How To Academy Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross - Your Brain on Art Sep 22, 2023

Show notes

For most of us, the arts are a great source of pleasure. But could making art actually be good for your brain and body?

Susan Magsamen is the founder and director of the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she studies how the brain and biology change when we participate in the arts. She's the author of Your Brain on Art, a new book making a powerful and persuasive case for the medicinal benefits of art. She wrote the book with Ivy Ross, Vice President of Design for Google's hardware division, and both authors joined David Malone to tell us more.

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Joyce Carol Oates - Zero Sum Sep 19, 2023

Show notes

The author of 58 novels, as well as plays, poetry, non-fiction and short stories, Joyce Carol Oates is famed across the literary world for writing at a speed which leaves her contemporaries trailing in the dust. But the fact of her productivity – and the sheer challenge of keeping up with such a prodigious writer – too often masks the more significant truth: that Joyce Carol Oates may be the most original, erudite, and versatile voice in American letters. In this podcast, we dive into the stories of her new collection Zero Sum and hear her take on the strange and troubled times we live in.

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Jesse Coomer - The Power of Breathwork Sep 15, 2023

Show notes

Jesse Coomer was an English professor suffering from what he called "The Modern Human Condition" - in other words, he was a mess of stress and anxiety. He learned to combat that with breath training and cold exposure, and now teaches his techniques to athletes, the military, and beyond. He's the author of a new book called The Language of Breath - it's already out in the US and comes out in the UK in October. He joined Hannah MacInnes a couple of weeks back to tell us more.

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Kristen Ghodsee and Angela Saini - Radical Experiments in the Good Life Sep 12, 2023

Show notes

What can we learn from historical attempts to live together and raise children differently? Kristen Ghodsee is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Everyday Utopia, a new guide to experimental communities from the Pythagorians to the present. She talked to the journalist, author, and broadcaster Angela Saini about the past, present, and future of family life.

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Dr James Kinross - The New Science of the Microbiome Sep 08, 2023

Show notes

James Kinross is a consultant surgeon at Imperial College and one of the world's leading experts on the science of the microbiome — the complex ecosystem of bacteria, viruses and other microbes inside us. In a livestream from hospital, where he had literally just finished operating, he took Hannah MacInnes on a tour of this amazing inner universe and told us what it means for our overall health and wellbeing.

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Emma Southon - Women of the Roman Empire Sep 05, 2023

Show notes

Emma Southon is a podcaster and ancient historian. Her new book A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women does exactly what it says on the tin: sidestepping the sidesteps of the long list of battles, consuls and generals that normally passes for the grand narrative of Rome to focus on the lives of women - including Vestal Virgins, sex workers, empresses, poets, and saints. She turns our preconceptions about the Roman world on its head to reveal a new story of the ancient world where ordinary individual lives take centre stage.

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Rahul Jandial - How to Rewire Your Brain (Summer Repeat) Sep 01, 2023

Show notes

For years Dr Rahul Jandial, a neurosurgeon and neuroscientist, has transformed the lives of his neurosurgery patients by putting them through ‘brain rehab’, his specially developed boot camp for restoring brain function. In this eye-opening interview with Hannah MacInnes, he uses his expertise to show how healthy people can rewire their brains to work in a higher gear.

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David Christian - A User's Guide to the Future (Bonus Episode) Aug 29, 2023

Show notes

When you get behind the wheel of a car, throw or catch a ball, change jobs, or move to a new country, you are making a series of predictions about what will happen next in your life and in the world. But what do we really mean when we talk about “the Future”? Is it something that is fixed or open? Can we genuinely know something about the world in twenty-five, fifty, or a hundred years? Are all predictions of the future equally likely to be right or wrong, and how can we make our predictions more accurate? Professor David Christian investigates.

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Helen Macdonald and Sin Blaché - Nostalgia is a Weapon Aug 25, 2023

Show notes

The writer Helen Macdonald is best known for the award winning memoir H is For Hawk and other distinguished works exploring our relationship to the natural world; their new novel Prophet is something very different but no less compelling - a speculative novel of ideas that will appeal to fans of literary science fiction and action thrillers as well as fans of Helen's earlier work. Written in collaboration with the Irish-American musician and writer Sin Blaché, the novel tells the story of a biochemical weapon that creates physical manifestations of nostalgic memories - with consequences that are equal parts surrealist, horrifying, and politically explosive. We caught up with both authors last week and took the plunge into this thrilling new work of imaginative fiction.

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Julia Cameron and Elizabeth Gilbert - The Path to Higher Creativity (Summer Repeat) Aug 22, 2023

Show notes

Julia Cameron is the author, poet, and screenwriter whose book The Artist's Way is one of the most influential creativity manuals ever written. Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of many books including most famously, Eat, Pray, Love - a memoir she says would not have been written without the guidance offered by The Artist Way. At the start of the pandemic, we brought Julia and Elizabeth together virtually to celebrate the power and value of the human imagination.

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