Marking the bicentenary of Charlotte Brontë’s birth, Claire Harman, her biographer and Yorkshire-born novelist and author of ‘Chocolat’ Joanne Harris discuss her life and work. The discussion is presented by Dr Gregory Tate from the University of St Andrews who teaches Brontë's work and was recorded earlier as a free audience event held at the Imperial College Union. For more details go to the Proms website. Gregory Tate is one of the New Generation Thinkers selected by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts ...
Jul 19, 2016•20 min
Rana Mitter introduces author Frank Cottrell-Boyce to deliver this year’s Proms Lecture. Four years ago he was involved in writing the Olympic Opening Ceremony for the London Olympic Games. His lecture looks at the cultural legacy, the importance of arts in education and the wider influence of arts on society. Producer: Fiona McLean
Jul 18, 2016•54 min
Anne McElvoy looks ahead to the Rio Olympics discussing Brazilian culture with author, politics lecturer and former National Secretary for Public Security Luis Eduardo Suárez and with Dr Edward King from the University of Bristol. The RSC is exploring saying the unsayable this summer with a season of plays, Anne talks with the writer and the director of 'Fall of the Kingdom, Rise of the Foot Soldier' - Somalia Seaton and Nadia Latif. Neuroscientist Marc Lewis explains why he is convinced that ad...
Jul 14, 2016•44 min
Philip Dodd explores war and modern memory with former Colonel Lincoln Jopp MC, the historians, Lloyd Clark, Anna Feigenbaum and Ana Carden-Coyne and the New Generation Thinker, Anindya Raychaudhuri. Lloyd Clark teaches War Studies at the University of Buckingham and is writing a book on generalship. Dr Ana Carden-Coyne is co-director of the Centre for the Cultural History of War at Manchester University. Dr Anna Feigenbaum teaches at Bournemouth University and is currently writing Tear Gas: 100...
Jul 13, 2016•45 min
Matthew Sweet and the critic, Natalie Haynes report from Liverpool where art has taken over the city. They talk to the artists, Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Betty Woodman and Krzysztof Wodiczko as well as the Biennial director, Sally Tallant and the poet and 2015 New Generation Thinker Sandeep Parmar, who is curating a literary programme for the festival. The Liverpool Biennial runs until October 16th . Sandeep Parmar is the author of two poetry books: The Marble Orchard and Eidolon (a rewriting of Hel...
Jul 13, 2016•44 min
New Generation Thinker Victoria Donovan explores the links between Wales and Ukraine. Later this month the Wales Book of the Year Awards take place. We hear from Dr Emma Schofield about the way Welsh fiction has reflected debates since devolution. And talk to Lidudumalingani - winner of this year's Caine Prize for African Writing. And Alex Massie and Professor Richard Wyn Jones discuss the view from Scotland and Wales after the Brexit referendum. Dr Victoria Donovan researches Russian history an...
Jul 07, 2016•45 min
As Georgia O'Keeffe images of New Mexico go on display at Tate Matthew Sweet discusses the idea of the desert with writers Geoff Dyer and Laurence Scott and Tanya Barson, the exhibition curator. Georgia O'Keeffe runs at Tate Modern from 6 July – 30 October 2016 Geoff Dyer is the author of White Sands: Experiences from the Outside World. It was read as Radio 4's Book of the Week last week which you can find on the Radio 4 website Laurence Scott is the author of The Four-Dimensional Human...
Jul 05, 2016•44 min
Hisham Matar last saw his father when he was 19. He talks to Rana Mitter about his attempts to find out what happened to his parent who was last seen in a Libyan jail and he discusses the way his family was caught up in the recent wave of fighting in Libya. 2016 New Generation Thinker Katherine Cooper looks at the writing of Storm Jameson. The design of street furniture in post war Britain is explored by Eleanor Herring. Gideon Rachman and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira discuss the phenomenon of 'ea...
Jun 30, 2016•44 min
Post referendum, Anne McElvoy is joined by Kwasi Kwarteng MP for Spelthorne who made the case for Brexit; Dr Uta Staiger, Deputy Director of the European Institute at University College London; Sunder Katwala, the Director of the Think Tank, Britain Thinks; and, Abigail Green, Professor of European History at the University of Oxford discuss the competing histories behind Britain's decision to leave the European Union. And we're joined by one of our 2016 New Generation Thinkers, Chris Kissane, w...
Jun 29, 2016•45 min
British TV and film producer Tony Garnett is in conversation with Matthew Sweet about a career which straddles the Wednesday Play and the many films he worked on with Ken Loach for the BBC in the 1960s, including Up The Junction and Cathy Come Home through the late 1990s series This Life to Between the Lines and a forthcoming drama about police infiltration of British activist groups. Tony Garnett's memoir is called The Day The Music Died. Producer: Fiona McLean
Jun 28, 2016•43 min
Anne McElvoy evaluates the first major English edition of short fiction by the great German critic and essayist, Walter Benjamin with the translator and scholar Esther Leslie and the critic, Kevin Jackson. Also in the programme a guide to the Soviet Superwoman courtesy of curator Elena Sudokova and Dolya Gavanski -- the moving forces behind the GRAD gallery show devoted to women in the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1991. And as Peter Watkins' critically acclaimed film based on the life of Edvard Mun...
Jun 23, 2016•44 min
Philip Dodd debates "Universities - therapy or learning?". New Generation Thinker Dr Seán Williams looks at the history of the university as a space for thought, considering the arguments put forward by Frederick Nietzsche. Dr Seán Williams is at the University of Sheffield's School of Languages and Cultures. He is an expert on German and Comparative Literature and is currently researching a cultural history of hairdressing. Dr Matt Lodder, Lecturer in Contemporary Art and Visual Culture at the ...
Jun 22, 2016•45 min
Psychoanalyst Darian Leader's new book looks at the culture and psychology of the human hand. He joins Matthew Sweet along with art historian Lisa Le Feuvre, currently curating an exhibition on sculpture and prosthesis at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, and robotics scientist Thrishantha Nanayakkara from King's College London, who works on the problem of engineering a functioning hand from scratch. 'The Anatomical Venus' looks at another point where physiology and art meet, in waxwork anatom...
Jun 21, 2016•45 min
Anne McElvoy is joined by curators and artists and an audience at Nottingham Contemporary to discuss the life of an artist today as Tate Modern opens its new wing. Her panel is Elizabeth Price - winner of the Turner Prize in 2012 and curator of a new touring exhibition Alice Channer - a sculptor who graduated from the Royal College in 2008 Sam Thorne Director of Nottingham Contemporary and former Artistic Director of Tate St Ives Ann Gallagher who holds responsibility for building Tate's collect...
Jun 16, 2016•49 min
Philip Dodd talks to Emma Cline whose first novel about teenage girls and the Charles Manson cult and our third 2016 New Generation Thinker Louisa Uchum Egbunike marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Efuru by Flora Nwapa - the first novel written by a Nigerian woman to be published. She's joined by editor and critic Ellah Allfrey to look at African writing today. Plus Dark Money - New Yorker writer, Jane Mayer examines how money has changed American politics. And she's joined by Profe...
Jun 15, 2016•45 min
Artist Dorothy Cross, author Joanna Kavenna, the cosmologist Jo Dunkley and our second 2016 New Generation Thinker historian Edmund Richardson from Durham University join Matthew Sweet for a programme recorded in Oxford exploring mysticism and its role in a timeless search for reality. Joanna Kavenna's novel A Field Guide to Reality is published at the end of June. Dorothy Cross is displaying art as part of Mystics and Rationalists - it runs from June 11th to August 7th as part of the Kaleidosco...
Jun 14, 2016•44 min
As two major archaeological exhibitions open in the UK featuring discoveries from underwater excavations off Egypt and Sicily, Rana Mitter hears from historian and archaeologist, Alexandra Sofroniew, exhibition curator of Storms, War and Shipwrecks at Oxford's Ashmolean Museum about a British pioneer of underwater excavations, Honor Frost, and discusses why underwater sites make the difficulties and challenges worthwhile with Damian Robinson, Director of Centre for Maritime Archaeology at Oxford...
Jun 09, 2016•44 min
Moral philosopher Peter Singer is in conversation with Philip Dodd. His essay Famine, Affluence and Morality was first printed in 1972 in the journal Philosophy and Public Affairs. It has now been republished with a foreword by Bill and Melinda Gates. Peter Singer's book is called Famine, Affluence and Morality Producer: Ruth Watts
Jun 08, 2016•45 min
Icelandic writer Sjón talks to Matthew Sweet about fiction, poetry and making music with Björk. Curator Sacha Llewellyn explores the art of Winifred Knights, Katie Roiphe looks at writers dying and in the first of our commissioned columns from 2016 New Generation Thinkers - Sarah Jackson from Nottingham Trent University explores touch and frostbite. Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was by Sjón was named Best Icelandic Novel of 2015. The English translation which is out now is from Victoria Cribb. Wi...
Jun 07, 2016•44 min
Philip Dodd is joined by art historian Devika Singh to consider the art of Bhupen Khakhar and the subjects he explored including class difference; desire and homosexuality; and his personal battle with cancer. Also, Saskia Sassen, Jane Morris, David Anderson and Pat Kane discuss the emergence of London as a global city and what the economic and cultural ramifications might be for the rest of the UK. Bhupen Khakhar is on show at Tate Modern from June 1st to September 6th. Producer: Torquil MacLeo...
Jun 02, 2016•45 min
Lionel Shriver, Marlon James and Steve Jones join Rana Mitter for a Free Thinking discussion about inheritance recorded at this week's Hay Festival. The discussion ranges from family relationships to the planet we are leaving for future generations, from money to morality, genius to ideas about goodness and evil. Lionel Shriver's latest novel called The Mandibles depicts a family living in a near future America where the dollar has crashed and food is scarce. She is also the author of We Need To...
Jun 01, 2016•44 min
Find out who have been named as the 10 New Generation Thinkers for 2016 as they join Rana Mitter to share interesting facts from their research with the audience at this week's Hay Festival. Topics include the history of the hairdresser to the search for Alexander the Great's missing tomb; why Sigmund Freud detested the telephone to the complex relationship between the USSR and its historic churches. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 in partnership with the Arts and Humaniti...
May 31, 2016•43 min
Rana Mitter rereads The Tale of Genji. Sometimes called the world's first novel it was written in the early years of the 11th century and has been credited to the noblewoman and lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu. This year's Bradford Literature Festival is focusing on the modern translation from Dennis Washburn, Professor at Dartmouth College (USA). Dennis Washburn joins Rana along with Jennifer Guest and Christopher Harding. Also in this programme, Brian Christian, co-author of new book 'Algorit...
May 26, 2016•45 min
Prize winning Colombian author Juan Gabriel Vasquez, Argentinian playwright, journalist and leading crime writer Claudia Pineiro join Philip Dodd for a programme exploring fiction and fact in Latin America. There's also journalist Alex Cuadros who chronicles his years covering the rise and fall of Brazil's plutocrats. And a consideration of Eric Hobsbawm's Viva La Revolucion from Dr Oscar Guardiola-Rivera from Birkbeck College in London. Claudia Pineiro's most recent thriller is called Betty Boo...
May 25, 2016•44 min
Matthew Sweet joins curator Katy Barron and three photographers, Wolfgang Suschitzky, Dorothy Bohm and Neil Libbert, all now over 75, to explore a show that offers an account of the twentieth century seen through their eyes. Still image then gives way to the moving image as Matthew considers what the much heralded new Carry On film may have to offer and what the original films tell us about the historical and social context from which they emerged. To ponder both the old and the new in Carry Ons...
May 24, 2016•45 min
Anne McElvoy talks to Dame Fiona Reynolds about a career spent defending the beauty of the British landscape, and considers an exhibition of English beauties at the Bowes Museum. She is also joined by former minister The Rt Hon David Willetts, media executive Charles Brand and Marc Stears head of the New Economics Foundation to discuss the role of the state in the 21st century, and ahead of Sunday's Drama on 3 she explores literary depictions of the city of Venice with David Barnes. Dame Fiona R...
May 19, 2016•44 min
Recorded before an audience at the Welsh National Opera in Cardiff before the premiere of Iain Bell's opera inspired by the poem Philip Dodd presents a Landmark edition of Free Thinking devoted to David Jones' epic In Parenthesis. The discussion hears from the composer Iain Bell, the writer, Iain Sinclair, one of the librettists Emma Jenkins and Paul Hills, curator of a touring exhibition of Jones' pictures and the co-author with Ariane Bankes of the most recent book about the artist. Iain Bell'...
May 19, 2016•46 min
Neil Bartlett discusses Victorian cross-dressing performer Ernest Boulton with Matthew Sweet. Thomas Thwaites explains why he decided to try to live as a goat to explore the difference between humans and animals. Colin Gale from the Bethlem Museum of the Mind and historian Sarah Wise talk about perceptions of mental illness in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Poet Fiona Sampson on the relationship between poetry and health. The world premiere of Neil Bartlett's play Stella is at the Brighton Fe...
May 17, 2016•45 min
Crime writer and former newspaper editor Volker Kutscher's Babylon Berlin is being made into a TV series by Tom Tykwer. Neil MacGregor has now left the British Museum to work with the Humboldt Forum to create a new German cultural centre in Berlin. Simon Stephens has written a new translation of Brecht's Threepenny Opera for the National Theatre. The production will star Haydn Gwynne. Philippe Sands has written about the Nuremberg Trials - as has A.T. Williams. They join Anne McElvoy for a progr...
May 12, 2016•45 min
Rana Mitter is joined by the historians Frank Dikötter, Patricia Thornton and Kerry Brown, and by the writers Xinran and Xiaolu Guo, to revisit the Cultural Revolution 50 years on. On 16th May 1966, Mao Zedong initiated a mass movement aimed at purging all "capitalist" and "traditional elements" from the Chinese Communist Party, and from Chinese society as a whole. This initiated the 10 years of social and political turmoil known as the Cultural Revolution. There are no plans to publicly mark th...
May 11, 2016•45 min
