Arts & Ideas

Brian Cox on the stars and planets. Archaelogist Susan Greaney on Stonehenge and Maes Howe at solstice, the shadowy paintings of Wright of Derby and Artemisia Gentileschi and the candlelight of Hanukkah in art and literature picked out by Alexandra Harris and the philosophy of Plato and light giving ideas from Sophie-Grace Chappell: Shahidha Bari and guests look at light as BBC Radio 3 broadcasts a series of music programmes, concerts, walks and features looking at Light in Darkness.Physicist Professor Brian Cox joins the BBC SO and Principal Guest Conductor Dalia Stasevska to explore the questions raised by music and the Cosmos concerning eternity, death, rebirth and meaning in a concert being broadcast by BBC Radio 3 on the afternoon of December 23rd. In Autumn 2021 he will be embarking on another Horizons Arena Tour around the UK making the latest thinking about the Cosmos accessible to the wider public.Professor Alexandra Harris is the author of books including Weatherland and Romantic Moderns and was one of the first BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinkers.Professor Sophie-Grace Chappell is the author of many philosophy books and is currently considering the idea of epiphanies.Susan Greaney works with English Heritage at Stonehenge, is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker.Producer: Ruth WattsYou might also be interested in Free Thinking conversations about Ice https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001jzq Ancient wisdom and remote living https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000q3by Antartica https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04p5267 Diving Deep https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09k8kqr Archaeology https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03xpn5p

What links Beethoven & Hegel's philosophy of freedom? Anne McElvoy talks to New Generation Thinker Seán Williams, Christoph Schuringa, Gary Browning, and Alison Stone about Hegel's discussion of freedom, law, family, markets and the state in his Principles of the Philosophy of Right 1820.Dr Christoph Schuringa is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the New College of the Humanities in London Gary Browning is Professor in Political Thought at Oxford Brookes University Alison Stone is Professor of European Philosophy in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University Seán Williams is Senior Lecturer in German and European Cultural History at the University of SheffieldYou can find a playlist of programmes examining various philosophical themes on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07x0twxProducer: Luke Mulhall

The solitude of remote lands and medieval monks; mapping and navigating by the stars and the survival strategies of Indigenous Peoples living around the Arctic circle as the ice melts are all part of today's conversation as Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough is joined by British Museum curator Amber Lincoln, author and GP Gavin Francis and historian and New Generation Thinker Seb Falk.Gavin Francis is the author of Island Dreams: Mapping an Obsession; Shapeshifters: On Medicine and Human Change Adventures in Human Being which won the Saltire Prize for non-fiction and was a BMA book of the year and True North: Travels in Arctic Europe. Arctic Climate and Culture is an exhibition at the British Museum running until 21 Feb 2021 with a catalogue which details artefacts and skills such as making a bag of fish skin, sleds carved from wood and bone, soapstone kettles and decorated ivory needle cases. Seb Falk is the author of The Light Ages - a history of Medieval Science which follows the life of medieval monk John of Westwyck - an inventor and astrologer who was exiled from St Albans to a clifftop priory at Tynemouth. He lectures at Cambridge University and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio.You can find Gavin Francis in conversation about his book ShapeShifters in a Free Thinking Festival discussion Can There be Multiple Versions of Me https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09wvlxs and in a discussion about Thomas Browne https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05sy6qv Seb Falk delivers a Radio 3 Essay on John Gower https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b7hvgy and shows how to use your hands to count to 9,999 https://www.sebfalk.com/post/medieval-finger-counting-on-the-bbc And Eleanor Barraclough presents a series of Radio 3 features exploring topics including The Pine Tree, the Apocalypse, the Supernatural North in this playlist featuring New Generation Thinkers https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Magic in medicine, surgery, and business; cross-dressing on the panto stage; and the history of pantomime and magic. Lisa Mullen is joined by Kate Newey, Will Houston, and Naomi Paxton.Naomi Paxton is a researcher at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, a magician and performer as Ada Campe, and is a member of the Magic Circle and their first Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Officer. Her research includes popular entertainment and the suffragettes, and she has performed as a magician's assistant. Her recent book is Stage rights! The Actresses’ Franchise League, activism and politics 1908–58, and she is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker - http://www.naomipaxton.co.uk/Will Houston of Imperial College London is a magician and historian of magic, who looks at how magic can be used in medicine, surgery, business and accountancy. He is Honorary Research Associate in the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London, and is the Imperial College London/Royal College of Music Centre for Performance Science's Magician in Residence. He is also a member of the Magic Circle - http://drhoustoun.co.uk/Kate Newey is Professor in Drama at the University of Exeter who has been researching pantomime and is also involved in a project looking at theatre and visual culture in the nineteenth century - https://theatreandvisualculture19.wordpress.com/You can find more conversations about New Research in this playlist - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90 And this playlist, focused on discussions, essays, and features involving New Generation Thinkers, including Naomi Paxton's exploration of Suffragette Punch and Judy - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35A Free Thinking discussion about Playing God in medieval drama - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000v24A Free Thinking discussion about Ice, including the use of stage effects in seventeenth century drama - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001jzqThis episode was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI.Producer: Emma Wallace

Des Fitzgerald talks to the winners of the AHRC and Wellcome Trust Medical Humanities Awards 2020. Each has looked at how the arts can help our understanding of health and wellbeing - and, includes research into how the stigma surrounding obesity contributes to the obesity crisis and innovative art therapy techniques with long term mental health benefits for patients. AHRC and Wellcome Trust Medical Humanities Awards 2020 • Best Research Award: The Hearing the Voice team at Durham University • Best Early Career Research Award: Dr Oli Williams, The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at Kings College London • Best International Award: Dr Dora Vargha, Senior Lecturer in Medical Humanities, University of Exeter • Best Community Research Award: Laura Drysdale, Director of Restoration Trust • Leadership Award: Dr Victoria Bates, Senior Lecturer in Modern History (University of Bristol) Angela Woods is Associate Professor of Medical Humanities at Durham University. Over the last eight years, her Hearing the Voice team has looked to help those who are distressed by their voices, to find out what those voices are like and why they happen, and to explore how hearing voices is an important and meaningful part of human experience. Oli Williams is a postdoctoral fellow based at King’s College London. His doctoral research joins the dots between inequality, health, and everyday life. It demonstrates how the ‘war on obesity’ promotes stigma among people living in one of the most deprived areas in England. Victoria Bates is Senior Lecturer in Modern History at Bristol University. Her research expertise ranges from nineteenth-century forensic medicine to current-day sensory studies. She has recently focused on developing partnerships with creative professionals in healthcare settings. Laura Drysdale is Director of the Restoration Trust. Since 2015 The Restoration Trust has partnered Norfolk Record Office and local mental health providers to run Change Minds, an archives and mental health programme. Over 15 three-hour sessions, a facilitated group of around 10 people investigate case records of patients in local 19th century asylums. They use this research as the basis for creative writing, art and theatre, leading to a shared public event. And, Dora Vargha is Senior Lecturer in Medical Humanities at the University of Exeter. Her research on the Cold War politics of polio epidemics in the 1950s places a crucial moment in global health history in its geopolitical context.This episode was put together in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI as part of our series New Thinking focusing on new research at UK universities.

Wittgenstein changed his mind, Heidegger revolutionised philosophy (and the German language), and both the Frankfurt School and the Vienna Circle were in full swing. Matthew Sweet is joined by Wolfram Eilenberger, David Edmonds and Esther Leslie. Plus, a report on the plight of the Lukacs Archive in Budapest.Wolfram Eilenberger's book Time of the Magicians, translated by Shaun Whiteside, is a group portrait of four young philosophers in the aftermath of World War I. He is the founding editor of Philosophie Magazin and broadcasts regularly in Germany.David Edmonds is co-author with John Eidinow of Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers. He produces the podcast series Philosophy Bites with Nigel WarburtonEsther Leslie is the author of Walter Benjamin: Overpowering Conformism. Her translations include Georg Lukacs, A Defence of History and Class Consciousness. She is Professor in Political Aesthetics at Birkbeck University of London.You can find conversations about Mary Midgely, Boethius, French philosophy and spies and Kierkegaard if you delve into our playlist of Free Thinking on Philosophy:https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07x0twxProducer: Luke MulhallShow less

Jared Diamond, Camilla Townsend, Tom Holland and Emma Griffin talk to Rana Mitter. What lessons for the pandemic are there in looking back at times of upheaval in history from the rise and fall of the Aztec Empire to the move from rural to urban living in Britain's Industrial Revolution.Tom Holland's books include Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic; Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind; Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West.Camilla Townsend is the author of the book Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs, which is one of the books shortlisted for the 2020 Cundill History prize.Emma Griffin is the author of books including Liberty's Dawn: A People's History of the Industrial Revolution and Bread Winner: An Intimate History of the Victorian Economy. She was chosen as a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker in 2012.Jared Diamond is the author of books including The World until Yesterday, Upheaval: How Nations Cope with Crisis and Change and Natural Experiments of HistoryProducer: Luke Mulhall

From surrealism and science fiction to inspiration drawn from historic objects in stately homes and the painting of Francis Bacon: Shahidha Bari hosts a conversation with Will Harris, who has written long-form poems; new Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Max Porter and Chloe Aridjis, who have written poetic novels which play with form; and academic Xine Yao, who looks at speculative fiction.Max Porter is the author of Grief Is The Thing With Feathers and Lanny. He has also collaborated with the Indie folk band Tunng and has a book out in January called The Death of Francis Bacon. You can hear dramatizations of Lanny at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000pqdc and Grief Is The Thing with Feathers on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000plzlChloe Aridjis is a London-based Mexican writer who has published the novels Book of Clouds, Asunder and Sea Monsters, and was awarded the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 2020. She was co-curator of a Leonora Carrington exhibition at Tate Liverpool and writes for Frieze.They have been announced as Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature to mark the 200th anniversary of the RSL https://rsliterature.org/Will Harris is a writer of Chinese Indonesian and British heritage who won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2020 and is shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2021 for his collection RENDANG. He co-edited the spring 2020 issue of The Poetry Review with Mary Jean Chan.Xine Yao is one of the 2020 New Generation Thinkers on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the AHRC to turn research into radio. She teaches at UCL on American Literature in English to 1900, with an interest in literatures in English from the Black and Asian diasporas, science fiction, the Gothic, and comics/graphic novels.You can find more conversations in the playlist Prose and Poetry on the Free Thinking website, which includes Max Porter discussing empathy, Christine Yao looking at science fiction and the experimental writing of the Oulipo group, and a whole series of conversations recorded in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vhProducer: Emma Wallace

April 1916. By the Nile, the foremost poets of the Middle East are arguing about Shakespeare. In 2004, Egyptian singer Essam Karika released his urban song Oh Romeo.Reflecting on his travels and encounters around the Arab world, New Generation Thinker Islam Issa, from Birmingham City University, discusses how canonical English writers (Shakespeare and Milton) creep into the popular culture of the region today. Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival in 2018.Islam's Issa's book, Milton in the Arab-Muslim World, won the Milton Society of America's 'Outstanding First Book' award. His exhibition Stories of Sacrifice won the Muslim News Awards 'Excellence in Community Relations' prize.New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio. There are now 100 early career academics who have passed through the scheme.Producer: Fiona McLean.

From Tudor courts to plantations to the Arab Spring and modern political philosophy: a debate in partnership with Bristol Festival of Ideas hosted by Shahidha Bari.Jeffrey Howard is an Associate Professor of Political Theory at University College London. He writes and teaches about the moral obligations of democratic citizens and political leaders, focusing on the topics of counter-extremism, crime and punishment, and free speech. Joanne Paul, Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at University of Sussex, has studied the advice given to monarchs and statesmen in the Tudor period, seeking to understand the inner workings of power in the court and the ways in which ordinary people could hope to make their own voices heard. Dina Rezk is an Associate Professor at the University of Reading teaching on intelligence, 20th Century Middle Eastern history, popular culture and terrorism/insurgency, reform and revolt. Christienna Fryar was Lecturer in the History of Slavery and Unfree Labour at the University of Liverpool and now leads the MA in Black British History at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research looks at Britain's centuries-long imperial and especially post emancipation entanglements with the Caribbean.Shahidha Bari is the author of Dressed: The Secret Life of Clothes and Professor of Fashion Cultures and Histories at London College of Fashion at the University of the Arts London. She is a Fellow of the Forum for Philosophy at the London School of Economics and was chosen as a New Generation Thinker in the first year of the scheme.You can find more Bristol Festival of Ideas events https://www.ideasfestival.co.uk/You can find more information about the New Generation Thinkers scheme on the website of the AHRC https://ahrc.ukri.org/ and a playlist of discussions, essays and short features showcasing the different research topics of New Generation Thinkers on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0144txn From beer to Vegetarian pioneers, dams in Pakistan to gangs in Glasgow, disabled characters in Dickens to remembering Partition, the Japanese Stonehenge to a Medici prince.Producer: Torquil MacLeod