Free Thinking28 Jun 2024

Escapism

Travel, reading, cinema and psychedelic drugs are all means people have used to try to escape. But do they ever really lead us where we want them to? With the election looming, Glastonbury in full swing and lists of beach read suggestions starting to appear -

Matthew Sweet discusses the difference between escape and escapism with

Noreen Masud, Lecturer in Twentieth Century Literature at the University of Bristol and author of the memoir A Flat Place

Kirsty Sinclair Dootson, Lecturer in Film and Media at University College London, author of The Rainbow's Gravity

Jonathan White, Professor of Politics and Deputy Head of the European Institute at the London School of Economics and author of In The Long Run: The Future as a Political Idea

Jules Evans, writer, historian of ideas and practical philosopher whose books include The Art of Losing Control, and Philosophy for Life and other dangerous situations.

Plus, Maximillian de Gaynesford, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading, on the philosophical significance of dreams and dreaming from Descartes and Freud to Norman Malcolm.

Jules, Noreen and Kirsty are all New Generation Thinkers on a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to share academic research on radio.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

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Episoder(1526)

The Ethics of Knowledge

Do we have a responsibility to inform ourselves about the state of the world? Is the experience of some people valued more highly than that of others? Matthew Sweet investigates the ethics of knowledg...

10 Jul 56min

Trade and Traffic

What does trade set in motion beyond the exchange of goods? Anne McElvoy explores the movement of commerce across time as a carrier of habits, ideas, ambitions and influence, as well as of material th...

3 Jul 56min

The Child's Eye View

Shahidha Bari investigates the child’s-eye view of the world. From navigating AI to living through war and the joys of reading, what makes children’s perspectives so distinctive? With writer Katherine...

26 Jun 56min

Eccentrics & Outsiders

How has the figure of the outsider or eccentric been used to explore English culture, history, politics, and our relationship with nature and the countryside? Matthew Sweet discusses, including a re-r...

19 Jun 56min

Satire and Gulliver's Travels

300 years after the publication of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Matthew Sweet looks at satire, past and present. How can satirists reflect critically and humorously on political events in an a...

12 Jun 56min

Wealth

Anne McElvoy and guests discuss the concentration, distribution and morality of wealth now and look back at An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published by the Scottish ec...

5 Jun 56min

Free Thinking at the Hay Festival: Responsibility

Freedom is one of the leading values of our society. But with freedom comes responsibility, which is a much more contested principle. Deciding where responsibility lies, and what it means to take it, ...

29 Mai 56min

Thinking with Food

The links between food and philosophy, ideas about experimentation, taste and how food and traditions become part of our identity are explored by Matthew Sweet in Radio 4's round-table discussion prog...

22 Mai 56min