Alter, Adam. "Feeling Stuck? Here’s How To Achieve a Breakthrough." Big Brains (June 27, 2024) ["We've all been stuck at some point in our lives — whether we've been stuck at a job and wanting to make a career change, stuck in a location and wanting to move somewhere new, or stuck in relationships or friendships. But the method to getting “unstuck” and achieving a breakthrough might be easier than you think. Using research-backed tools, New York University's Adam Alter shares his tips for how to get unstuck in his new book, Anatomy of a Breakthrough. Alter shares success stories from some of the world's most successful people, and explains how altering your thoughts and habits could lead you on a better path to success. Alter is a professor of marketing at New York University's Stern School of Business and the Robert Stansky Teaching Excellence Faculty Fellow."]
Appel, Heidi, Rex Cocroft, and Natasha Mhatre. "Common Sense." Threshold 5.5 (December 17, 2024) ["Insects invented song. They’ve developed a multitude of ways to listen. But insects couldn’t have evolved these complex skills without plants. In this episode, we explore the interconnected acoustic lives of insects and plants."]
Brown, Wendy, Angus Burgin, and Lily Geismer. "What Makes Us Free?" Throughline (July 10, 2025) ["What's the role of government in society? What do we mean when we talk about individual responsibility? What makes us free? 'Neoliberalism' might feel like a squishy term that's hard to define and understand. But this ideology, founded by a group of men in the Swiss Alps, is a political project that has dominated our economic system for decades. In the name of free market fundamentals, the forces behind neoliberalism act like an invisible hand, shaping almost every aspect of our lives."The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free Markets since the Depression by Angus Burgin
Don't Blame Us: Suburban Liberals and the Transformation of the Democratic Party by Lily Geismer
Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution by Wendy Brown.]
Dorian, M.J. "The Tarot • Part 1: Tarot's Origins & The Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious." Creative Codex (March 19, 2025) ["When did the Tarot begin? Can it be traced back to Egypt or is it more recent in origin? The Tarot is a tradition with a varied reputation, over centuries it has been labeled: a card game, a divination tool, a creation of the devil, and a spiritual book of wisdom. What is it about the Tarot's symbolism that provokes so much emotion out of us? We will explore the cards through the theories of Dr. Carl Jung to find out."]
Doutaghi, Helen and Jeremy Scahill. "The U.S.-Israeli War of Aggression Against Iran." Drop Site (June 23, 2025) ["In a rare interview following her firing by Yale, blacklisted Iranian scholar Helyeh Doutaghi discusses the U.S.-Israeli agenda and how Iran will confront the possibility of a wider war."]
Fontainelle, Earl. "Introducing the Qur’ān, Part I: Revelation, Text, and History." The Secret History of Western Esotericism #203 (March 14, 2025) ["In this episode, Part I of our introduction to the Qur’ān, we introduce some useful terms of art and historical parameters for discussing the holy text of Islām, we give a very basic summary the traditional Islamic account of the Qur’ān‘s origin, and also discuss the modern, scholarly approach to the Qur’ān through text-critical analysis. It emerges that the Qur’ān is not a book, exactly."]
Fuentes, Agustín. "Sex is a Spectrum." Converging Dialogues (May 4, 2025) ["In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Agustín Fuentes about biological sex. They talk about the history of sex evolution, the importance of gametes, intersex individuals, and history of sex binary. They talk about gonads and hormones, sex variation in the animal kingdom, spectrum question, gender, gender and sports, gender and bathrooms, and many other topics. Agustín Fuentes is an anthropologist and professor of anthropology at Princeton University. His research focuses on the entanglement of biological systems with the social and cultural lives of humans, our ancestors, and a few of the other animals with whom humanity shares close relations. He has his BA/BS in Anthropology and Zoology and his MA and PhD in Anthropology from UC Berkeley. He has conducted research across four continents, multiple species, and two-million years of human history. His current projects include exploring cooperation, creativity, and belief in human evolution, multispecies anthropologies, evolutionary theory and processes, and engaging race and racism. Fuentes is an active public scientist, a well-known blogger, lecturer, tweeter, and an explorer for National Geographic. Fuentes was recently awarded the Inaugural Communication & Outreach Award from the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, the President’s Award from the American Anthropological Association, and elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of numerous books including the most recent, Sex Is A Spectrum: The Biological Limits of the Binary."]
Gladstone, Brooke. "Trouble at the EPA." On the Media (March 26, 2025) ["President Trump's appointee at the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, is making a lot of changes at the EPA. Including cutting 31 environmental rules regarding climate change pollution, electric vehicles, and power plants. Environmentalists say this is a gutting of regulation. GOP lawmakers deem the EPA a job killer that does nothing but burden businesses with regulations. In the eyes of the American public, the environment ranks low on the list of priorities the government should address. But flash back to the late 1960s, and it's a very different story. The environment was a bipartisan issue, and a Republican president created the EPA in 1970 in response to public pressure. So how did we get here? How did the environment go from universal concern to political battleground — with the EPA caught in the crossfire? In a piece we first aired in 2017, Brooke considered the tumultuous history of the EPA, its evolving relationship with the public, and its uncertain future."]
Kilgard, Michael. "How to Rewire Your Brain & Learn Faster." The Huberman Lab #241 (August 11, 2025) [MB: An excellent episode for people of all ages (and parents) - I'm not sure "rewiring" is the best phrase for what they are communicating, but I can say it has already affected me :) "In this episode, my guest is Dr. Michael Kilgard, PhD, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Texas at Dallas and a leading expert on neuroplasticity and learning across the lifespan. We discuss the need for alertness, effortful focus, post-learning reflection and sleep to induce neuroplasticity, and how dopamine, acetylcholine, serotonin and norepinephrine are each involved. He explains the behavioral steps for neuroplasticity, as well as vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) and other therapies for tinnitus, stroke, depression, PTSD and paralysis. This episode ought to be of use to anyone interested in understanding the modern science of brain rewiring and learning to improve cognitive or motor skills or treat sensory or motor disorders."]
Lebreton, L., et al. "Evidence that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is rapidly accumulating plastic." Nature (March 22, 2018) ["Ocean plastic can persist in sea surface waters, eventually accumulating in remote areas of the world’s oceans. Here we characterise and quantify a major ocean plastic accumulation zone formed in subtropical waters between California and Hawaii: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP). Our model, calibrated with data from multi-vessel and aircraft surveys, predicted at least 79 (45–129) thousand tonnes of ocean plastic are floating inside an area of 1.6 million km2; a figure four to sixteen times higher than previously reported. We explain this difference through the use of more robust methods to quantify larger debris. Over three-quarters of the GPGP mass was carried by debris larger than 5 cm and at least 46% was comprised of fishing nets. Microplastics accounted for 8% of the total mass but 94% of the estimated 1.8 (1.1–3.6) trillion pieces floating in the area. Plastic collected during our study has specific characteristics such as small surface-to-volume ratio, indicating that only certain types of debris have the capacity to persist and accumulate at the surface of the GPGP. Finally, our results suggest that ocean plastic pollution within the GPGP is increasing exponentially and at a faster rate than in surrounding waters."]
McCarron, Mckenzie. "Sound of Metal (2019)." Film Matters (February 18, 2025) ["I distinctly remember the first time I watched Sound of Metal (2019). I was in absolute awe. Every deaf and hard-of-hearing person has a unique journey, and even though my situation is a little different from Ruben’s, this film connected with me on a level I have never experienced before. In the final scene, Ruben is sitting on a bench in the center of town, and he hears a clamor of noises, left and right: kids skateboarding, people hastily moving by, cars rushing past, the clock tower chiming. Everything sounds harsh and unnatural (or, as my brother so proudly pointed out, “Now that’s the sound of metal”). Within a minute, he yanks out his cochlear implants."]
Olney, Ian. "Empathy and Adaptation in Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin and The Zone of Interest." Literature/Film Quarterly 53.3 (Summer 2025) ["When The Zone of Interest (2023), a portrait of the domestic life of the Nazi Commandant of Auschwitz, won the Oscar for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards, director Jonathan Glazer opted not to give the usual acceptance speech. Instead, flanked by producers James Wilson and Len Blavatnik, he read a statement linking the film with the war that had raged in Gaza since the attack on Israel launched by Hamas on October 7, 2023. It ran, in part:
All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present — not to say, “Look what they did then,” rather, “Look what we do now.” Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It shaped all of our past and present. Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza — all the victims of this dehumanization — how do we resist? Aleksandra Bystroń-Kołodziejczyk, the girl who glows in the film, as she did in life, chose to. I dedicate this to her memory and her resistance. (The 96th Academy Awards)
Predictably, given the strong feelings around October 7th and its aftermath, controversy ensued. Glazer’s comments — deceptively quoted by several media outlets to create the impression that he and his team had renounced their Jewishness rather than denounced the way they felt it had been appropriated to justify Israel’s policies toward Gaza — were condemned by the President of the Holocaust Survivors’ Foundation USA and by hundreds of Jewish creatives and executives in Hollywood who signed an open letter responding to his speech. In turn, his remarks were defended by the Director of the Auschwitz Memorial and by dozens more Jewish artists in Hollywood who published an open letter of their own. Lost in the furor over the statement was something significant — and perhaps surprising — it revealed about Glazer’s view of his film: first, that it is about the dehumanization that can occur any time we refuse to recognize ourselves in others; and, moreover, that it advocates for a resistance to this dehumanization in the form of empathy — the kind embodied by Aleksandra Bystroń-Kołodziejczyk, a Polish woman who as a teenager risked death to secretly aid prisoners at Auschwitz."]
Potter, Will. "Little Red Barns: Hiding the Truth, from Farm to Fable." New Books in Food (April 6, 2025) ["Little Red Barns: Hiding the Truth, from Farm to Fable (City Lights Books, 2025) is a groundbreaking investigation of factory farms and the unprecedented measures being taken to hide their impact -- on animals, public health, and the environment -- from the public. Hiding behind the little red barns that dot the landscape of rural America and decorate so many of the animal-based products we consume is a dangerous truth and a very real threat. Little Red Barns is the record of a harrowing journey that took investigative journalist Will Potter from factory farms to international climate summits, from congressional hearings to neo-Nazi fascist groups. As Potter uncovers the frightening truth about animal agriculture's role in accelerating climate collapse, he shows how the authoritarian measures being taken to maintain control over this key aspect of the global food supply chain are directly linked to the proliferation and empowerment of far-right militias. Writing in an engaging, personal style, he invites his reader to accompany him on the journey as he confronts a maelstrom of disturbing information, asking searching questions along the way about the role of a journalist and the impact of "bearing witness" in a world where we're bombarded with images, real and faked."]
Runciman, David. "Politics on Trial: A History of Lawfare." Past Present Future (May 18, 2025) ["To introduce our new series about historic political trials – from Socrates to Marine Le Pen – David explores what makes political confrontations in a court of law so fascinating and so revealing. Why do even the worst of dictators still want to play by the rules? What happens when realpolitik and legal principles collide? How does the political system often find itself in the dock? Who wins and who loses in the great game of lawfare?"]
Runciman, David and Dan Snow. "The History of Bad Ideas: The Decisive Battle." Past Present Future (June 22, 2025) ["In today’s episode about the power of bad ideas, David talks to historian and podcaster Dan Snow about the myth that wars are settled on the battlefield. Why are we so drawn to the idea of the decisive military showdown? Is Napoleon to blame? What are the forces that actually settle military conflicts?"]
Schuster, Aaron. "The Ethical Dignity of Anora." E-Flux (November 20, 2024) ["Contemporary cinema might congratulate itself on having a harder-hitting approach to capitalism as compared to the saccharine fantasy of Pretty Woman. But today’s highly successful genre of anti-capitalist movies and television is above all pacifying and reassuring: the capitalists are punished, the rich get their comeuppance, and the downtrodden achieve some measure of revenge. Even when this genre displays real genius (particularly in its comedy of manners—the analytic precision with which it dissects the speech and behavior of the hyper-privileged), it still partakes of this impotent morality. Succession, White Lotus, The Menu, Triangle of Sadness, Glass Onion, Parasite, Saltburn, Industry: one can loathe the rich and love them too. This was put well by Martha Gill: 'We should recognize ‘eat the rich’ TV for what it is: not as any sort of cultural ‘reckoning’ for the prosperous and corrupt, but pure catharsis—a sort of inverted mirror of society. The more violently a culture squishes the undeserving wealthy on screen, the more it tends to valorize them in reality.' Truffaut once said that it’s impossible to make an anti-war film. What about an anti-rich film?"]
Spillman, Scott. "Making Sense of Slavery: America’s Long Reckoning, from the Founding Era to Today." Required Reading from Liberties (March 26, 2025) ["Scott Spillman on his recent book Making Sense of Slavery which illustrates how the study of slavery has been at the heart of American intellectual and political life for the past two centuries."]
Storm, Jason Josephson. "On the Myth of Disenchantment." The Secret History of Western Esotericism (February 15, 2023) ["In a brilliant and wide-ranging exploration of the history of very up-to-date, very relevant ideas, we discuss the idea of ‘disenchantment’ with Jason Josephson Storm. This idea (perhaps best known from the iconic work of Max Weber, but actually not really what Weber said and not really just from Weber anyway) is that in the old days people believed in magic and spirits, but nowadays we are ‘disenchanted’, i.e. beyond all that (fill in the blank with ‘superstitious, ‘unscientific’, ‘woo-woo’, etc.) nonsense. One of the questions Storm asks is, ‘Who are “we”, exactly?’ The implicit colonialist mindsets latent within these constructions of enchantment and disenchantment begin to percolate up into plain view.
Another question he asks is, ‘Given that there is a “we” in question, is it really true that we are beyond all that nonsense?’ It turns out, no, it isn’t, or not for a sizeable majority of “us” at any rate. A fascinating interview which we highly recommend, and which has a lot to tell the field of western esotericism studies about what it is that we are doing, exactly."]
Tichenor, Daniel. "The Alien Enemies Act." Throughline (April 17, 2025) ["In March 2025, President Trump issued an executive order invoking a centuries-old law: the Alien Enemies Act. The Act allows a president to detain or deport citizens of foreign adversaries to the United States, but only in the case of a "declared war" or "invasion." Now, the Trump administration and the courts are locked in a battle over whether the president's use of the Act, under which people have already been deported, is legal. Today on the show: where the Alien Enemies Act came from, how presidents have used it before, and what that tells us about what's to come."]
West, Stephen. "Religion and the duck-rabbit - Kyoto School pt. 3" Philosophize This! (March 2, 2025) ["Today we talk about the relationship between philosophy and religion. We talk about the duck-rabbit as a metaphor that may have something useful to teach us about the way we experience reality. We talk about the enormous difficulty of fully addressing the question: what is religion? We talk about Schelling's historical view of revelation and its connection to a possible new era of Christian religious practice. Hope you love it!"]
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