The Smart Cookies podcast

Bill Schutt is Professor Emeritus of biology at LIU Post and a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History. He is the author of Dark Banquet: Blood and The Curious Lives of the Blood-Feeding Creatures and Pump: A Natural History of the Heart, which is his latest book. In 2017 he published an astonishing book called Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History, which is what we discuss...

Dr. Lisa Sugiura is a Reader in Cybercrime and Gender at the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Portsmouth, Themes Strategic Innovation Fellow and the Deputy Director of the Cybercrime Awareness Clinic. Her research focuses on online deviance, and technology facilitated gender-based abuse and sexual violence. She has published on topics including the online pharmaceuti...

Professor Chris Stringer has worked at The Natural History Museum London since 1973. He is now Research Leader in Human Origins and a Fellow of the Royal Society, and is also a Visiting Professor at Royal Holloway and UCL. His early research was on the relationship of Neanderthals and early modern humans in Europe, but through his work on the 'Recent African Origin' theory of modern human origins,...

The Partial Historians is a renowned podcast about ancient Roman history, hosted by historians dr. Fiona Radford and dr. Peta Greenfield, who discuss, spar, and laugh their way through different aspects of the Roman world... We talk about the first Roman Emperor's scandalous daughter, Julia the Elder, but also about sassy Roman parties, unforgivable affairs and the endless cycle of the struggle fo...

Edward Slingerland is Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, where he also holds appointments in the Departments of Psychology and Asian Studies. He is an expert on early Chinese thought, comparative religion and digital humanities. Besides numerous academic books, translations and edited volumes, Professor Slingerland is the author of t...

Toby Jones has just finished his PhD at Leiden University in the Netherlands, where he is also teaching. His work focuses on the irruption of the Mongols onto the larger world scene focusing on their invasion of the Persianate world. The topic of his research is ‘Loyalty in the Turco-Mongol World' - through it he considers the Mongol invasions and their impact on the cultures around them. We talk...

Bill McGuire is a Professor Emeritus of Geophysical and Climate Hazards at University College London, a co-director of the New Weather Institute and was a contributor to the 2012 IPCC report on climate change and extreme events. His books include A Guide to the End of the World: Everything you Never Wanted to Know and Waking the Giant: How a Changing Climate Triggers Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Volc...

Mostafa Minawi is an associate professor of history at Cornell University and the director of the Critical Ottoman and Post-ottoman studies. He is the author of "The Ottoman Scramble for Africa: Empire and Diplomacy in the Sahara and the Hijaz", as well as the very recent "Losing Istanbul: Arab-Ottoman Imperialists and the End of Empire". His short video ‘The rise of the Ottoman Empire’ he made wi...

Prof. Massimo Pigliucci has a PhD in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Connecticut and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Tennessee. He is the K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York. His research interests include the philosophy of science, the nature of pseudoscience, and practical philosophies like Stoicism and New Skepticism. He is the author or edi...

Dr. Mathias Nordvig is a visiting assistant professor of Nordic and Arctic studies at the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures at University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder). He teaches subjects on Viking history, Nordic mythology, folklore, Arctic culture and society, and Danish language. Dr. Nordvig earned his PhD in Nordic mythology in 2014 at Aarhus University in Denmark...

Dr. Peter Struck is Professor and Chair of the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his A.B. at the University of Michigan and his M.A. and Ph. D. from the University of Chicago. His primary research interests are in the history of ideas about the construction of meaning, with specialties in myth, literary criticism, and divination. His book Birth of the S...

Dr. Delfi I. Nieto-Isabel is a Scholar and Historian who holds a Bachelor's degree in Physics, a BA in History and a PhD in Medieval Cultures from the University of Barcelona. She has been awarded a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship to carry out her research project ILLITTERATAE at Queen Mary University of London. We talk about Women's Spirituality, Mysticism, the Inquisition and the accusations o...

Dr. John Aberth is a medieval historian, author and professor. He received his M.A. in Medieval Studies from the University of Leeds in England and his Ph. D. in Medieval History from the University of Cambridge. Professor Aberth is the author of ten books on Medieval History, focusing mostly on the Black Death of the late Middle Ages. In this episode we talk about the origins of the bubonic plagu...

Dr Jonathan Mijs is a Dutch sociologist who earned his PhD at Harvard University and is currently teaching at Boston University. His research describes the beliefs people hold about economic inequality, its causes and political consequences. It especially highlights the process through which citizens - especially young ones - learn about inequality and come to make sense of poverty and wealth. His...

Dr. Julia Rucklidge is a Professor of Clinical Psychology in the School of Psychology, Speech and Hearing at the University of Canterbury and the Director of Te Puna Toiora, the Mental Health and Nutrition Research Lab. Her TEDx talk, ’The surprisingly dramatic role of nutrition in mental health’ has been viewed over 4 million times, and she recently co-authored a book, The Better Brain: Overcome...