Arts & Ideas

Matthew Sweet debates how the discovery of alien life might change the way we think about humanity and how it will impact our moral and philosophical universe. Matthew is joined by the best-selling science-fiction writer Stephen Baxter, the science broadcaster and journalist Sue Nelson, the futurist and neuroscientist Anders Sandberg, and one of our leading space scientists, John Zarnecki, Professor of Space Science at the Open University. This event was recorded as part of Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival at The Sage Gateshead on Sunday 4th November 2012.

Geoffrey Robertson QC joins Anne McElvoy to pay tribute to American philosopher and constitutional law expert Ronald Dworkin, who died on 14th February 2013 aged 81. We hear from award-winning author Andrew Solomon about his monumental study of modern identity - Far From the Tree. Writer and historian Joanna Bourke reviews Complicit, Channel 4's new feature-length drama, which explores an MI5 officer’s moral dilemma over the use of torture in the War on Terror. And did brutal conquest rather than political liberation lie at the heart of Italian unification? Historian Lucy Riall discusses.

Matthew Sweet discusses the legacy of Sylvia Plath, who died 50 years ago this week, with her friend Ruth Fainlight and the poet Fiona Sampson. Tacita Dean and film maker Mike Figgis join Matthew in the studio to discuss the shift in film from traditional to digital technology and its implications. A review of The Bride and the Bachelors, a new exhibition of the work of Marcel Duchamp. And the science writer Marcus Chown and futurologist Anders Sandberg discuss the potential threats caused by two asteroids passing close to the Earth.

Mark Ravenhill on translating Bertolt Brecht's A Life of Galileo; the value of the mundane is discussed; and is the way in which today's corporations are run now obsolete?

Novelist, poet and musician Amit Chaudhuri joins Samira Ahmed to discuss his latest book which reflects on his relationship with Calcutta. Clifford Longley and Peter Stanford discuss the unexpected resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. Susannah Clapp joins us for a first-night review of Robert Lepage’s Playing Cards 1: Spades, the latest production by one of theatre's boldest and most innovative directors. And former Whitehall insider Gill Bennett lifts the lid on the workings of British foreign policy.

Anne McElvoy talks to William Dalrymple about his new book Return of A King - an account of Britain's first Afghan War in the 19th century. A major retrospective of Man Ray, at the National Portrait Gallery, is discussed by writer Kevin Jackson, film critic and Parisienne Ginette Vincendeau, and cultural historian Andrew Hussey. All three discuss the artistic melting pot of Paris in the 1910s and 20s - the subject of a major event at The Rest is Noise Festival at the South Bank centre in London. Psychologist Oliver James discusses office politics with leadership expert and author Dr Liz Mellon.

Samira Ahmed visits the British Museum to see its new show about Ice Age art. She is also joined by Nadeem Aslam - a Pakistani writer whose latest book, The Blind Man's Garden, offers a perspective on the last ten years of world history. Amanda Hopkinson reviews Pablo Larraín's latest film, No. And the novelist Rosie Thomas and biographer Matthew Dennison reflect on Rumer Godden, the author of Black Narcissus.

Philip Dodd talks to psychologist Bertolt Meyer, the model for the world's first complete bionic human and recipient of a bionic arm. Opera Now Editor Ashutosh Khandekhar joins Philip to review Kasper Holten's much anticipated debut at the ROH with Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. A new exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London looks at the positive sides of extinction and palaeontologist Norman Macleod, scientist Georgina Mace and psycho-geographer and poet Iain Sinclair discuss. And Philip speaks to the lawyer Conor Gearty about his new book Liberty and Security.

The King in the car park: what is the significance of the University of Leicester’s discovery of the bones of Richard III, one of Britain’s most vilified monarchs? Matthew Sweet is joined by human remains sociologist Tiffany Jenkins and historian Jonathan Healey to discuss. BFI curator Nathalie Morris reviews the new film Hitchcock, and discusses the importance of his wife, Alma, for his career and reputation. We look at cross-dressing in the late nineteenth century, with biographer Neil McKenna. And Pulitzer Prize-winning geographer Jared Diamond discusses his new thought-provoking study of tribes from New Guinea to the Kalahari Desert.

Anne McElvoy discusses the libraries of Timbuktu, and what they teach us about literacy and book culture in Africa, with Dr Shamil Jeppie, Dr Marion Wallace, Head of African Collections at the British Library, and the novelist Aminatta Forna. Susannah Clapp delivers a first-night review of a revival of Harold Pinter’s play, Old Times. Historian Paul Kennedy delves into the story of the problem solvers of the Second War, the subject of his new book The Engineers of Victory. And Karl Sharro gives us his reflections from the top of The Shard.