How To Academy Podcast

For more than thirty years, Julia Cameron has helped ordinary people and world-renowned artists alike discover their passions and transform their lives. From Booker Prize winners like Anna Burns to world-famous musicians like Alicia Keys and Pete Townshend, actors like Reese Witherspoon and comedians like Russell Brand, the list of artists, innovators and creatives who cite a debt of gratitude to Julia Cameron and her bestselling creativity bible, The Artist’s Way is extraordinary. An icon to anyone who has ever dreamed of living a truly authentic life, bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert would not have written Eat, Pray, Love without The Artist’s Way to guide her. Now Elizabeth joins Julia to explore the wisdom and insight that have aided so many in their pursuit of passion, creativity and meaningful change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Since their discovery over 160 years ago, Neanderthals metamorphosed from the losers of the human family tree to A-list hominins. In conversation with particle physicist and broadcaster Brian Cox, archaeologist Rebecca Wragg Sykes reveals the Neanderthals as curious, clever connoisseurs of their world, technologically inventive and ecologically adaptable. They ranged across vast tracts of tundra and steppe, but also stalked in dappled forests and waded in the Mediterranean Sea. Above all, they were successful: survivors of over 300,000 years of massive climate change. Rebecca reveals a deeper, more nuanced story where humanity itself is our ancient, shared inheritance. It is only by understanding them, that we can truly understand ourselves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lying is probably as old as human language itself – an inevitable consequence of humanity’s greatest superpower. And comedian, Observer columnist and Peep Show star David Mitchell lies quite often (mostly about whether he is free to come to social events). But even he never expected to live in the post-truth age. In conversation with broadcaster and journalist Hannah MacInnes, he joins us to rail against the times with the characteristic wit, warmth, originality and insight we’ve come to expect. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At a time when many of us feel the world isn’t listening, Jess Phillips is here to teach us how to get organised, speak out and fight against injustice in all its forms. Jess Phillips is no stranger to speaking truth to power. Since becoming the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley in 2015, she has earned widespread acclaim as an authentic, fearless and uncompromising force for good in British politics, unafraid to stand up against injustice no matter the cost. Now she returns to How To Academy to teach you how to dig deep, get organised, and find the courage and the tools you need to take action. In this conversation with broadcaster and journalist Matthew Stadlen, she’ll share her own experiences speaking truth to power – and share the stories of the accidental heroes who have been brave enough to risk everything, become whistle-blowers and successfully fight back. This episode features some unbeeped bad language and may not be suitable for all listeners. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

She is the most iconic American feminist of the 20th and 21st centuries: a journalist and activist whose career spanned the campaign trails of Bobby Kennedy and Hillary Clinton. As a co-founder of Ms. Magazine, Gloria Steinem demonstrated a unique gift for offering hope and inspiring action – and to this day her words continue to serve as a source of guidance, humour and unity for people around the world. As the Emmy and BAFTA winning star of Westworld and The Line of Duty, alongside a cinematic slate as diverse as the Academy Award winning Crash and blockbuster Solo: a Star Wars Story, Thandie Newton is one of the most accomplished British actresses of her generation. As an activist and philanthropist, she has campaigned tirelessly to end violence against women and girls, and her TED talk exploring the role of selfhood and the bonds that connect us has been viewed over 3 million times. In this conversation hosted by author and critic Erica Wagner, Thandie and Gloria explore the extraordinary progress towards equality achieved over their lifetimes - and consider the work that remains to be done. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the inventor of an entirely new genre of entertainment, legendary video-game designer Sid Meier is a true creative pioneer a godfather to a multi-billion dollar industry. When Sid Meier designed his first computer game at the University of Michigan in the early 1970s computer-games hardly existed – and there were certainly no professional computer-game designers. In the following decades he would create some of the most famous and celebrated video-game titles ever made – including Civilization, a simulator of all of human history that has accumulated over a billion hours of play across the globe. The subject of internet memes, innumerable academic studies, critical acclaim and sometime controversy, the Civilization series has since its earliest days served as a calling card for anyone who believes that video-games are a unique, mature and culturally significant form. In this in-depth interview Sid explores his life and career at the forefront of the industry, with advice for aspiring and professional game-designers that can be equally applied by artists and creatives in all media. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The question of whether Western nations must return the artefacts plundered under colonial rule is the most pressing issue in the art world today. From the Elgin Marbles to the return of more than twelve thousand stolen artefacts from Belgium’s Africa Museum, the cry for the restitution of cultural objects once stolen under armed force or conquest is being heard across the globe. And the call is being heard in the highest echelons of power: from President Macron’s commitment to returning hundreds of artworks acquired by force or fraud in Africa to Jeremy Corbyn’s pledge to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece. Geoffrey Robertson QC has earned a formidable reputation as the UK’s leading human rights lawyer advocating in the most important legal cases of our age - from representing Salman Rushdie during the fatwa to fighting for free speech in the world-famous OZ trial. He’s helped the Greek government with legal arguments to reunite the Parthenon Marbles, and Tasmanian Aborigines in their action against the Natural History Museum for the return of the remains of their ancestors. He joins the How To Academy Podcast to delve into the debate over the Elgin Marbles, and offer a system for the return of cultural property based on human rights principles that aims to ensure the past can be experienced by everyone, as well as by the people of the country of origin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The greatest challenge facing humankind is not climate change or terrorism; it is our inability to think long term. Britain’s leading public philosopher is here to change the way we think to ensure a tomorrow. We are living in the age of now. Businesses can barely see beyond the next quarterly report nor politicians beyond the next election. Markets spike then crash in speculative bubbles. In this right here, right now society, we rarely stop to consider if we're being good ancestors. But the future depends on it. In this podcast, leading public philosopher and internationally bestselling author of Empathy and The Wonderbox Roman Krznaric explains how we lost sight of the future, and introduces simple, practical ways that we can change our thinking today to give our children, and our planet, a chance at a better tomorrow. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From anxiety to PTSD, the consequences of the pandemic for global mental health are profound. Neuropsychiatrist Anthony David explores what we know so far – and what we can do about it. Anthony David is one of the UK’s leading mental health professionals. As Director of UCL’s Institute for Mental Health, he has dedicated his life to treating illnesses at the edge of human understanding. Drawing on four decades of study and practice at the forefront of mental healthcare, he joins How To Academy to consider how the pandemic will impact upon the human psyche. Prof David will explore how policymakers, mental health professionals and individuals can respond to what some experts have dubbed the mental health “tsunami” anticipated after months of lockdown, hospitalisation and bereavement – and in light the coming global recession. Offering a global as well as local perspective, and taking heed of studies of mental health conducted after the closely related pandemics of SARS and MERS, this conversation with broadcaster Matthew Stadlen offers rich insights into the measures we can take to mitigate against the long-term psychological impact of the still unfolding crisis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When bestselling author Maria Konnikova set out to investigate the science of decision-making, she never expected to become a world-class poker player under the wing of a legend of the game. The author of two New York Times bestsellers, psychologist Maria Konnikova had never actually played poker before and didn’t even know the rules when she approached Erik Seidel -- Poker Hall of Fame inductee, winner of tens of millions of dollars in earnings -- and asked him to be her mentor. She had faced a stretch of personal bad luck, and her reflections on the role of chance in her life had pointed her to poker as the ultimate master class in learning to distinguish what can be controlled and what can’t. Seidel was in, and soon Konnikova was down the rabbit hole with him, a journey that would lead her to the following year’s World Series of Poker. Then something extraordinary happened. Under Seidel’s guidance, Konnikova began to have many epiphanies about life that derived from her new pursuit, including how to better read not just her opponents but far more importantly herself. She found her way to making better decisions and to a place where she could accept luck for what it is, and what it isn’t. But she also began to win. And win. She won a major title and got used to headlines like ‘How one writer’s book deal turned her into a professional poker player’. She even learned to like Las Vegas. In the end, Konnikova is a student of human behaviour, and ultimately the point of her incredible adventure was to render it into a container for its invaluable lessons. The biggest bluff of all, she learned, is that skill is enough. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices