Thinking Allowed

What role does the mobile phone have in showing off, hooking up and getting dumped? Laurie talks to Emma Bond about her new study into how young people use mobile phones in their intimate sexual relat...

10 Aug 201128min

Laurie Taylor discusses the mummy's curse and other Oriental myths with Marina Warner and Roger Luckhurst. The Ancient Egyptians had no real concept of the curse; instead, Luckhurst argues, it was a p...

3 Aug 201127min

Development of a country is conventionally measured by GDP, but that can mask a growing inequality in that nation and makes no reference to freedoms, rights or education. The philosopher Martha Nussba...

27 Jul 201127min

What is personal, what is confidential and what is private? These are all questions which are addressed in a new sociological study of the nature of privacy. Christena Nippert-Eng claims that 'privacy...

20 Jul 201128min

30 years ago riots broke out in Liverpool which lead to 160 arrests and 258 police officers needing hospital treatment. The four days of street battles, arson and looting lead to violent disturbances ...

13 Jul 201128min

British comedy, from Music Hall to TV sitcom, was once a democratic medium. Humour united people otherwise divided by class and education. But new research finds that the Alternative Comedy Movement t...

6 Jul 201128min

Have the working class in modern Britain become objects of fear, scorn and ridicule? That's the claim of Owen Jones who joins Laurie and Imogen Tyler on today's Thinking Allowed. He claims that the me...

29 Jun 201128min

One third of us now think we are sleep deprived. Why should that be? Who loses the most and how is society reacting? Laurie is joined by Stephen Williams to discuss a new area for sociology, the conte...

22 Jun 201127min