Arts & Ideas Folgen

Social media allows us to make our views known quickly but where does this public pressure and the increasing emphasis on "choice" and "consultation" leave professional expertise and political instinct? Anne McElvoy chairs a panel at the Free Thinking Festival of Ideas, including the founder of the Renewal campaign David Skelton, the columnist David Aaronovitch and Dame Julie Moore, Chief Executive of University Hospitals Birmingham. Recorded on Saturday 26th October 2013 in front of a live audience at Sage Gateshead.

A 15th-century English monarch was appointed by God and had absolute supremacy but how was that belief shaken when medieval kings were unfit to rule or the throne was contested? New Generation Thinker Sarah Peverley, from Liverpool University, looks at the way the people viewed their rulers during the Wars of the Roses. Recorded on Saturday 26 October 2013 in front of a live audience at Sage Gateshead.

Yevgeny Zamyatin's experiences in the Tyne shipyards fed into his dystopian fable "We", which was published in 1919. It depicts a city of glass where citizens are spied upon. Fans of the book have included George Orwell, Kurt Vonnegut and Tom Wolfe and it increasingly resonates with today's concerns about surveillance techniques. Matthew Sweet and an audience at The Free Thinking Festival from Sage Gateshead discuss the novel with poet Sean O'Brien, columnist David Aaronovitch and Radio 3 New Generation Thinker Sarah Dillon. Recorded on Sunday 27 October 2013.