The Essay

In 1773, Phillis Wheatley became the first African American to publish a collection of poems. Jade Cuttle looks at the way her poems were described and asks what do we categorise as nature writing? Her essay considers the idea of "coining" and the work of a new generation of poets including Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, Khairani Barokka, Kei Miller and a collection called Nature Matters edited by Mona Arshi and Karen McCarthy Woolf. Jade Cuttle is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC to put academic research on radio. She is studying for her PhD at the University of Cambridge, writing journalism and her first book called Silthood, which explores ancient connections between soil and self. She has also released an album of poem-songs called Algal Bloom. You can find examples of Essays written for Radio 3 by Kei Miller and Elizabeth Jane Burnett on the programme website. Producer: Ciaran Bermingham

What connects actors with baristas? In 1983, the American sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild published a book called The Managed Heart which studied the working world of airline stewards. Jaswinder Blackwell-Pal’s essay considers what it means when a waiter smiles as they serve you and looks at some recent court cases over performing at work. Dr Jaswinder Blackwell-Pal is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC to put academic research on radio. She is based at Queen Mary, University of London. Her research focuses on performance and work, including how drama based methods are implemented in across other sectors and industries. She is a member of the research collective Performance and Political Economy. Producer: Lisa Jenkinson

The Japanese philosopher Yujin Nagasawa says the majority of people are what he calls ‘existential optimists’. What does this mean for ideas about evil and the creation of life? Jack Symes’ essay takes us through the views of thinkers including Schopenhauer, Stephen Law and Camus. Jack Symes is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC to put academic research on radio. He is based at Durham University. His books include Philosophers on Consciousness: Talking about the Mind and Talking about Existence and Defeating the Evil-God Challenge and he is working on a book about morality. Producer: Luke Mulhall

Having worked as a criminal and family barrister, Shona Minson has seen the effect on women and their children when a mother is sentenced to prison for committing a crime. Her essay considers the 1989 Children Act and what she sees as contradictory approaches to motherhood in British law. Dr Shona Minson is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC to put academic research on radio. She is based at the University of Oxford, has researched the sentencing of women and has written a book Maternal Sentencing and the Rights of the Child. She has also been appointed to the newly created government advisory body the Women’s Justice Board. Producer: Lisa Jenkinson

If cinema is often associated with Hollywood or the European New Wave, since the 1970s activist-filmmakers around the world have been involving local people in telling their own stories. Co-creating films about land rights, food security, and pollution, these filmmakers pioneered what Becca Voelcker calls Land Cinema. In her essay, she shares examples made by Zhang Mengqi, Tsuchimoto Noriaki, Ogawa Productions and Enzo Camacho and Ami Lien Dr Becca Voelcker is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC to put academic research on radio. At Goldsmiths, University of London she lectures on art, film and visual culture, particularly in relation to politics and ecology; and has written for publications including Screen, Frieze and Sight & Sound. Producer: Erin Downes