Future Thinking

Mark Honigsbaum historian of epidemics, literary scholars Lisa Mullen & Sarah Dillon, UNESCO's Riel Miller & philosopher Rupert Read talk with Matthew Sweet. If uncertainty is a feature of our situation at the moment, it's the stock in trade of people who try to think about the future.

Riel Miller is an economist at UNESCO, who works on future literacy. Rupert Read is an environmental campaigner with Extinction Rebellion and is speaking here in a personal capacity. Sarah Dillon is New Generation Thinker and editor of a new book AI Narratives: A History of Imaginative Thinking about Intelligent Machines Lisa Mullen is a New Generation Thinker and author of Mid Century Gothic Mark Honigsbaum is the author of The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria and Hubris.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

In the Free Thinking archives: New Generation Thinker Sarah Dillon’s Essay on is science fiction is sexist https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03g2wkp A discussion about Zamyatin’s novel We https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03f8bqz A discussion with Naomi Alderman, Roger Luckhurst and Alessandro Vincentelli on science fiction & space travel https://www.bbc.com/programmes/b04ps158 Matthew Sweet explores psychohistory and Isaac Asimov and guiding the future https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000d84g Naomi Alderman is in conversation with Margaret Atwood https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07xhzy8 Ursula Le Guin's The Word for World is Forest https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b6yb37 and a New Thinking podcast made with the AHRC in which Hetta Howes talks sci fi with Caroline Edwards and Amy Butt https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p086zq4g