Chocolate

Shahidha Bari discusses the confection that has conquered the world

• 45 mins

The Condom and V.D.

Matthew Sweet and guests talk about sexual health, VD clinics, sex work and condoms

• 45 mins

Myths, ships and history

Anna McKay, Lloyd Belton and Oliver Finnegan delve in the deep for seafaring histories

• 44 mins

Can - Future Days

Matthew Sweet and guests take a deep dive into the influential German group's 1973 album.

• 44 mins

New Thinking: Stitching Stories

Shahidha Bari visits a textile art show + research on embroidery, stage outfits, vintage

• 43 mins

Hitchhiking

Matthew Sweet considers examples from Texas Chainsaw Massacre to a system of Polish tokens

• 45 mins

The Dutch Connection

John Gallagher hears about new research into Anglo-Dutch trade and early publishing

• 45 mins

Sarah Maldoror, Storm Jameson, the Hague Congress

Ahead of International Women's Day Shahidha Bari hears stories linking women with war

• 45 mins

Muses and women's creativity

From Pre-Raphaelite models to the daughter of Maud Gonne: Naomi Paxton with new research

• 45 mins

Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation

Matthew Sweet and guests look at the 1974 Gene Hackman film about surveillance and murder

• 45 mins

Images of Persia

Poetry by Hafez, Nowruz (New Year) and the Haft Sin table, the Mongol invasion, music

• 44 mins

Sleep justice and sleeplessness

Laurence Scott talks to researchers exploring how we sleep and the idea of sleep justice

• 44 mins

Edward Bond

Matthew Sweet and guests discuss the playwright Edward Bond (18 July 1934 – 3 March 2024)

• 45 mins

Call Me Mother

How the shape of words for mother helps babies eat their food. Rebecca Woods explains

• 15 mins

Free speech, censorship and modern China

The writings of Chinese women, from Ding Ling to coming of age in the 1990s

• 44 mins

Scottish Kingship

Medieval myth-making, the kings of Scotland and the Stone of Destiny

• 45 mins

Germany’s Mary Wollstonecraft

Andrew Cooper on the school teacher who tried to ignite a feminist revolution in Germany

• 14 mins

From algorithms to oceans

Kerry McInerney explores the promise of the ‘sustainable AI’ movement and how AI develops

• 14 mins

Weird Viking Bodies

Marianne Hem Eriksen on the meaning of a skull bone carved with "pain" thrown onto a tip

• 13 mins

Gas, oil and the Essex blues

Sam Johnson-Schlee draws links between Dr Feelgood, Canvey Island and energy policies

• 14 mins

The Legacy of the Laundries

Louise Brangan reflects on the uncovering of the secret lives lived in Irish laundries

• 14 mins

New Thinking: How water shapes our history and environment

From the aqueducts of ancient Rome to 19th century river Nile and today's running water

• 39 mins

Arteries of tomorrow

Dan Taylor considers the way communities along the A13 are looking to the future

• 14 mins

Writing Place

Sylvia Townsend Warner's move to Dorset, Heidegger's Heimat and the Arun river in Sussex.

• 44 mins

Rock, Paper, Saints and Sinners

Gemma Tidman describes a game created by a Jesuit missionary seeking Mohawk converts.

• 13 mins

New Thinking: East West artistic connections

A war captive turned musician in the Ottoman court and Islamic influences in Rubens' art

• 35 mins

Approaches to death

Archaeologists Marianne Hem Eriksen, Pauline Harding: historians Cat Byers, Harriet Soper

• 44 mins

New Thinking: Light and Darkness

Darkness and how it affects those with dementia, to light in modernist literature

• 39 mins

What does feminist art mean?

Ana Baeza Ruiz shares reflections from artists in the '70s women's liberation movement

• 14 mins

Pranks

Matthew Sweet and guests assess the value of pranks and what purpose they may serve.

• 44 mins

Unravelling plainness

Isabella Rosner explains why needlework challenges our idea of Quaker simplicity

• 14 mins

Hobbes, Abba, Waterloo and margarine

Matthew Sweet and guests look back at the week exploring the ideas shaping our lives today

• 56 mins

Change, scrabble and cultural christianity

Matthew Sweet and guests look at ideas about change: political, climate, personal

• 56 mins

Tacitus, Byron's fanmail and Bluey

Mary Beard, Konnie Huq, Helen Carr and Tom Peck join Shahidha Bari

• 57 mins

New Thinking: Exploring the local

New research into local politics, newspapers and the history of the post office

• 43 mins

Kant today, Spice Girls Reunited, Impersonating an Animal

Girl power past and present, the wisdom of goats and seagulls and Kant's ideas on reason

• 57 mins