Arts and Ideas

BBC Radio 3's annual Free Thinking festival of ideas continues its summer of activity as it takes up residency at leading summer events across the country. Anne McElvoy chairs a debate from the Daily Mail Chalke Valley History festival to examine how the British have looked to their history to give them a sense of national identity, and explores whether a sense of belonging and citizenship can be found from our past. The guests include historians Michael Wood, Helen Castor and Tom Holland and the MP and writer Kwasi Kwarteng.

Philip Dodd discusses the Problem with Love with behavioural scientist Dylan Evans, television presenter Esther Rantzen, Costa Prize-winning author AL Kennedy and singer and writer Pat Kane. Is it bad for us? How does love alter our brains and our bodies? What impact will social media and changing gender relations have on the future of love? The edition is was recorded at the recent HowTheLightGetsIn philosophy and music festival as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking in the Summer.

Two new dystopian novels by the scientist Susan Greenfield and academic Martin Goodman give Matthew Sweet the chance to ask whether dystopias ever really go away, and even if they don't do they ever say anything constructive about the future? Henry Gee joins the discussion. Director Ben Wheatley's latest work A Field In England sits squarely in the middle of the honourable tradition in British cinema of horror films set in the country. Wheatley joins Matthew along with the writer Iain Sinclair to discuss the genre. And Matthew reviews the Royal Academy's latest exhibition 'Mexico: A Revolution in Art,1910 - 1940,' with Sarah Kent and Amanda Hopkinson.

Rana Mitter talks to Washington insider Vali Nasr about his new book 'The Dispensable Nation - American Foreign Policy in Retreat.' The reputation of Alfred Russel Wallace, co-founder with Darwin of the Theory of Natural Selection, has now regained its former lustre. Rana and guests discuss why one of Victorian Britain's greatest scientists fell into obscurity. Ibrahim El-Salahi has a major retrospective at Tate Modern and exhibition curator, Salah Hassan explains the Sudanese artist's crucial role in the evolution of the reputation of African Art. Mount Fuji has finally gained World Heritage Status - Martin Dusinberre explains its central role in Japanese culture.

With Anne McElvoy, including an interview with the best-selling american novelist Claire Messud about her latest book The Woman Upstairs featuring a narrator consumed with anger. David Runciman, Michela Massimi and Matthew Taylor join Anne to examine the genesis of "Progress", the idea and the extent to which it remains persuasive, despite the setback of the 20th Century. Adam Mars Jones reviews a new biopic written and directed by David Mamet in which Al Pacino plays the music producer Phil Spector. And Joshua Oppenheimer reflects on his gripping but chilling documentary The Act Of Killing.

Rana Mitter chairs a Free Thinking debate from the annual 12-hour My Night With Philosophers festival at the Institut Français on the role of philosophy in public life, and asks what can the tools of philosophy offer the European political mindscape in the current climate?

Journalist and broadcaster Melanie Phillips discusses her autobiography Guardian Angel with Matthew Sweet and explains her dramatic transition from the darling of Britain's liberal left, to the Daily Mail's star columnist. Director Simon Godwin, theatre critic Susannah Clapp and TV writer Philip Martin discuss just how porous the theatrical "fourth wall" can be. And Pulitzer Prize-nominated author Jonathan Dee on his new novel A Thousand Pardons.

Philip Dodd and Susan Hitch review a new production of Benjamin Britten's Gloriana at the ROH. As a new academic journal of Porn Studies is announced Philip and guests discuss whether being morally neutral about pornography is possible or desirable. Sarah Peverley is one of this year's New Generation Thinkers and in her first Night Waves outing she considers the figure of King Arthur. A major exhibition of Lowry's urban landscapes has opened at Tate Britain. Curator T.J.Clark talks about how Lowry's growing stature in the British art world coincided with the disappearance of the industrialised land he depicted.

Anne McElvoy talks to David Edgar about his new play 'If Only' which focuses on The Coalition Government. Composer Orlando Gough tells us about his role in a one-off-art event celebrating the UK's long-silent foghorns in the north-east of England. Geographer Danny Dorling explains why he believes the predicted population explosion won't happen and even if it does, we might just cope, with Nick Bostrom in discussion. And Adam Broomberg discusses his works with Oliver Chanarin and why their concern is mistrust of the images which saturate our lives.

Philip Dodd goes to the V&A to speak to Hari Kunzru about his new work, and discusses manipulation of memory, and our anxieties about forgetting, with the actor Edward Petherbridge, the historical novelist Lawrence Norfolk, and memory expert Professor Giuliana Mazzoni. The writer Val McDermid talks to Philip Dodd about the remarkable book, The Wasp Factory and its impact, and her friend and fellow writer Iain Banks. And historian, Rebecca Steinfeld, one of Radio 3's New Generation Thinkers, on "the war of the wombs" in Israel, a battle that pits Jewish against Arabic reproductive power.

BBC Radio 3's annual Free Thinking festival of ideas hits the road this summer as it takes up residency at leading summer events across the country. Rana Mitter chairs a debate from the York Festival of Ideas on the legacy of the War of the Roses with Helen Castor, Sandy Grant and Mark Ormrod reflecting on how the Wars of the Roses shaped the country from the 15th century right up to the present day. In the year that Richard III's remains were identified beneath a Leicester Car Park, why does the Wars of the Roses continue to exert such a hold over our imaginations, from Game of Thrones to new BBC series The White Queen?

Matthew Sweet talks to Conor McPherson about his new play The Night Alive, working with his own material as writer and director, violence on stage and his muses. On the 700th anniversary of Boccaccio's birth, Matthew is joined by Massimo Riva, Guyda Armstrong and Lindsay Johns to discuss the relevance of the Florentine author today. David Kynaston has been 'Opening the Box' on the years 1957 - 59, the third in his series of books looking across the history of post-war Britain. But are we just too sentimental about the 1950s? New Generation Thinker Chris Harding explains how religions and scientific psychology and psychiatry are drawing ever closer together in our modern consciousness.

Anne McElvoy talks to Neil Gaiman, prolific award-winning author of novels for adults and children alike and writer for radio and television about new novel, The Ocean At The End Of The Lane. Historian, Selina Todd, writer and novelist Bidisha, and Telegraph columnist Tim Stanley tiptoe round a debate raging across social media, 'check your privilege’. Universe Cosmologist consultant, Marcus Chown reports back from Visions of the Universe exhibition at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.

Samira Ahmed talks to Joss Whedon, creator of the cult TV hit Buffy The Vampire Slayer, whose new film is a modern dress version of Much Ado About Nothing. Marianne Elliott talks about her new production of Tennessee Williams's play Sweet Bird of Youth, starring Kim Cattrall as a Hollywood leading lady whose youth is fading. Radio 3 New Generation Thinker Greg Tate looks back to a famous debate on Education between Matthew Arnold and T.H. Huxley which throws an interesting light on the current over-heated discussions about what our children should be taught.

A first night review of the National Theatre's revival of James Baldwin's drama The Amen Corner, starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste. Matthew Sweet along with Susannah Clapp and Lindsay Johns review. Are conspiracy theories the sign of a decayed or thriving democracy? Discussing are Professor Sir Richard Evans, David Aaronovitch and Eliane Glaser. New Generation Thinker John Gallagher meditates on the pleasures and pitfalls of disguise for the sixteenth century traveller. And Matthew interviews Rachel Kushner whose latest novel, The Flamethrowers is about the art and radicalism of the 1970's.