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: Free speech, censorship and modern China

Free speech, censorship and modern China

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Free speech, censorship and modern China

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

Rana Mitter hears about the women of modern China seeking identity and voice in the public sphere and the complicated ways in which ideas are expressed outside democracy.

Rana Mitter explores looks at the role of writing in propagating ideas and exposing political tensions. He hears how writers have given voice to personal and political ambitions, from Ding Ling to the teenagers of modern China. Yuan Yang discusses her new book, Private Revolutions. Simon Ings talks about his latest book Engineers of Human Souls which examines four writers whose ideas shaped the careers of some of the twentieth century’s most infamous dictators. And Jeffrey Howard analyses the ethics of negotiating free speech and censorship today.

Producer: Ruth Watts

Private Revolutions: Coming of Age in a New China by Yuan Yang is out now 

Simon Ings' book Engineers of Human Souls: Four Writers Who Changed Twentieth-Century Minds looks at Maurice Barrès, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Ding Ling and Maxim Gorky. 

Jeffrey Howard is Associate Professor of Political Philosophy and Public Policy at UCL and Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Ethics in AI at Oxford University. You can find an Essay called Prison Break which he wrote for BBC Radio 3 asking if it is ever OK to escape from prison available on BBC Sounds. He was chosen as a New Generation Thinker in 2020 on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put research on radio.

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Free Thinking

Free speech, censorship and modern China

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