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Free Thinking Episodes

  1.

    Cornwall and Coastal Gothic

    From crumbling tin mine towers to second homes: Laurence Scott on art, fiction and film.

  2. World's Fairs and the Future

    Owen Hatherley, Emily MacGregor and Paul Greenhalgh go back to the future.

  3. Mid Century Modern

    Shahidha Bari and guests look at labour saving devices and revamping the 1950s home.

  4. Building London

    Eric Parry and Alison Brooks; writers Fiona Mozley and SI Martin and pianist Belle Chen.

  5. Masks

    The role of masks in African traditions, Greek tragedy and Covid conspiracies

  6. Displacement

    Edmund de Waal and Frances Stonor Saunders discuss uncovering Jewish family stories.

  7. Nadifa Mohamed, Gentle/Radical, Dylan Thomas

    The work of Turner prize nominees, a Tiger Bay murder story, Under Milk Wood on stage.

  8. How anthropology helps us understand the world

    Economist Gillian Tett is one of Anne McElvoy's guests.

  9. Beryl Vertue

    Matthew Sweet meets the Sherlock producer and ex-agent of Tony Hancock who has turned 90.

  10. Women's Art

    Jennifer Higgie, Adjoa Osei, Veronica Ryan, and Lydia Yee talk to Shahidha Bari.

  11. Can Artists Help Save the Planet?

    From ice photos by Wayne Binitie to 140 ideas from artists collated by Hans Ulrich Obrist

  12. Alice and Dreaming

    Salman Rushdie is one of Matthew Sweet's guests for a conversation about the imagination.

  13. The Botanical Past

    From paintings to the gardens of Kew, how a new plant collecting history is being written.

  14. Wittgenstein's Tractatus at 100

    Can you solve all the problems of philosophy in one book? Shahidha Bari and guests debate.

  15. Fashion, Art and the Body

    Olivia Laing, Charlie Porter and Ekow Eshun join Shahidha Bari.

  16. Novelist Tahmima Anam, plus was Nero a ruthless tyrant?

    Was Nero really a victim of plots? Bulgaria's hidden past. And a novel about startups.

  17. Who Needs Critics?

    Matthew Sweet questions the critic's role while Vid Simoniti looks at algorithms and art.

  18. Ghosts of the Spanish Civil War

    Rana Mitter talks to documentary makers, a novelist and historian about breaking silences.

  19. The Wolfson History Prize 2021

    Rana Mitter meets the six authors shortlisted for the UK's most prestigious history prize.

  20. Lost cities, 20s divas and 2011 uprisings

    Anne McElvoy explores the past and present of the transcontinental nation of Egypt.

  21. Archiving, curating and digging for data

    Behind the scenes at the Hepworth Wakefield, the Barbican and the Alan Turing Institute.

  22. Marlon James and Neil Gaiman

    Two weavers of fantastical fiction sift through myths with Matthew Sweet.

  23. Alison Bechdel

    American graphic novelist Alison Bechdel talks mushrooms, therapy and Adrienne Rich.

  24. Napoleon the Gardener and Art Thief

    Ruth Scurr, Emma Rothschild and Natasha Pulley look at French history with Rana Mitter.

  25. Samuel Johnson's circle

    Patience Agbabi's novel time-travels back to 18th-century London. So do we.

  26. Northern Ireland

    Anne McElvoy marks the 1921 creation of Northern Ireland with historians and writers.

  27. Links between Judaism and Christianity

    Rector Giles Fraser tells Matthew Sweet how a crisis led to discovering his Jewish roots.

  28. Epistemic Injustice

    Shahidha Bari finds out how to use the theory of knowledge to address real-world problems.

  29. Bombing and morals, Flooding and the future

    Malcolm Gladwell, Satyajit Ray's film Jalsaghar and Jessie Greengrass. Rana Mitter hosts.

  30. Shakespeare's life lessons

    Scholars Emma Smith, Patrick Gray and Emma Whipday find examples in different dramas.

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