Free Thinking - Dad's Army; States of Mind at the Wellcome Institute; Utopia in sci-fi

Arts & Ideas

As Dad's Army inspires a new film, Matthew Sweet looks at the history of the fifth column with historians Juliet Gardiner and Steven Fielding. He also meets robot designer Lola Cañamero who, along with writer Laurence Scott, talks about modelling emotions and how interacting with AI affects us. New Generation Thinker Jonathan Healey explores utopia in sci-fi as a series of events mark the 500th anniversary of Thomas More's text Utopia.

Dad's Army is directed by Oliver Parker and includes performances from Catherine Zeta Jones, Michael Gambon, Tom Courtenay, Toby Jones, Bill Nighy, Mark Gatiss and Ian Lavender amongst others.

States of Mind: Tracing the edges of consciousness runs at Wellcome Collection in London from 4 February - 16 October 2016 A Friday Night Late Spectacular, Feeling Emotional, takes place on Friday 5 February 19:00-23:00 exploring the art and science of human emotions.

Utopias is the theme of this year's LSE Space For Thought Literary Festival. In a discussion on Friday 26 February 2016 Toby Litt, Patrick Parrinder, Samantha Shannon explore the history of the utopian genre in literature and its present state.

Radio 3's Free Thinking explores Utopia in politics past and present in a debate recorded at LSE on Wednesday February 17th at broadcast on Thursday February 18th.

Getting Real about Utopia Date: Wednesday 17 February 2016 6.30pm Location: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE Speakers: Professor Justin Champion, Dr John Guy, Kwasi Kwarteng, Gisela Stuart

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.