Arts & Ideas Podcast
Leading thinkers discuss the ideas shaping our lives – looking back at the news and making links between past and present. Broadcast as Free Thinking, Fridays at 9pm on ±«Óãtv Radio 4. Presented by Matthew Sweet, Shahidha Bari and Anne McElvoy.
Episodes to download
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The illusion of time, the summer solstice & the philosophy of comedy
Fri 21 Jun 2024
Mark Miodownik, Emily Herring, Rob Newman & Fay Dowker consider Time with Matthew Sweet
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History - the long and short of it
Fri 14 Jun 2024
Peter Frankopan, Alison Light, Bronwen Maddox & Zeinab Badawi join Matthew Sweet
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Generations - D-Day - Global Instability
Fri 7 Jun 2024
Eliza Filby, Rana Mitter, Jo Hamya, Tom Simpson, plus Gaby Hinsliff
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The Insurrectionists' Guide to the Movies
Fri 31 May 2024
Stephen Bush, Dr Sarah Jilani , Kate Maltby and Keith Shiri join Matthew Sweet
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Left and Right - still relevant in British and Global Politics?
Sat 25 May 2024
Margaret MacMillan, David Aaronovitch, Phillip Blond and Gisela Stuart join Matthew Sweet
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Positive & negative politics, "intellectual vices" and the face you bring to work.
Tue 21 May 2024
Sir Richard Evans, Margaret Heffernan, Isabel Oakeshott, Quassim Cassam join Anne McElvoy
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New Thinking: 2024’s New Generation Thinkers
Thu 16 May 2024
Introducing ten academics who’ll be sharing their research as part of a ±«Óãtv/AHRC scheme
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Life expectations, philosophy in the world, protest
Fri 10 May 2024
Matthew Sweet with David Willetts, Elizabeth Oldfield, Will Davies, Tiffany Watt Smith
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Winning & Losing, Plato Scroll, the Decline of Nightlife
Sat 4 May 2024
Winning and losing with Lea Ypi, Peter Hitchens, Michael Mansfield KC and Cath Bishop.
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Kant today, Spice Girls Reunited, Impersonating an Animal
Fri 26 Apr 2024
Girl power past and present, the wisdom of goats and seagulls and Kant's ideas on reason
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New Thinking: Exploring the local
Fri 26 Apr 2024
New research into local politics, newspapers and the history of the post office
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Tacitus, Byron's fanmail and Bluey
Fri 19 Apr 2024
Mary Beard, Konnie Huq, Helen Carr and Tom Peck join Shahidha Bari
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Change, scrabble and cultural christianity
Fri 12 Apr 2024
Matthew Sweet and guests look at ideas about change: political, climate, personal
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Hobbes, Abba, Waterloo and margarine
Fri 5 Apr 2024
Matthew Sweet and guests look back at the week exploring the ideas shaping our lives today
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Unravelling plainness
Fri 29 Mar 2024
Isabella Rosner explains why needlework challenges our idea of Quaker simplicity
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Pranks
Fri 29 Mar 2024
Matthew Sweet and guests assess the value of pranks and what purpose they may serve.
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What does feminist art mean?
Thu 28 Mar 2024
Ana Baeza Ruiz shares reflections from artists in the '70s women's liberation movement
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New Thinking: Light and Darkness
Thu 28 Mar 2024
Darkness and how it affects those with dementia, to light in modernist literature
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Approaches to death
Wed 27 Mar 2024
Archaeologists Marianne Hem Eriksen, Pauline Harding: historians Cat Byers, Harriet Soper
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New Thinking: East West artistic connections
Wed 27 Mar 2024
A war captive turned musician in the Ottoman court and Islamic influences in Rubens' art
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Rock, Paper, Saints and Sinners
Wed 27 Mar 2024
Gemma Tidman describes a game created by a Jesuit missionary seeking Mohawk converts.
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Writing Place
Wed 27 Mar 2024
Sylvia Townsend Warner's move to Dorset, Heidegger's Heimat and the Arun river in Sussex.
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Arteries of tomorrow
Tue 26 Mar 2024
Dan Taylor considers the way communities along the A13 are looking to the future
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New Thinking: How water shapes our history and environment
Fri 22 Mar 2024
From the aqueducts of ancient Rome to 19th century river Nile and today's running water
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The Legacy of the Laundries
Fri 22 Mar 2024
Louise Brangan reflects on the uncovering of the secret lives lived in Irish laundries
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Gas, oil and the Essex blues
Fri 22 Mar 2024
Sam Johnson-Schlee draws links between Dr Feelgood, Canvey Island and energy policies
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Weird Viking Bodies
Thu 21 Mar 2024
Marianne Hem Eriksen on the meaning of a skull bone carved with "pain" thrown onto a tip
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From algorithms to oceans
Thu 21 Mar 2024
Kerry McInerney explores the promise of the ‘sustainable AI’ movement and how AI develops
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Germany’s Mary Wollstonecraft
Wed 20 Mar 2024
Andrew Cooper on the school teacher who tried to ignite a feminist revolution in Germany
