Arts & Ideas

From paper bullets to Tibetan rituals, early printing presses to present day recycling: Laurence Scott explores the cultural and social history of paper, from the Chinese Han Dynasty in 105 AD to the 20th-century workplace. His guests are:Adam Smyth, a Professor of English Literature and the History of the Book at the University of Oxford. His books include Material Texts in Early Modern England; Book Destruction from the Medieval to the Contemporary (co-edited with Dennis Duncan) and Book Parts: A collection of essays on the history of parts of a book; Therese Weber, an artist who has made paintings out of pulp, paper tearing and dipping and is the author of The Language of Paper: A History of 2000 Years; Nicholas Basbanes, a writer and journalist, whose books include On Paper: The Everything of its Two Thousand Year History and Emily Cockayne, an Associate Professor in Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia and author of Rummage: A History of the Things We Have Reused, Recycled and Refused to Let Go. Laurence Scott is the author of books about digital life including The Four-Dimensional Human and Picnic Comma Lightning.How did such a mundane substance revolutionise modern warfare, enable Imperialism and transform art? Can there ever be a blank page? Is recycling the answer to waste?The conversation ranges across the relationship between paper and religious history in the printing of the Quran and Tibetan rituals for the dead; to C17 Swedish paper bullets; Dickens’ Bleak House - in which a pile of paper leads to a fatal fire; the Bristol company who specialised in papier-mâché – a material used for elaborate decorations in C18 homes – and then used by artists like Jean Dubuffet in the 1940s and 50s and a scrap of paper, which survived 9/11 and told a widow, about her husband's final moments.Producer: Jayne Egerton

A "house on chicken legs” in Moscow designed by Viktor Andreyev, Virginia Woolf’s novel Jacob’s Room first published on 26 October 1922, Coal Cart Blues sung by Louis Armstrong drawing on his own experiences of pulling one round the streets of New Orleans where he started his teenage years living in a Home for Waifs; Duchamp’s 1912 painting Nude Descending a Staircase, No 2 are picked out as novelist Will Self, art historian and literary critic Alexandra Harris, jazz and music expert Kevin Le Gendre and architecture writer Owen Hatherley try to nail down the elements that make something modernist; looking at the importance of rhythm, the depiction of everyday life and new inventions, psychology and how you describe the self and utopian ideas about communal living. The presenter is New Generation Thinker and essayist Laurence Scott.Producer: Luke MulhallImage: Will Self in BBC Broadcasting House, LondonPart of the modernism season running across BBC Radio 3 and 4 with programmes marking the publication in 1922 of Ulysses by James Joyce, a reading of Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, a Words and Music playlist of readings from key works published in 1922 and a Sunday Feature on Radio 3 looking at the "all in a day" artwork.

Censored by the US, Europe's greatest early film star played leading roles in love triangle melodramas, comedies, stories of women trapped by tragic circumstances, and she took the role of Hamlet: Asta Nielsen (11 September 1881 – 24 May 1972) is the focus of a BFI season in February and March. To discuss the life and work of the silent movie pioneer, Matthew Sweet is joined by:Historian and film critic Pamela Hutchinson, curator of the BFI season; Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at the University of Oxford; Dr Erica Carter, Professor of German and Film at King's College London, who looks at Nielsen’s time in Germany in the 20s and 30s; and Lone Britt Christensen, Denmark’s Cultural Attaché.In the Eyes of a Silent Star: The Films of Asta Nielsen runs at the BFI Southbank, London from 03 February to 15 March 2022: www.bfi.org.uk/whatsonEmma Smith is the author of This is Shakespeare: How to Read the World's Greatest PlaywrightErica Carter is co-editor of The German Cinema BookIn the Free Thinking archives you can find a series of programmes exploring silent film, star actors including Jean-Paul Belmondo, Marlene Dietrich, Dirk Bogarde, and classics of cinema around the world.Producer: Tim BanoImage: Asta Nielsen in Black Dreams. Image credit: BFI Southbank.

A tour guide at Polish holocaust sites is at the centre of a new novel by Yishai Sarid. The author talks to Anne McElvoy about his own trips to Poland as a teenager and then as a father and the questions they made him ask about how that history is taught and commemorated. Plus three researchers share insights from their studies. Roland Clark has co-curated an exhibition at The Wiener Holocaust Library which explores the wider role of European fascist movements in genocide. Joseph Cronin has been looking at how Jewish refugees come to end up in colonial India. And, Allis Moss asks how anti-Semitism in nineteenth century France might have led to the murder of Emile Zola, and what we can learn about that murder from the art and cartoons of the time.The Memory Monster by Yishai Sarid translated into English by Yardenne Greenspan is out now.This Fascist Life: Radical Right Movements in Interwar Europe runs at The Wiener Holocaust Library until 15 February 2022. You can hear more from Roland about his research in a previous episode of Free Thinking called Remembering Auschwitz https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dq00 If you want recommendations of Romanian writing including books exploring Jewish history Anne McElvoy talked to Mircea Cărtărescu, Philippe Sands and Georgina Harding https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011rwxProducer: Ruth WattsHolocaust Memorial Day will be marked on January 27th 2022. You can find Free Thinking conversations from previous years in a playlist looking at War and Conflict https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06kgbyb

Widening the repertoire of classical music comes under the spotlight in today's Free Thinking conversation as New Generation Thinker Christienna Fryar speaks to researchers uncovering music that has been left out of the canon. Ahead of concerts featuring their work, she hears about the stories of three composers: the 18th-century French polymath Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, the Japanese trailblazer Kikuko Kanai and the prolific African-American composer Julia Perry.Christopher Dingle, a Professor of Music at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, is studying the music of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799). Born in Guadeloupe to an enslaved mother and a French plantation owner father, Boulogne lived an extraordinary life – as well as being one of the first black colonels in the French Army, he was a master fencer, celebrated violinist and conductor, whose concertos rival his contemporary Mozart in their fiendish virtuosity.Mai Kawabata, from the Royal College of Music, is a musicologist and violinist. She shares the story of Kikuko Kanai (1906-1986), the first female composer in Japan to write a symphony. Kanai made waves in the musical establishment by fusing Japanese melodies with Western-classical influences –her “life mission” was to popularise the folk music of her native Okinawa.Michael Harper, a vocal tutor from the Royal Northern College of Music, is championing the work of Julia Perry (1924-1979). Perry occupied a unique place as a black American composer – female and upper-middle class, she won Guggenheim fellowships to train in Europe. Despite a life cut short by paralysis and illness, her works include 12 symphonies and 3 operas.This research, done in collaboration with the AHRC and Radio 3, will result in special recordings and a concert performed by the BBC Philharmonic broadcasting works by Nathaniel Dett, Margaret Bonds and Joseph Bologne in Afternoon Concert on BBC Radio 3 on Wednesday 2nd February at 2pm and then on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001414g And listen out for another episode of the Arts & Ideas podcast featuring the research being done into the classical musicians: Nathaniel Dett, Margaret Bonds, Ali Osman and Isaac Hershow and a further concert.Produced by Amelia ParkerIf you want more information about the Diverse Composers project you can find that on the website of UK Research and Innovation https://www.ukri.org/news/celebrating-classical-composers-from-diverse-ethnic-backgrounds-2/If you enjoyed this – there’s a playlist called New Research on the Free Thinking website where you can find discussions about everything from conserving fashion and putting it on display in museums to recording the accents found around Manchester, so do dip in. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90

A motorbike adorned with a zebu skull is one of the central images of Djibril Diop Mambéty's classic 1973 film, whose title translates as The Journey of the Hyena. Listed as one of the 100 greatest films of all time in the Sight and Sound magazine poll, it mixes West African oral traditions with influences from the French New Wave and Soviet cinema. Mory and Anta are two young people growing up in a newly independent Senegal who fantasise about leaving Dakar for a new life in France, but how can they realise those dreams and do they really want to leave? Matthew Sweet is joined by New Generation Thinker Sarah Jilani, Estrella Sendra Fernandez and Ashley Clark.Sarah Jilani is a lecturer in English at City, University of London and has written on neocolonialism in Francophone West African cinema. Estrella Sendra Fernandez lectures in film and screen studies at SOAS, University of London. She directed the award-winning documentary film Témoignages de l’autre côté about migration in Senegal. Ashley Clark is curatorial director at the Criterion Collection. He is the author of the book Facing Blackness: Media and Minstrelsy in Spike Lee’s “Bamboozled”Producer: Torquil MacLeodImage: Mareme Niang (Right), and Magaye Niang in a still from the film Touki Bouki Le Voyage de la Hyène, 1973 Senegal. Director : Djibril Diop Mambéty. Image credit: AlamyIn the Free Thinking archives you can find a series of programmes exploring silent film, star actors including Jean-Paul Belmondo, Marlene Dietrich, Dirk Bogarde, and classics of cinema around the world including Kurosawa's Rashomon, Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali, the films of Jacques Tati and Charlie Chaplin.

Drama and gaming are being used in a pair of projects exploring adolescent mental health. Dr Daisy Fancourt finds out why this meeting of the arts and science might unlock new ideas for treatments and discovers the different ways in which young people are participating in the projects. Professor Eunice Ma is the Provost of Falmouth University and is co-leading a new project called ATTUNE. This will look at the way adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can affect adolescents' mental health with the aim of developing new approaches to prevention and care. Edmund Sonuga-Barke is Professor of Developmental Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience at King’s College London and is leading a new project called RE-STAR which aims to help young people with neuroatypicalities such as Attention Deficit/Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). You can find information about the projects on this link https://www.ukri.org/news/24-million-investment-into-adolescent-mental-health/ The podcast is made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find a playlist called New Research on the website for Radio 3's Free Thinking programme and all the episodes are available as Arts & Ideas podcasts. Producer: Phoebe McFarlane

Love during a lockdown is at the centre of Sarah Hall's latest book Burntcoat. Monica Ali's new novel is called Love Marriage and looks at love across two cultures and different ideas about feminism, family and careers. Adam Mars-Jones' Box Hill is a darkly affecting love story between men set in 1975. The authors join Shahidha Bari for a conversation exploring writing about relationships.Burntcoat by Sarah Hall and Box Hill by Adam Mars-Jones are both out now. Monica Ali's novel Love Marriage is published in February 2022.Producer: Jessica TreenYou can find other conversations about writing in the Free Thinking Prose and Poetry playlist https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vh

From Aldous Huxley to cat pictures by Louis Wain: altered states of consciousness can be induced by taking drugs, but they also include dreams, tiredness, grief, and various states of mental illness. Matthew Sweet is joined by Turner Prize winning artist Tai Shani, whose recent work Neon Hieroglyphs explores the history and culture of the hallucinogenic fungus ergot; Sarah Shin, editor of an anthology Altered States; Gary Lachman, historian of the occult whose most recent book Dreaming Ahead of Time explores precognitive dreams; and David Luck, archivist at the Bethlem Museum of the Mind, currently staging an exhibition of Louis Wain's cat pictures which are often described as being psychedelic.Producer: Luke MulhallYou can find Tai Shani's artwork online at the Serpentine Gallery https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/tai-shani-untitled-hieroglyphs/Animal Therapy: The Cats of Louis Wain runs at the Bethlem Museum of the Mind until April 14th and there's also an online version https://museumofthemind.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/animal-therapy-the-cats-of-louis-wainAltered States edited by Sarah Shin and Dreaming Ahead of Time by Gary Lachman are out now.In the Free Thinking archives you can find Matthew Sweet discussing Drugs and Consciousness with guests including David Nutt https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000nllAnd David Nutt shared his musical choices with Michael Berkley on Radio 3's Private Passions https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tnv3Image: Louis Wain's painting Kaleidoscope Cats. Image credit: By permission of Bethlem Museum of the Mind

The legend of Mélusine emerges in French literature of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries in the texts of Jean d’Arras and Coudrette. A beautiful young woman, the progeny of the union between a king and a fairy, is condemned to spend every Saturday with her body below the waist transformed into the tail of serpent. She agrees to marry only on the condition that her husband should never seek to see her on that day every week. Shahidha Bari explores the emergence of the hybrid mermaid-woman, her historical significance and the legacy of the medieval myth of Mélusine.Olivia Colquitt is an AHRC funded doctoral candidate at the University of Liverpool whose research focuses upon the socio-cultural significance of the late Middle English translations of the French prose romance Mélusine and its verse counterpart, Le Roman de Parthenay.Hetta Howes is Senior Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern Literature at City, University of London and is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. She is the author of Transformative Waters in Medieval Literature.Lydia Zeldenrust is an Associate Lecturer in Medieval Literature, where she currently holds a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. She is the author of The Melusine Romance in Medieval Europe.Producer: Ruth Watts