Shows
The Cluster F Theory Podcast52. End of Season 2We are taking a break. Here are the episodes we mention in this chat as well as the list of podcast recommendations we talked about.Rosie Nixon - Burnout https://theclusterftheory.substack.com/p/45-burnout-rosie-nixonMerve Emre - Public/Publics https://theclusterftheory.substack.com/p/39-publicpublics-merve-emreJonas Staal - Propaganda https://theclusterftheory.substack.com/p/47-propaganda-jonas-staalJeff Rosenthal - Industrial Evolution https://theclusterftheory.substack.com/p/51-industrial-evolution-jeff-rosenthalNicole Stott - Crewlife https://theclusterftheory.substack.com/p/41-crewlife-nicole-stottJulie Reshe - Negative Psychoanalysis https://theclusterftheory.substack.com/p/43...
2025-06-1919 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast51. Industrial Evolution - Jeff RosenthalJeff Rosenthal is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and community builder. He is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of CIV, a back-and-build investment firm focused on critical industries. Prior to founding CIV, Jeff co-founded Summit, a leading business and thought leadership community. Jeff also co-owns Powder Mountain, the largest ski resort in North America. He sits on the board of the Ocean Conservancy and is a member of Conservation International’s Leadership Council. Jeff is the co-author of Make No Small Plans, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and holds a BA in International Business from Am...
2025-06-1244 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast50. The Operational Aesthetic - Jason MittellJason Mittell is Professor of Film & Media Culture at Middlebury College and is the author of some of the most read and cited books in TV studies.Genre and Television: From Cop Shows to Cartoons in American Culture (Routledge, 2004) Television and American Culture (Oxford University Press, 2010) Complex Television: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling (NYU Press, 2015) Narrative Theory and ADAPTATION (Bloomsbury, 2017) https://Jason is also co-editor of How to Watch Television (NYU Press, 2013; second edition, 2020). He maintains the blog Just TV.Faculty page: https://www...
2025-06-0550 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast49. Digital Detox - Trine SyvertsenTrine Syvertsen is professor of media studies at the University of Oslo, working in the fields of media history, media policy, television and digital media. She co-edited The Digital Backlash and The Paradoxes of Disconnection and authored the influential Digital Detox, The Politics of Disconnecting. Faculty page: https://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/people/aca/trinesy/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.no/citations?user=42etQgUAAAAJ&hl=enThe Digital Backlash (Open Access) https://www.nordicom.gu.se/en/publications/digital-backlash-and-paradoxes-disconnectionDigital Detox: https://bookstore.emerald.com/digital-detox-pb-9781787693425.html...
2025-05-2954 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast48. (Un)Kindness - Victoria SmithVictoria Smith is a feminist writer with a particular interest in motherhood and intersections of misogyny and ageism. She has written for Unherd, the Critic, the New Statesman and the Independent. She is the author of two books- Hags, on the demonisation of middle-aged women- which was shortlisted for the Nero Prize in 2023 - and her new book Unkind, on how ‘kindness culture’ entrenches sexism.(Un)kind publisher's page: https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/victoria-smith/unkind/9780349127132/Hags publisher's page: https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/victoria-smith/hags/9780349726960/Hags at the Nero Book Awar...
2025-05-2236 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast47. Propaganda - Jonas StaalJonas Staal is a visual artist whose work deals with the relation between art, democracy and propaganda. Much of his work is collaborative, performative and critically utopian. He is the founder of the artistic and political organization New World Summit. Together with Florian Malzacher he co-directs the training camp Training for the Future and with human rights lawyer Jan Fermon he initiated the collective action lawsuit Collectivize Facebook. With writer and lawyer Radha D’Souza he founded the Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes and with Laure Prouvost he is co-administrator of the Obscure Union.Current an...
2025-05-1548 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast46. Festivals - Andrew MacdonaldAndrew MacDonald is a film producer who has made some of the most well-known British films including Trainspotting, 28 Days Later (and the sequels), The Last King of Scotland, Ex Machina, Civil War and 2025’s Warfare. He was also executive producer on the TV series Devs and Shogun… DNA Films: http://www.dnafilms.com/Andrew Macdonald on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0531602/DNA Films on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_Films----------------------The Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Ou...
2025-05-0839 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast45. Burnout - Rosie NixonRosie Nixon is a bestselling author of three novels, and one non-fiction book, 'Be Kind'. Her new novel 'Bad Influence' will be published in summer 2025. As the Editor in Chief and Editor of HELLO! magazine, she was awarded Editor of the Year by the British Society of Magazine Editors and was involved in exclusive stories about the Royal Family and A-List celebrities, attending parties and events nearly every day. Until one day she couldn't do it anymore...Rosie is now a qualified life coach and has recently founded her business 'Rosie’s Reinvention Retreats' where sh...
2025-05-0146 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast44. Trumpspace - David MarkusDavid Markus is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Expository Writing Program at New York University. His interdisciplinary writing focuses on representations of dwelling and domesticity in late-capitalist contexts; social practices in contemporary art; the conflict between intimacy and artistic ambition in twentieth-century literature, art, and film; and the question of Jewish belonging in the wake of the Holocaust. He is a 2024-2025 Center for New Jewish Culture Fellow. His articles and reviews have appeared in publications such as Art in America, Frieze, Art Journal, Art Papers, Hyperallergic, Fence Digital, The Brooklyn Rail, and Flash Art. His...
2025-04-2445 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast43. Negative Psychoanalysis - Julie ResheJulie Reshe is a Ukrainian-born philosopher and the author of a negative psychoanalytic approach. With over 300 patients, she has extensive experience as a negative practitioner.She earned her PhD studying psychoanalysis at the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts under the supervision of Alenka Zupančič. She studied existential therapy at the University of Oxford and holds certification as an APPA philosophical counselor.She is a Visiting Professor at University College Cork and University College Dublin and a Director of the Institute of Psychoanalysis, Global Center for Advanced Studies.
2025-04-1742 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast42. Cultural Diversity - Tomiwa OwoladeTomiwa Owolade is a Nigerian-born British journalist, author and critic. He writes about social and cultural issues for many publications, including The Times and The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Telegraph, New Statesman and London Evening Standard. He has also frequently appeared on BBC Radio 4 and Times Radio. His interests cover many topics, including identity politics, freedom of speech, religion, film, poetry, novels, philosophy and history. His first book ‘This Is Not America’ was released in 2023 and The Times, Tortoise Media and The Spectator all chose it as one of the best books of the year.This Is N...
2025-04-1038 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast41. Crewlife - Nicole StottNicole Stott is an author, artist, engineer and veteran NASA Astronaut with two spaceflights and 104 days in space as a crewmember on both the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle. In her book “Back to Earth: What Life In Space Taught Me About Our Home Planet – And Our Mission To Protect It”, Nicole presents essential lessons in problem-solving, survival, and crisis response that all of us can learn and practice to make change.Nicole’s website: https://www.npsdiscovery.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/astro_nicole/Twitter: https://x.com/Astro_Nicole
2025-04-0357 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast40. Fandom - Bertha ChinBertha Chin is a Senior Lecturer in Communications And New Media at the National University of Singapore. Her research in fan, media & cultural studies covers fan and celebrity cultures, with a focus on Hollywood film and television. She's published on topics covering transcultural fandom, anti-fandom and fan-producer relationships. She's co-edited two books: 'Eating Fandom' and 'Crowdfunding the Future: Media Industries, Ethics and Digital Society'. She is also co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Popular Communication.Bertha's Faculty Page: https://discovery.nus.edu.sg/27241-bertha-chinInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/transculturalfangirl/Popular Communication journal: https://www...
2025-03-2748 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast39. Public/Publics- Merve EmreMerve Emre is the Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University and the Director of the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism. Merve is the author of a host of books including Paraliterary: The Making of Bad Readers in Postwar America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017) The Personality Brokers (Doubleday: New York, 2018), which was selected as one of the best books of 2018 by the New York Times, the Economist, NPR, CBC, and the Spectator, and informs the CNN/HBO Max documentary feature film Persona. She is the editor of Once and Future Feminist (Camb...
2025-03-2050 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast38. Dance- Dame Arlene PhillipsDame Arlene Phillips is a world-renowned, award-winning choreographer and theatre director. From creating the revolutionary dance group Hot Gossip in the 1970’s to working with stars from film, TV and theatre, Arlene is a household name. Her work includes choreographing Hollywood films such as ‘Annie’, ‘Legend’ and ‘Monty Python's The Meaning of Life’, West End and Broadway musicals such as ‘Starlight Express’, ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘Grease’, and iconic music videos including Duran Duran's ‘Wild Boys’, Tina Turner's ‘Private Dancer’, Whitney Houston's ‘How Will I Know’ and Freddie Mercury's ‘The Great Pretender’.She was made Dame Commander of the Order o...
2025-03-1346 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast37. End of Season 1Hello!We're going to take a break for a little while. In this episode, we discuss what the past 7 months have been like for us and what kinds of topics we'd like to cover in our next season.If you have only recently found us, we'd love it if you'd go back to the beginning and listen to earlier episodes. Also, feel free to share the podcast and subscribe to our Substack in order to be emailed with new episodes. Also, rate it and review it or whatever it is you're supposed to do with...
2024-10-1722 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast36. Hypochondria - Caroline CramptonCaroline Crampton is a writer and a podcaster. She is the creator and host of the award-winning detective fiction podcast Shedunnit. She curates articles as editor-in-chief of The Browser, and she writes reviews and essays for publications like Time, Literary Hub and the Guardian. She writes non-fiction books about the world and how we live in it. Here most recent book A Body Made of Glass was serialised as BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week, chosen by the Guardian as a literary highlight of 2024 and was one of Nature's 'top reads for summer.'Caroline Crampton: ht...
2024-10-1045 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast35. Screen Addiction? - Pete EtchellsPete Etchells is a professor of psychology and science communication at Bath Spa University. He researches the behavioural and wellbeing effects of playing video games, as well as metascientific issues regarding best practice in digital technology effects research. He’s written articles for various publications including New Scientist, the Guardian, the Observer, the New York Times, WIRED and the Telegraph. His most recent book, UNLOCKED, investigates the science behind our relationship with digital technology.Pete Etchells' personal website: https://www.peteetchells.com/Faculty page: https://www.bathspa.ac.uk/our-people/peter-etchells/Twitter/X pa...
2024-10-0349 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast34. Architecture - Jimenez LaiArchitect and theorist Jimenez Lai was born in Taiwan, grew up in Canada, and lives in Los Angeles. He holds the Robert Gwathmey chair at Cooper Union, and is the director of architecture agency Bureau Spectacular. Before establishing Bureau Spectacular, Lai lived in a desert shelter at Taliesin and resided in a shipping container at Atelier Van Lieshout on the piers of Rotterdam. Lai's first book, Citizens of No Place: An Architectural Graphic Novel, was published by Princeton Architectural Press with a grant from the Graham Foundation. Lai has won various awards, including the Architectural League Prize for Young...
2024-09-2644 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast33. Children's Online Rights - Beeban KidronBaroness Beeban Kidron OBE sits as a crossbench peer in the UK’s House of Lords.She is an advisor to the Institute for Ethics in AI at the University of Oxford, a Commissioner on the UN Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, an expert advisor for the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence, and Founder and Chair of 5Rights Foundation. Before taking up her seat in the House of Lords in 2012, Baroness Kidron spent 30 years as a film maker. Her credits include, the BAFTA award-winning 'Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit', 'Bridget Jone...
2024-09-1947 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast32. Ageist Sexism - Kathy LetteKathy Lette is the author of 17 novels, THE woman about town in London and one of the pioneering voices of contemporary feminism. She is well known for her one-liners, wise cracks and witticism and is as close to being the 21st century's Dorothy Parker as anyone else I know.She wrote her first book, Puberty Blues, when she was 17. The book addresses the sexism in teenage culture in 1970s Australia. Her most recent book, Revenge Club, addresses the sexism older women face and has been called 'erotic fan fiction for the peri-menopausal'. Kathy was educated...
2024-09-1239 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast31. AI - Nick RhodesNick Rhodes is a composer, producer and founding member and keyboardist in Duran Duran. Apart from his work with Duran Duran, he's had several side projects with Arcadia, The Devils and TV Mania and has collaborated with various artists, including Blondie, Mark Ronson and the Dandy Warhols. He's a keen photographer and art collector. Nick's wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_RhodesDuran Duran's 'Invisible' video made by AI:Duran Duran's official site: https://duranduran.com/Duran Duran's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/duranduran/Duran Duran's YouTube...
2024-09-0545 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast30. First Nations' Rights - Brenda L CroftThe artist and thinker Brenda L Croft is from the Gurindji/Malngin/Mudburra peoples from the Victorian River region of the Northern Territory of Australia, and Anglo-Australian/German/Irish/Chinese heritage. She has been a key participant in the Australian First Nations and broader contemporary arts and cultural sectors as a multi-disciplinary creative practitioner—artist, arts administrator, consultant, curator, educator and researcher—since the mid-1980s. Brenda is a Professor of Indigenous Art History and Curatorship, Australian National University. In 2023—2024 Brenda is Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser Chair of Australian Studies at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.Austra...
2024-08-2950 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast29. Hope and Anchor - Tamsin EdwardsNote: This interview was recorded before the most recent General Election in the UK.Professor Tamsin Edwards is a climate scientist specialising in quantifying the uncertainties of climate model predictions, particularly for the ice sheet and glacier contributions to sea level rise. She was a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report published in 2021.Tamsin regularly provides expert advice on climate science to the public, policymakers, media and businesses, and is currently the first Parliamentary Thematic Research Lead for Climate & Environment, advising the UK Parliament on research evidence to...
2024-08-2249 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast28. A Life In Design - Peter SavillePeter Saville is an English art director and graphic designer. He was one of the founders of Factory Records in 1978 and designed many record sleeves for their bands including Joy Division's 'Unknown Pleasures' and New Order's 'Power Corruption and Lies'. Outside of Factory he did work for artists such as Roxy Music, Wham!, OMD, Ultravox, Peter Gabriel, Suede and Pulp. He's worked with various fashion houses including Christian Dior, Stella McCartney and Calvin Klein. He was the Creative Director of the City of Manchester, designed the England football team home shirt and in 2020 was appointed Commander of the Order...
2024-08-1541 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast27. Symbiontics - Caroline A. JonesCaroline A Jones is Professor in the History, Theory, and Criticism section, Department of Architecture, MIT. She studies modern and contemporary art, focusing on its technological modes of production, distribution, and reception, and on its interface with science. She has also worked as a curator, including three exhibitions at MIT's List Visual Arts Center: Hans Haaken, Video Trajectories, and Sensorium. Her exhibitions and/or films have been shown at NY MoMA, SF MoMA, the Hirshhorn DC, and the Hara Museum Tokyo, among other venues. Publications include Machine in the Studio (1996/98), Picturing Science, Producing Art (co-editor, 1998...
2024-08-0846 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast26. Cultural Poisoning - Sarah DitumSarah Ditum is a journalist for The Sunday Times and has also written for The Guardian, New Statesman, Grazia and UnHerd. She writes columns and features about politics, culture and lifestyle including topics such as violence against women, gender identity and cancel culture. Her book Toxic: Women, Fame and The Noughties, about misogyny in celebrity culture during the 2000s, was published in 2023 and it was announced in spring '24 that one of the book's subjects, Paris Hilton, acquired the option rights in order to turn it into a documentary series.Sarah's Substack 'Tox Report': https://substack.com...
2024-08-0157 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast25. The Emotional Aftermath of War Reporting - David ChaterDavid Chater is an award-winning British broadcast journalist who has worked in international television news for over 40 years. He has reported for Independent Television News, Sky News and Al Jazeera English from pretty much every conflict you can think of. He's reported on the Falklands War, the Yugoslavian Homeland Wars, the First Gulf War, the Second Gulf War, the Sri Lankan civil war, the war in Afghanistan, the second Chechen War. He's been in the middle of a Scud missile attack, a grad rocket attack was in the middle of Operation Shock and Awe in Baghdad and was shot...
2024-07-2546 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast24. Stasis- Jason FaragoJason Farago is a critic at large for the New York Times, writing about culture and its place in the wider world.His writing has taken him from wartime Kyiv to the Olympic stadiums of Tokyo to dance parties in Johannesburg. He also is the co-creator of Close Read, a criticism series that delves into a single cultural work, detail by detail. Before joining the Times, he served as a US art critic for The Guardian and was a regular contributor to publications such as The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, the BBC, Art...
2024-07-1853 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast23. FGM - Nimco AliNimco Ali OBE is co-founder and CEO of The Five Foundation, a global partnership to end female genital mutilation. Nimco is an activist, author and a survivor of FGM. Her tireless work has put FGM front and centre in the feminist campaign to end violence against women and girls. Nimco was awarded an OBE for her trailblazing activism in 2019. In the past 10 years, Nimco was awarded Red Magazine’s Woman of the Year award, placed at No 6 on the Woman’s Hour Power List, named by The Sunday Times as one of Debrett’s 500 most influential people in Bri...
2024-07-1155 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast22. World Building - Vid SimonitiVid Simoniti is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy of Art at the University of Liverpool, where he also directs the MA in Art, Philosophy and Cultural Institutions. Before joining the department at Liverpool in 2018, he was the inaugural Jeffrey Rubinoff Junior Research Fellow at Churchill College, the University of Cambridge. Vid's academic work bridges philosophy, political thoughts and arts criticism. He's interested in how art can bring about social and political change and his most recent book Artists Remake the World offers his answer to that question. And as the title suggests, it's both a hopeful and an ambitious...
2024-07-0447 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast21. Heritage - David JoselitDavid Joselit is the Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Art, Film at Harvard and the department's current chair. He previously held the chair in Art History at Yale and was a curator at the ICA in Boston. He's one of the editors of leading art and theory journal, October. David is one of the most important, if not the single most important, theorist, critic and historian of 20th century and contemporary art and the cultures and concerns that produce and consume it. David is the author of several books including American Art Since 1945, Feedback: Television Against Democracy...
2024-06-2745 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast20. Fear and Bravery - Tracy KingThank you for listening to The Cluster F Theory. If you don’t already subscribe at Substack, please sign up on our page in order to receive an email when new episodes are released. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it or review it wherever you listen and share it with your friends. Thank you!Tracy King is a writer, producer and consultant based in both Birmingham and London. She has written for publications such as the New Statesman, The Guardian, The Telegraph, and The New European. Alongside her writing, she has produced various animations including Ti...
2024-06-2052 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast19. Immediacy - Anna KornbluhThank you for listening to The Cluster F Theory. If you don’t already subscribe at Substack, please sign up on our page in order to receive an email when new episodes are released. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it or review it wherever you listen and share it with your friends. Thank you!Anna Kornbluh is a professor of English at the University of Illinois, Chicago, where she founded InterCcECT, the Inter Chicago Circle for Experimental Critical Theory. Her research and teaching interests center on the novel, film and cultural aesthetics in theoretical perspective, in...
2024-06-1331 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast18. The Weather (not really) - Richard WisemanRichard Wiseman holds Britain’s only Professorship in the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, and has published over 100 academic papers examining the psychology of magic and illusion, deception, luck and self-development. He has written several popular psychology books (including The Luck Factor and 59 Seconds) that have been published around the world.Richard has also created psychology-based YouTube videos that have attracted over 800 million views, he is one of the most followed psychologists on social media, and the Independent On Sunday chose him as one of the top 100 people who make Britain a better pl...
2024-06-0643 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast17. Buffering - Tom McCarthyTom McCarthy is a novelist whose work has been translated into more than 20 languages and adapted for cinema, theatre and radio. His first novel, Remainder, won the 2008 Believer Book Award. His third, C, was a 2010 Man Booker Prize finalist, as was his fourth, Satin Island, in 2015.Tom is also the author of the study Tintin and the Secret of Literature and of the essay collection Typewriters Bombs Jellyfish. He contributes regularly to publications such as the New York Times, the London Review of Books, Harper's and Art Forum. In 2013, he was awarded the inaugural Windham Campbell Prize...
2024-05-3043 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast16. Mortality - Richard BaconRichard Bacon has been a household name for over 25 years in the UK. As a tv presenter he's known for shows such as Blue Peter, Top of the Pops, The Big Breakfast and Good Morning Britain. As a radio presenter he's been on pretty much every channel you can think of. He's started his own production company, Yes Yes Media, creating and producing tv shows, including the very popular I Literally Just Told You.Richard' Twitter post as he was first admitted to hospital.Richard's Instagram post and photo thanking the NHS for saving his...
2024-05-2346 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast15. Social Mediocrity - Katrin TiidenbergKatrin Tiidenberg is a Professor of Participatory Culture at the Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School at Tallinn University in Estonia. She has held fellowships at Durham University, Aarhus University and Microsoft Research New England. Katrin's research focuses on the hows and whys of people's online and social media practices with a particular emphasis on visuality, sex and political participation. Her research engages the most relevant issues of our day, identity, community, norms and power.How do we present ourselves online? What is normal? Who is in charge? And what happens to sex and...
2024-05-1645 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast14. Scenes - Adam ThirlwellAdam Thirwell is an award-winning novelist and screenwriter. Among his best-known books are Lurid & Cute, Politics, Multiples and Kapow!.His latest novel is The Future Future, which Salman Rushdie described as "A dazzling performance, unlike anything else you'll read this (or any other) year". He has twice been selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists, received a Somerset Maugham Award in 2008, and was a recipient of the EM Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2015. He wrote and directed Utopia, a short film starring Lily Cole and Li...
2024-05-0949 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast13. Parafiction - Carrie Lambert-BeattyProfessor Carrie Lambert-Beatty is a contemporary art historian. She holds a joint appointment in the Department of History of Art and Architecture and the Department of Art, Film and Visual Studies at Harvard. She's the author of some of the most influential arts writing of the 21st century, including the award-winning book Being Watched, Yvonne Rainer in the 1960s and the essay, Make Believe: Parafiction and Plausibility (pdf). Carrie is also a co-editor at the illustrious arts theory journal October. Her current research is on 30 years of fiction presented as fact in contemporary art, asking what happens...
2024-05-0244 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast12. Invisible Women - Caroline Criado PerezCaroline Criado Perez is a writer, broadcaster, speaker and feminist campaigner. She successfully campaigned to put a woman on the British £10 note in 2013 and campaigned to put a statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square in 2018 thereby making Parliament Square a little bit less of a sausage fest. Her book 'INVISIBLE WOMEN: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men' was a Sunday Times #1 best seller, and won both the Financial Times Book of the Year Award and the Royal Society Science Book prize.Caroline’s Invisible Women Newsletter: Caroline’s web...
2024-04-2544 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast11. Contingency- Hanneke van LaarhovenProfessor Hanneke van Laarhoven is professor of translational medical oncology at the University of Amsterdam and head of the Department of Medical Oncology of the Amsterdam University Medical Center. She is a world-renowned specialist on gastrointestinal cancer, but her interests reach far beyond the body, including psychology, AI, philosophy and theology. She is also known for helping develop the first large-scale databases collecting tumour and blood samples, archives which hopefully will one day provide a key to unlocking the mysteries still surrounding the disease today.Van Laarhoven calls herself a “staunch advocate of interdisciplinarity”. She certainly has the...
2024-04-1843 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast10. Laughter - Sophie ScottProfessor Sophie Scott CBE is the Director of the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, as well as the Head of their Speech Communications Group.Her research interests include the neural basis of vocal communication - how our brains process the information in speech and voices, and how our brains control the production of our voice. She is also interested in the expression of emotion in the voice, especially laughter.She is very active in the public communication of science and presented the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in 2017, has appeared on loads of...
2024-04-1136 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast9. War and Peace - What Is It Good For? - Philippa PerryPhilippa Perry- or to use her proper title, Philippa, Lady Perry - is an author, psychotherapist and artist. She has written several books including a graphic novel titled 'Couch Fiction: a Graphic Tale of Psychotherapy', the #1 Sunday Times Best Seller 'The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read...' And her current book called 'The Book You Want Everyone You Love To Read...' She has presented various documentaries on British tv and during Covid she co-hosted three seasons of Grayson's Art Club on Channel 4. Since 2021 she has been writing The Observer newspaper's ‘Ask Philippa’ column in whic...
2024-04-0431 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast8. Bonoboism - Martin SurbeckOur guest today is Martin Surbeck. An assistant professor in evolutionary biology at Harvard University, Surbeck is one of the world’s foremost experts in primatology.He is interested in questions of social behavior in animals: competition but also cooperation, a skill and strategy often considered unique to humans. His main research object? Apes and monkeys, chimpanzees and bonobos especially, our cousins from 8 million years ago. Chimpanzees, as anyone who has ever been to the zoo knows, are experts at competing - with each other and seemingly everyone else. But what Surbeck and his team have shown is...
2024-04-0439 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast7. Negotiating the Long Term - Catherine AshtonCatherine Ashton, or The Right Honourable, The Baroness Ashton of Upholland, LG GCMG PC was created a life peer by Tony Blair in 1999.In the Blair government she was the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Education and Skills, and in the Ministry of Justice. During Gordon Brown's government she became Leader of the House of Lords, Lord President of the Council, the British European Commissioner and the Commissioner for Trade in the European Commission.She was appointed a Privy Councillor in May 2006. She served as the High Representative of the...
2024-04-0443 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast6. Ritual- Andy NymanAndy Nyman is a multi-award winning actor, director, writer, author and magician. As an actor his credits include things such as playing Winston Churchill in ‘Peaky Blinders’, and Dan in the Oscar winning film 'Judy'. He starred in Charlie Brooker's 'Dead Set'. Has appeared on stage on Broadway and in the West End in shows such as ‘Fiddler on The Roof’, ‘Assassins’, ‘Hangmen’ and ‘Ghost Stories’, which he also wrote and directed. He is the co-creator and co-writer of several tv shows with illusionist Derren Brown, as well as co-writing and co-directing several of Derren Brown's stage shows...
2024-03-2842 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast5. Living With Death - Francesca StavrakopoulouProfessor Francesca Stavrakopoulou is a biblical scholar and broadcaster. She is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter in the UK. Her research is on ancient Israelite and Judahite religions, and portrayals of the religious past in the Hebrew Bible. Her most recent book deals with ancient constructs of God's body, it’s called ‘God: An Anatomy’. It won the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for non-fiction; was shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize; named a best book of the year in both the Economist and Sunday Times, and was serialised on BBC Radio 4's Boo...
2024-03-2841 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast4. The Science of Happiness - Bruce HoodProfessor Bruce Hood is Professor of Developmental Psychology in Society at the University of Bristol in the UK. His research focuses on cognitive development in children, spatial representation and action, the origin of adult magical reasoning from children’s natural intuitions and for the past several years has been running a course at Bristol called the Science of Happiness. Apart from his academic work, he is very well-known for his public communication of science and has appeared on various radio and tv programmes in the UK, presented the Royal Institutions Christmas Lectures and has written several popular sc...
2024-03-2844 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast3. War Games - Annabel DaouArtist Annabel Daou was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon, she is now living in New York. Her work takes place at the intersection of writing, speech, and non-verbal modes of communication. Her paper- and tape-based constructions, sound pieces, and performances explore the language of power, intimacy, and self-encounter across time and space. Her works involve friends, acquaintances, and random strangers. She has asked people questions and given them imperatives. She has read people’s palms – and she's read the Declaration of Independence. There are few artists whose practice resonates more with me, makes me understand what I have long...
2024-03-2837 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast2. Foreplay|Endgame - Joseph KoernerProfessor Joseph Koerner is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of History of Art and Architecture and Professor of Germanic Languages and Literature at Harvard University, where he is also a senior fellow at the prestigious Society of Fellows.Koerner is one of the most renowned art historians and critics working today, and the world’s leading specialist on Northern Renaissance and 19th Century Art, in particular German and Netherlandish painting. He has written multiple books, amongst them volumes on Caspar David Friedrich, Albrecht Durer and recently Bosch and Brueghel. Koerner has also written and presented va...
2024-03-2846 min
The Cluster F Theory Podcast1. Eugenics Redux- Adam RutherfordAdam Rutherford is a scientist, writer, broadcaster and President of Humanists UK.He is a Lecturer in Biology and Society at University College London, where he teaches the history of eugenics, race science, genetics, and science communication. He is one of the UK's most well-known science communicators and in 2021 was awarded The Royal Society David Attenborough Award in recognition of his contribution to strengthening public confidence in science through radio, TV, films, talks and books, and in particular, for challenging racist pseudoscience.His BBC programmes include Start The Week, Inside Science and The...
2024-03-2848 min
The Cluster F Theory PodcastThe Cluster F Theory TrailerComing soon… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theclusterftheory.substack.com
2024-03-2000 min