The Essay

An 1856 portrait shows a 40-year-old man from Benin who managed to secure his freedom after being captured. Dasalu was taken from Dahomey to Cuba, alongside over five hundred adults and children in the ship Grey Eagle. Once in Havana, he worked for the Count of Fernandina but managed to get a letter to a missionary Charles Gollmer back in Africa. Jake Subryan Richard's essay traces the way one man’s migrations reveal the shifting boundaries of slavery and freedom. Jake Subryan Richards teaches at the London School of Economics and was chosen as a New Generation Thinker in 2021 on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Council, which turns research into radio. You can hear him discussing his research in a Free Thinking episode called Dr Johnson's Circle https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000vq3w and in another episode looking at Ships and History https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001626t Producer: Ruth Watts

The discovery of goffering irons, the tools used to shape ruffs, by an archaeological dig in North America, gives us clues about the way the first English settlers lived. Lauren Working's essay looks at the symbolism of the Elizabethan fashion for ruffs. Now back in fashion on zoom, they were denounced by Puritans, shown off in portraits of explorers like Raleigh and Drake, and seen by the Chesapeake as a symbol of colonisation, whilst the starch was used for porridge at a time of scarcity and war. Lauren Working teaches at the University of York and was chosen in 2021 as a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which turns research into radio. You can find another Essay by Lauren called Boy with a Pearl Earring https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014y52 and hear her in a Free Thinking discussion about The Botanical Past https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wlgv Producer: Luke Mulhall

Images of Cyril and Methodios adorn libraries, universities, cathedrals and passport pages in Slavonic speaking countries from Bulgaria to Russia, North Macedonia to Ukraine. But the journeys undertaken as religious envoys by these inventors of the Cyrillic alphabet have led to competing claims and political disagreements. Mirela Ivanova's essay considers the complications of basing ideas about nationhood upon medieval history. Mirela Ivanova teaches at the University of Sheffield and was selected as a New Generation Thinker in 2021 on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, which turns research into radio. You can hear her discussing Sofia's main museum in this episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wc3p Producer: Luke Mulhall

Comrade or "marra" in north east dialect, and the "dharma" or the way - were put together in a portmanteau word by poet Bill Martin (1925-2010). Poet and New Generation Thinker Jake Morris-Campbell reflects on this idea of Marradharma and what it offers to future generations growing up in the post-Brexit and post-industrial landscape of the north east. In his essay, Jake remembers the pilgrimage he made in 2016 carrying Bill Martin's ashes in a ram's horn from Sunderland (Martin was born in a nearby pit village) to Durham Cathedral. Jake Morris-Campbell teaches at Newcastle University and was selected as a New Generation Thinker in 2021 on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. You can find him discussing ideas about darkness in a Free Thinking discussion recorded at Sage Gateshead as part of Radio 3's After Dark festival, and looking at mining, coal and DH Lawrence https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000xmjy Producer: Torquil MacLeod

"Delight in disorder" was celebrated in a poem by Robert Herrick (1591-1674) and the long hair, flamboyant dress and embrace of earrings that made up Cavalier style has continued to exert influence as a gender fluid look. Lauren Working's essay considers examples ranging from Van Dyck portraits and plays by Aphra Behn to the advertising for the exhibition called Fashioning Masculinities which runs at the Victoria and Albert museum this spring. Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear is at the V&A from March 19th 2022. Radio 3 broadcast a series of Essays from New Generation Thinkers exploring Masculinities which you can find on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00061jm Lauren Working is a Lecturer in Early Modern Literature at the University of York and a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn academic research into radio. You can hear her discussing The Botanical Past in a Free Thinking discussion https://www.bbc.c

From school to work to the military – uniforms can signal authority and belonging. But what happens when uniforms are worn by those whom institutions normally exclude? Or when they’re used out of context? New Generation Thinker Tom Smith explores playful, creative and queer uses of uniforms, from the cult film Mädchen in Uniform, recently released in the UK by the BFI, to documents he discovered in German archives, to his take on the styles embraced in subcultures today.Producer: Ruth Watts Tom Smith is a Senior Lecturer at the University of St Andrews. You can find other Essays by him for Radio 3 exploring Berlin, Detroit, Race and Techno Music https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kfjt and Masculinities: Comrades in Arms https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00061m5 and hear him in this Free Thinking episode debating New angles on post-war Germany and Austria https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006sjxImage: Joanna Lumley as Patsy (Left) and Jennifer Saunders as Edina (Right) wearing school uniform in BBC 1 Abso

Fashion from the 1990s to the 1790s and back again: Jade Halbert traces the history of Droopy & Browns, a fashion business renowned for the flamboyant and elegant work of its designer, Angela Holmes. While many British designers of the late twentieth century looked to replicate a lean, monochromatic, almost corporate New York sensibility, Angela Holmes gloried in drama and historicism. A favourite of actresses, artists, writers, and stylish women everywhere, the closure of the business soon after Angela’s death, aged 50, in 2000 marked the end of an era in British fashion. Producer: Jessica Treen Jade Halbert lectures at the University of Huddersfield and is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker on the scheme which turns academic research into radio. You can find another Essay called Not Quite Jean Muir about learning to make a dress on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kgwq and a short Radio 3 Sunday feature on the state of high street fashion shopping https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gvpn

Oscar Wilde's famous line from The Importance of Being Earnest focuses on what we might not expect to find - Shahidha Bari's essay considers the range of objects we do carry around with us and why bags have been important throughout history: from designs drawn up in 1497 by Leonardo to the symbolism of Mary Poppins' carpet bag in PL Travers' novel to the luggage carried by refugees travelling across continents often in what's called a Ghana Must Go bag. Producer: Ruth Watts Shahidha Bari is a writer, critic, Professor of Fashion Cultures and Histories at London College of Fashion and presenter of Free Thinking. She was one of the first New Generation Thinkers on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year to share their research on the radio. You can find a playlist featuring essays, discussions and features by New Generation Thinkers on the Free Thinking website and a whole host of programmes presented by Shahidha. https://www.bbc.co.uk/progr

"My lady's corselet" was developed by a pioneer of free verse on the frontlines of feminism, the poet Mina Loy. Celebrated in the 1910s as the quintessential New Woman, her love of freedom was shadowed by a darker quest to perfect the female body, as her unusual designs for a figure-correcting corset show. Sophie Oliver asks how she fits into a history of body-correcting garments and cosmetic surgery, feminism and fashion. Working on both sides of the Atlantic writing poetry and designing bonkers body-altering garments: like a bracelet for office workers with a built-in ink blotter, or her ‘corselet’ to correct curvature of the spine in women - in the end Mina Loy couldn’t stop time, and her late-life poetry is full of old clothes and outcast people from the Bowery, as she reckons with – and celebrates – the fact that she has become unfashionable. Producer: Torquil MacLeodImage: Mina Loy, Designs for a ‘corselet’, or ‘armour for the body’, c.1941. Mina Loy papers, Yale Collection of American Literature,

Five Irish writers each take a passage from James Joyce’s Ulysses and, through a close reading, explore its meaning and significance within the wider work, as well as what it means to them. Reading Ulysses is a famously challenging experience for most readers, so can our Essayists help?In the final essay of the series, novelist Nuala O'Connor chooses the last episode of the book - Penelope - which is the one Nuala discovered first. In Penelope, we hear Molly Bloom, the wife of the novel's main protagonist, speak to us. In the extract Nuala selects, Molly lies in bed, top to tail with her husband. We hear Molly consider him and his antics - and muse on what husbands, and men in general, mean to her. Nuala examines some of her favourite phrases from the passage; she reveals some of the parallels she can see in Joyce's own biography; and she tells us why the novel's final words might prove the ultimate key to unlocking the book.First broadcast in February 2022 to mark 100 years since the publication of Ulysses.

Five Irish writers each take a passage from James Joyce’s Ulysses and, through a close reading, explore its meaning and significance within the wider work, as well as what it means to them. Reading Ulysses is a famously challenging experience for most readers, so can our Essayists help?In the fourth essay of the series, novelist and short story writer Mary Costello selects an excerpt from an episode full of questions and answers, known as Ithaca. The episode sees Leopold Bloom, the novel's main character, and his friend Stephen Dedalus walk back to Bloom's house in the middle of the night. In the passage which Mary selects, Bloom has got home and turns on the tap to fill the kettle. Mary says that what follows is a "magnificent, bird's eye view of the water's journey from County Wicklow" all the way through the city to the Mr Bloom's sink. Mary argues that Ithaca is compelling not just because of the maths, science and language contained within it but also because of the fuller picture it paints of Mr Leopold

Five Irish writers each take a passage from James Joyce’s Ulysses and, through a close reading, explore its meaning and significance within the wider work, as well as what it means to them. Reading Ulysses is a famously challenging experience for most readers, so can our Essayists help?In the third essay of this series, acclaimed Irish writer Colm Tóibín talks about the role of songs and singing in the novel. He says that in early twentieth century Dublin, professional and amateur concerts and operatic singing flourished - and he argues that many of the characters in Ulysses are connected by music and song.Colm selects a passage from the Sirens episode of the book which sees the character, Simon Dedalus, sing in his rich tenor voice. Colm examines the parallels between the character of Simon Dedalus and Joyce's own father, John Stanislaus Joyce - both good singers. Colm argues that all the "badness" in Simon "is washed away by his performance as singer" and he explores how the reverberations of Simon's song e

Five Irish writers each take a passage from James Joyce’s Ulysses and, through a close reading, explore its meaning and significance within the wider work, as well as what it means to them. Reading Ulysses is a famously challenging experience for most readers, so can our Essayists help?In the second essay of the series, young Irish writer John Patrick McHugh selects the fourth episode of the novel: Calypso. In it we encounter the novel's main character: Leopold Bloom. John gives us a close reading of its opening which sees Mr Bloom make breakfast for his wife and feed his cat. John says it's a chapter that "smells both of melted butter and defecation" and explores Joyce's unique description of a cat's miaow. He tells us about feeling light-headed when he first encountered Ulysses and how his experience of the book has changed on re-reading it. First broadcast in February 2022 to mark the centenary of the novel's publication. Presenter: John Patrick McHugh Producer: Camellia Sinclair

Five Irish writers each take a passage from James Joyce’s Ulysses and, through a close reading, explore its meaning and significance within the wider work, as well as what it means to them. Reading Ulysses is a famously challenging experience for most readers, so can our Essayists help? In the first essay of the series, award-winning Irish writer Anne Enright explores the first couple of pages of Joyce's epic. She examines the characters of Buck Mulligan and Stephen Dedalus - the two men we first meet at the top of a tower overlooking Dublin Bay. She tells us from where Joyce drew his inspiration in creating his protagonists and she reveals a little about how she first discovered the famous tome.First broadcast in 2022 to mark the centenary of the novel's publication. Presenter: Anne Enright Producer: Camellia Sinclair

Since its creation a century ago, perceptions of Northern Ireland have often been dominated by stories of conflict and political unrest. But as anyone who lives there or who has visited knows, it’s a picture that’s far from complete. Five essays reveal Another Northern Ireland in its centenary year - the idiosyncrasies of the everyday, hidden histories and untold stories, which outsiders rarely get to hear about but which each of these writers inhabits, lives and understands.Novelist Glenn Patterson takes us into the Belfast hairdressers, clothes shops and clubs that assumed an urgent significance during the Northern Ireland Troubles.Written and read by Glenn Patterson Producers: Ophelia Byrne and Conor Garrett

Since its creation a century ago, perceptions of Northern Ireland have often been dominated by stories of conflict and political unrest. But as anyone who lives there or who has visited knows, it’s a picture that’s far from complete. Five essays reveal Another Northern Ireland in its centenary year - the idiosyncrasies of the everyday, hidden histories and untold stories, which outsiders rarely get to hear about but which each of these writers inhabits, lives and understands.After discovering a message chalked on a wall, writer Claire Mitchell peels back the layers of her County Down hometown to discover a hidden radical history.Written and read by Claire Mitchell Producers: Ophelia Byrne and Conor Garrett

Since its creation a century ago, perceptions of Northern Ireland have often been dominated by stories of conflict and political unrest. But as anyone who lives there or who has visited knows, it’s a picture that’s far from complete.Five essays reveal Another Northern Ireland in its centenary year - the idiosyncrasies of the everyday, hidden histories and untold stories, which outsiders rarely get to hear about but which each of these writers inhabits, lives and understands.Poet Mícheál McCann has always believed that, for queer people like him, to leave for the big city is not just a verb but a commandment. But at a traditional rural Northern Ireland wake, a mourning rite for his uncle, he reconsiders his understanding of ‘home’ and asks if it could come to mean something different.Written and read by Mícheál McCann Producers: Ophelia Byrne and Conor Garrett

Since its creation a century ago, perceptions of Northern Ireland have often been dominated by stories of conflict and political unrest. But as anyone who lives there or who has visited knows, it’s a picture that’s far from complete. Five essays reveal Another Northern Ireland in its centenary year - the idiosyncrasies of the everyday, hidden histories and untold stories, which outsiders rarely get to hear about but which each of these writers inhabits, lives and understands.Poet Gail McConnell talks about Northern Ireland’s connection to the sea and its inspiration in the poet Louis MacNeice’s work and life as well as her own.Written and read by Gail McConnell Producers: Ophelia Byrne and Conor Garrett

Since its creation a century ago, perceptions of Northern Ireland have often been dominated by stories of conflict and political unrest. But as anyone who lives there or who has visited knows, it’s a picture that’s far from complete. Five essayists reveal Another Northern Ireland in its centenary year - the idiosyncrasies of the everyday, hidden histories and untold stories, which outsiders rarely get to hear about but which each of these writers inhabits, lives and understands.Author Jan Carson talks about the women who kept her Presbyterian church supplied with tea and traybakes when she was growing up - and reveals what they taught her about finding her own voice.Written and read by Jan Carson Producers: Ophelia Byrne and Conor Garrett

For many of us, isolation is disconcerting and challenging, but for wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson, it is something he actively seeks, so he can fully immerse himself in a place and capture its unique sounds in his recordings. In the last of five illustrated essays, Chris vividly recalls his quest to capture the sounds of isolation when he goes in search of the entrance to the centre of the earth. Inspired by Jules Verne’s novel he travels from sea level to volcanic crater drawn by the unique sounds of Iceland. Produced by Sarah Blunt for BBC Audio in Bristol.