In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Helen King about the history of the female body. The give an overview of the four parts (breasts, clitoris, hymen, womb) of the female body and discuss how medicine shaped positive and negative ideas about the female body. They talk about breasts, clitoris, female genital mutilation, hymen, womb, and many more topics. Helen King is Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at The Open University. She is an elected member of the General Synod of the Church of England, where she is vice chair of Together, which campaigns on a range of discrimination issues including discrimination on the grounds of gender or sexuality. She is the author of the latest book, Immaculate Forms: A History of the Female Body in Four Parts. Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Dalton Conley about the social genome. They discuss the nature/nurture debate, polygenic index (PGI), and ethics of PGI and Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) studies. They give some critiques of The Bell Curve, three major Gene-Environmental interactions (active, passive, reactive), epigenetics, the social genome, and many more topics. Dalton Conley is a sociologist and professor of sociology at Princeton University. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and faculty affiliate at the New York Genome Center. He has his Bachelors from the University of California-Berkeley, MPA in Public Policy and PhD in Sociology from Columbia University as well as a Masters and PhD in Biology from New York University. His research has focused on the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic and health status from parents to children, the impact of parental wealth in explaining racial attainment gaps; the causal impact of birthweight on later health and educational outcomes; sibling differences that appear to reflect the triumph of achievement over ascription; and, finally, genetics as a driver of both social mobility and reproduction. He has been the recipient of Guggenheim, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Russell Sage Foundation fellowships as well as a CAREER Award and the Alan T. Waterman Award from the National Science Foundation. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science as well as a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He is the author of numerous books including the most book, The Social Genome: The New Science of Nature and Nurture. Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Jaap de Roode about how animals heal themselves. They discuss whether animals intentionally or unintentionally seek out medicinal plants, four ways animals fight infection, Monarch butterflies and treating against parasites, chimps and their gut health. They also talk about birds using cigarettes in their nests, ants and rezin, goats and sheep having preferences, cats and dogs eating grass, and many other topics. Jaap de Roode is a biologist and professor of biology at Emory University. He has a MSc in Population Biology from Wageningen University in the Netherlands and PhD in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He is interested in the ecology and evolution of infectious diseases, and currently studies infectious diseases of monarch butterflies, honey bees and humans. He is the author of the book, Doctors by Nature: How Ants, Apes, and Other animals Heal Themselves. Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Henry Gee about the decline and fall of the human species. They discuss the lifetime and decline of a species, when humans began to decline, what does it mean to be human, bipedalism, Homo Erectus, and slow human growth. They also talk about domestication and disease impacting humans, overpopulation concerns and low fertility rates, climate change, future of humankind, and many more topics. Henry Gee is a Paleontologist and is the Senior Editor for the scientific journal Nature. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge. Along with many articles, he is the author of numerous books including his most recent book, The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire. You can find his blog here. Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Alan Baddeley about his model of working memory. They define short-term memory, metacognition, overview of memory, memory loss and self-identity, and chunking in working memory. They talk about the levels of processing model, attention and working memory, overview of his multi-component model of working memory, and the six divisions of the model. They discuss the model with individuals with schizophrenia, forgetting and long-term memory, Alzheimer’s and Dementia, ADHD, psychological assessments for memory, emotion and memory, EMDR, future of working memory research, and many more topics. Alan Baddeley is Emeritus Professor at the University of York. His areas of expertise are in human memory, neuropsychology, and is known for his model of working memory. He has his Bachelors in psychology from University College London, Masters from Princeton University, and PhD from Cambridge University. He has received many honorary doctorates. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1993 and was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1996. In 2001, he received the American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions. He was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the British Psychological Society in 2012. He also received the Major Advancement in Psychological Science Prize from the International Union of Psychological Science in 2016. Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Neil Shubin about polar science in the arctic and Antarctica. They discuss polar science, Arctic and Antarctica, hot ice, blue ice, life under the Antarctic ice, fossil discoveries, meteorites, climate change, and many other topics. Neil Shubin is a Paleontologist and Evolutionary Biologist. He is the Robert Bensley Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago and the Associate Dean for academic strategy of the Biological Sciences Division. His research focuses on the evolution of new organs and he and his team discovered the 375 million-year-old Tiktaalik fossil. He is the author of many books, including the most recent, Ends of the Earth. Lab Website: https://shubinlab.uchicago.edu/ Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with C. Daniel Batson about his work on empathy and altruism. They discuss the empathy-altruism hypothesis, Bloom’s work on empathy, empathic concern, egoistic and altruistic motives, cooperation, future of altruism/empathy research, and many more topics. C. Daniel Batson is a social psychologist and Emeritus Professor at the University of Kansas. He has a PhD in theology and PhD in Psychology both from Princeton University. His research has focused on altruism, empathic concern, the psychology of religion. Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Agnes Callard about Socrates and living a philosophical life. They discuss untimely questions, intellectual intimacy, savage commands, socratic ethics, truth inquiries, living a philosophical life, and many more topics. Agnes Callard is a philosopher and Associate Professor of philosophy and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Chicago. She has her Bachelors from the University of Chicago and her PhD from Berkeley. Her primary research areas are ancient philosophy and ethics. She has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Harper’s and others. She is the author of many books, including her latest book, Open Socrates: The Case For A Philosophical Life. Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Michael Albertus about land power. They define land power, land sovereignty, and discuss land ownership. They talk about the great reshuffle, settler reforms, collective reforms, land-to-tiller reforms, and cooperative reforms. They discuss federal vs. private lands, 1860 Homestead Act, land and race, Native Americans and land, El Salvador and land control, Venezuela’s land revolution, land reconciliation in South Africa, and many more topics. Michael Albertus is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. He studied math, electrical engineering, and political science at the University of Michigan and earned degrees in all three. He has PhD in political science at Stanford University. His books and articles have won numerous awards and shifted conventional understandings of democracy, authoritarianism, and the consequences of how humans occupy and relate to the land. He is the author of the newest book, Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn't, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies.Website: https://www.michaelalbertus.com/ Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Sophia Rosenfeld about the modern history of choice. They discuss the concept of choice in different domains of society, choice and freedom in liberalism and neoliberalism, choice in shopping, choice in religion, choosing romantic partners, choice in politics, choice in reproductive rights, and many more topics. Sophia Rosenfeld is Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History and Chair of the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania, where she teaches European and American intellectual and cultural history with a special emphasis on the Enlightenment, the trans-Atlantic Age of Revolutions, and the legacy of the eighteenth century for modern democracy. She received her B.A. from Princeton University and her Ph.D. from Harvard University. She has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, the Mellon Foundation, both the Remarque Institute and the Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU, the Institute for Advanced Studies in Paris, and the American Council of Learned Societies, as well as visiting professorships at the University of Virginia School of Law and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris). She is the author of her newest book, The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life. Website: https://sophiarosenfeld.com/ Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe