Free Thinking: Rachel Seiffert. James Hawes,Richard Nelson. 2017 New Gen Thinker Alistair Fraser on gangs
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 17 May 2017
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Anne McElvoy talks to the Tony award-winning playwright Richard Nelson about bringing his trilogy depicting a US family over the 2016 election year to the Brighton Festival. Novelist Rachel Seiffert was shortlisted for the Booker prize with her book The Dark Room. Her new novel is inspired by the arrival of the Nazis in a Ukrainian village. The political novelist, James Hawes, explains why a lack of a clear eastern border has informed German history for two thousand years. Plus the etymology of gangs explained by 2017 New Generation Thinker Alistair Fraser, a lecturer in criminology and sociology at the University of Glasgow.
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio and television. You can find a collection of films and broadcasts on the Free Thinking website.
The Gabriel Trilogy runs at the Brighton Festival from May 20th to May 27th. Rachel Seiffert's novel A Boy in Winter is out now. James Hawes 'The Shortest History of Germany' is out now.
Producer: Jacqueline Smith
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right? |
| 0:23.3 | It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music |
| 0:27.0 | when it's out of ice cream. |
| 0:28.8 | Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:32.0 | Thank you for downloading this program from the free-thinking team at the BBC. |
| 0:36.2 | I'm Anne McHelvoy. |
| 0:39.1 | This is the BBC. I'm Anne McHelvoy. This is the BBC. |
| 0:46.8 | Coming up, novelists writing history, close-drawn and personal, with Rachel Seifert on Leibon's realm, the bloody consequences of the Nazi dream of territorial expansion. And how did Germany |
| 0:53.0 | emerge from Germania? |
| 0:54.9 | James Hors has a brief take on a long history. |
| 0:58.7 | Gang, the word, what does it mean to you? |
| 1:01.4 | New Generation Thinker and Criminologist, |
| 1:03.9 | Alistair Fraser, sends his postcard from Glasgow. |
| 1:07.4 | First, though, as our own election beckons, |
| 1:09.8 | we hear from Richard Nelson, whose trilogy of plays The Gabriel's chart's key moments in the 2016 American election through the eyes of one family gathered around a table, arguing and reflecting on the country's political heroes of yore, including Franklin Roosevelt. |
| 1:26.6 | My brother loved that Roosevelt Museum. political heroes of yore, including Franklin Roosevelt. |
| 1:30.5 | My brother loved that Roosevelt Museum. |
| 1:34.6 | Thomas did some research in that library, didn't he? |
| 1:35.7 | Where's Roosevelt play? |
| 1:38.2 | The last thing you're faced with before you leave, |
| 1:39.6 | there's a movie there. |
| 1:41.7 | Guess whose voices on it, Mary? |
... |
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