Arts & Ideas21 Okt 2015

Free Thinking - Home. Marilynne Robinson. Edwin Heathcote. Thomas Harding. Imtiaz Dharker

Marilynne Robinson, Thomas Harding, Imtiaz Dharker discuss ideas of home with Philip Dodd. Are we becoming increasingly rootless, or simply finding new ways to put down roots.

Pulitzer Prize winning author Marilynne Robinson is the author of a novel called Home and finds her own roots in Iowa and in her Calvinist faith. In her new collection of essays The Givenness of Things, she explores the ideas that make up the religious and philosophical homeland of Europe and America – Calvinism, Humanism, the Reformation, the self.

Thomas Harding’s family originate in Germany. In his new book The House by the Lake he relates the changing ownership and fortunes of his family’s summer house in eastern Berlin and with it the history of Germany from the thirties up to the present. It's his follow up to his best-selling book Hanns and Rudolph.

Poet and artist Imtiaz Dharker describes herself as a "Pakistani Calvinist Scottish Muslim" and her life has taken her from Lahore, to Glasgow, to Bombay, to Wales and finally to London – "I think displacement is often a good and useful thing for a writer", she says.

And as a new exhibition dedicated to The World of Charles and Ray Eames opens, Edwin Heathcote takes Philip on an imaginative tour of their iconic house, Case Study House #8, which they designed to "express man's life in the modern world."

The World of Charles and Ray Eames runs at the Barbican in London from 21st October to 14th February. Marilynne Robinson's Essay collection The Givenness of Things is out now. Thomas Harding's book is called The House by the Lake Imtiaz Dharker's most recent poetry collection is called Over The Moon.

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(2000)

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 Maj 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 Maj 56min

Technologies of the Self

‘Technologies of the self’ is a phrase from the French philosopher Michel Foucault to describe things people might do to shape the people they are, like dieting, exercise, journaling, or in an earlier...

15 Maj 57min

The Middle

From taking the middle ground to the mid-life crisis, Middle England to middle managers, to being a middle child - is occupying a position in the middle out of fashion?Anne McElvoy hosts Radio 4's ide...

8 Maj 57min

Weapons, real and symbolic

How do weapons exert real and symbolic power, both now and in history?Joining Matthew Sweet in Radio 4's round table discussion programme about ideas are:The former soldier and politician Tobias Ellwo...

1 Maj 56min

Weapons, real and symbolic

How do weapons exert real and symbolic power, both now and in history?Joining Matthew Sweet are:The former soldier and politician Tobias EllwoodThe sculptor Hew Locke, whose artworks exploring colonia...

1 Maj 56min

Purity

From spiritual cleanliness to purity spirals: Matthew Sweet is joined by guests including David Aaronovitch; Catherine Coldstream, author of Cloistered – My Years as a Nun; Linda Woodhead, Professor o...

24 Apr 56min

Humility

From Spinoza's thinking and the approach of different religions to the Dickens' character Uriah Heep and the "humble brag" - in Radio 4's late night ideas discussion programme Matthew Sweet and guests...

27 Mars 56min