Arts & Ideas

Where did language come from? It's often been described as the fundamental barrier between humans and animals. However, many scientists now believe speech evolved gradually from animal communication. Will Abberley from the University of Oxford argues that some of the most compelling efforts to picture this evolution have been in science fiction, and that these stories still impact on debates about language today. This event was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage, Gateshead on 01.11.14.

Turkey's best selling female writer, Elif Shafak, talks to Anne McElvoy about imagination and storytelling as she publishes her new novel The Architect's Apprentice. Her cosmopolitan voice is of particular importance in a year when the Middle East has been undergoing enormous shifts, and both nationalism and xenophobia are on the rise around the world. This event was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage, Gateshead on 01.11.14.

Is man the only political beast? Can other animals be regarded as members of our democratic communities, with rights to political consideration, representation or even participation? Alasdair Cochrane from Sheffield University believes that the exclusion of non-humans from civic institutions cannot be justified, and explores recent attempts to re-imagine a political world that takes animals seriously. This event was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage, Gateshead on 02.11.14.

Anne McElvoy explores whether it is worth getting hot under the collar about blue collar history with historian Alison Light, David Almond and Eliza Carthy. Once upon a time the working class were heroes; their close-knit communities were celebrated. Has this working class disappeared along with the great industries- steel -coal and ship building - that brought them into being? Is the working class now a figment of other people's dreams or nightmares? This event was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage, Gateshead on 02.11.14.

Historian Alun Withey says beards can shed light on a whole range of things from medicine to the military. Pogonotomy - or the art of shaving - is about more than fashion. Recorded in front of an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas at Sage, Gateshead. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the AHRC to find the brightest academic minds with the potential to turn their ideas into broadcasts.

Daisy Hay from Exeter University explores the way in which Disraeli invented the modern politician as a man or woman of feeling, and asks whether the image he projected as an emotionally in-touch everyman stemmed from fact or fiction? Recorded in front of an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas at Sage, Gateshead. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the AHRC to find the brightest academic minds with the potential to turn their ideas into broadcasts.

Which historical 'facts' should be burned on the fire? How do you comb ancient and recent times for evidence? Rana Mitter is joined by Helen Castor and Laura Thompson to discuss the ways mythmaking can cloud history. Recorded in front of an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas at Sage, Gateshead. All the discussions and essays from the Free Thinking festival are available as Radio 3 Arts and Ideas downloads.

Sophie Coulombeau on the origins of the custom for women to take their husband's name. Recorded in front of an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas at Sage Gateshead. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the AHRC to find the brightest academic minds with the potential to turn their ideas into broadcasts.

David Willetts MP and the writer and philosopher Roger Scruton discuss the best way to foster knowledge in schools and universities and whether politicians have become too professionalised. In an age when many politicians have never had other jobs, are we better off with representatives who have specialist knowledge from careers forged outside Westminster? The conversation is chaired by Anne McElvoy and was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage, Gateshead.

New Generation Thinker Tom Charlton on what 17th-century ideas about censorship share with the Leveson report. Recorded in front of an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas at Sage Gateshead. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the AHRC to find the brightest academic minds with the potential to turn their ideas into broadcasts.

Matthew Sweet explores the way digital media have transformed our cultural tastes with poet Kei Miller, author and online games creator Naomi Alderman, music journalist Dave Hepworth and Prospect Magazine's Digital Editor, Serena Kutchinsky. Recorded in front of an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas at Sage Gateshead.

New Generation Thinker Tiffany Watt-Smith explores mirroring and a nineteenth-century fascination with imitation. Recorded in front of an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas at Sage Gateshead. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the AHRC to find the brightest academic minds with the potential to turn their ideas into broadcasts.

Anne McElvoy chairs a discussion about conciliation in an age of uprisings recorded in front of an audience at the BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking Festival of Ideas at Sage Gateshead. Best-selling Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov joins journalist John Kampfner and conflict resolution expert Gabrielle Rifkind.

Karen Armstrong, one of the world's leading thinkers about religion, gives the Free Thinking Lecture, arguing that, in the current global situation, a recognition of how little we know is the only way to peace. She talks to Rana Mitter and takes questions from the audience. Recorded on 31.10.14 in front of an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas 2014 from Sage Gateshead.

Choreographer Akram Khan talks to Anne McElvoy about curating a festival at the Lowry, the relationship between dance and visual art and his interest in flamenco. Professor Diane Purkiss reviews Eileen Atkins performance at the RSC in The Witch of Edmonton. Deanna Petherbridge discusses an exhibition of prints showing witches that she's curated at the British Museum.

Orhan Pamuk talks to Philip Dodd about his writing career and his views of modern Turkey. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2006, his novels include The Black Book, Snow, My Name is Red and The Museum of Innocence - a book and a real building created by the author which earlier this year was awarded the European Museum of the Year award.

Orhan Pamuk talks, in an extended conversation with Philip Dodd, about his writing career and his views of modern Turkey.Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2006 his novels include The Black Book from 1990, the magisterial Snow marinaded in politics and religion and set in a remote Turkish town and The Museum of Innocence a book and a real building created by the author. There’s also his nonfiction including the memoir Istanbul.

Mike Leigh discusses his film about Turner. Steve Connor and Matthew Sweet discuss an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge which brings together 180 paintings and models to explore the way mannequins have been used by artists - from a technical tool to a fetishised object. And New Generation Thinker Naomi Paxton discusses Guy Fawkes traditions.

Anne McElvoy talks to celebrated Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood whose most recent novel MaddAddam completed her dystopian trilogy that began a decade ago with Oryx and Crake and continued six years later with The Year of the Flood. Originally broadcast on 17.09.2013.

How history can help to shape policy making? Rana Mitter is joined by The History Manifesto's co-author, David Armitage, Chris Skidmore MP and historian, and Lucy Delap, Director of Cambridge University and Kings College London’s History and Policy Unit. And one of Australia’s most prominent novelists Peter Carey is back with a new book ‘Amnesia’. He talks to Philip Dodd.

This Free Thinking is devoted to one of the landmarks of European literature -- Marcel Proust's gigantic novel, A la recherche du temps perdu which is perhaps best known in English as In Search of Lost Time. Matthew Sweet gathers together four Proust fans from very different backgrounds - the Pulitzer prize winning novelist, Jane Smiley, the psychotherapist, Jane Haynes, Christopher Prendergast, who has edited the latest translation of the book and from France, the writer, Marie Darrieussecq. The actor Peter Marinker tackles the difficult task of giving an English voice to Proust.

Jeremy Deller and Fiona McCarthy have each curated an exhibition looking at the art of William Morris. David Cromer's production of Thornton Wilder's Our Town was an off Broadway hit. Now the actor director is staging it in London. Ken Burns won an Emmy for his documentary about The American Civil War. Anne McElvoy has been watching his new series The Roosevelts: An Intimate History and discusses it with historian Charlie Laderman and DD Guttenplan, who writes for The International Herald Tribune, The Nation and The New York Times.

Rana Mitter talks to three people who have been exploring their own relationship with the Jewish faith: writer and broadcaster David Baddiel, the Israeli historian Professor Shlomo Sand and the journalist Julie Burchill

Sherlock Holmes is investigated by Mark Gatiss and Matthew Sweet as the Museum of London opens an exhibition. Literary critic Alex Clark gives her verdict as the Man Booker Prize is announced. Also the relevance of Plato and Aristotle to contemporary life are debated by the American novelist and philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein and Armand Leroi, Professor of Evolutionary Developmental Biology at Imperial College, London.

Anne McElvoy talks to Phyllida Lloyd about playing Shakespeare in a female prison in her new version of Henry IV. Tim Marlow, Karen Lang, and Daniel Johnson discuss reading history through the paintings of Kiefer and Polke ahead of next month's 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. And the man often touted as France's greatest writer has just won this year's Nobel prize for Literature. Anne talks about the contribution of Patrick Modiano to film as well as literature with Ian Christie and Akane Kawakami.

Canadian filmmaker and originator of the body horror genre, David Cronenberg covers topics as wide ranging as consumption, cancer, and creativity as he talks about his debut novel and new film. Shami Chakrabarti discusses her work as a human rights campaigner, and the idea of anger as a motivating force. Plus Tim Minchin on turning Storm, a poem he performed in a live set, into a graphic novel.Presenter: Matthew Sweet. Producer: Ella-mai Robey