How To Academy Podcast

How can we best approach one another across our differences? The first and only poet to write a New York Times bestseller, the winner of every significant literary prize in the United States, and recipient of a MacArthur “genius grant”, Jamaican-born Claudia Rankine is an icon of contemporary American letters. In this conversation with Guardian columnist Owen Jones, she explores her own prejudices and those of others, and celebrate vulnerability, openness and the willingness to be wrong. It’s an urgent call to enter into conversations which could offer humane pathways through this moment of division. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A tour de force of neuroscience and philosophy, Iain McGilchrist’s The Master and His Emissary speaks to everyone searching for happiness, meaning and understanding in the modern world. For millennia humans have speculated upon the differences between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Why did evolution lead to humans and many other animals developing two cerebral hemispheres, separated by a groove? No neuroscientist would dispute that there are significant differences; but until now, no-one has understood why. Dr Iain McGilchrist has an empirical answer to this question – and his ideas have profound consequences for how humans understand themselves and their place in the world. This conversation between Dr McGilchrist and science journalist David Malone explores how the competition between the two hemispheres has shaped civilisation and progress and now, in our hyper-rationalist age, threatens to undermine the deepest and most sacred human values. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Blink to Outliers, Revisionist History to David and Goliath, no-one challenges our shared assumptions and invites us to rethink human nature like Malcolm Gladwell. Named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people and Foreign Policy’s Top Global Thinkers, his ideas have passed into common currency and made him one of the most recognisable and beloved public intellectuals of our time. He is uncannily tuned into the zeitgeist, able to fuse scholarly insights, human stories and a global perspective to illuminate truths about our world that were otherwise destined to remain hidden. In conversation with Hubertus Kuelps, Malcolm explores the theme of his latest book, Talking to Strangers: how can we make a good impression? This podcast is the latest episode of Found in Conversation, a podcast brought to you by the Pictet Group in partnership with How To Academy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

‘First, you have to learn how to be a woman. Then middle age arrives, and you realise you have to become … more than a woman. To those around you, you’re now the Fourth Emergency Service.” – Caitlin Moran Caitlin Moran was home-educated on a Wolverhampton council estate and went onto become the most iconic columnist and critic of her generation. From How to Be a Woman to Moranifesto, How to Build a Girl to Channel 4 sitcom Raised by Wolves, her game-changing take on feminism, the patriarchy and becoming a woman is above all things a cry ‘to live a full, open-hearted, joyous life’ (Sunday Times). She joins the How To Academy Podcast for a riotous, heart-felt celebration of all those middle-aged women whose stories never get made into TV shows, or movies - but who, none-the-less, keep the world turning. As Caitlin says, “Take up your space, dude – you’ve earned it.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The events of 2020 have upturned the order of the world, and the medical, economic and political crises we face will not fade quietly as the new year begins. Though so much of the present moment feels strange and unprecedented, there is wisdom in heeding to George Santayana’s famous proverb that those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. To help ensure that we do not fall foul of the prophecy, Simon Schama joined How To Academy to share his insights into the past and near future. A natural storyteller with a deep grasp of human psychology and the broader forces that shape our world, Schama reflected upon the lessons history holds for the coming year in conversation with journalist and broadcaster Matthew Stadlen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“My eyes are constantly wide open to the extraordinary fact of existence. Not just human existence but the existence of life and how this breathtakingly powerful process, which is natural selection, has managed to take the very simple facts of physics and chemistry and build them up to redwood trees and humans. That's never far from my thoughts, that sense of amazement.” – Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins has done more than any other scientist to promote and celebrate the origins of life on Earth. The creator of the word ‘meme’ and of the hugely influential ‘selfish gene’ model of evolution, he is the epitome of the truly public intellectual – a scientist whose ideas have proven extraordinarily influential both within his own discipline and far, far beyond. In this week's episode of the How To Academy Podcast, Richard shares his reflections on perhaps the most important and puzzling topic in all of human existence: the meaning of life. Credit for Richard Dawkins' Portrait to Frederic Aranda @fredericaranda Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Whether exposing Britain’s powerful elites in The Establishment or defending the white working class in Chavs, fighting for equality and social justice as a Guardian columnist and broadcaster, Owen Jones may be the most influential and widely respected political journalist of his generation. In conversation with world-renowned economist and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, he gives an unflinchingly honest, insider’s account of Labour’s electoral defeat in 2019 – and explores where the Left can go next in the new world we find ourselves in. We have the opportunity to build a fairer country and a more equal world, but if our time is to come, then we must learn from our past. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

An icon of the last fifty years, Stephen Hawking seems to encapsulate genius. In this episode of the How To Academy Podcast, his colleague and collaborator Leonard Mlodinow offers an intimate account of this giant of science in conversation with comic and broadcaster Robin Ince. The two met in 2003, after Stephen asked Leonard if he would consider writing a book with him. As they spent years working on A Briefer History of Time followed by The Grand Design, they forged a deep connection and Leonard gained a greater understanding of Stephen's daily life and struggles -- as well as his compassion and humour. Together they obsessed over the perfect sentence, debated the physics, and occasionally punted on Cambridge's waterways with champagne and strawberries. In time, Leonard was able to finish Stephen's jokes, chide his sporadic mischief, and learn how the hardships of his illness helped forge that unique perspective on the universe. Weaving together their shared story with a clear-sighted portrayal of Hawking's scientific achievements, Mlodinow creates a beautiful portrait of Stephen Hawking as a brilliant, impish and generous man whose life was not only exceptional but also genuinely inspiring. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Our meat and dairy intensive diets are destroying the planet. In this week's podcast, animal welfare environmentalist Philip Lymbery shares the new science of living sustainably and makes a powerful case for changing how we eat. From vegan alternatives to free range pasturised meat, cultured meat to precision fermentation, Philips considers the new dietary habits, technological innovations and political developments that could change the way we farm and eat and make a seismic impact on the climate crisis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

They were the most famous sisters in China. As the country battled through a hundred years of wars, revolutions and seismic transformations, the three Soong sisters from Shanghai were at the centre of power, and each of them left an indelible mark on history. Red Sister, Ching-ling, married the ‘Father of China’, Sun Yat-sen, and rose to be Mao’s vice chair. Little Sister, May-ling, became Madame Chiang Kaishek, first lady of pre-Communist Nationalist China and a major political figure in her own right Big Sister, Ei-ling, became Chiang’s unofficial main adviser–and made herself one of China’s richest women. All three sisters enjoyed tremendous privilege and glory, but also endured constant mortal danger. They showed great courage and experienced passionate love, as well as despair and heartbreak. They remained close emotionally, even when they embraced opposing political camps and Ching-ling dedicated herself to destroying her two sisters’ worlds. In this episode of the How To Academy podcast, internationally bestselling author Jung Chang joins us to tell their remarkable story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices