How To Academy Podcast

Latest Episodes:

The Metaverse - Hype or Hyperreality? May 06, 2022

Show notes

For forty years humans have dreamed of persistent virtual worlds. Today, video games and their peripherals are pushing the boundaries of digital immersion, whether in the form of imaginary play spaces like Roblox and Second Life, or rich sensory augmentations that affect our experience of the physical world. But what will become of the Metaverse and cyberspace? And in our era of rapid and accelerating change, how can we accurately imagine and forecast future – to include both dazzling new technologies like VR and AR and wider social trends?

Starring in this episode Found In Conversation are David Chalmers, Professor of Philosophy at New York University and the author of Reality Plus; Jane McGonigal, game designer, futurist and author of Imaginable; and Shaniel Ramjee, a Senior Investment Manager in the International Multi Asset & Strategy team at Pictet. The host of the conversation is Clara Bertrand.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ann Patchett - These Precious Days May 03, 2022

Show notes

A literary alchemist, Ann Patchett plumbs the depths of her experiences to create gold: essays that are both self-portrait and landscape, each vibrant with emotion and rich in insight. In this episode of the podcast, she explores her latest collection, These Precious Days. Offering a unique perspective on themes as diverse as failure, family, Snoopy the dog, children, publishing, teaching, and the actor Tom Hanks, join us for a dive into one of the most extraordinary minds at work in American letters today.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Robin Ince Meets Richard Dawkins Apr 29, 2022

Show notes

Have you ever dreamt you could fly? Or imagined what it would be like to glide and swoop through the sky like a bird? Do you let your mind soar to unknown, magical spaces? In conversation with comedian, author and broadcaster Robin Ince, scientists and science writer Richard Dawkins explores two interweaving forms of wonder of flight: both in its literal form, the dream we all share of soaring in the skies, and flights of the mind, enabled through science, ideas, and imagination.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ed Miliband - How to Fix Our World Apr 26, 2022

Show notes

For the past four years, Ed Miliband has been discovering and interviewing brilliant people all around the world who are successfully tackling the biggest problems we face, transforming communities and pioneering global movements. In this podcast, he draws on the most imaginative and ambitious of these ideas to provide a vision for the kind of society we need. He presents an inspiring array of real solutions to the toughest and most urgent of these problems, and argue that the key to success is to raise our sights and think big.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dispatches from Afghanistan Apr 22, 2022

Show notes

Bringing together leading Afghan politician and women’s rights advocate Fawzia Koofi, who was a member of the recent delegation negotiating peace with the Taliban; Sunday Times chief foreign correspondent Christina Lamb; and award-winning war correspondent and New Yorker writer Jon Lee Anderson, this podcast explores both the transformation of everyday life in Afghanistan and the major humanitarian and political questions presented by the new status quo.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Matthew Green - A Journey Into the Shadowlands Apr 19, 2022

Show notes

From Old Winchelsea to Skara Brae, Matthew Green transports us to Britain's shadowlands - the once thriving towns and cities that are now lost to time and memory.

Drowned by storms. Buried by sand. Requisitioned by the army. One of Britain's most exciting young historians, Matthew Green has travelled the British Isles in search of the remnants of settlements that once adorned the nation's map - until nature, disease, politics or economics reduced them to ruins. In this episode of the podcast, he shares stories of medieval boomtowns, an ancient settlement that predates the pyramids, and many more highlights that cannot be found in any contemporary tourist's guidebook. In the face of climate change and other major historical forces, this tour of Britain's shadowlands serves as a powerful reminder of the transcience not only of our own lives, but of the manmade world itself.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Julia Samuel - Every Family Has a Story Apr 11, 2022

Show notes

Our family relationships fundamentally influence our health and happiness -- but we think too narrowly about the impact of our families on our lives.

In this episode of the podcast, bestselling psychotherapist Julia Samuel turns from her acclaimed work with individuals to draw on her sessions with a wide variety of families. She explores a range of common issu

Uncovering how deeply we are influenced by our families, she offers a moving and reassuring meditation that, amidst trauma and hardship, will tell us unforgettable stories of forgiveness, learning and love.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Philip Oltermann - The Stasi Poetry Circle Apr 08, 2022

Show notes

In 1982, East Germany's fearsome secret police - convinced that writers were embedding subversive messages in their work - decided to train their own writers, weaponising poetry in the struggle against the class enemy.

Journalist Philip Oltermann spent five years rifling through Stasi files, digging up lost volumes of poetry from musty basements, and tracking down the surviving members of the circle to uncover the little-known story of this famously ruthless intelligence agency's obsession with literature. In this episode of the podcast, he joins us to reveal what he discovered.

Praise for Philip Oltermann's The Stasi Poetry Circle:

'A magnificent book . . . at once touching, exquisite, devastating and extraordinary.' - Philippe Sands

'A vivid, funny, and imperturbable portrait of Soviet Russia's most loyal satellite.' - Nell Zink

'Grippingly well-written' Anthony Quinn, Observer

'Oltermann's own prose is fast-moving and lucid, with a enjoyably pulpy, hardboiled quality' Telegraph

The podcast is presented in partnership with Surfshark. Get Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/HOWTOPOD - Enter promo code HOWTOPOD for 83% off and 3 extra months free.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Simon Sebag Montefiore and Luke Harding - The History of the Ukraine-Russia Conflict Apr 05, 2022

Show notes

The concept of a shared, single heritage and culture is central to Vladimir Putin’s justification for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But what is the true story of the two nations, and how can it illuminate the nature of the conflict? This episode of the podcast brings together historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, whose books on Russia include The Romanovs and Stalin - The Court of the Red Tzar, and award-winning foreign correspondent Luke Harding, who was expelled from Russia by the Kremlin in 2011 in the first act of its kind since the end of the cold war. Together they reflect on the deep roots of the conflict and share their insights in the ongoing invasion.

The podcast is presented in partnership with Surfshark. Get Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/HOWTOPOD - Enter promo code HOWTOPOD for 83% off and 3 extra months free.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Max Porter - Why Art Should Challenge Us Apr 01, 2022

Show notes

Max Porter broke new ground with his highly-original debut Grief is a Thing With Feathers, and firmly established himself as a major literary talent with his second novel Lanny. The cult author joined us to explore his latest and most ambitious novel yet: The Death of Francis Bacon, a collection of 'verbal paintings' depicting the final moments of the artist’s life. What responsibility does an author owe to their subject, and to their audience, in the age of the Internet? Is culture becoming less tolerant of ambiguity? How far can a novelist experiment before commercial considerations kick in? Max answers all these questions and more -- and gives us a breathtaking performance from the new novel quite unlike any literary reading you've ever heard.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices