The Surreal World of Alejandro Jodorowsky

Matthew Sweet talks to Chilean-French director Alejandro Jodorowsky and to critics.

• 44 mins

Japan Now 2020

Hiromi Ito, Tomoko Sawada, Yukiko Motoya and Motoyuki Shibata

• 44 mins

African Empire stories

Petina Gappah and Sarah LeFanu on Livingstone, Kipling and Mary Kingsley in Africa.

• 44 mins

Genes, racism, ageing and evidence

Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin and geneticist Adam Rutherford join Rana Mitter.

• 44 mins

Women Behaving Badly?

Helen Lewis joins Shahidha Bari to talk feminist pioneers, dating, and power dynamics.

• 44 mins

How architecture shapes society

Ricky Burdett, Liza Fior, Des Fitzgerald, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Edwin Heathcote at LSE

• 44 mins

Anne Enright, The value of gossip

The Irish novelist talks to Laurence Scott, plus a discussion of gossip past and present.

• 44 mins

Maths and philosophy puzzles

Shahidha Bari looks at the legacy of 20th-century polymath Frank Ramsey (1903-1930).

• 44 mins

Jewish Identity in 2020

Howard Jacobson, Bari Weiss, Hadley Freeman, Jonathan Freedland and Matthew Sweet.

• 44 mins

Fighting Women

Maaza Mengiste, Christina Lamb, Julie Wheelwright & Shawn Sobers join Eleanor Barraclough.

• 44 mins

Advertising, Renaissance Art and Artemisia Gentileschi

Historians Catherine Fletcher, Selina Todd and art critic Jonathan Jones join Rana Mitter.

• 44 mins

Slebs: Warhol, Beaton and celebrity culture

Lisa Mullen, Caroline Frost and historian & podcast host Greg Jenner join Matthew Sweet.

• 44 mins

Does Growth Matter?

Is the economic future all about growth? Danny Dorling discusses Slowdown.

• 44 mins

Shoes

From Roman sandals to trainers and stilettos, Shahidha Bari looks at the shoe trade.

• 44 mins

Contagion & Viruses

Matthew Sweet talks to John Dupré, Mark Honigsbaum, Lisa Mullen & Matt Adams

• 44 mins

How do we build a new masculinity?

Sunil Gupta, CN Lester, Tom Shakespeare and Alona Pardo with Matthew Sweet.

• 44 mins

The Declaration Of Arbroath

Anne McElvoy and guests discuss the early medieval document and Scottish politics today.

• 44 mins

Future Thinking

Mark Honigsbaum, Lisa Mullen, Riel Miller, Sarah Dillon and Rupert Read with Matthew Sweet

• 44 mins

Wordsworth

Professors Sally Bushell and Simon Bainbridge talk to New Generation Thinker Sarah Jackson

• 44 mins

Knees

Dance to prayer, servants to Kings, knees ups to being on our knees. With Matthew Sweet

• 44 mins

Religion and ordinary lives

Tom Charlton looks for evidence of belief from samplers to children's scribbles in bibles.

• 44 mins

Belonging

Philip Dodd talks to actor Christopher Eccleston and historian Ruth Dudley Edwards.

• 44 mins

Deep Time and Human History

Lewis Dartnell, Gaia Vince and David Farrier join Rana Mitter to talk the deepest history.

• 44 mins

What's so great about EM Forster

Deborah Levy and Laurence Scott talk to Shahidha Bari about novelist EM Forster's work.

• 44 mins

Science Fiction and ecological thinking

Hetta Howes, Amy Butt and Caroline Edwards ask if science fiction is the new realism.

• 44 mins

Alternative Realities

Shahidha Bari explores the impact of life-changing experiences and the fourth dimension.

• 44 mins

Shakespeare for the People

Adrian Lester and Prof Ewan Fernie talk to Islam Issa about Birmingham's first folio.

• 44 mins

Cary Grant

Matthew Sweet and guests imagine an evening in the film star's company.

• 44 mins

Neolithic Revelations

A lack of dental floss in the Neolithic era proves to be a boon for archaeologists.

• 44 mins

WWII radio propaganda and French relations

From a gratitude train to the sinister broadcasts to US soldiers. Matthew Sweet presents.

• 44 mins

Big State and the Industrial Revolution

Emma Griffin and William Ashworth share new research on Victorian industry.

• 44 mins

The 2020 Wolfson History Prize: Toby Green, Marion Turner, John Barton

New takes on Chaucer, the Bible and African trading from 3 of the historians shortlisted.

• 44 mins

A feminist take on medieval history

How does Chaucer write on rape and consent? What links Kim Kardashian and Margery Kempe?

• 44 mins

The 2020 Wolfson History Prize: David Abulafia, Hallie Rubenhold, Prashant Kidambi

From Indian cricket, a survey of the oceans to Jack the Ripper: 3 shortlisted historians.

• 44 mins

Kindness

Rutger Bregman tells Anne McElvoy why survival of the fittest needs rethinking as an idea.

• 44 mins

Anne Fine and Romesh Gunesekera. Jarman's Garden

Shahidha Bari hosts a conversation recorded with the Royal Society of Literature.

• 44 mins

Sarah Perry

In a conversation with Mathew Sweet, the gothic author explores writing past and present.

• 44 mins

Rowan Williams and Simon Armitage

Landscape in poetry discussed by Rowan Williams and Simon Armitage at Hay.

• 44 mins

Tokyo Story

Actor Richard Wilson & Prof Naoko Shimazu discuss Yasujiro Ozu's 1953 film of family life.

• 45 mins

Robin Askwith

The actor talks to Matthew Sweet about a childhood affected by polio and his career.

• 44 mins

Tackling Modern Slavery

Naomi Paxton looks at new research into the effectiveness of the UK act passed in 2015.

• 44 mins

Dickens

Mathew Sweet, Linda Grant, Laurence Scott & Lucy Whitehead -150 years since Dickens' death

• 44 mins

Failure and female friendship

Lara Feigel, Michèle Roberts and New Generation Thinker Alexandra Reza with Shahidha Bari.

• 44 mins

The future of theatre debate

Bertie Carvel & Roy Alexander Weise are amongst Anne McElvoy's guests

• 44 mins

Queer Bloomsbury, Stillness in art and dance

From Virginia Woolf's writings on art to dance, stillness and movement in lockdown.

• 44 mins

Refugees

From building shelters to the language we use to discuss displacement we hear new research

• 44 mins

Irenosen Okojie and Nadifa Mohamed. Midsummer archaeology

Shahidha Bari talks to a pair of authors about the writing life. Plus a musical monument.

• 44 mins

Rethinking the Curriculum

Sandeep Parmar, Jade Cuttle, Edith Hall & Seb Falk talk to Rana Mitter about what we teach

• 44 mins

Ian Rankin and Tahmima Anam

A pair of authors due to be at the Bradford Literature Festival compare notes on writing.

• 44 mins

Frank Cottrell-Boyce

The screenwriter and novelist talks to Matthew Sweet about depicting Britain in his work.

• 44 mins

Gambling, good leadership and economic history

Anne McElvoy looks at gambling and at lessons from past US presidents.

• 44 mins

First Encounters

How do you decipher history when there isn't anything written down?

• 44 mins

What Does a Black History Curriculum Look Like?

Reports from The Runnymede Trust and The Black Curriculum call for wider history teaching.

• 44 mins

The consolation of philosophy and stories

Matthew Sweet talks to Kylie Murray, Prof Seth Lerer and former Bishop Richard Holloway.

• 44 mins

Magic

Matthew Sweet and guests conjure a conversation about the importance and appeal of magic

• 44 mins

Nature Writing

From Gilbert White to lockdown blogs - why we need to spend more time in nature.

• 44 mins

Anne Applebaum, Ingrid Bergman, Herland

Anne Applebaum, and the lives of Ingrid Bergman and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

• 44 mins

Dada and the power of nonsense

A project to reimagine the Dada arts movement now, and reflections on satire and nonsense.

• 44 mins

Bernard-Henri Lévy, Stella Sandford, Homi K Bhabha

How philosophy helps us understand the world reshaped by Covid-19. Shahidha Bari presents.

• 44 mins

Wole Soyinka's Writing

Ben Okri, Louisa Egbunike and Oladipo Agboluaje discuss Wole Soyinka's life and work.

• 44 mins

Piranesi and disturbing archecture

Susanna Clarke, author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, is one of Matthew Sweet's guests.

• 44 mins

The Mayflower and Native American history

Sarah Churchwell, Kathryn Napier Gray and Lauren Working with Eleanor Barraclough.

• 44 mins

Family Ties and Reshaping History

From Neanderthals to Sikh warriors to the idea of weird people, three authors look at kin.

• 44 mins

Get Carter

Digging beneath the surface of the classic Brit noir film with director Mike Hodges.

• 44 mins

The impact of being multilingual

Discussion ahead of the European Day of Languages and International Translation Day.

• 44 mins

Conservatism, Philanthropy, Liberal and socialist futures

Anne McElvoy talks to Edmund Fawcett about conflicts within Conservatism.

• 44 mins

Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize 2020

Tales of indigenous people battling for their land; colonialism & pioneers of anthropology

• 44 mins

Cows, farming and our view of nature

Are cows the answer to depleted soil or the problem? With farmer and author James Rebanks.

• 44 mins

Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

Links between biography and poetry. Telling modern Ugandan stories. With Shahidha Bari.

• 44 mins

Writing a Life: Hermione Lee, Daniel Lee and Rachel Holmes

Biographers of Tom Stoppard, Sylvia Pankhurst and a little known SS soldier compare notes.

• 44 mins

African Europeans, Fidel Castro and African leaders, WEB Du Bois

Professors Olivette Otele and Simon Hall on understanding connections in black history

• 44 mins

The Frieze BBC Radio 3 Debate Museums in the 21st Century

Gallery directors from Russia, USA and Singapore compare notes, hosted by Anne McElvoy.

• 44 mins

New Thinking about Museums

VR Vikings, military museums to bakelite - new research into a range of collections.

• 44 mins

Daljit Nagra & Val McDermid; Reynard the Fox

A poet and a crime writer compare notes; plus, lessons for now from a medieval foxy fable

• 44 mins

Derrida and post truth

Matthew Sweet asks biographer Peter Salmon about Derrida's influence today

• 44 mins

Seances and Science

A Croydon poltergeist and artists as mediums - Kate Summerscale and Simon Grant.

• 44 mins

2020 Polari Prize winners

Shahidha Bari looks at some of the best recent LGBTQ+ writing and photography.

• 44 mins

The Writing of Aimé Césaire

From négritude and his Discourse on Colonialism to his long inventive and punning poetry.

• 44 mins

City Life, estate living and lockdown

Matthew Sweet and guests on how Covid has changed our cities.

• 44 mins

Individualism and Community

From Enlightenment conscience to New Deal USA to carers and refugees. Anne McElvoy hosts

• 44 mins

Audiences

A director, event programmer and theatre & dance historians on making work without a crowd

• 44 mins

War in fact and fiction

Historians Margaret McMillan and Rob Johnson. Novelists Abdulrazak Gurnah and Mia Couto

• 44 mins

Depicting Disability

The history of disabled people’s political activism, to portrayals in fiction & at courts.

• 44 mins

Billy Wilder

Matthew Sweet, novelist Jonathan Coe and others discuss the director of Some Like It Hot.

• 44 mins

What we cherish and what we give away

What objects do we value most and what do we give away to charity shops?

• 44 mins

The Imperial War Museum BBC Radio 3 Remembrance Debate 2020

What is the role of artists in shaping our understanding of history by commemorating war?

• 44 mins

Postcolonial Derby: Privateers, Pieces of Eight and the Postwar Playhouse

New research on Herman Moll's maps, looted Mexican coins and Alan Bates's early career.

• 44 mins

About Face

What would you change about your nose if you could? What about an entire face transplant?

• 44 mins

Helen Mort and Blake Morrison, Oulipo

How do you teach writing? Helen Mort and Blake Morrison compare notes.

• 44 mins

Democracy, Hong Kong and USA

Democracy and dissent in Hong Kong and the USA. Are confrontational politics here to stay?

• 44 mins

Bedrooms

From the most private space to office: Matthew Sweet, Tiffany Watt Smith and Fern Riddell.

• 44 mins

Conformity and Rebellion

Activist Obi Egbuna, Ukrainian director Kira Muratova, Japanese child star Misora Hibari

• 44 mins

Leadership

From Tudor courts to plantations to the Arab Spring: a Bristol Festival of Ideas debate.

• 44 mins

Mould-Breaking Writing

Will Harris, Max Porter and Chloe Aridjis, Christine Yao and Shahidha Bari.

• 44 mins

Times of Change

Can the Industrial Revolution and the end of the Aztecs help us shape a post-Covid world?

• 44 mins

Ways of Talking about Health

Des Fitzgerald with projects that use films and books to rethink how we approach health.

• 44 mins

The 1920s - Philosophy's Golden Age

Matthew Sweet on Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Adorno, Carnap and other philosophical greats.

• 44 mins

Hey Presto

From a history of Panto to magic tricks and what surgeons can learn from them.

• 44 mins

Ancient Wisdom and Remote Living

From medieval science to the ingenuity of Arctic peoples and the resilience of island life

• 44 mins