BBC’s Radio 3’s Arts & Ideas programme, known as Free Thinking on air, and the Arts & Ideas podcast online.
Queer Histories
What’s the value of assessing whether historical figures were trans or gay? How do you ‘prove’ that identity now – and should you? Shahidha Bari talks to Morgan M Page, Jana Funke and Senthorun Raj.
Early Cinema
Why are we obsessed with firsts? Matthew Sweet looks back at the early history of cinema hearing about Alice Guy-Blaché and Robert Paul and how the Boer War led to animated film with guests Pamela B Green, Pamela Hutchinson and Ian Christie.
Subversion and cabaret culture
Matthew Sweet, performers Lucy McCormick and Le Gateau Chocolat, curator Florence Ostende, New Generation Thinker Lisa Mullen and Gaylene Gould at the Barbican in London.
Nam June Paik and the Information Superhighway
Nam June Paik made art with TV sets and imagined an information superhighway before the internet was invented. John Giorno organised multi-media and dial-a-poem events. Poet and New Generation Thinker Sarah Jackson joins Matthew Sweet to look at the visions of the future conjured up by these artists who were both interested in the influence of mass media and Buddhism. She’s joined by artist Haroon Mirza and Tate curator Achim Borchardt-Hume. We dial a poet Vahni Capildeo and hear from Vytautus Landbergis, former Lithuanian Head of State, former comrade of Nam June Paik.
Being Human: Love Stories
Naomi Paxton assembles a squad of researchers to talk about dating, relationships and what how we fall in love says about us, from the National Archives to London’s gay bars.
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