk in nature. Has the grey monotony of this period caused music to sound more vibrant, and colours to appear more vivid? And what is the science, philosophy and psychology behind the enjoyment of simple pleasures? Matthew Sweet asks taste and wine expert Barry Smith; colour expert Kassia St Clair; Lisa Appignanesi an author of books exploring psychology and memory; and historian of luxury Seán Williams to share their ideas about pleasure.Kassia St Clair is the author of The Secret Lives of Colour and The Golden Thread. Barry C Smith is a Professor of philosophy and Director of the Institute of Philosophy at the University of London's School of Advanced Study. He researches the multisensory nature of perceptual experience, focusing on taste, smell and flavour and also writes on wine. Seán Williams is a New Generation Thinker who teaches on German culture and history at the University of Sheffield considering topics ranging from the Alps, Spas and ideas about luxury, to a history of hairdressing. Lisa Appignanesi's books include Everyday Madness, All About Love: Anatomy of an Unruly Emotion, Memory and Desire and many others.You can find a whole playlist of programmes exploring different emotions from our Free Thinking Festival 2019 including 20 Words for Joy ... Feelings Around the World hearing from Thomas Dixon, Aatish Taseer and Veronica Strang; Does My Pet Love Me? Why We Need Weepies, and the Way we Used to Feel https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p036y2hbProducer: Eliane Glaser