Arts & Ideas

Popularising calypso music, performing with Sinatra's Rat pack, Nana Mouskouri, Miriam Makeba and Charlie Parker, starring in films including Otto Preminger's Carmen Jones, the hip hop film he produced called Beat Street, Robert Altman's Kansas City and Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman: Harry Belafonte's career in film and music ran from 1949 to 2018 but he was also a tireless political activist who was inspired by Paul Robeson. As the BFI programmes a season of his films in December, Matthew Sweet is joined by Candace Allen, Kevin Le Gendre and Susanne Rostock.Producer: Torquil MacLeodOn the Free Thinking website you can find Matthew Sweet's interview with Harry Belafonte, recorded in 2012 after the publication of his autobiography My Song and the release of Susanne Rostock's documentary Sing Your Song. Susanne is currently working on another film that she made with Belafonte - Following Harry - that sees him meeting and talking to young activists. Also on the Free Thinking website are more episodes exploring Black History including a discussion about the career of Sidney Poitier and Radio 3 has a series of 5 Essays called Paul Robeson in Five Songs. Kevin Le Gendre's Edgar Allan Poe based musical project - Re:EAP - has just released its debut album 'Zoo For Barbers'.

Scientist, novelist, poet, philosopher, feminist, it's 400 years since the birth of Margaret Cavendish. An extraordinary character in many ways - she lived in a tumultuous time, when ideas around science, religion and the very nature of existence were being challenged and changed. And she had a view on them all. Margaret Cavendish’s writings are vast and broad and yet detailed and thoughtful. However for most of the last 400 years she has languished in obscurity before being rediscovered in the last 40 years and elevated to the status of feminist icon. She was in her time very much the only, and often outspoken, female voice in circles dominated by men – and by and large they hated her for it.Nandini Das looks at the life, work and influence of Margaret Cavendish with:Dr Emma Wilkins who has followed the rise in interest in the work and life of Margaret Cavendish in recent times, and has a particular focus on her science.Professor Anne Thell, Vice President of the International Margaret Cavendish Society who is leading work on interpreting and presenting Margaret Cavendish’s writing for wider audiences.Francesca Peacock, whose new biography of Margaret Cavendish ‘Pure Wit’ sets her in a modern feminist context.And Emeritus Professor of Physics Athene Donald, who includes Margaret Cavendish in her book on women in science ‘ Not just for the boys’ arguing that the treatment of Margaret Cavendish by the 17th century scientific establishment illustrates negative attitudes and issues which have still to be addressed for women in science today.In the Free Thinking programme archive you can find a collection of episodes exploring women in the world including programmes about Aphra Behn, Chaucer's the Wife of Bath, Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, Gwendolyn Brooks and Phillis Wheatley.Producer: Julian Siddle

Delve into the clash between Freud's psychoanalytic views and Lewis's Christian beliefs. Explore the intricate relationship between Freud and his daughter in psychoanalysis. Contrast Freud's perspective on desire with Lewis's approach in literary works. Discover the power of imagination in C.S. Lewis's journey to Christianity through fairy tales. Analyze character dynamics and thematic connections in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Topics discussed include the importance of healthy soil, the paradox of coal as art and climate change concerns, the interconnectedness of soil, art, and technology, the inspirational artist Frank Walter, indigenous and vernacular knowledge in soil health, and a transformative encounter with a fisherman named Nelson.

When Hugh Jackman starred in the 2022 revival of ‘The Music Man’, he was taking on a classic Broadway musical with a little known connection to disability. Professor Dominic Broomfield-McHugh at the University of Sheffield has been digging through the archives to uncover how early drafts of the show originally focused on the experience of a young wheelchair user – an idea which was then scrapped by writer Meredith Wilson due to commercial and social pressures. Megan Steinberg is the Lucy Hale Doctoral Composer in Association with Drake Music (a leading national organisation working in music, disability and technology) at the Royal Northern College of Music. Megan researches and creates art that explores adaptive music technologies and able-ist bias in AI. They talk to Louise Creechan about disability politics in music in an episode recorded for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (3 December).Dr Louise Creechan is a Lecturer in Literary Medical Humanities and Research Assosicate at the University of Durham, as well as a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to put research on radioThis New Thinking episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find more on BBC Sounds and in a collection on BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme website under the title New Research including conversations about language learning, sign language, green thinking and neglected women artists.Producer: Lola Grieve

The Palace of Dreams is a novel from 1981 that is ostensibly set in the 19th century Ottoman empire, but the Albanian writer Ismail Kadare cleverly smuggles in thinly veiled criticism of the totalitarian state presided over by Enver Hoxha. The book was duly banned shortly after publication. Matthew Sweet looks at this and other examples of fiction that satirise bureaucratic overreach from Dickens to Kafka to Georgi Gospodinov, the Bulgarian novelist who won the 2023 International Booker prize for his novel Time Shelter. Sharing their thoughts on these books and on the history and role of bureaucracy within both democratic and totalitarian states are Lea Ypi, Mirela Ivanova and Roger Luckhurst.Producer: Torquil MacLeodLea Ypi is a Professor at the London School of Economics and the author of Free: Coming of Age at the End of History. You can hear her discussing the culture of Albania in a previous Free Thinking episode Professor Roger Luckhurst's books include Gothic: an illustrated history; Corridors - passages of modernity; Science Fiction: a Literary History Mirela Ivanova teaches at the University of Sheffield. You can hear her in a Free Thinking discussion of Slavic Myths

The Great Library of Alexandria had a mission to collect every book in the world. In attempting to do so it created the foundations for the systems and structures of public libraries that we know today. We discuss the development of libraries, our emotional attachment to them and their pupose in the digital age.Islam Issa's new book traces the development of Alexandria. He joins Andrew Pettegree, author of The Library: A Fragile History, Fflur Dafydd whose murder mystery story The Library Suicides is set in the National Library of Wales and academic Jess Cotton who is researching the history of loneliness and the role played by public libraries as hubs for communities. Laurence Scott hosts.Andrew Pettegree is a Professor at St Andrews University and the author of The Library: A Fragile History Fflur Dafydd is a novelist and screenwriter who writes in Welsh and English. She is the author of BAFTA Cymru nominated thrillers 35 awr and 35 Diwrnod and her novel The Library Suicides has also been made as a film Y Llyfrgell. Dr Jess Cotton from the University of Cambridge has been researching Lonely Subjects: Loneliness in Postwar Literature and Psychoanalysis, 1945-1975 Islam Issa is a Professor at Birmingham City University, author of Alexandria: The City that Changed the World. He is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and Arts and Humanities Research Council to share academic research on radio. You can hear him discussing the Shakespeare collection at the Birmingham Library in an Arts and Ideas podcast episode called Everything to Everybody - Shakespeare for the peopleProducer: Julian Siddle

Women in the villages of Spain and the repression and passions of five daughters are at the heart of Lorca's last play the House of Bernarda Alba, completed two months before he was assassinated in 1936. Rana Mitter looks at the life and writing of Lorca, with guests including The Observer's theatre critic, Susannah Clapp and Professor Maria Delgado of the Central School of Speech and Drama and Professor Duncan Wheeler, Chair of Spanish Studies at the University of Leeds and Dr Federico Bonaddio who teaches Spanish literature at King’s College London.Producer: Ruth WattsThe House of Bernarda Alba in a version by Alice Birch and starring Harriet Walter runs at the National Theatre until 6 January 2024. You can find more discussions about Prose, Poetry and Drama in a collection on the Free Thinking programme website including episodes looking at Ibsen, Moliere, Shakespeare, Lorraine Hansberry, John McGrath, George Bernard Shaw all available as Arts & Ideas podcasts

The perfect childhood and the failure of utopian experiments in living in Edwardian England were explored by AS Byatt in her 2009 novel The Children's Book. In this conversation with Matthew Sweet recorded in that year, they discuss her writing life, mythologising childhood and her meetings with Iris Murdoch, about whom she wrote two critical studies. A lecturer in English literature, AS Byatt's books drew on a wide range of reading and visiting art galleries and museums. In 1990 she won the Booker prize for her novel Possession.You can find other conversations with writers on the Free Thinking programme website in a collection called Prose, Poetry and Drama

Re-invention and moral struggles are at the heart of the story of post-war Germany traced by Frank Trentmann in his new book Out of the Darkness. Anne McElvoy talks to him, to Thomas Meaney the new editor of Granta who is bringing out an edition called Deutschland, to journalist Stefanie Bolzen and to New Generation Thinker Dr Tom Smith who has studied the techno scene in German cities. How have 70 years of political struggles shaped Germany's culture and identity?Producer Ruth Watts