Free Thinking Folgen

For evolutionary scientists studying religion, it's more fruitful to examine what people do in religious contexts, rather than listen to what they say they believe. There's a new recognition that as well as looking at behaviour, people studying religion must take account of the religious experience of believers. But how do you do that? And what does doing it tell us? Rana Mitter is joined by an evolutionary psychologist, an anthropologist, a historian and a poet to discuss.Robin Dunbar is an evolutionary psychologist who’s written a book called Why Religion Evolved: And Why It Endures.Dimitris Xygalatas is an anthropologist whose book is called Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth LivingAnna Della Subin has investigated people who have been declared divine in her book Accidental GodsPoet Kaveh Akbar is editor of The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse.Producer: Luke Mulhall

Geoff Dyer, Dame Sheila Hancock and Rachel Stott join Matthew Sweet to discuss the work and performance of writers, artists, athletes and musicians near the end of their careers.Old Rage by Sheila Hancock is out now. The Last Days of Roger Federer by Geoff Dyer is out now. Rachel Stott is a composer and plays viola with the Revolutionary Drawing Room, the Bach Players and Sopriola. Producer: Torquil MacLeod

The German Romantic author of horror and fantasy published stories which form the basis of Jacques Offenbach's opera The Tales of Hoffmann, the ballet Coppélia and the Nutcracker. In the theatre he worked as a stagehand, decorator, playwright and manager and he wrote his own musical works. His opera Undine ended its run at the Berlin Theatre after a fire. During his lifetime he also saw Warsaw and Berlin occupied by Napoleon and during the Prussian war against France, he wrote an account of his visit to the battlefields and he became entangled in various legal disputes towards the end of his life. Anne McElvoy marks 200 years since his death gathering together literary and musical scholars to look at his legacy.Joanna Neilly is Associate Professor and Fellow and Tutor in German at the University of Oxford.Keith Chapin is senior lecturer in music at Cardiff University.Tom Smith is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. He is Senior Lecturer and Head of German at the University of St Andrews.You can find details about performances of Offenbach's works on the website of the society http://offenbachsociety.org.uk/Producer: Tim Bano