Thinking Allowed

The Daleks are obsessed with racial purity and dedicated to a policy of genocide: they represent the Nazis. The Jagrafess is a loathsome alien purveying useless information - which he has censored, rewritten and controlled: he represents a modern day media mogul. This is the theory of the US academic Marc Edward DiPaolo who has analysed the political content of five decades of Doctor Who. He finds that the Time Lord is a liberal, bohemian, pacifist environmentalist, and definitely anti-American. Is Doctor Who a closet radical? Laurie and Marc discuss the contention with journalist, broadcaster and some-time Dr Who script-writer Matthew Sweet. Also on the programme: Softening Masculinities. New research by Mark McCormac finds that British secondary school boys are far less restrictive in their behaviour than they used to be. It is okay to use conditioner, comment on someone's clothes, and even give each other a hug.

Laurie Taylor talks to Professor Russell Jacoby, Professor Ash Amin, Professor Barbara Graziosi and The Bishop of Whitby, Martin Warner, about whether we can imagine 'utopia' in the 21st century. In an age that some describe as filled with anxiety and uncertainty, are we breeding a kind of fatalism towards the future that excludes any notion of utopia? How indeed might we define and describe utopia? Can utopian ideas be not only practical and pragmatic but also democratic? When considering utopia where does religious faith and thinking intertwine with the secular world? Can we even talk about commonly held utopian ideals or are we condemned to imagine utopia only as fantasy, as an intellectual or artistic excerise that is, ultimately, futile.producer. Chris Wilson.

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, children gathered beneath a sparking tree, a table groaning with turkey.....the cliches of the season are as alive and well as they were in Dickens time. But does everybody have equal access to the bounty of Christmas and the good will of others? The geographer, Steve Millington, finds that the distaste some middle class people feel for 'excessive' displays of xmas lights in working class areas reveals a narrative of class hostility which echoes Victorian attitudes to the 'undeserving' poor. He joins Laurie Taylor, the sociologist Bev Skeggs and the historian Julie Marie Strange to explore Christmas, compassion and class, then and now. Producer: Jayne Egerton.

When Jack Johnson became heavy-weight champion of the world and then knocked out the 'Great White Hope' Jim Jeffries in 1910, riots and celebrations broke out throughout the United States. Black people had a champion who stood as the finest man in the world, and many white people saw that as an image which threatened their supremacy. In sporting terms the image of the black athlete was forged, a hyper-masculine individual characterised by aggression and defined by physicality. Laurie is joined by Ben Carrington, author of Race, Sport and Politics, and the sociologist Brett St Louis to discuss the complex history of that stereotype. An image which has been both to the benefit and also to the great detriment of black people. Also on the programme, Stuart Hallifax discusses why it was that people said that the First World War would be over by Christmas and whether they truly believed it. Producer: Charlie Taylor.

With the huge investment needed and patents which have the potential to generate a lot of money, biochemistry is perhaps the most capitalistic strain of science. How did Cuba - a socialist, embargoed, isolated, developing world country - manage to become one of the world's leaders in genetic modification and bioscience? Laurie talks to Simon Reid Henry, Lecturer in Geography at Queen Mary London about his new book The Cuban Cure; Reason and Resistance in Global Science. Also on the programme - 'moral panics'. The phrase was first defined by Stan Cohen in an analysis of the reaction to Mods and Rockers fighting on Britain's beaches. Since then it has been used many times by social scientists to describe media reaction to everything from dangerous dogs to binge drinking, but how useful is the term? Does it falsely imply that there is no underlying reason for social concern? Laurie discusses the uses and abuses of the notion of moral panic with Chas Critcher, Emeritus Professor of Communications at Sheffield Hallam University and Jewel Thomas, Post Graduate Researcher, Oxford University. Producer: Charlie Taylor.

Professor Laurie Taylor explores the connections between politics and business with economist Mara Faccio, who talks about her new research into the subject. Laurie also talks to criminologist Judith Aldridge and discusses her research about how territory influences youth gangs. They are joined by Peter Squires from Brighton University.Producer: Chris Wilson.

Laurie Taylor talks to Professor Harvey Molotch from New York University about his book examining public conveniences from a sociological, architectural and town planning perspective. Laurie also discusses the idea of a 'civic core'- who volunteers in their community and how? - and talks to Professor John Mohan about his research paper exploring volunteerism. They are joined by Professor Su Maddock.Producer Chris Wilson.

Laurie Taylor talks to Pulitzer Prize winner C.J Chivers, a former US Marine and currently a journalist at the New York Times about the cultural, social and political impact of the AK-47 or Kalashnikov. A gun that has transformed how we fight wars and who can fight them, the AK-47 is a weapon central to many conflicts all over the world. With testimony from its inventors, its users and its victims, Laurie explores how a single instrument can have been so influential as both transformer and destroyer. They are joined by military historian Richard Holmes. Laurie also talks to Philip Smith, Professor in the Department of Sociology at Yale University, about new research looking at public incivility. What drives some people to such extremes of public rudeness?Producer Chris Wilson.

Laurie Taylor talks to Cambridge sociologist Professor John Thompson about his book 'Merchants of Culture' which approaches the US/UK publishing trade from an anthropological point of view. Laurie also talks to MP Jesse Norman and author Dan Hind about Dan's new book The Return of the Public arguing for more active citizenship. Producer: Chris Wilson.

Laurie Taylor explores the growth of high security prisons in America alongside the increased use of solitary confinement with criminologist Dr Sharon Shalev whose book 'Supermax' examines both topics. Laurie's second discussion is with Professor Ian Morris whose major new book 'Why The West Rules- For Now' examines the rise and fall and rise of Eastern and Western societies and asks whether it's possible for historians to predict the future with any confidence.Producer: Chris Wilson.