Free Thinking Folgen

Montaigne's literary self portraits led to him popularising the Essay form in the mid 1500s. With online articles, long reads in newspapers and magazines and a number of publishing houses interested in promoting essays and reprinting authors, Rana Mitter and guests look at what makes a good Essay drawing on examples from the past and present. Rana's guests are the author Kirsty Gunn; the essayist Chris Arthur, author of Hidden Cargoes; Paul Lay, Senior Editor at Engelsberg Ideas and a former editor of History Today and Emma Claussen is a lecturer in French at Trinity College, University of Cambridge who studies the work of Montaigne.Producer: Ruth WattsIn the Free Thinking archives you can find a collection of episodes available as Arts and Ideas podcasts exploring Prose, Poetry and Drama including discussions about libraries, the history of paper, and what makes a good lecture

Henry VIII's encounter with Brazilian royalty, Inuit hunting in the Somerset countryside, Aztecs at the court of Charles V: Caroline Dodds Pennock's research flips history to focus on the impact of indigenous Americans on early modern Europe. And how is this kind of approach influencing museum displays? Anthropologist Adam Kuper has written a history of The Museum of Other People, charting the changing ethnological approaches to colonialism, cultural appropriation, and scientific authority. Plus musicologist Rupert Till has co-created a virtual sound map of the ancient Mexican city of Teotihuacán. John Gallagher hosts.On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe by Caroline Dodds Pennock is out now and can also be found serialised on BBC Sounds. The Museum of Other People: From Colonial Acquisitions to Cosmopolitan Exhibitions by Adam Kuper is published next week.You might also be interested in conversations available as Arts & Ideas downloads asking What language did Columbus speak ? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0d0tk22 What kind of history should we write ? with Peter Frankopan and Maya Jasanoff https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06sfl58 The Mayflower and Native American history with Sarah Churchwell, Kathryn Napier Gray & Lauren Working https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08r76kl First Encounters: Nandini Das and Claudia Rogers share their research https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kpgpProducer in Salford: Ruth Thomson

Going on a trip ? get ready to get uncomfortable, pack grease to treat your sore bum, and laudanum for the inevitable travel sickness - and perhaps you might also be in need of an anti-strangulation collar to ward off those potential murderers? We’re delving into the perils of travelling in the past. Back in the 1700s there was no such thing as a relaxing weekend break, travelling could be a fraught and even deadly undertaking. Such was the danger, making a will before you set off seemed reasonable.Emily Stevenson, Lecturer in Renaissance and Early Modern Literature at the University of York, is researching women travellers as far back as the 1550s. Some set out on religious pilgrimages, others on trade missions, smoothing the way for their husband’s wheeler-dealing. It’s a picture of heroines and hardship.Alun Withey, lecturer in History at the University of Exeter is opening the suitcases of the time, what did travellers take with them and why ? How have the accoutrements of travel changed or remained the same over the last 400 years?Art Historian Rebecca Savage from the University of Birmingham, looks at the artistic legacy of travel poster designers from before the second world war. Many were artists in their own right and many were women. Their iconic images of country picnics and modernist landscapes evoke a sense of rural Britain lost in time.And as we move from the era of the railway to the car, Social Historian Tim Cole from the University of Bristol takes us on a journey inspired by paternalistic travel guides and maps given out freely as part of the 1951 Festival of Britain. How relevant are they now, how much of what they describe is lost in the past or still with us?Producer: Julian Siddle