Arts & Ideas

Douglas Coupland, Shumon Basar and Hans Ulrich Obrist explain the Extreme Present to Matthew Sweet. Their co-authored book The Age of Earthquakes builds on Marshall McLuhan's analysis of how technology influenced culture in the 1960s and is described as "a new history of how we are feeling in the world today when the future seems to be happening much faster than we ever thought." Also, Mathematician Hannah Fry and film critic Kevin Jackson explore the ways in which number-crunching geniuses have been depicted on the big screen.

Novelist Kazuo Ishiguro talks to Anne McElvoy about his latest book – The Buried Giant. And as two separate productions of Sophocles’ tragedy, Antigone, are performed on stage in London – the playwright Roy Williams and the Greek scholar and translator, Oliver Taplin assess the enduring appeal of the play.

Churchill famously commented that ‘democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.' Rana Mitter and his guests David Runciman, Professor of Politics, University of Cambridge; Duncan Kelly, Reader in Political Thought, University of Cambridge; Patricia Thornton, University Lecturer in the Politics of China, University of Oxford and Tim Stanley, blogger and columnist for The Daily Telegraph test Free Thinking to its limits by looking at the alternatives to our own political system.

John Gray talks to Matthew Sweet about why the Aztecs might have had a better understanding of freedom than we do and other human illusions about meaning and progress. Also we consider how artistic movements become successful as the National Gallery stages an exhibition devoted to Paul Durand-Ruel, the french art dealer who discovered the Impressionists. Matthew talks to National gallery curator Christopher Riopelle. Also Jacky Klein, art historian and Godfrey Barker, man of letters and art critic discuss the anthropology of the art world through time.

Rana Mitter talks to Tony Harrison, the winner of the biennial David Cohen prize - one of our most prestigious literary awards. Two other writers join Rana - Ru Freeman and Romesh Gunesekara. Both from Sri Lanka and both on the programme to discuss the role of the writer in a country recovering from civil war. Finally, as part of the BBC's Get Creative initiative, the mathematician, Marcus du Sautoy, will be explaining why he values the arts as much as numbers.

Philip Dodd looks at the value of the arts with the former Chief Scientific Advisor to the EU, biologist Anne Glover,and discusses the notion of belonging and social identity in Europe with Dutch author Tommy Wieringa, Hungarian film director Kornel Mondruczo and academics Eric Kaufmann and Vesna Popovski.

As this year's Paul Foot Awards are announced for campaigning and investigative journalism, Anne McElvoy reports from the ceremony and talks to this year's winner. Anne also talks to the Director of the London School of Economics, the sociologist Dr Craig Calhoun about the things that inspired him to take up a career in the social sciences. The artist Alinah Azadeh talks about her latest project, two banners celebrating the 1965 Race Relations Act and the 1897 founding of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies now hanging in the Palace of Westminster with New Generation Thinker Naomi Paxton.

Matthew Sweet talks to the Israeli novelist David Grossman about his book Falling Out of Time which mixes poetry, drama and fiction to explore the emotion of grief and loss. His own son died in 2006. He is also the author of non fiction books including Death as a Way of Life: From Oslo to the Geneva Agreement. They discuss his fiction and the part he hopes it can play in the discourse about Israel today. Originally broadcast on 11 March 2014.

Rana Mitter discusses Buddhism, in Western therapy and in Eastern politics with psychotherapist Mark Vernon, Rupert Gethin - Professor of Buddhist Studies in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies and co-director of the Centre for Buddhist Studies at the University of Bristol, Dr Anne Mette Fisker-Nielsen expert in religion and politics in Contemporary Japan and Christopher Harding – Cultural historian of India and Japan

It's three hundred years since the death of Antoine Galland, a French orientalist and archaeologist, whose translation of The One Thousand and One Nights kick-started its adventures in the West via the works of English orientalists, Richard Burton, Edward Lane and John Payne. Philip Dodd asks a panel of experts on these hugely influential tales, plus story-tellers who continue to wrest new life out of them. He talks to Scholars Robert Irwin and Wen-chin Ouyang, the theatre director Tim Supple and Lebanese novelist Hanan al-Shaykh.

Will Hutton joins Anne McElvoy for a programme focusing on economics and wealth in Britain. They're joined by Richard Davies, The Economist's Economics Editor, Wendy Carlin, Professor of Economics and Macroeconomics at UCL and Luke Johnson the Chairman of Risk Capital Partners and the former Chairman of Channel 4 Television.

Karim Miské and Aatish Taseer discuss their recent novels, the French tradition of secularism and the influences of religion with Philip Dodd. They're joined by historians Dr Sudhir Hazareesingh and Dr Ruth Scurr.

Dylan Evans tells Matthew Sweet about his experimental community in the Scottish Highlands and why the Utopia Experiment failed. They are joined by Elaine Barker who has looked at communities set up by religious cults and Joe Duggan of Transition Town in Crystal Palace. Also our changing attitudes to eroticism on film. In the week when the release of the film Fifty Shades of Grey is causing much excitment Matthew discusses prudishness and prurience in British cinema with film historian Melanie Williams, sexploitation screen writer David McGillivray and documentary maker Kim Longinotto.

Anne McElvoy assesses reports that members of the new Greek government are rediscovering age-old links between Greece and Russia. With Roderic Lynne, former British ambassador to Moscow; Mary Dejevsky, Professor Vassilis Fouskis and Spyros Economides. Plus as Sheffield Theatres begin a season looking back at the work of Sarah Kane, Director Daniel Evans discusses her writing and also a review of Indian Summers - Channel 4's new costume drama about the end of colonial rule with Preti Taneja and Nick Lloyd.

Poet Paul Muldoon explores the history of Ireland in his new collection, One Thousand Things Worth Knowing. Historian Roy Foster's latest book is Vivid Faces: the Revolutionary Generation in Ireland 1890-1923. Rona Munro's new play Scuttlers runs at Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre from Feb 5th - March 7th directed by Wils Wilson. It depicts Manchester gangs and riots in the Industrial Revolution and in 2011.

Andrew O'Hagan talks to Matthew Sweet about identity, capturing memories and the impact of war in his new novel The Illuminations. Eddie Marsan talks about creating his character in the new film Still Life and about how much we know about a person's identity. Critic Charlotte Mullins considers the artists' obsession with capturing their image and that of their friends, as the National Portrait Gallery hosts a series of paintings by John Singer Sargent and Turner Contemporary in Margate looks at the role of the self portrait in the 21st century.

Joyce Carol Oates new novel The Sacrifice depicts an act of racial violence which shocks a New Jersey town. Selma dramatises on film the life of Martin Luther King. Timberlake Wertenbaker's new play Jefferson's Garden puts on stage the founding of the American state. Anne McElvoy talks to Joyce Carol Oates and Timberlake Wertenbaker and is also joined by New Generation Thinker Joanna Cohen who studies American history and by Professor Kit Davis from SOAS.

Surgeon Henry Marsh and critic Susannah Clapp review the opening of Tom Stoppard's 'The Hard Problem' at the National Theatre tonight. Matthew Sweet is also joined by musician and neuroscientist Daniel Levitin to discuss his new book - 'The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload. And New Generation Thinker Alasdair Cochrane and Anne Phillips, author of a forthcoming book 'The Politics of the Human', discuss what comprises humanness.

Rana Mitter talks to Richard J Evans' about his new book The Third Reich in History and Memory which reflects on how racist theories of Empire, promulgated over centuries, provided fertile ground for nazi theorists. They are joined by fellow-historians Jane Caplan and David Cesarani, to survey how history has explored this period and discuss the question, was the Final Solution unique in the history of genocide. Also in the studio, Andre Singer, Director of the documentary, Holocaust: Night Will Fall and the Polish cultural historian and writer, Eva Hoffman.

New Generation Thinker Daisy Hay talks to Anne McElvoy about the relationship between Disraeli and his wife. Judith Rodin discusses cities and disaster planning with Ricky Burdett. Glass artist Brian Clarke outlines the role played by the art dealer Robert Fraser who showcased the work of emerging American and European artists from the 60s onwards. Fraser hosted avant garde art openings and supported artists including Jean Michel Basquiat, Gilbert and George, Bridget Riley and Eduardo Paolozzi.

Philip Dodd plus guests David Reynolds, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Simon Heffer and David Edgar discuss Winston Churchill and Englishness, in the week of the 50th anniversary of his death

Author Michael Dobbs, dramatists James Graham and Paula Milne and TV producer Trudi-Ann Tierney join Anne McElvoy in the BBC Radio Theatre as part of BBC Democracy Day. They debate whether dramas like The West Wing, Borgen or This House aid our understanding of the way governments operate or do they foster cynicism about democracy?

Matthew Sweet looks at today's announcement of this year's Oscar nominations focusing on the politics of the foreign film awards with critics Ian Christie, Karen Krizanovich and Phillip Bergson. TV dramatist Russell T Davies discusses his new projects for Channel 4, E4 and 4OD, Cucumber, Banana and Tofu which explore the passions and pitfalls of 21st century gay life.

Philip Dodd explores the way we look at art with documentary maker Fred Wiseman, curator Iwona Blazwick, artist John Keane, poet Kelly Grovier and philosopher Professor Barry C. Smith. Veteran filmmaker Fred Wiseman who has documented what it is like to work at London's National Gallery. National Gallery is screening in key cities across the UK.

The Scottish poet Robert Crawford and fellow-TS Eliot biographer, Lyndall Gordon join Anne McElvoy to work out Eliot's enduring power and appeal while the winner of this year's TS Eliot prize, David Harsent also takes a bow. Allan Ropper a US neurologist, talks about the mixture of intuition and medical knowledge that every brain doctor needs. He is joined by Brian Hurwitz, Professor of Medicine and the Arts at King's College London to discuss the role of case histories over time and new importance being attached to narrative medicine.