How To Academy Podcast

Erudite and comic, ironic and profound, philosopher Slavoj Žižek has travelled into territory where few of us dare to tread – and aged 75 he shows no signs of becoming less provocative. In this electric conversation with Yanis Varoufakis the pair explore whether progress is a good thing, where the new technologies of o

Both infinitely larger than ourselves and one of humanity's greatest commonalities, the night sky has shaped millennia of human history. Cosmologist Roberto Trotta joins us to reveal what the mysteries of the stars can illuminate about the mysteries of humankind, from our earliest origin myths to our methods of timekee

Orhan Pamuk has traveled far and wide, around the world, across the page, and in the landscapes of his mind. Now he joins Erica Wagner to illuminate his craft. From his travels around the world to his reflections on fellow writers, from journal entries scrawled across the span of over a decade to the beginnings of his

Can scientists now preserve human minds beyond death - and if so, should they? Australian neuroscientist and science communicator Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston joins us to explain the cutting-edge of his field. The dream of immortality has existed for as long as the human imagination and until now remained just that: a dre

‘Could you write what you write if you weren’t so tiny, Joan?’ -Eve Babitz, in a letter to Joan Didion, 1972 One was the New York name on literary lips. The other, a Los Angeleno fireball with a ferocious wit and writerly ambitions. But what started off a relationship of nurture and collaboration quickly became one of

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham: never had King James I's court seen a man of such exquisite beauty. Capturing the heart of the King, becoming his lover and right-hand man, Villiers thus found himself at the heart of court politics too. But along with his angelic face he also had a brilliant mind. Renowned historia