From moral questions to the quirks and pleasures of life.
All available episodes (1392 total)
Upcoming episodes (3 new)
Free thinking explores women's lives and issues.
Key films, books, TV, plays, art: 1001 Nights - 2001 A Space Odyssey, Jane Austen - Jaws
Free Thinking ponders.
Free Thinking explores the way people define themselves
New Thinking from UK Unis/Being Human Festival: history, books, language, philosophy.
Ziauddin Sardar, Richard Dawkins, Karen Armstrong, Rabbi Sacks, Marilynne Robinson
New thinking on the environment
From C20 fiction to new insights from research into political activism + colonial history
Leading scholars, insights from actors and directors and new research into the Bard.
From the Tale of Genji to Godzilla, Gandhi to Arundhati Roy, ink art to Confucius
Writing from around the world: fact, fiction, key authors, classics, contemporary voices.
From Dada to reflecting the body, Frieze Museum Director Debates to Black British art
Peter Singer, Cordelia Fine, Garry Kasparov, AI and Algorithmns, Tim O’Reilly.
Spying, peace negotiating & the power balance around the world, films, books, paintings
Teju Cole, Zadie Smith, Umberto Eco, Peter Singer, David Grossman, Edna O'Brien
A collection of Radio 3 programmes focussing on film.
Discussions/interviews: Slavoj Zizek, Xinran, Ivan Klima, Claudia Rankine, Pankaj Mishra
From Tudor art to animal rights: insights from the AHRC & BBC's scheme for academics.
Free Thinking explores America. Guests Claudia Rankine, Marilynne Robinson, Peter Bourne
What does it mean for books, music, architecture, philosophy, and art around the world?
The American performer and activist (1927-2023) talks politics, rebellion and containment
Futurism, Dadaism, South African writing, Indian architecture, German philosophy
You can download all the past episodes of Radio 3's Free Thinking
The Australian performer discusses his love of music and handling Dame Edna
The German poet and translator talking with Anne McElvoy in 2015
With the death of Glenda Jackson announced here's a conversation she recorded last year
In June Matthew Sweet talked with the Sherlock producer who has now died aged 90
The actor discusses his South African childhood and playing Willy Loman, Lear + Falstaff
Free Thinking explores the BBC's 100 novels that shaped our world.
Hear the 2020 winning historian David Abulafia in this episode
Angry politics, what we can’t say, being diplomatic, weeping, emotion in music, film & TV
Dr Chaney from the Centre for the History of the Emotions on the emotions of the past.
Congratulations to 2019 winner Mary Fulbrook.
The Essays will be broadcast on Radio 3 17-21 June
We examine the fast-changing relationship between the individual & the crowd
Recorded at the York Festival of Ideas (2018)
From the urge to fight and Mrs Noah to Uncanny objects and mountain photography...
From breastfeeding to fasting, resisting tyranny to murder & dining with a nightmare...
From satire and the circus, to gangs and 'speaking truth to power'
From aubergines to frostbite via finger-counting.
The mariner’s astrolabe; faith in food; Sherlock Holmes; the phone & a cold war relic...
Free Thinking Festival 2017: The Speed of Life
Listen to past editions from the extensive Night Waves archive.
Stephen Reicher reveals that crowd psychology is more nuanced than people think.
With global population on the rise, could having kids be your biggest moral mistake?
Laurence Scott introduces new research behind these sounds 31.03.22 10pm BBC Radio 3
