Free Thinking Folgen

Rana Mitter explores looks at the role of writing in propagating ideas and exposing political tensions. He hears how writers have given voice to personal and political ambitions, from Ding Ling to the teenagers of modern China. Yuan Yang discusses her new book, Private Revolutions. Simon Ings talks about his latest book Engineers of Human Souls which examines four writers whose ideas shaped the careers of some of the twentieth century’s most infamous dictators. And Jeffrey Howard analyses the ethics of negotiating free speech and censorship today.Producer: Ruth WattsPrivate Revolutions: Coming of Age in a New China by Yuan Yang is out nowSimon Ings' book Engineers of Human Souls: Four Writers Who Changed Twentieth-Century Minds looks at Maurice Barrès, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Ding Ling and Maxim Gorky.Jeffrey Howard is Associate Professor of Political Philosophy and Public Policy at UCL and Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Ethics in AI at Oxford University. You can find an Essay called Prison Break which he wrote for BBC Radio 3 asking if it is ever ok to escape from prison available on BBC Sounds. He was chosen as a New Generation Thinker in 2020 on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put research on radio.

When Saved was banned in 1965 by the Lord Chamberlain's office, the Royal Court theatre turned itself into a private club to allow performances of Edward Bond's drama to be staged. This may be the most famous incident in the career of the playwright, who has died aged 89, but he was the author of over 50 plays, including several written for young people to perform, and others designed for broadcast on BBC Radio and he also worked on film scripts, wrote poems and long prefaces to his works. Joining Matthew Sweet to discuss his life and writing are the playwright Mark Ravenhill, actor Kenneth Cranham who starred in a 1969 production of Saved, Jen Harvie who is a Professor of Contemporary Drama at Queen Mary, London, Tony Coult, a writer and teacher of drama who has run Edward Bond's website for the past five years and written introductions to his play texts, and Claudette Bryanston, who commissioned The Children for a performance in a local Cambridge school with teenagers acting alongside adults. Producer: Robyn Read

There's nothing like a good night's sleep, but Laurence Scott discovers that our ability to enjoy one may be related to other societal inequalities, giving rise to the idea of sleep justice. His guests, researchers Sally Cloke, Jonathan White, Alice Vernon and Alice Bennett, also provide insights into sleep disorders, including night terrors, and the tyranny of the alarm clock.Producer: Torquil MacLeodJonathan White is Professor of Politics and Deputy Head of the European Institute at the London School of Economics whose books include In the Long Run: The Future as a Political Idea and an article for the Journal of Political Philosophy Circadian Justice Dr Sally Cloke is a designer, researcher and writer on design and care ethics based at Cardiff Metropolitan University Dr Alice Vernon, a creative writing lecturer at Aberystwyth University is the author of Night Terrors: Troubled Sleep and the Stories We Tell About It Dr Alice Bennett, who lectures at Liverpool Hope University is the author of Alarm and Contemporary Fictions of AttentionIn the Free Thinking archives and available as Arts & Ideas podcasts you can find other discussions relating to sleep hearing from Russell Foster, Sasha Handley, Diletta de Cristofaro, Kenneth Miller and Matt Berry