Festival of ideas 25–27 October 2013

tHIS YEAR’S FESTIVAL THEME IS WHO’S IN CONTROL?

BBC Radio 3 brings together leading thinkers for a weekend of provocative debate, new ideas, music and performance at Sage Gateshead.

tickets Free .co.uk/freethinking #FreeThinking Festival of ideas

Friday 25 – Sunday 27 October 2013

Samira Ahmed, 2012

BBC Radio 3’s festival of ideas returns to Sage Gateshead for a weekend of provocative debate, new ideas, music and performance. This year’s festival theme is “Who’s In Control?” Do workers or their bosses suffer most stress? Has Twitter given voters power over politicians? Who’s in control of our appetites and body image; of our moods and minds; of disease; of public taste; when an orchestra performs? With Lionel Shriver, Patrick Ness, Dame Ian McMillan, 2012 Free Thinking Sally Davies, Sugata Mitra, Sir Michael Marmot, Kathryn Tickell, Chris Mullin, Kevin Whately. Tickets for all events are FREE. Introducing the To book call Sage Gateshead on BBC Radio 3 presenters Anne McElvoy Rana Mitter Philip Dodd Matthew Sweet 0191 443 4661 or visit www.sagegateshead.com/freethinking Free Thinking is hosted by presenters from Radio 3’s Standby tickets will be available on the day. Night Waves Anne McElvoy, Rana Mitter, Matthew Sweet, Free Thinking is produced and broadcast by Philip Dodd and Samira Ahmed, BBC Radio 3 (see back of brochure for alongside The Verb with Ian transmission details) McMillan, In Tune with Sean Samira Ahmed Ian McMillan Sean Rafferty Rafferty,Music Matters with Tom Contribute on Twitter at #FreeThinking Service, The Choir with Greg Beardsell, Private Passions with Michael Berkeley and Words and Music. Friday FRIDA

New Y the barbour room In Tune 4.15pm–6.30pm OCTOBER 25 Generation saturday Northern Rock Foundation Hall LIVE BROADCAST 11.40am Eleanor Rosamund Sean Rafferty hosts a live broadcast of Radio 3’s drive- Thinkers time programme In Tune, with special performances and Barraclough The Power Of The Vikings. interviews with guests who are appearing over the Free Thinking Festival weekend, including novelist 1.20pm Lionel Shriver. Jazz trio Eyes Shut Tight play their own Sarah Peverley Sean Rafferty elegant compositions. The Real Game Of Thrones – Power In 15th Century England 3.15pm Sir Michael Marmot – Christopher Harding The Free Thinking Lecture Therapy vs Prayer Self Control – The Key To A Long Life? 3.50pm “speed dating” 7.15pm–8.30pm Drop into The Squires Lounge Hall Two next to the Sage café 5.05pm Sir Michael Marmot is an internationally Fern Riddell renowned medical researcher, who’s worked Respectability And Female Sexuality for the World Health Organisation, the NHS In Victorian England and the British Government, and is one of the global pioneers of research into health 6.45pm inequalities – how stress, status and diet can Join the New Generation Thinkers, the Jules Evans winners of the talent scheme run by affect our wellbeing. His ground-breaking What Does It Mean To Feel Ecstatic? Whitehall Studies followed the health and stress BBC Radio 3 and the Arts & Humanities 7.15pm levels of British civil servants over 10 years and Research Council to find the brightest Sarah Dillon Professor Marmot coined the term “status academic minds with the potential to Science Fiction And Birth Control syndrome” to describe his discovery that being turn their ideas into broadcasts. The New lower down the pecking order leads to a shorter life span. Generation Thinkers will be delivering essays sunday on a range of topics (see list, right), and taking 12.10pm For the opening lecture of the 2013 Free Thinking John Gallagher Festival, Sir Michael Marmot explores the traits part in many events during the weekend Language Wars In Early that determine a healthy life and argues that we including “Speed Dating” with a thinker, when Modern England need to rethink the relationship between health, wealth and self-control. Sir Michael Marmot you can hear their ideas on a one-to-one 12.40pm basis and vote for the best idea. Rebecca Steinfeld Cutting Tradition – Debating Thomas Zehetmair conductor Circumcision Radio 3 Live in Concert from Sage Gateshead Werner Güra tenor 1.10pm “speed dating” Peter Francomb horn Drop into The Squires Lounge 7.30pm–9.15pm Royal Northern Sinfonia LIVE BROADCAST next to the Sage café Hall One Tickets £19-£33 (Concessions available) 3.20pm Tickets available from Alice Hall Mozart Divertimento in B flat www.sagegateshead.com Is Social Media Changing Memory ‘Salzburg Symphony No. 2’ 0191 443 4661 And Autobiographical Fiction? Britten Serenade for tenor, horn and strings 4.50pm Mozart Symphony No.40 in G minor Gregory Tate What Jane Austen Teaches Us About Thought Versus Emotion 5 SAT SAT

U saturday U RDA Who’s Got Hold Of Children’s Imaginations? New Generation Thinker: RDA 10.15am–11.15am Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough Y Y

26 OCTOBER 26 Northern Rock Foundation Hall 11.40am–12.05pm OCTOBER 26 The Barbour Room Presented by Matthew Sweet How do children cope in an unstable world? What stimulates their Boneless, Bloodaxe and Hairy Breeches: imaginations and development? What Did The Vikings Ever Do For Us? In his Chaos Walking trilogy, prize-winning writer Patrick Ness created It was in North East England that the curtain opened a town where privacy and secrets were impossible. His new novel, on the Viking Age. Just a few miles up the road from More Than This, depicts a teenager whose memories seem more Gateshead in 793 AD, Scandinavian raiders fell upon Lindisfarne monastery. As the monk Alcuin wrote, real than the world around him. Charles Fernyhough is a Professor of Patrick Ness Psychology at Durham University and the author of Pieces of Light, a “Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as non-fiction book about autobiographical memory, andA Box of Birds, we have now suffered from a pagan race. Behold, a literary thriller dissecting brains and the people who work with them. the church of St Cuthbert, splattered with the blood of the priests.” Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough, of In association with the Juice Festival, New Writing North’s Cuckoo Durham University, uses this moment to examine Young Writers Programme, Seven Stories the National Centre for how the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings struggled for Children’s Books and BBC’s School Report. control of England, right up to the earth-shattering Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough Under 16s need to be accompanied by someone over 18 events of 1066.

Charles Fernyhough Are We At A Tipping Point? Controlling Infection And What’s Eating You? Combatting Disease. 10.30am–11.30am 12.15pm–1.15pm Hall Two Hall Two Presented by Anne McElvoy Presented by Samira Ahmed We talk about making medical advances but can Lionel Shriver won the Orange we be sure that we can really beat diseases which Prize with her novel about a used to be killers? Professor Dame Sally Davies teenage murderer We Need is the Chief Scientific Advisor to the Department To Talk About Kevin, which of Health and represents the UK as a member became a film starring Tilda of the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Swinton. So Much For That Advisory Committee on Health Research. She is depicted the US health system the first woman to hold the post of Chief Medical and the effects of illness on Officer for England. relationships. Her new novel Big Brother looks at family Part of Insights, Newcastle University’s and food and she discusses Public Lecture Programme controlling our appetites In association with: and our body image with the author and President of the

UK College of Psychoanalysts, Lionel Shriver Darian Leader, whose clinical studies involve researching In association with: the place of food and diet in contemporary culture. Dame Sally Davies

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RDA 12.00pm–1.00pm Depression And Smart Drugs. RDA (Live recording begins 12.15pm) 2.00pm–3.00pm Northern Rock Foundation Hall Y Northern Rock Foundation Hall Y 26 OCTOBER 26 OCTOBER 26 LIVE BROADCAST Presented by Rana Mitter Presented by Tom Service What does it mean to be depressed? Are we over-prescribing Tom Service hosts Radio 3’s drugs? The Mental Health Foundation says 1 in 4 people in the flagship classical music UK will experience some kind of mental health problem in the magazine programme as it course of a year. Pyschoanalyst Darian Leader believes we are broadcasts live from Sage living in what he calls “a bipolar age”. Professor Barbara Sahakian Gateshead. He asks an invited questions the ethics of smart drugs; they help treat brain injury panel: who’s really in charge and illness but should they be available to the healthy? Guardian of today’s music world? Who columnist and author Clare Allan drew on her experiences of chooses what gets played and being a psychiatric patient in her novel Poppy Shakespeare. Free by whom? Who controls the Thinking brings them together to discuss the neuroscience of depression, how it affects decision-making and the morality of policy of our concert halls and Darian Leader opera houses? Who decides medical treatments. on the musical interpretation?

Tom Service

New Generation Thinker: Sarah Peverley Professor Barbara Sahakian Clare Allan 1.20pm–1.45pm The Barbour Room Teaching The Teachers - The Real Game Of Thrones – Power In 15th Century England The Future Of Education In the 15th century people believed that rulers were 2.15pm–3.15pm appointed by God and that the King had absolute Hall Two supremacy. So what happened when medieval kings were unfit to rule or when the throne was contested? Presented by Philip Dodd and demonstrated that they can teach themselves. It Sarah Peverley, from Liverpool University, explores how Professor Sugata Mitra from people living through the Wars of the Roses perceived their also inspired the novel which Newcastle University has became the filmSlumdog rulers and how they responded to the shifts in royal power gained global interest for his Professor Sugata Mitra brought about by the real-life Game Of Thrones. Millionaire. He went on to research into the future of invent Self Organised Learning to extend this vision of SOLEs learning and is the winner Environments (SOLEs) in the and the Granny Cloud to build of the $1 million 2013 TED schools of Gateshead in 2010. “Schools in the Cloud”. How prize. His pioneering “Hole in Now his “Granny Cloud” uses does this compare with a UK the Wall” experiment in the retired volunteers in the UK to education system governed early 2000s gave children in guide children in India and he by league tables and a set India access to computers wants to use the TED money curriculum? Sarah Peverley

8 Free tickets www.sagegateshead.com/freethinking 0191 443 4661 9 SAT “Speed Date” New Generation Thinkers SAT New Generation Thinker: Chris Harding U 3.50pm–4.50pm U

RDA 3.15pm–3.40pm Drop into The Squires Lounge next to the Sage café. RDA The Barbour Room Your chance to participate in a series of discussions with experts – come and vote for the

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26 OCTOBER 26 Therapy vs Prayer OCTOBER 26 How different is therapy from prayer? You might associate therapy with non-judgmental listening and prayer with fixed Private Passions systems of belief. But what if it’s the other way round? Focusing 4.00pm–5.00pm on two of the world’s most secular societies – Japan and the UK Hall Two – Chris Harding, from Edinburgh University, asks whether prayer might involve fewer hidden pressures and presumptions than a Presented by Michael Berkeley session with a shrink. Chris Harding BBC Radio 3’s Private Passions joins Free Thinking for the first time to explore the life and How On Earth Can musical choices of a public We Cope With Less? figure. Michael Berkeley talks to Chris Mullin, former MP for 3.45pm–4.45pm Sunderland South, thriller-writer, Northern Rock Foundation Hall and the author of one of the funniest and most readable Presented by Philip Dodd series of political diaries of the last 50 years. What did his 23 In a world of diminishing natural resources, global years in Parliament reveal about economic crisis and constant pressure on time, how who is really in control? Mullin does not having enough shape the way we think? Free reveals the music that kept him Thinking brings together a panel to debate these issues. sane during two decades in Professor Sendhil Mullainathan teaches Economics politics, including his passion for at Harvard University, is a recipient of a MacArthur Mozart’s Mass in C Minor. Chris Mullin Professor Simin Davoudi Foundation “genius grant” and co-author of Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much. Professor Simin Davoudi from Newcastle University’s Global Urban Research Unit investigates resilience and sustainability New Generation Thinker: in planning. Professor Jeremy Till heads Central Saint Fern Riddell Martins and is Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Arts London. His recent research explores 5.05pm–5.30pm the way scarcity can provoke creative solutions to The Barbour Room development and housing needs in different cities across Europe. False Conception – Female Sexuality In Victorian England In association with Cafe Culture North East www.cafeculturenortheast.org.uk In 1877, Annie Besant was convicted under the Obscene Publications Act of distributing a pamphlet on practical advice for contraception to the working classes. That a respectable public woman should discuss sex out in ‘the real world’ was thought to be Professor Sendhil Mullainathan utterly inappropriate, but Besant passionately believed that everyone, regardless of class, had a right to information about their bodies and their sexuality. Fern Riddell, from King’s College London, argues that we are wrong to associate the Victorians only with unhealthy sexual attitudes and the repression Fern Riddell of women.

10 Free tickets www.sagegateshead.com/freethinking 0191 443 4661 11 Friday saturday continued ATGLANCE A ATGLANCE A Time Hall One Hall Two Northern Rock Time Hall Two Northern Rock The Barbour Room St Mary’s The Foundation Hall Foundation Hall Squires Lounge 4.00pm 4.15pm - 6.30pm In Tune 6.00pm 6.45pm-7.10pm 5.00pm Special performances and New Generation Thinker interviews with guests who In Search of Ecstasy? are appearing over the Free 6.00pm Thinking Festival weekend 7.00pm 7.15pm-7.45pm New Generation Thinker 7.00pm 7.30pm - 9.15pm 7.15pm - 8.30pm Wombs on Legs? Science Live in Concert The Free Thinking Fiction and the control of BBC Radio 3 Live from Lecture reproduction Sage Gateshead for Self Control - The Key to a Free Thinking 2013 Long Life? 8.00pm 7.45pm - 8.45pm The Verb Letting go is good saturday for you! Time Hall Two Northern Rock The Barbour Room St Mary’s The Foundation Hall Squires sunday Lounge Time Hall Two Northern Rock The Barbour Room The Squires Lounge 10.00am 10.30am-11.30am 10.15am-11.15am Foundation Hall What’s Eating You? Who’s Got Hold With Lionel Shriver of Children’s 11.00am 11.00am-1.00pm 11.00am-12.00pm and Darian Leader Imaginations? The Choir Science Fiction, With Patrick Ness and With Greg Beardsell Surveillance and The Charles Fernyhough North East in Zamyatin’s Classic Dystopian Fable We. 11.00am 11.40am-12.05pm With Sean O’Brien, New Generation Thinker Sarah Dillon and David Boneless, Bloodaxe and Aaronovitch Hairy Breeches: What did the Vikings ever do for us? 12.00pm 12.10pm-12.35pm New Generation Thinker 12.00pm 12.15pm-1.15pm 12.00pm-1.00pm Breeding the Mongrel - Are we at a tipping Music Matters Language Wars in Early point? Controlling Who’s really in charge Modern England infection and of today’s music world? combatting disease. 12.45pm-1.45pm 12.40pm-1.05pm With Dame Sally Why are maps still New Generation Thinker Davies so powerful? With Dr Cutting Tradition Vanessa Lawrence CB and 1.00pm 1.20pm-1.45pm Professor Jerry Brotton New Generation Thinker The Real Game of 1.00pm 1.10pm-1.55pm Thrones - Power in 15th “Speed Date” New Century England Generation Thinkers 2.00pm 2.15pm-3.15pm 2.00pm-3.00pm 2.00pm 2.00pm-3.00pm 2.15pm-3.15pm Teaching the Controlling Moods and Start the Week. Interview with the Artist Teachers - The Minds: Depression and With BBC Radio 4 William Tillyer Future of Education. smart drugs. With Sugata Mitra With Darian Leader, 3.00pm 3.45pm-4.45pm 3.20pm-3.45pm Professor Barbara Controlling the New Generation Thinker Sahakian and Clare Allan Countryside. Autobiographical Memory With Simon Thurley, and Contemporary Fiction 3.00pm 3.45pm-4.45pm 3.15pm-3.40pm 3.50pm- Jon Alexander and How on earth can we New Generation Thinker 4.50pm Dame Fiona Reynolds cope with less? With Therapy vs Prayer “Speed Professor Sendhil Date” New 4.00pm 4.00pm-5.00pm 4.50pm-5.20pm Mullainathan, Professor Generation Whose Strife is it anyway? New Generation Thinker Simin Davoudi and Thinkers With Gaiutra Bahadur, Science and Sensibility Professor Jeremy Till Amit Chaudhuri and Aahmer Ahmed Khan 4.00pm 4.00pm-5.00pm Private Passions 5.00pm 5.20pm-6.20pm With Chris Mullin Are Audiences Killing Culture? With Helen 5.00pm 5.45pm-6.45pm 5.30pm-6.30pm 5.05pm-5.30pm 5.30pm- Marriage, Godfrey Power to the people An Interview with New Generation Thinker 7.00pm Worsdale, Sarah Kent - What choices writer/director Penny False Conception - Words and and Christine Borland do we have? With Woolcock Female Sexuality in Music Charles Falconer, Victorian England Who’s in David Skelton and Control? 12 David Aaronovitch 13 SAT Words and Music SAT

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26 OCTOBER 26 Radio 3’s award winning OCTOBER 26 Words and Music returns for a programme inspired by the theme of this year’s Free Thinking Festival: Who’s in Control? Readers Kevin Whately Power To The People – What Choices Do We Have? (Inspector Morse, Auf 5.45pm–6.45pm Wiedersehen, Pet) and Hall Two Madelaine Newton (When the Boat Comes In) appear Presented by Anne McElvoy alongside their daughter Kevin Whately Kitty Whately, the mezzo- Politicians are under increasing pressure to “consult” the electorate. Corporations and public soprano and BBC Radio 3 New services like to refer to their clients as “customers”. The legal system is under pressure to reflect Generation Artist. public opinion in sentencing. The Health Service embraces the idea of patient choice. But where does consultation leave professional expertise and political instinct? With poetry and prose from authors including George Orwell, Charles Falconer, Baron Falconer of Thoroton, is former Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs. Shakespeare and Dickens and He is the chair of North Music Trust responsible for the running of the Sage Gateshead. live music from Kathryn Tickell, David Skelton is the director of Renewal, a new campaign group aiming to broaden the appeal of the Northumbrian piper and the Conservative Party to working class and ethnic minority voters. David Aaronovitch is a regular composer whose work is deeply columnist for . rooted in the folk traditions of They join Anne McElvoy to discuss whether this is a time of significant change. Do we have real the North East. choice? Kathryn Tickell

An Interview with Penny Woolcock 5.30pm–6.30pm New Generation Thinker: Jules Evans Northern Rock Foundation Hall 6.45pm–7.10pm The Barbour Room Presented by Samira Ahmed In Search of Ecstasy? Penny Woolcock describes herself as “telling stories from the margins”. She’s an acclaimed and prize- The audience at a rock concert adoring the star; a Pentecostalist winning director of films, documentaries and opera, congregation praising God; an athlete reaching the pitch of most recently at the Metropolitan Opera in New performance known as “the zone” – these can all be described as York. Her career began at Trade Films in Gateshead feelings of “ecstasy”. But some have seen states of high elation as depicting the Consett steel industry in When the a form of madness. Jules Evans, from Queen Mary, University of Dog Bites. For her latest project, One Mile Away, London, explores the historical arguments between ecstatics and she negotiated and documented the peace process rationalists. Is getting outside of ourselves dangerous or beneficial? between inner city gangs, whom she had previously cast in a musical feature film1 Day.

Penny Woolcock Jules Evans

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7.15pm–7.45pm The Choir Y 11.00am–1.00pm OCTOBER 27 Y The Barbour Room

26 OCTOBER 26 Hall Two Wombs On Legs? Science Fiction And The Control Of Presented by Greg Beardsell Reproduction. Join Radio 3’s programme about Is science fiction sexist? What roles for choral music as it comes to Free women does science fiction imagine? Taking Thinking for the first time a tour of speculative fiction from H. G. Wells’ with presenter and conductor nursing machines to Margaret Atwood’s The Greg Beardsell, who is Associate Handmaid’s Tale and Battlestar Gallactica, Musical Director of the National Sarah Dillon, from the University of St Andrews Youth Choirs of Great Britain, explores the relationship between freedom Artistic Director of the Ulster and reproductive control. Youth Choir and a former Music Sarah Dillon Director of the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus The choirs taking part are the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain Chamber Choir, Quay Lasses, Northern Spirit Singers and the North East Youth Chorale.

Greg Beardsell

Science Fiction, Surveillance And The North East In Zamyatin’s Classic Dystopian Fable We

Ian McMillan Daljit Nagra 11.00am–12.00pm Northern Rock Foundation Hall The Verb: Letting Go is Good For You ! Presented by Matthew Sweet 7.45pm–8.45pm Hall Two Inspired by his time in Jesmond and the Tyne shipyards, the Russian novelist Yevgeny Zamyatin completed his dystopian novel We in Presented by Ian McMillan 1919. It depicts a glass city where secret police and spies supervise citizens known only by numbers, who begin a rebellion. Admirers Poet Ian McMillan hosts Radio 3’s unique cabaret of of the novel have included George Orwell, Kurt Vonnegut and Tom the spoken word and new writing. He’s joined by singer Wolfe and the book increasingly resonates with today’s concerns song writer Nadine Shah and a pair of poets. about surveillance techniques. Daljit Nagra won the Forward Poetry Prize for best first collection with Look We Have Coming To Dover ! His Poet and playwright Sean O’Brien adapted We for a BBC Radio 4 most recent book is Ramayana: A Retelling and he’ll be dramatisation. New generation Thinker Sarah Dillon lectures on discussing translation and trust. Kate Fox has been science fiction. David Aaronovitch is a regular columnist for The poet in residence for the 2013 Glastonbury Festival Times and a past winner of the Orwell prize for political journalism website and The Great North Run and she’s currently and is the chair of the human rights organisation Index on Sean O’Brien touring a comic show about not wanting children. She’ll Censorship. perform a specially commissioned piece reflecting on In association with Café Culture North East www.cafeculturenortheast.org.uk whether letting go is good for you. Kate Fox

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U New Generation Thinker: John Gallagher “Speed Date” New Generation Thinkers U NDA 12.10pm–12.35pm 1.10pm–1.55pm NDA The Barbour Room Drop into The Squires Lounge next to the Sage café.

Y Your chance to participate in a series of discussions with experts – come and vote for the most Y 27 OCTOBER 27 OCTOBER 27 Breeding the Mongrel - Language Wars In Early Modern England exciting idea! No tickets needed. Defenders of traditional English language and grammar often present themselves as purists, even though English itself is a Start The Week language which has never hesitated to borrow from ancient and 2.00pm–3.00pm modern languages. John Gallagher, from Cambridge University, brings to life the conflicts in the 16th and 17th centuries over Hall Two the correct ways of writing and speaking, during a period when increased travel, trade and exploration saw English-speakers Presented by Anne McElvoy learning to speak to a wider world. John Gallagher Start the Week is usually broadcast live from London, but for this special event, Monday 28 October’s edition will be pre-recorded as part of the festival. New Generation Thinker: Rebecca Steinfeld Presenter Anne McElvoy will be joined by a panel of 12.40pm–1.05pm guests, including historian Catherine Merridale and Simon The Barbour Room Thurley, Chief Executive of English Heritage. They discuss the power of buildings to intimidate, from the Kremlin in Cutting Tradition Moscow to Norman castles and colonial estates. Catherine Merridale What is the place of religious traditions involving genital cutting in today’s world? Rebecca Steinfeld, from the School of Oriental and African Studies, looks at recent debates among Interview with the artist William Tillyer medical ethicists and lawyers about male infant circumcision, 2.15pm–3.15pm performed on around one third of the world’s male population. Northern Rock Foundation Hall She explores what these debates reveal about the relationships between parents and children, religion and human rights, and the Presented by Sharuna Sagar Rebecca Steinfeld differences between male and female bodies. As he opens a major exhibition in his home town of Middlesborough at mima, the painter William Tillyer comes to Free Thinking to talk to BBC Look North’s Why Are Maps Still So Powerful? Sharuna Sagar about an artistic career which has 12.45pm–1.45pm embraced watercolours, print making, drawing, Northern Rock Foundation Hall working in tapestry and ceramics and with glass blowers at the National Glass Museum in Sunderland. The Balcony 25 Presented by Rana Mitter From ancient atlases and the Ordnance Survey to satnav and Google, maps have always told New Generation Thinker: Alice Hall us where we are and where to go. But how do 3.20pm–3.45pm directions and boundaries change the way we The Barbour Room think and act? Can a map reveal too much? Dr Vanessa Lawrence Professer Jerry Brotton Autobiographical Memory and Contemporary Fiction Dr Vanessa Lawrence cbe is the first woman to head the Ordnance Survey and was instrumental in the delivery of Place Matters: There has been an unprecedented explosion in the telling of the Location Strategy for the United Kingdom. life stories in the 21st century. In the digital age, anyone can Professor Jerry Brotton presented the share their autobiography for free in blogs and posts of videos BBC FOUR TV documentaries Maps: Power, on YouTube. The line between fact and fiction is becoming Plunder and Possession and his books include increasingly blurred. Alice Hall, of the University of York, Trading Territories: Mapping the Early Modern explores changing perceptions of what memory and memoir Alice Hall World and A History of the World in 12 Maps. mean in relation to contemporary fiction.

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U Controlling the Countryside Whose Strife Is It Anyway? U NDA 3.45pm–4.45pm 4.00pm–5.00pm NDA Hall Two Northern Rock Foundation Hall Y Y

27 OCTOBER 27 Presented by Samira Ahmed Presented by Rana Mitter OCTOBER 27

Recent British governments - whether Conservative, Labour or Coalition - have frequently been Who has the right to depict the experiences of accused of not understanding the needs of the countryside and favouring urban values. But how the powerless? Are stories about tragedy and can the pressure to preserve the traditional look and customs of rural areas be balanced against poverty a motivating force for change or do they advances in farming and power sources? A panel discusses “Who controls the countryside”? reinforce stereotypes? Should we celebrate or lament the success of films such as Slumdog Simon Thurley is the Chief Executive of English Heritage whose books include Men From the Ministry Millionaire? Free Thinking brings together writers and The Building of England. Former advertising man Jon Alexander has worked on projects which of fiction, non-fiction and journalism to discuss aim to connect people with nature and agricultural decision making. Dame Fiona Reynolds, their attitudes and responsibilities. Master of Emmanuel College Cambridge, is the former Director General of the National Trust. Gaiutra Bahadur has reported from Bagdhad, Syria and the US-Mexico border for the Washington Post, The Observer and The Nation.

In Coolie Women: the Odyssey of Indenture she Gaiutra Bahadur asks whether her own great grandmother was a victim of colonial history and slavery or whether she used her sex to exert power. Amit Chaudhuri is the author of five novels including Freedom Song and The Immortals. His non-fiction includes Calcutta: Two Years in the City and Telling Tales, Selected Writings 1993 – 2013. Aahmer Ahmed Khan

Simon Thurley Jon Alexander Dame Fiona Reynolds is an Editor for the BBC World Service Urdu section. In association with South Asian Literature Festival

Amit Chaudhuri

New Generation Thinker: Gregory Tate 4.50pm–5.20pm The Barbour Room

Science and Sensibility What controls humans: rational thought or unconscious emotion? Today scientists are trying to answer that question by exploring the interaction between the logical and intuitive aspects of the mind. But literary authors have been examining similar psychological questions for centuries. Gregory Tate, from the University of Surrey, asks what the novels of Jane Austen can teach us about the power struggle within the mind between thought and emotion.

Gregory Tate

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NDA Tickets for all events Killing Culture? 5.20pm–6.20pm are FREE Y Hall Two 27 OCTOBER 27 To book, call Sage Gateshead on Presented by Matthew Sweet 0191 443 4661 or visit Are the arts leading or www.sagegateshead.com/freethinking following public taste? In a bid to reach new audiences, theatre is increasingly moving To guarantee a place you must be in your off the stage, the visual arts are seat 10 minutes before the event begins. coming out of the gallery, and poetry readings are leaving the We will re-allocate any spare seats to a bookshop. But is art for the standby queue just before the start of the people always bad art? The Sultan’s Elephant event, so please arrive on time.

Helen Marriage is co-director Godfrey Worsdale of Artichoke which works with All broadcasts of talks and debates will be artists to take over public spaces, producing festivals including Lumiere in Durham and Derry in 2013, the 2012 Olympic coastal available as free downloads for you to keep. project, Peace Camp, and The Sultan’s Elephant seen in London Go to bbc.co.uk/freethinking in 2006. BALTIC director Godfrey Worsdale was also the founding director of MIMA, Middlesbrough’s Institute of Modern Art. Critic Follow us on Twitter Sarah Kent was the visual arts editor of Time Out magazine in London for 30 years and a former Director of Exhibitions at the @BBCRadio3 #FreeThinking ICA. She now writes for theartsdesk.com. Christine Borland is an artist and BALTIC Professor at Northumbria University. She was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1997. Christine Borland

In Association with BALTIC and St Mary’s Square Northumbria University Gateshead Quays Gateshead, NE8 2JR www.sagegateshead.com

Photo Credits: Alissa Fishbane, Artichoke UK, Aurum Publishing, BALTIC Northumbria University, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, Bloomsbury, Caroline Forbes, David Levinson, Derek Adams, Dirk Bader, Gibson Dunn, Helen Giles, LANN, Harper Collins, Mark Allan / BBC, Newcastle University, Nick White, Ordnance Survey, Oxford University Press, Paul Baxter Music, Penguin Group, Penny Woolcock, Profile Books, Reed Ingram Weir, Ric Bacon, UCL Institute of Health Equity, Ulrike Wilson, William Collins.

22 Free tickets www.sagegateshead.com/freethinking 0191 443 4661 23 Free Thinking is produced and broadcast by BBC Radio 3. Listen again online Lectures and debates will be available as free downloads for you to keep. bbc.co.uk/freethinking event broadcast TIME

IN TUNE at Free Thinking Friday 25 October 4.15pm LIVE CONCERT BROADCAST Friday 25 October 7.30pm from Sage Gateshead Sir Michael Marmot on Self Control Friday 25 October 10.00pm MUSIC MATTERS LIVE at Free Thinking Saturday 26 October 12.15pm SATURDAY CLASSICS Rana Mitter on music about freedom Saturday 26 October 2.00pm PRIVATE PASSIONS at Free Thinking Sunday 27 October 12.00pm THE CHOIR at Free Thinking with local choirs Sunday 27 October 4.00pm WORDS AND MUSIC at Free Thinking Sunday 27 October 5.30pm THE SUNDAY FEATURE Production Line Living Sunday 27 October 6.45pm START THE WEEK (broadcast on BBC Radio 4) Monday 28 October 9.00am Dame Sally Davies Are we at a tipping point? Monday 28 October 10.00pm THE ESSAY on The Power of the Vikings Monday 28 October 10.45pm Science Fiction, Surveillance And The North East Tuesday 29 October 10.00pm THE ESSAY on Power in 15th Century England Tuesday 29 October 10.45pm Power To The People Wednesday 30 October 10.00pm THE ESSAY on Female Sexuality in Victorian England Wednesday 30 October 10.45pm How On Earth Can We Cope With Less? Thursday 31 October 10.00pm THE ESSAY on Language Wars Thursday 31 October 10.45pm THE VERB at Free Thinking Friday 1 November 10.00pm THE ESSAY on What Does It Mean To Feel Ecstatic? Friday 1 November 10.45pm Controlling Moods And Minds Monday 4 November 10.00pm THE ESSAY on Science Fiction and Birth Control Monday 4 November 10.45pm Professor Sugata Mitra Tuesday 5 November 10.00pm THE ESSAY on Memory and Fiction Tuesday 5 November 10.45pm THE ESSAY on What Jane Austen Teaches Us Wednesday 6 November 10.45pm Controlling The Countryside Thursday 7 November 10.00pm THE ESSAY on Cutting Tradition Thursday 7 November 10.45pm Who’s Got Hold Of Children’s Imaginations? Friday 8 November 10.00pm

THE ESSAY on Therapy vs Prayer Friday 8 November 10.45pm

Why Are Maps Still So Powerful? Monday 11 November 10.00pm Are Audiences Killing Culture? Tuesday 12 November 10.00pm What’s Eating You? Wednesday 13 November 10.00pm Whose Strife Is It Anyway? Thursday 14 November 10.00pm Interview with William Tillyer Tuesday 19 November 10.00pm Interview with Penny Woolcock Wednesday 20 November 10.00pm