Free Thinking Folgen

Is Gogglebox the main place on TV where you now find criticism? What does that tell us about the role of the critic today? Suzi Feay, Arifa Akbar and Charlotte Mullins join Matthew Sweet to review a new art exhibition at the Barbican showcasing the art and ideas of Jean Dubuffet and to reflect on what being a critic means. Matthew pays tribute to the thinking of Kevin Jackson (3 January 1955 – 10 May 2021) who took part in many critical discussions on BBC Radio 3. New Generation Thinker Vid Simoniti teaches philosophy and art at Liverpool University and he's written us a postcard reflecting on what it means when algorithms dictate the culture we consume.Jean Dubuffet: Brutal Beauty runs at the Barbican, London from May 17th 2021 to August 22nd 2021. Dubuffet (1901-1985) collected artwork made by people outside the arts establishment and in his own work he incorporated butterfly wings, sand, lava, collages of cut up paintings and graffiti. Talking about the portraits he made he said, ‘Funny noses, big mouths, crooked teeth, hairy ears, I’m not against all that’.You can find a playlist focusing on the Visual Arts on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p026wnjlNew Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.Producer: Torquil MacLeod

A ghostly Franco visits an elderly man in the latest novel by Patrick McGrath. He joins historian Duncan Wheeler and the makers of a prize winning documentary Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar, as Rana Mitter's guests for a discussion of the Spanish Civil War, the ghosts and silences that remain and how history is now being written.The Silence of Others, backed by Pedro Almodóvar and directed by Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar has been screened at festivals across the world and has picked up many prizes. https://thesilenceofothers.com/Duncan Wheeler is Chair of Spanish Studies at the University of Leeds and has published Following Franco: Spanish Culture and Politics in Transition.Patrick McGrath is the author of novels including Spider which was filmed by David Cronenburg, Asylum which was adapted by Patrick Marber and short stories collected under the title Writing Madness. His new novel depicting Francis McNulty, a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, has the title Last Days in Cleaver Square.Producer: Ruth WattsOn the Free Thinking website you can find past episodes with Rana Mitter discussing history and Pakistan, War in fact and fiction from World War I to African conflicts; What does a black history curriculum look like? and Deep Time and Human History. All episodes are available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts. New Generation Thinker Anindya Raychaudhuri's postcard about aerial bombardment and the Spanish Civil War is on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p046wn7wImage: Valley of the Fallen from above which shows the Benedictine Abbey, near Madrid, Spain Credit: BBC/Craig Hastings

Toussaint Louverture's revolutionary leadership in Haiti; Ravenna's place as a hub of culture and a meeting point of East and West; how motherhood and work have changed from Victorian Manchester factories to the modern boardroom; a 3,000 year history of attacks on libraries and book burnings; battles in the Atlantic from the Vikings to conflicts over slavery in the Caribbean and on the North American coast; recovering the voices of children who experienced the Holocaust: Rana Mitter looks at how the six authors shortlisted for the UK's most prestigious history prize have tackled these topics.The books shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize 2021 are:Survivors: Children’s Lives after the Holocaust by Rebecca Clifford Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture by Sudhir Hazareesingh Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe by Judith Herrin Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood by Helen McCarthy Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack by Richard Ovenden Atlantic Wars: From the Fifteenth Century to the Age of Revolution by Geoffrey PlankThe winner will be announced on Wednesday 9 June 2021 in a virtual ceremony. The winner will be awarded £40,000 and each of the shortlisted authors receives £4,000.Producer: Torquil MacLeodIn the Free Thinking archives you can find interviews with the authors shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize in previous years and a host of discussions about history looking at topics including Napoleon, John Henry Newman, Adnam Menderes and Turkish history, Northern Ireland, what we can learn from the upheavals of industrial revolution and empires ending, war in fact and fiction, Churchill, family ties and reshaping history with guests including Margaret McMillan, Tom Holland, Jared Diamond, Priya Atwal, Camilla Townsend, Ruth Scurr, Roy Foster and David Reynolds amongst others.