Free Thinking Folgen

From lessons in civility learnt playing French board game to the value of babbling by babies in speech development, a history of central heating to the neglected industrial landscapes of the A13, Anti-Asian tropes in AI, Quaker needlework to Viking burial practices, 70’s women’s art collectives, the history of Ireland’s Magdalen laundries to the first philosophy book by a woman to be published in C17 century Germany: Chris Harding hears about the research topics of ten early career academics chosen as the 2023 New Generation Thinkers on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to promote academic research and turn it into radio broadcastsIncidentally you can also find on BBC Sounds the set of Essays by the 2022 New Generation Thinkers and there's a collection of other discussions and features from New Generation Thinkers across the years on BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking programme websiteBut in this podcast Chris Harding talks to: Dr Marianne Hem Eriksen, Associate Professor of Archaeology at the University of Leicester is working on a project which asks what does it mean if a human body isn’t buried and the bones are broken apart and scattered? Dr Andrew Cooper, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick is researching "Germany’s Mary Wollstonecraft" - Amalia Holst Dr Ana Baeza Ruiz, Loughborough University is conducting an oral history project looking at women’s art collectives in 1970s Britain and Ireland Dr Gemma Tidman, a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at Queen Mary, is working on her second book, Playing on Words: A History of French Literary Play, 1635–1789 Dr Rebecca Woods, a Senior Lecturer in Language and Cognition at Newcastle University, researches how play helps language learning and the value of multi-lingualism Dr Dan Taylor works at the Open University. His most recent book is Spinoza and the Politics of Freedom and he’s been an advisor on a BBC-Open University co-production Union, a four-part tv series due later this year presented by David Olusoga Dr Sam Johnson-Schlee, from London South Bank University has been researching a history of gas heating and he's published a kind of domestic spaces memoir titled Living Rooms Dr Kerry McInerney, a Research Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge co-hosts the Good Robots podcast and looks at anti-Asian racism in AI Isabella Rosner, is a PhD student at King’s College London and presenter of the Sew What? podcast and her research looks at Quaker needlework Dr Louise Brangan, Chancellor's Fellow in Social Work and Social Policy at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow is researching the way Ireland is now coming to terms with the impact of the Magdalene Laundries and the treatment of women and babies.Producer: Ruth Watts

Composer Alex Ho, novelist Xiaolu Guo, curator George Young and director Anthony Lau join Rana Mitter to discuss a Cinderella story Ye Xian which has inspired a new music theatre piece, a new Manchester gallery display of Chinese life and history, a Brecht play set in China which looks at love, hospitality and goodness and a memoir which describes ideas about love and what it feels like to be based in a new city.Producer: Robyn ReadGeorge Young is Head of Exhibitions and Collections at the Manchester Museum which has re-opened with new galleries including the Lee Kai Hung Chinese Culture Gallery which features on display a late Qing dynasty (1636–1912) ‘Manchu’ headdress decorated with blue kingfisher feathers, a 20-metre scroll showing Emperor Kangxi’s birthday procession through the streets of Beijing in the 18th century and a taxidermy milu deer.Untold is a music theatre piece co-created by composer Alex Ho and creative director/choreographer Julia Cheng for premiere by Jasmine Chiu, Keith Pun, and Tangram at Concertgebouw Brugge in April 2023. Co-produced by Muziektheater Transparant, O.Festival Rotterdam, and Tangram, Untold won the FEDORA Opera Prize 2022 awarded at Opéra national de Paris.Anthony Lau is director of a version of Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan with a new adaptation by Nina Segal on at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield (Saturday 11 March - Saturday 1 April 2023) and then transferring to the Lyric Hammersmith (Saturday 15 April – Saturday 13 May). It is one of the first major revivals in the UK to have a creative team and company represented from the East Asian heritage where the play is set.Radical: A Life of My Own is being launched by Xiaolu Guo at the British Library on April 13th http://www.guoxiaolu.com/You can find other conversations about Chinese culture on the Free Thinking programme website and available on BBC Sounds and as Arts & Ideas podcasts. They include discussions about World Politics, Ink Art and Insomnia https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015vns China, Freud, War and Sci-Fi https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014grr Bruce Lee's Film Enter the Dragon https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015l7z Africa, Babel, China https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002h89 The Inscrutable Writing of Sui Sin Far https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v9gl

Katja Hoyer and Karen Leeder join Anne McElvoy to discuss new histories of East Germany, stories depicting life in the state which have recently been translated into English as well as a recently translated edition of Uwe Wittstock's February 1933. Plus, Emily Oliver on the history of BBC German service and Elizabeth Ward is beginning a research project on the cinema of East Germany and its involvement in International Film Festivals.Katja Hoyer's book is called Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990 Professor Karen Leeder has been reading February 1933, a new translated work by one Germany’s leading contemporary writers, Uwe WittstockProducer: Ruth Watts