Can we still expect a meaningful job, stable income, a chance of owning property? How have expectations changed and what is the place of protest? Matthew Sweet's guests this week are: David Willetts is a former Universities Minister and now a life peer. The Rt Hon Lord Willetts FRS is also current President of the Resolution Foundation, Chair of the UK Space Agency and a visiting Professor at King’s College London. His books include The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Took Their Children's Future – And Why They Should Give It Back Dr Tiffany Watt Smith is Director for the Centre for the History of Emotions at Queen Mary, London. Her books include Schadenfreude: The Joy of Another’s Misfortune, and The Book of Human Emotions. She was chosen as a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker in 2014 and you can hear her in Free Thinking discussions about happiness, schadenfreude and she presented a short feature about the science of baby laughs. Professor Will Davies is a sociologist and political economist teaching at Goldsmiths University of London. His books include Nervous States: How feeling took over the world, The Happiness Industry: How the government and big business sold us wellbeing and This is Not Normal: The collapse of liberal Britain. Elizabeth Oldfield's latest book is called Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times. She hosts The Sacred podcast and is a former director of Theos, a religion and society think tank.
Plus a report from an event this week in which the Royal Institute of Philosophy was paying tribute to its outgoing president, the political philosopher and ethicist Onora O’Neill, and welcoming her successor, the political philosopher Jonathan Wolff. We hear from Angie Hobbs, Paul, Tom Shakespeare, Grace Lockrobin, Onora O’Neill and Jo Wolff.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
New Thinking: Diverse Classical Music
Touki Bouki
New Thinking: Mental Health Research
Writing Love: Sarah Hall, Monica Ali, Adam Mars-Jones
Altered States
Mélusine
Adapting Molière
Appeasement
Gloves
Jean-Paul Belmondo and the French New Wave
Fungi: An Alien Encounter
Colm Toibin; Dullness as a virtue
Early Buddhism; Sheila Rowbotham
Witchcraft and Margaret Murray
The TV Debate
New Thinking: Research in Film Award Winners 2021
Ground-breaking history books
The Day of the Triffids
Caribbean art
Dürer, Rhinos and Whales
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Maverick Show with Matt Bowles
Global News Podcast
The Infinite Monkey Cage
Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4
You’re Dead to Me
Elis James and John Robins