Free Thinking

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Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with artists and thinkers in debates and interviews.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with leading artists and thinkers in extended interview and debate.

Free Thinking: Queer history, new narrative in San Fransisco

Queer history, new narrative in San Fransisco

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Queer history, new narrative in San Fransisco

Diarmuid Hester & Dodie Bellamy tell Naomi Paxton about a 70s experimental writing group.

Naomi Paxton and guests discuss experimental writing by Dodie Bellamy, Kathy Acker and Kevin Killian, provocative essays by Merle Miller and Virginia Woolf and art by Judith Scott.

New narrative was a way of mixing philosophical and literary theory with writing about the body and pop culture. It was promoted by a group of writers in 1970s San Francisco. One of the chapters in New Generation Thinker Diarmuid Hester's new book Nothing Ever Just Disappears explores their work. He joins Dodie Bellamy in a programme exploring different aspects of the gay imagination and the re-inventing of tradition presented by Naomi Paxton. Alongside them is Lauren Elkin, author of a study of unruly bodies in feminist art called Art Monsters which explores artists including Carolee Schneemann, and the influence of writers like Kathy Acker. And James Corley has adapted a play, opening at Wilton's in London, which takes an influential essay by Merle Miller as its starting point. 

Producer: Luke Mulhall 

You can find a collection called Identity Discussion on the Free Thinking programme website which includes episodes about including Rocky Horror and camp, the V&A exhibition Diva, punk, tattoos, and perfecting the body. 
Based on the essay On Being Different by Merle Miller, James Corley's What It Means is at Wilton's Music Hall in London 4th - 28th October 2023
Dodie Bellamy's first novel, The Letters of Mina Harker, took a character from Bram Stoker's Dracula. She has also published poetry, essays and memoirs. 
Nothing Ever Just Disappears  Seven Hidden Histories by Diarmuid Hester is out now. He is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Council to put academic research on the radio and you can find him talking about Derek Jarman's Garden in a previous Free Thinking episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jgm5
exploring Stories of Love including Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001hxhk 
and hosting an Arts and Ideas podcast episode about Raiding Gay’s the Word & Magnus Hirschfeld https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0ff53xv

Check out Forever Blue - Radio 3's broadcast on Sunday and then on BBC Sounds of a programme inspired by Derek Jarman's Blue, the film released 30 years ago which was also broadcast on Radio 3.

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Free Thinking

Queer history, new narrative in San Fransisco

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