The Essay: New Generation Thinkers

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The Essay: New Generation Thinkers: In Praise of Flatness

In Praise of Flatness

New Generation Thinkers

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Noreen Masud finds inspiration in fenlands, polished tables and Kazuo Ishiguro's novels.

'I'm feeling flat,' we say. But New Generation Thinker Noreen Masud's Essay praises flat landscapes, the vast skies of Norfolk and the novels of Kazuo Ishiguro and Graham Swift.

Why are mountains linked with uplifting feelings? Noreen Masud's Essay conjures the vast skies of Norfolk and the fantasy of hope felt by Kazuo Ishiguro's characters in his novel Never Let Me Go, the idea of openness described by Graham Swift in his fenland novel Waterland and the feeling of freedom felt by poet Stevie Smith who declared: "I like … flatness. It lifts the weight from the nerves and the mind."

Producer: Luke Mulhall 

Dr Noreen Masud teaches literature at Durham University. You can hear her exploring aphorisms in this Sunday Feature https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rtxb and debating Dada in this Free Thinking discussion https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k9ws
She is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who turn their research into radio.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Ten academics make and present radio programmes for Radio 3 based on their research.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Council to select ten academics each year to make radio programmes based on their research.

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