Free Thinking: New Generation Thinkers

BBC Radio 3’s Rana Mitter announces the 2016 New Generation Thinkers who will be turning their academic research into radio.  Their ideas range from the history of the hairdresser to the search for Alexander the Great's missing tomb; why Sigmund Freud detested the telephone to the complex relationship between the USSR and its historic churches.  At the Hay Festival they will be talking about the significance of bear grease and eating aubergines, exploring the impact of key historic events including the Biafra War and the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan and explaining what the process of recreating an astronomical instrument called an equatorium used by a medieval monk teaches us about early scientific instruments.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into great programmes.

Broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Tuesday 31 May at 10pm.

Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult over 18 years