Arts & Ideas

John Gallagher with an exploration of Sheffield's cultural history through new words, music and film.

Can a 40-hour film of a Massachusetts garden or a project documenting rice growing over 40 years help us to understand our planet better? Who makes and who watches such projects? Matthew Sweet is joined by film historian Becca Voelcker who has watched projects recorded in Japan, Colombia, Scotland and America; Thomas Halliday, whose book Otherlands charts the changes in the earth's ecologies through deep time; and by environmentalist Rupert Read, who is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia and has been thinking about what an eco-spirituality would look like. Plus, artist James Bridle, whose book Ways of Being investigates how far beyond humanity we can extend concepts like 'person', 'intelligence', and 'solidarity'.Producer: Luke Mulhall

Understanding James Joyce's eye troubles gives you a different way of reading his book Ulysses. That's the contention of Cleo Hanaway-Oakley, who shares her research with presenter Shahidha Bari. Emma West has delved into the history of the Arts League of Service travelling theatre, who went about in a battered old van performing plays, songs, ballets and 'absurdities' to audiences from Braintree to Blantyre. And we look at the Royal Society of Literature's annual Dalloway Day discussion of Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway, first published in 1925, with Merve Emre.Merve Emre is Associate Professor of English at the University of Oxford, and editor of the annotated Mrs Dalloway. Cleo Hanaway-Oakley is Lecturer in Liberal Arts and English at the University of Bristol and author of James Joyce and the Phenomenology of Film. Emma West is British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of English Literature at the University of Birmingham.Producer: Torquil MacLeodFind out more about <a href="https://rsliterature.org/dalloway-day/">Dalloway Day 2022</a> on the Royal Society of Literature website. The <a href="https://jamesjoyce.ie/bloomsday/">Bloomsday festival</a> runs from June 11th to 16th You can find a collection of programmes exploring ideas about modernism on the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07p3nxh">Free Thinking website</a>

Damon Galgut's novel, The Promise, explores the decline of the white Afrikaner Swart family and their failed promise to their black domestic servant. The family resist giving her, her own house and her own land as South Africa emerges from the era of apartheid. Land also occupies Julia Blackburn in her new book Dreaming the Karoo, which explores traces of the indigenous /Xam people who were driven from their ancestral lands in the 1870s. And, New Generation Thinker Jade Munslow Ong has been looking at the evolution of the farm novel and the ways in which South African literature maps experiences of displacement. They join Anne McElvoy to explore the ways in which writing has charted the personal and political histories of modern South Africa.Damon Galgut is a is a South African novelist and playwright. He was awarded the 2021 Booker Prize for his novel The Promise. Two of his previous novels were shortlisted in 2003 and 2010, The Good Doctor and In a Strange Room. He has written several plays.Julia Blackburn has written both fiction and non-fiction, including her memoir The Three of Us and the Orange Prize nominated novels The Book of Colour and The Leper's Companions. Her latest book, Dreaming the Karoo: A People Called the /Xam is published on 16th June 2022.Dr Jade Munslow Ong is a BBC Arts and Humanities Research Council New Generation Thinker. lectures in English literature and environmental literature at the University of Salford, specializing in colonial and post-colonial writing and fin de siècle cultures. She has published Olive Schreiner and African Modernism.Producer: Ruth Watts

Bill Paterson is a founding member of the 7:84 company established by John McGrath, his wife Elizabeth and her brother to create radical, popular theatre. Fusing techniques popularised by Bertolt Brecht with Scottish performance traditions, their best-known play The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black, Black Oil (1973) explored class struggle, the clearing of the Scottish highlands and the impact of drilling for oil. With energy in the news again, and the resurgence of political theatre on the British stage - Anne McElvoy looks at the writing of John McGrath with Bill Paterson, theatre critic Joyce McMillan and Joe Douglas, who directed a successful revival of the play for the National Theatre of Scotland, Dundee Theatre and Live Theatre which toured Scotland in 2019 and 2020.Producer: Tim BanoBBC Radio 3's Breakfast programme is travelling through Scotland this week. You can listen live or find Petroc's journeys on BBC Sounds.You can find a series of discussions about influential plays, films, books and art collected together as Landmarks on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44A blu-ray DVD of The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black, Black Oil is available.

Is that strong, inescapable image of 19th century city streets in our heads the right one? It's possible that there's a gap between the realities of street life in the Victorian city and how it has been thought of and portrayed in subsequent eras. Matthew Sweet is joined by historians Sarah Wise, Oskar Jensen, Lynda Nead and Fern Riddell to sift hard facts from picturesque imaginings.Vagabonds: Life on the Streets of Nineteenth-Century London by Oskar Jensen is out now. Sarah Wise is the author of several books including The Blackest Streets: The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum. Fern Riddell's books include The Victorian Guide to Sex: Desire & Deviance in the Nineteenth Century. Lynda Nead's writing on visual culture includes Victorian Babylon: people, streets and images in Nineteenth-Century London.Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Witches, statues, God's body, the Ottomans, medieval church going and seventeenth century England as a "devil land" are the topics explored in this year's shortlisted books. Rana Mitter interviews the authors ahead of the announcement of the winning book on June 22nd.The six books are: The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars and Caliphs by Marc David Baer The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World by Malcolm Gaskill Devil-Land: England Under Siege, 1588-1688 by Clare Jackson Going to Church in Medieval England by Nicholas Orme God: An Anatomy by Francesca Stavrakopoulou Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History by Alex von TunzelmannProducer: Ruth Watts

Covert queer communities are examined as Naomi Paxton is joined by Dr Tom Hulme and Dr Ting Guo.Tom Hulme is senior lecturer in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queen's University Belfast. As part of the research project Queer Northern Ireland: Sexuality before Liberation, Tom draws on under- or never-before used archives to reconstruct Northern Ireland's queer past from the late 19th century to the beginnings of the gay liberation movement in the 1960s. https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FV008404%2F1Tin Guo is senior lecturer in Translation and Chinese Studies at the University of Exeter. Her project Translating for Change: Anglophone Queer Cinema and the Chinese LGBT+ Movement explores how Anglo queer cinema hs been translated by Chinese fans, especially queer fans, and how it has been received and used to further the Chinese LGBT+ movement. https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FS00209X%2F1#This 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 episodes devoted to New Research in a playlist on BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme website.Producer: Tim Bano

he film starring Michael Caine was adapted from a 1970 Ted Lewis novel set in an underworld of gangsters and teenage pornography. Mike Hodges, Nick Triplow, Pamela Hutchinson and John Gray talk with Matthew Sweet about the influence of the book and re-watch the film, which has just been restored in 4k and returns to UK cinemas this summer.Originally set in Scunthorpe, Lewis' novel Jack's Return Home was relocated to Newcastle/Gateshead for the film which Mike Hodges adapted and directed.Jack's Return Home (1970) was published in 1971 as Carter and later re-published as Get Carter after the film was made. Nick Triplow is the author of a biography Getting Carter: Ted Lewis and the Birth of Brit Noir Get Carter is screening in early June at the BFI and then at selected regional cinemas. It is being released on UHD & Blu-ray on 25 July.Producer: Torquil MacLeodYou can find discussions about films and TV including Tarkovsky's Stalker, This Sporting Life, Man with a Movie Camera, Quatermass, and Jaws in a collection of Landmark programmes https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44

In Amia Srinivasan's book The Right To Sex she discusses some of the most hotly controversial topics of today: sex work, pornography, the nature of sexual liberation. What can and should a philosopher bring to these debates? Also, we explore one of the philosophical techniques informing Srinivasan's work: genealogy. First named by Friedrich Nietzsche (although arguably practiced by philosophers before him) and developed by Michel Foucault and Bernard Williams, amongst others, genealogy seeks to investigate concepts and institutions by looking at the contingent historical situations in which they arose and that have shaped them over time. Christopher Harding in conversation with Amia Srinivasan, Caterina Dutilh Vovaes and Christoph Schurinnga.Producer: Luke Mulhall

Smugglers, refugees, trade and melting ice and polar exploration are part of the conversation as Rana Mitter is joined in the BBC tent at the Hay Festival by Nobel Prize-winning author Abdulrazak Gurnah, whose books have drawn on his birthplace Zanzibar and the refugees arriving at the Kent coast; climate scientist Professor Emily Shuckburgh, who worked at the British Antarctic Survey; and Joan Passey, author of Cornish Gothic, a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio.Producer: Ruth WattsYou can find a series of Lunchtime concerts recorded with audiences at Hay being broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and an episode of The Verb with Ian McMillan. The Free Thinking website has a collection of episodes exploring Green Thinking and the environment - and a programmes looking at the history of the sea with artist Hew Locke and three historians.

Images of Cyril and Methodios adorn libraries, universities, cathedrals and passport pages in Slavonic speaking countries from Bulgaria to Russia, North Macedonia to Ukraine. But the journeys undertaken as religious envoys by these inventors of the Cyrillic alphabet have led to competing claims and political disagreements. Mirela Ivanova's essay considers the complications of basing ideas about nationhood upon medieval history.Mirela Ivanova teaches at the University of Sheffield and was selected as a New Generation Thinker in 2021 on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, which turns research into radio. You can hear her discussing Sofia's main museum in this episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wc3pProducer: Luke Mulhall

Sculptures like mouldy fruit, sea creatures that look like oil, blocks of ice carved from a melting glacier and transported to a gallery, reforesting a disused quarry: Vid Simoniti looks at different examples of environmental art and asks whether they create empathy with nature and inspire behaviour change or do we really need pictures of loft insulation and ground source heat pumps displayed on gallery walls?Vid Simoniti lectures at the University of Liverpool. He hosted a series of podcasts Art Against the World for the Liverpool Biennial 2021. He was selected as a New Generation Thinker in 2021 on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which turns research into radio. You can hear him taking part in this Free Thinking discussion about Who Needs Critics? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000w5f3Producer: Luke Mulhall

The discovery of goffering irons, the tools used to shape ruffs, by an archaeological dig in North America, gives us clues about the way the first English settlers lived. Lauren Working's essay looks at the symbolism of the Elizabethan fashion for ruffs. Now back in fashion on zoom, they were denounced by Puritans, shown off in portraits of explorers like Raleigh and Drake, and seen by the Chesapeake as a symbol of colonisation, whilst the starch was used for porridge at a time of scarcity and war.Lauren Working teaches at the University of York and was chosen in 2021 as a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which turns research into radio. You can find another Essay by Lauren called Boy with a Pearl Earring https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014y52 and hear her in a Free Thinking discussion about The Botanical Past https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wlgvProducer: Luke Mulhall

Henry VIII from a female perspective is on offer at the Globe Theatre this summer in a new adaptation of the play written by Shakespeare and John Fletcher. Globe writer in residence Hannah Khalil explains some of the more surprising innovations in this production, while New Generation Thinker Emma Whipday presents the familiar saga of Henry VIII as the story of a step-family and historian Joanne Paul reveals the machinations of the Dudley family in its quest for power and influence at the Tudor court. Catherine Fletcher presents.Joanne Paul's book The House of Dudley: A New History of Tudor England is out now Henry VIII runs at the Globe Theatre, London until 21st October 2022 Emma Whipday teaches at the University of Newcastle and is the author of a play The Defamation of Cicely Lee inspired by Shakespeare’s CymbelineProducer: Torquil MacLeodYou can find more conversations about Tudor England on the Free Thinking programme website and an episode of Radio 3's curated selection of readings and music - Words & Music - inspired by Tudor times is available on BBC Sounds for 28 days.

Royal Trumpeter John Blanke's image is on show alongside portraits of the Tudor monarchy in an exhibition opening at the Walker Gallery in Liverpool. Blanke is the only black Tudor for whom we have an identifiable picture, painted on horseback in the royal retinue. New Generation Thinker Christina Faraday has been looking at these and other Tudor artworks. She joins Helen Hackett, author of The Elizabethan Mind and music historian Eleanor Chan for a discussion chaired by New Generation Thinker John Gallagher. And what aspects of the Tudor mind do we see at work in the next generation writing of John Donne? Biographer Katherine Rundell has the answers.The Tudors: Passion, Power and Politics runs at Liverpool's Walker Gallery 21 May 2022—29 Aug 2022John Gallagher is Associate Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Leeds and the author of Learning Languages in Early Modern EnglandChristina Faraday is a Research Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where she is working on a project exploring Elizabethan art and music.Professor Helen Hackett teaches at University College London and her book The Elizabethan Mind is out now.Katherine Rundell's biography of John Donne is called Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John DonneEleanor Chan is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker who studies the links between music and art history. She's based at the University of Manchester.You can find a host of programmes about Vaughan Williams on Radio 3 and BBC Sounds broadcasting this May. His Tudor Portraits are being performed by the Britten Sinfonia and Norwich Philharmonic Chorus at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival on Sunday 29 MAY, 7.30PM at St Andrews and Blackfriars Hall.Producer: Luke Mulhall

The Forty Thieves gang, Buffalo Bill, designs chosen by sailors, convicts, lovers: Shahidha Bari looks at the history of tattoos with Matt Lodder, Zoe Alker and Tanya Buxton from the opening of the first commercial parlour in London’s West End in 1889 to the most popular images now and their use to enhance wellbeing.Zoe Alker has studied over 75,000 tattoos seen on convicts between 1790-1925. She teaches in the criminology department at the University of Liverpool. Matt Lodder is a Senior Lecturer in Art History and Theory, and Director of American Studies at the University of Essex. His research primarily concerns the application of art-historical methods to history of Western tattooing from the 17th century to the present day. Tanya Buxton is a tattoo artist based in Cheltenham, specialising in medical tattoos.Producer: Torquil MacLeodWe've a whole collection of programmes exploring The Way We Live Now gathered together on the Free Thinking programme website. They include a discussion about Perfecting the Body, Mental Health, Gloves and Hitchhiking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p072637b

From monumental sculpture from ancient Greece, Egypt and India, wall hangings from Japan and China, to Western fine art, a British Museum exhibition asks: what does female spiritual power mean past and present? Christopher Harding is joined by the curator Belinda Crerar and by Ronald Hutton, whose new book explores Pagan Goddesses in Christian Europe, along with the writer Gavanndra Hodge who has investigated goddess cults of the past and present, and Anjali Sanyal from the London Durgostav Committee, dedicated to the worship of the Hindu goddess Kali.Feminine power: the divine to the demonic runs at the British Museum from 19 May 2022 - 25 Sep 2022 Queens Of The Wild: Pagan Goddesses in Christian Europe: An Investigation by Ronald Hutton is out now.Producer: Luke MulhallA playlist on the Free Thinking website explores Religious Belief https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03mwxlp and there's also an episode looking at Witchcraft and Margaret Murray which has guests including Ronald Hutton https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001271f

The man who killed Gandhi is the subject of a new play opening at the National Theatre by Anupama Chandrasekhar. She's one of Rana Mitter's guests along with Balkrishna Doshi, a Riba Gold Medal winner for his buildings, which include low-cost housing and research into environmental design. He studied with Le Corbusier and historian Vikram Visana joins Rana to trace the links between Corbusier, Doshi and Charles Correa. And as she directs a new play at Hampstead Theatre, the Tamasha Theatre Artistic Director Pooja Ghai is also in the Free Thinking studio.The Father and the Assassin - a new play by Anupama Chandrasekhar runs at the National Theatre from 12 May Vikram Visana teaches at the University of Leicester. His research has included the work of architect Charles Correa (1930 -2015).Lotus Beauty by Satinder Chohan is directed by Pooja Ghai at the Hampstead Theatre from May 13th to June 18th. You can find Tamasha Theatre company's podcast dramas online at https://tamasha.org.uk/projects/the-waves/ https://www.architecture.com/awards-and-competitions-landing-page/awards/royal-gold-medalProducer: Tim Bano

John Gallagher digs deep into the significance of soil with food grower and gardener Claire Ratinon, Dr Jim Scown, who has researched the role of soil in the novels of Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, and George Eliot, and Anna da Silva, Project Director of Northern Roots, the UK’s largest urban farm and eco-park in the heart of Oldham in Greater Manchester. And philosopher and art historian Vid Simoniti reviews two major new exhibitions exploring our relationship with the world around us - Radical Landscapes at Tate Liverpool and Our Time on Earth at the Barbican in London.Producer: Ruth Thomson'Unearthed: On race and roots, and how the soil taught me I belong' by Claire Ratinon is published next month. Radical Landscapes runs at Tate Liverpool from 5 May – 4 Sep 2022 featuring over 150 artworks and live trees and plants in the gallery. Our Time on Earth runs at the Curve Gallery at the Barbican Centre from Thu 5 May—Mon 29 Aug 2022 Jim Scown is a 2022 New Generation Thinker at Cardiff University on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio. Vid Simoniti is a 2021 New Generation Thinker who teaches on art and philosophy at the University of Liverpool https://www.vidsimoniti.com/You can find a collection of programmes on the Free Thinking website exploring Green Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2

TV shows Hinterland and Hidden are bilingual using Welsh and English. Caryl Lewis, who has written scripts for these TV dramas and award-winning novels, joins Catherine Fletcher for an exploration of Cymraeg, the Welsh language. We hear from Richard King, whose book Brittle with Relics is an oral history of Wales in the second half of the twentieth century, Dr Elen Ifan from Cardiff University, and composer, performer and actor Seiriol Davies, whose new musical Milky Peaks is set in the 'bosom of Snowdonia'. Caryl Lewis's many novels include Martha, Jac a Sianco and Y Gemydd and she has just published her first novel written first in English and it is called Drift. Producer: Ruth Thomson

How decoding Erewash, Trent, Averham and other field, river and place names from old maps can help us understand flooding patterns in Britain. Dr Richard Jones, Associate Professor of Landscape History at the University of Leicester is one of Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough’s guests. Her second guest is Dr Rebecca Wright, a Social and Cultural Historian of Energy from Northumbria University.The research projects featured are:Flood and Flow: https://waternames.wordpress.com/team/ Forthcoming manuscript Moral Energy in America: From the Progressive Era to the Atomic Bomb which explores the birth of an ‘energy consciousness’ in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century.This episode was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI Producer: Paula McFarlaneYou can find more conversations about New Research gathering into a playlist on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90

Soho in films from 1948-1963 and the 1970s glamour and porn industry discussed by Matthew Sweet and his guests Jingan Young, Benjamin Halligan and David McGillivray.Producer: Torquil MacLeodHotbeds of Licentiousness: The British Glamour Fillm and the Permissive Society by Benjamin Halligan is out now and so is Soho On Screen: Cinematic Spaces of Bohemia and Cosmopolitanism, 1948-1963 by Jingan Young David McGillivray is the author of Doing Rude Things: The History of the British Sex FilmYou can find a Free Thinking discussion with architects Eric Parry and Alison Brooks, pianist Belle Chen and novelists Fiona Mozley and SI Martin who have set their work in Soho in a programme about Building London https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000x6kv and A discussion about Harlots and 18th century working women with the historians Hallie Rubenhold and Laura Lammasniemi and script writer for the TV series Moira Buffini https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rdfz

From a death row prisoner to the schemes to raise money dreamt up by his father: human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith has written a memoir exploring the impact of mental health on his family, his clients in the legal system and himself. New Generation Thinker Sabina Dosani is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist. She writes a postcard for Mental Health Week about Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness. Curator George Vasey discusses activism on air pollution and curator James Taylor-Foster explains the sensations of ASMR. Anne McElvoy hosts.Trials of the Moon: My Father's Trials by Clive Stafford Smith is out now. Sabina Dosani is a 2022 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio https://sabinadosani.com/ In the Air runs at the Wellcome Collection from 19 May 2022—16 October 2022 Weird Sensation Feels Good: The World of ASMR runs at the Design Museum from May 13thProducer in Salford: Cecile WrightYou can find a new Music & Meditation podcast on BBC Sounds or take some time out with BBC Radio 3’s Slow Radio podcast. And Radio 3’s Essential Classics has a slow moment every weekday at 11.30am There is also a Free Thinking episode called Breathe hearing from Writer James Nestor, saxophonist Soweto Kinch, Imani Jacqueline Brown of Forensic Architecture and New Generation Thinker Tiffany Watt Smith https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000xszq

Isaac Babel, born in Odessa in 1894, became a journalist and writer before being executed in 1940 in Stalin's purges. In stories of extreme economy and compression, he depicted the Polish-Soviet War of 1918-21, and the exploits of Jewish gangsters in Odessa in the years before the Soviet revolution. Matthew Sweet is joined by Linda Grant, AD Miller, Boris Dralyuk, and Diana Vonnak to discuss Babel's work and its resonances today.Producer: Luke Mulhall You might also be interested in Radio 3's series The Essay: Words for War in which Oksana Maksymchuk introduces the words of Ukrainian poets https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0016b7h

From full stops to emojis, a Tudor letter to texting - how has the use of punctuation marks developed over the centuries? Florence Hazrat thinks about the way brackets help us understand the pandemic. The first parentheses appear in a 1399 manuscript by the Italian lawyer Coluccio Salutati, but - as her essay outlines - it took over 500 years for the sign born at the same time as the bracket, the exclamation mark (which printers rather aptly call “bang”) to find its true environment: the internet.Florence Hazrat is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, University of Sheffield. She is a 2021 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. You can find a collection of Essays, discussions and features showcasing the research of New Generation Thinkers on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35Producer: Robyn Read

Linking tea, sugar, opium, addiction and trade, Fariha Shaikh's essay looks at the novel An Insular Possession published in 1986 by Timothy Mo, and at Amitav Ghosh's trilogy which began in 2008 with Sea of Poppies and how their depiction of the opium trade differs from the publication in 1821 of Thomas de Quincey's Confessions of an Opium Eater, which paved the way for drug memoirs. She also quotes from her researches into The Calcutta Review, Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country and the book Tea and Coffee written by the campaigning vegetarian William Alcott. Dr Fariha Shaikh teaches in the Department of English Literature at the University of Birmingham. She is a 2021 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio.Producer: Robyn Read

What made him great? Celebrated as a military leader, Alexander took over an empire created by the Persians. Julia Hartley's essay looks at two examples of myth-making about Alexander: The Persian Boy, a 1972 historical novel by the English writer Mary Renault and the Shānāmeh or ‘Book of Kings’, an epic written by the medieval Persian poet Abdolghassem Ferdowsi.Julia Hartley lectures at King's College London. She was selected in 2021 as a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which turns research into radio. You can hear her in this Free Thinking discussion Dante's Visions https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000zm9b and in another episode about Epic Iran, Lost Cities and Proust https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000xlzhProducer: Torquil MacLeod

From Hitchcock to George Formby, stained glass to Rachel Whiteread, Cindy Sherman to Rembrandt. A new exhibition called Reframed: The Woman in the Window is the starting point for today's conversation about windows covering everything from voyeurism and vandalism to stained glass and modernism. Shahidha Bari is joined by film scholar Adam Scovell, art curator Dr Jennifer Sliwka, architectural critic Hugh Pearman and stained glass expert Jasmine Allen.Reframed: The Woman in the Window runs at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London from 4th May to 4th September 2022 Jasmine Allen is Director of The Stained Glass Museum, ElyProducer: Torquil MacLeod

Frogs, farting competitions, art connoisseurs, courtesans and crows all feature in the art of Kawanabe Kyōsai,- a key Japanese figure who challenged traditions of Japanese art. Kyōsai blurred the lines between popular and elite forms and we take a look at a new exhibition of his work at the Royal Academy. In today’s Free Thinking, Chris Harding looks at both his art and the writing of Yukio Mishima. Mishima was one of Japan's most infamous writers when he died in 1970, writing both for the mass market novels and readers of high literature, fusing traditional Japanese and modern Western styles. In his final years he became increasingly interested in extreme politics, a call for the restoration of the Emperor to his pre-war power and culminated in his death by seppuku, the Samurai’s ritual suicide. With a new translation of Beautiful Star, we learn about him and the recent reappraisal of his work.Israel Goldman is a leading collector and dealer in the field of Japanese prints, paintings and illustrated books. The exhibition, Kyōsai: The Israel Goldman Collection, is at the Royal Academy from 19th March to 19th June 2022.Koto Sadamura specialises in Japanese art history of the late nineteenth century, with a particular focus on the painter Kawanabe Kyōsai.Stephen Dodd is Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature at SOAS, University of London. He has written widely on modern Japanese literature and translated two novels by Yukio Mishima, including a new version of Beautiful Star published in April 2022.Kate Taylor-Jones is Professor of East Asian Cinema at the University of Sheffield.Producer: Ruth Watts

Xangô (the god of thunder) and Paso Ñañigo’, composed by the Cuban Moises Simons, were two of the numbers performed by Elsie Houston in the clubs of Paris in the 1920s. Also able to sing soprano in Portuguese, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Russian, Elsie's performances in Afro-Brazilian dialects chimed with the fashion for all things African. Adjoa Osei's essay traces Elsie's connections with Surrealist artists and writers, (there are photos of her taken by Man Ray), and looks at how she used her mixed race heritage to navigate her way through society and speak out for African inspired arts.Adjoa Osei is a researcher based at Trinity College, Cambridge. She was selected as a 2021 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio. Producer: Ruth Watts

An 1856 portrait shows a 40 year old man from Benin who managed to secure his freedom after being captured. Dasalu was taken from Dahomey to Cuba, alongside over five hundred adults and children in the ship Grey Eagle. Once in Havana, he worked for the Count of Fernandina but managed to get a letter to a missionary Charles Gollmer back in Africa. Jake Subryan Richard's essay traces the way one man’s migrations reveal the shifting boundaries of slavery and freedom.Jake Subryan Richards teaches at the London School of Economics and was chosen as a New Generation Thinker in 2021 on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Council which turns research into radio. Producer: Ruth Watts

The People's History Museum researcher Dr Shirin Hirsch, folk expert Tim Healey and writer Zoe Gilbert join Matthew Sweet to explore rituals and beliefs associated with May Day, including the otherworldly figure of Herne the Hunter, and ideas about community and collective action.Shirin Hirsch is one of the 2022 New Generation Thinkers on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the AHRC to turn research into radio. Tim Healey is author of The Green Man in Oxfordshire. Zoe Gilbert's latest novel Mischief Acts explores Herne the Hunter http://zoegilbert.com/ You can also find Zoe discussing Enchantment, witches and woodlands with Matthew Sweet in a previous Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000qkl and Charms and folk tales with the authors Madeline Miller and Kirsty Logan https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b1q0xcOn Sunday May 1st at 5.30pm and available on BBC Sounds - Radio 3's weekly curation of poems and prose extracts set alongside music is on the theme of May Day.Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Africa's first filmmakers boldly revealed how, and why, colonialism lived on after the independences. Sarah Jilani takes a closer look at the works of Ousmane Sembène and Souleymane Cissé. The Malian director's 1982 film Finye (the Bambara word for wind) considers students as the winds of change, whilst Sembène's Mandabi, made in 1968, takes its title from a Wolof word deriving from the French for a postal money order – le mandat postale. Adapting his own novel about the frustrations of bureaucracy, the Senegalese director made the decision to make the film in the Wolof language.Sarah Jilani teaches at City, University of London and was chosen as a 2021 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which makes research into radio. You can hear her discussing another classic of African cinema on Free Thinking in this episode about Touki Bouki https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0013js4 and Satyajit Ray's Indian Bengali drama Jalsaghar, which depicts a landlord who would prefer to listen to music than deal with his flood ravaged properties https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v9gjProducer: Torquil MacLeod

A New Age mystic who fell out of favour for his apolitical views - how true a characterisation is this of the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 – 1926)? Anne McElvoy discusses the work and legacy of the visionary poet, from his idiosyncratic use of figures and images from both Classical mythology and Christianity to explore existential themes. Her guests are Lesley Chamberlain, author of a new biography; composer Ninfea Crutwell-Reade whose Vigil I is a setting of the first poem in the sequence 'Vigilien' by Rainer Maria Rilke; and New Generation Thinker Seán Williams, who lectures in German and European Cultural History at the University of Sheffield. In addition to discussing Rilke, Seán also sheds light on Walpurgisnacht Night and the folk traditions of the night before May Day when witches are said to meet on the Brocken Mountain.You can find more about Ninfea's music at https://ninfeacruttwellreade.com/ New Generation Thinker Seán Williams has made Sunday features for Radio 3 about ice skating https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0013837 and the history of luxury https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003rpl Lesley Chamberlain's biography Rilke: The Last Inward Man is out now http://www.lesleychamberlain.co.uk/Producer: Luke Mulhall

Comrade or "marra" in North East dialect, and the "dharma" or the way - were put together in a portmanteau word by poet Bill Martin (1925-2010). Poet and New Generation Thinker Jake Morris-Campbell reflects on this idea of Marradharma and what it offers to future generations growing up in the post Brexit and post industrial landscape of the North East. In his essay, Jake remembers the pilgrimage he made in 2016 carrying Bill Martin's ashes in a ram's horn from Sunderland (Martin was born in a nearby pit village) to Durham Cathedral.Jake Morris-Campbell teaches at Newcastle University and was selected as a New Generation Thinker in 2021 on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. You can find him discussing ideas about darkness in a Free Thinking discussion recorded at Sage Gateshead as part of Radio 3's After Dark festival, and looking at mining, coal and DH Lawrence https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000xmjyProducer: Torquil MacLeod

Anna Barbauld's Lessons for Children (1778-79) set off a new conversational style in books aimed at teaching children. She was just one of the female authors championed by Joseph Johnson, who was also responsible for publishing Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women and her first book Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787). Daisy Hay has written a history of the publisher and she joins New Generation Thinker Louise Creechan to chart changes in ideas about education from Rousseau to Dickens. Julian Barnes' latest novel depicts an inspirational teacher Elizabeth Finch. Lisa Mullen presents.Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes is out nowProfessor Daisy Hay is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Exeter. Her latest book is called Dinner with Joseph Johnson. She has also written about Frankenstein and you can hear her discussing that in an episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09m1dvh She has also written on Disraeli and recorded a Radio 3 essay about him https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04n5st9Dr Louise Creechan was chosen as a 2022 New Generation Thinker. She lectures at Durham University focusing on Victorian Literature with specific interests in neurodiversity, illiteracy, education, and Disability Studies.Lisa Mullen is a New Generation Thinker and has presented a short feature for Radio 3 about Mary Wollstonecraft called The Art of Rowing https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00061lyProducer: Robyn Read

The first pathologist in English writing? Andrea Smith looks at the figure of Warwick in Shakespeare's Henry VI. Owen Horsley is directing a new production for the RSC which involves a large community chorus. Derek Dunne's research looks at revenge - and at forgery and bureaucracy in the Tudor period whilst Ellie Chan's focus is on dissonant music. Shahidha Bari host the conversation.Owen Horsley has directed parts 2 and 3 of Henry VI at the RSC. Henry VI Rebellion runs at the RSC in Stratford upon Avon from April 1st to May 28th 2022 and Wars of the Roses runs at the RSC from April 11th to June 4th. And, April 23rd sees the RSC stage birthday celebrations for Shakespeare and online insights into the rehearsal room.Ellie Chan is a Leverhulme Research Fellow in the Music Department at the University of Manchester and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker.Derek Dunne is Cardiff University and has written Shakespeare, Revenge Tragedy, and Early Modern Law: Vindictive JusticeAndrea Smith is at the University of East Anglia, where her research focuses on radio and audio productions of Shakespeare.You can find a playlist of discussions about Shakespeare on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06406hm and a collection of new versions of Shakespeare’s greatest plays recorded for broadcast and available as the Shakespeare Sessions https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0655br3New Generation Thinkers is the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio.Producer: Ruth Watts

A collection of knitting patterns held in Southampton, an archive of Victorian greeting cards in Manchester, information about music hall and pantomime pulled together in Kent and the National Archives holdings of boat maps come under the microscope in today's conversation. New Generation Thinker Naomi Paxton's guests are Rachel Dickinson, Eleonora Gandolfi, Helen Brooks and Lucia Pereira Pardo.The research projects featured are: Rachel Dickinson, Manchester Metropolitan University - Celebrations: Victorian and Edwardian greeting cards exploring a collection of over 32,000 cards collected by Laura Seddon https://www.mmu.ac.uk/special-collections-museum/collections/laura-seddon-collection Eleonora Gandolfi, University of Southampton - Reimagining Knitting: a community perspective focusing on patterns and information contained in three collections assembled by Montse Stanley, Jane Waller and The Reverend Monsignor Richard Rutt known as "the Knitting Bishop" https://www.southampton.ac.uk/intheloop/collections/index.pageHelen Brooks, University of Kent - Beyond the Binary: performing gender then and now explores different aspects of the David Drummond Pantomime collection - a collection put together by the second hand book dealer https://www.kent.ac.uk/library-it/special-collections/theatre-and-performance-collections/david-drummond-pantomime-collection and the Max Tyler Music Hall Collection - Max Tyler was the archivist (between 1984-2012) and historian (between 1993-2016) of the British Music Hall Society https://www.kent.ac.uk/library-it/special-collections/theatre-and-performance-collections/max-tyler-music-hall-collectionLucia Pereira Pardo, National Archives who is working on The Prize Papers a collection of articles and papers linked to ships which includes court records revealing the details of 1,500 ships captured during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars and 55 case books relating to ships seized by the British between 1793 and 1815 https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/news/prize-papers-research-portal-launched/ Producer: Paula McFarlaneYou can find more conversations about New Research gathering into a playlist on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90

Who's doing the cleaning and looking after the kids? Are we all shouldering an equal share of the domestic burden and if not, why not? Matthew Sweet and guests on housework, gender & class from early 20th century domestic appliance ads via1960s feminist critiques such as Hannah Gavron's The Captive Wife to the age of TikTok cleanfluencers.MIchele Roberts is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and the author of twelve novels, including The Looking Glass and Daughters of the House.Michele Kirsch has written about her experiences of working as a cleaner in her memoir Clean.Rachele Dini is Senior Lecturer in English and American Literature, University of Roehampton. She is the author of ‘All-Electric’ Narratives: Time-Saving Appliances & Domesticity in American Literature, 1945-2020 and her current project is called Cleaning Through Crisis.Oriel Sullivan is Professor of Sociology of Gender in the Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, and Co-Director of the Centre for Time Use Research. Her recent publications include What We Really Do All Day and Gender Inequality in Work-Family Balance.Producer: Torquil MacLeod

What nationalities served in the British navy of the 18th century and what difference did peacetime and wartime conditions have on the make-up of crews? How does visiting a landlocked village that was once a thriving Gloucestershire port change our view of history? What did enslaved people think about their rescue by anti-slavery rescue ships? These are the questions Rana Mitter will be asking three writers and historians: Sara Caputo, Tom Nancollas and New Generation Thinker Jake Subryan Richards. Plus the artist Hew Locke describes his new commission for the entrance hall of Tate Britain and the artwork now on show at Tate Liverpool which is built from 45 votive boats suspended from the ceiling.Tate Britain Commission 2022: Hew Locke is on show until 22 Jan 2023. His work Armanda 2019 is on show at Tate Liverpool The Ship Asunder: A maritime history in eleven vessels by Tom Nancollas is out now Seafaring - an exhibition of fifty works from 1820 to the present day runs at Hastings Contemporary from Saturday 30 April – Sunday 25 September 2022 and includes works by Eric Ravilious, Elisabeth Frink, James Tissot, Edward Burne-Jones, Richard Eurich, Alfred Wallis, Edward Wadsworth, Frank Brangwyn and Maggi Hambling Dr Sara Caputo from the University of Cambridge researches maritime history Dr Jake Subryan Richards is an Assistant Professor at LSE and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. He researches law, empire, and the African diaspora in the Atlantic world.Producer: Luke Mulhall

Archaeological remains, Jewish rituals, music, memento mori and the construction of elaborately carved tombs: Matthew Sweet discusses grief and the expression of mourning with guests: Lindsey Buster, an archaeologist whose work at Death Cafes, set up to help people talk about death, has led her to reinterpret the way people's relationship with 'stuff' shows up in the archaeological record Emily MacGregor, a musicologist who is writing a memoir of the ways her relationship with music changed after the death of her father Christina Faraday, an historian of art who has studied memento mori and vanitas, two popular genres of painting in the early modern period that suggest a different set of attitudes towards death Sally Berkovic, who has written about Jewish rituals and traditions surrounding death and mourning https://sallyberkovic.com/ Producer: Luke MulhallYou can find on the BBC Ideas website a short film about how to face death with Kathryn Mannix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CruBRZh8quc and a Free Thinking Festival Discussion Death Comes to Us All https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09xnmgz

Former Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd is a long time scholar of China. In his new book, The Avoidable War, he argues that it is cultural misunderstanding and historical grievance which make Chinese-US relations so volatile. Rana Mitter asks him how he sees China's current positioning of itself on the world stage. We hear why it is that the ideas of Hegel and not Kant resonate in Chinese politics. And, in the spirit of better understanding the rich artistic traditions and cultural history of China, we hear from three researchers about the latest thinking on Hong Kong ink art, representations of sleep, Chinese identity and contemporary classical music and insomnia from the cultural revolution to the present day.Kevin Rudd is President and CEO of Asia Society and a former Prime Minister of Australia. He is a leading international authority on China and began his career as a China scholar, serving as an Australian diplomat in Beijing before entering Australian politics. His latest book is The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping's China.Alexander Ho is a British-Chinese composer based at the Royal College of Music in London. His work has been commissioned or performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Radio 3 and the Royal Opera House.Ros Holmes is a lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of St Andrews. Her research focuses on ideas about sleep and the art and visual culture of twentieth century and contemporary China.Malcolm McNeill is Director of Postgraduate Diploma in Asian Art at SOAS, University of London. He is a specialist in Chinese paining and he has worked for museums in the UK and Taiwan.Producer: Ruth Watts

Venanzio Rauzzini, Fanny Burney, and Mr Foote are figures who come up in today's Free Thinking discussion as the hit period drama Bridgerton returns to Netflix for a second series and Shahidha Bari explores what kept the Georgians entertained, from a night at the opera to music lessons at home, strolls in the pleasure gardens, hot air balloons, chess playing Turks, and perhaps most of all - if Lady Whistledown is to be believed - gossip, intrigue, and scandal. Just what is it about the Georgians that we find so enduringly entertaining? Shahidha’s guests are: musicologist Brianna Robertson-Kirkland who has written a new book about Venanzio Rauzzini, a scandal ridden Italian castrato revered by Mozart who fled the continent to become one of Georgian England’s most celebrated singing teachers and a musical figurehead in the city of Bath. Writer and New Generation Thinker Sophie Coulombeau who has researched Georgian novelist Frances Burney and bluestocking socialite Mary Hamilton. Biographer, playwright and actor Ian Kelly who has played George III in his own play Mr Foote’s Other Leg. And History Film Club podcast presenter Hannah Greig whose credits as a historical consultant in TV and film include The Duchess, Sanditon, and Bridgerton.Producer: Ruth ThomsonImage: Golda Rosheuvel as Queen Charlotte in Bridgerton Credit: Liam Daniel/NetflixYou might also be interested in previous conversations on Free Thinking exploring Harlots and 18th-century working women https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rdfz Samuel Johnson's Circle https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000vq3w The Value of Gossip https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fwfb 18th century crime and punishment https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b040hysp

From Shakespearian writing and Tudor sound to the power of song, ideas about stupidity to sea monsters and the soil - the ten academics working at UK universities who have been chosen to share their research on radio give us insights into a range of subjects. Laurence Scott - one of the first New Generation Thinkers back in 2010 is the host.Dr Ellie Chan, University of Manchester Dr Louise Creechan, University of Durham Dr Sabina Dosani, University of East Anglia Dr Shirin Hirsch, Manchester Metropolitan University and the People’s History Museum Dr Oskar Jensen, University of East Anglia Dr Jade Munslow Ong, University of Salford Dr Joan Passey, University of Bristol Dr Jim Scown, University of Cardiff and Food, Farming and Countryside Commission Dr Clare Siviter, University of Bristol Dr Emma Whipday, Newcastle UniversityProducer: Ruth WattsNew Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio. There's a playlist featuring insights from the 120 academics over the 12 years the scheme has been running https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08zhs35

Born to a film-making family, Leopoldo Torre Nilsson was the first Argentine film director to be critically acclaimed outside the country. Before he died in 1978 from cancer, aged 54, Torre Nilsson worked alongside his wife Beatriz Guido, a published author, on many of the scripts which he turned into successful films. One of them, Martín Fierro (1968), is about the main character of Argentina's national poem. In today's programme Rana Mitter and his guests discuss another - Hand in the Trap - a psychological coming of age story which won the FIPRESCI prize at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival. Elsa Daniel discovers the reasons for her aunt shutting herself away from the world and arranges a confrontation with the man who jilted her.Professor Maria Delgado is Director of Research a Royal Central School of Speech and DramaMaría Blanco is Associate Professor in Spanish American Literature at the University of OxfordXavier Aldana Reyes is Reader in English Literature and Film at Manchester Metropolitan UniversityJordana Blejmar is a lecturer in Visual Media and Cultural Studies at the University of LiverpoolProducer: Ruth Watts

Jeet Kune Do, the martial arts philosophy founded by Bruce Lee has influenced the creation of modern mixed martial arts. He started as a child actor in the Hong Kong film industry and his five feature-length 1970s films helped change the way Asian performers were portrayed. Matthew Sweet and guests look at his career, focusing on the film Enter the Dragon, which is one of the most influential action films made. With Lee's biographer Matthew Polly, film historian Luke White, philosopher William Sin, and New Generation Thinker Xine Yao.Producer: Luke MulhallYou can now find a playlist on the Free Thinking website, Film on Radio 3: music, history, classics of world cinema.From Matthew Sweet on sound tracks to star performers through films which have created an impact to old favourites, including programmes on Marlene Dietrich, Asta Neilsen, Jacques Tati, Cary Grant, Bette Davis, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Satyajit Ray, The Tin Drum, Touki Bouki, Kurosawa, Dziga Vertov, 2001 A Space Odyssey, Penny Woolcock, Mike Leigh, Spike Lee. Plus Radio 3's regular exploration of The Sound of Cinema and classic soundtracks

Crime writer Ann Cleeves, theologian Mona Siddiqui, deep sea fish expert and podcast host Thomas Linley and poet Jake Morris-Campbell join Matthew Sweet to explore areas beyond the reach of light, both literally and metaphorically, as part of Radio 3's overnight festival at Sage Gateshead.What darkness makes someone commit a murder? Shetland and Vera are two TV series developed from the crime novels of Ann Cleeves. Her most recent book is The Heron's Cry featuring detective Matthew Venn and his colleague Jen Rafferty, played on TV in an adaptation of The Long Call by Ben Aldridge and Pearl Mackie. Poet and New Generation Thinker Jake Morris-Campbell writes about the mining communities of Northumberland and Durham and the experience of working in darkness. Professor Mona Siddiqui joined the University of Edinburgh’s Divinity school in December 2011 as the first Muslim to hold a Chair in Islamic and Interreligious Studies Dr Thomas Linley hosts The Deep-Sea podcast and researches the behaviour of deep sea fish. He's based at Newcastle University.Producer: Torquil MacLeodPart of Radio 3’s After Dark Festival, a major new live music festival for 2022 in partnership with Sage Gateshead and TUSK Music, featuring some of the biggest names in contemporary, classical and experimental music. For all related content, search “After Dark Festival” in BBC Sounds.

Matthew Sweet and his guests begin coverage of the After Dark Festival - an overnight extravaganza recorded at Sage Gateshead for the equinox weekend. What meanings and interpretations has humanity given to the equinox moment - when the length of day and night is equal and to other key points of the solar year? Cosmologist Carlos Frenk from Durham University, archaeologist Penny Bickle from the University of York, Kevin Lapping from the Pagan Federation and his wife Kirsten discuss the significance of the changing seasons, what we learn from the solar alignment of Neolithic monuments and the vaster galactic and cosmic cycles that are we are also a part of.Producer: Torquil MacLeodPart of Radio 3’s After Dark Festival, a major new live music festival for 2022 in partnership with Sage Gateshead and TUSK Music, featuring some of the biggest names in contemporary, classical and experimental music. For all related content, search “After Dark Festival” in BBC Sounds.

JM Keynes and his theory, Keynesianism, is central to the financial history of twentieth century. However, he is also central to its cultural history. Keynes was not only an economist, but a man equally concerned with aesthetics and ethics; as interested in the ballet as he was with the stock market crash. Anne McElvoy talks to Robert Hudson about the musical drama has written about the political trading behind the Treaty of Versailles from Keynes's perspective. How does looking again at Keynes life and work offer us a different view of the man and his times?Zachary D. Carter is a Writer in Residence with the Omidyar Network's Reimagining Capitalism initiative and the author of The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy and the Life of John Maynard Keynes.Robert Hudson is the co-author of Hall of Mirrors a musical based on JM Keynes's experiences at the Paris Peace Conference. His other work includes Magnitsky the Musical.Adam Tooze is Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor History at Columbia University and he serves as Director of the European Institute. His books include: Shutdown: how COVID-19 shook the world's economy; Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World; and, The Deluge: The Great War and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931.Emma West is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Birmingham and her current research project, Revolutionary Red Tape, examines how public servants and official committees helped to produce and popularise modern British culture.Producer: Ruth Watts