13 episodes

To many of us the world, our very planet, appears to be coming apart. How can we put it back together again (and should we)? What do we salvage and what do we throw away? What goes where and why?

Each episode we speak to a philosopher, critical theorist, scientist, artist, writer or thinker about their take on the absolute 'cluster f' that’s happening around us. We don't promise to make you happier, more mindful or fitter, but you will spend some time thinking about something other than yourself.

theclusterftheory.substack.com

The Cluster F Theory Podcast Timotheus Vermeulen and Gia Milinovich

    • Society & Culture
    • 4.0 • 4 Ratings

To many of us the world, our very planet, appears to be coming apart. How can we put it back together again (and should we)? What do we salvage and what do we throw away? What goes where and why?

Each episode we speak to a philosopher, critical theorist, scientist, artist, writer or thinker about their take on the absolute 'cluster f' that’s happening around us. We don't promise to make you happier, more mindful or fitter, but you will spend some time thinking about something other than yourself.

theclusterftheory.substack.com

    12. Invisible Women - Caroline Criado Perez

    12. Invisible Women - Caroline Criado Perez

    Caroline 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 website: https://carolinecriadoperez.com/
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/CCriadoPerez
    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ccriadoperez
    Sexist snow ploughing https://www.thelocal.se/20131211/snow-plowing-should-be-gender-equal-greens
    Notes:
    The book Caroline mentioned that opened her eyes to sexism: 'Feminism and Linguistic Theory' https://www.waterstones.com/book/feminism-and-linguistic-theory/deborah-cameron/9780333558898
    Author of 'Feminism and Linguistic Theory', Deborah Cameron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Cameron_(linguist)
    The Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada.
    Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-cluster-f-theory-podcast/id1736982916
    Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5V4bBn54hiImeoyDNmTcIr?si=729367e48b0940d9
    Thanks for reading The Cluster F Theory Podcast! Subscribe for free to receive new episodes.




    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

    • 44 min
    11. Contingency- Hanneke van Laarhoven

    11. Contingency- Hanneke van Laarhoven

    Professor 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 credentials to back it up: she has PhDs in both Medical Oncology and Religious Studies, and has long been involved with spiritual and artistic projects. Not the most obviously related disciplines, you might say, but it has offered her a uniquely important position from which to understand the concerns of her patients, many of whom find themselves unexpectedly faced with questions of uncertainty, and, indeed, mortality.
    Faculty page: https://researchinformation.amsterdamumc.org/en/persons/hanneke-w-m-van-laarhoven
    European Society for Medical Oncology page: https://www.esmo.org/about-esmo/biographies/hanneke-van-laarhoven

    The Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada.
    Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-cluster-f-theory-podcast/id1736982916
    Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5V4bBn54hiImeoyDNmTcIr?si=729367e48b0940d9
    Thanks for reading The Cluster F Theory Podcast! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support the podcast.




    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

    • 43 min
    10. Laughter - Sophie Scott

    10. Laughter - Sophie Scott

    Professor 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 TV and radio shows in the UK, she regularly performs standup comedy.
    Faculty page: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/icn/people/sophie-scott
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/sophiescott
    Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Scott
    Royal Institution profile: https://www.rigb.org/explore-science/explore/person/sophie-scott
    TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/sophie_scott_why_we_laugh?language=en

    NOTES:
    Parasocial relationships https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction

    The Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada.
    Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-cluster-f-theory-podcast/id1736982916
    Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5V4bBn54hiImeoyDNmTcIr?si=729367e48b0940d9
    Thank you for reading The Cluster F Theory Podcast. This post is public so feel free to share it.




    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

    • 36 min
    9. War and Peace - What Is It Good For? - Philippa Perry

    9. War and Peace - What Is It Good For? - Philippa Perry

    Philippa 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 which she provides advice on personal problems sent in by readers.
    https://www.philippaperry.com/
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/Philippa_Perry
    Philippa Perry's Observer columns: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/philippa-perry

    The Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada.
    Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-cluster-f-theory-podcast/id1736982916
    Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5V4bBn54hiImeoyDNmTcIr?si=729367e48b0940d9
    Thanks for reading The Cluster F Theory Podcast! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.




    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

    • 31 min
    8.⁠ ⁠Bonoboism - Martin Surbeck

    8.⁠ ⁠Bonoboism - Martin Surbeck

    Our 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 that bonobos are skilled at cooperation, too. And not just amongst their close relatives and peer groups, but across them, too. That’s better than most of us can say these days. In a New York Times article devoted to Surbeck’s study, his co-author Dr. Liran Samuni said that these bonobos are teaching us about our past. But maybe they’ve got a few things to learn us about our future as well.
    There’s more to these bonobos that is interesting, but we’ll get to that. Much of his research takes place at his research lab at the Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve in the DRC, but we’re finding him in his office in Cambridge today, a few blocks away from Tim.
    Faculty page: https://heb.fas.harvard.edu/people/martin-surbeck
    'Scientists Find First Evidence That Groups of Apes Cooperate' (New York Times): https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/16/science/bonobos-cooperation-study.html
    Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve: https://www.bonobo.org/programs/kokolopori-bonobo-reserve


    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

    • 39 min
    7.⁠ ⁠Negotiating the Long Term - Catherine Ashton

    7.⁠ ⁠Negotiating the Long Term - Catherine Ashton

    Catherine 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 Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and was the First Vice President of the European Commission between 2009 and 2014.
    In 2013, she worked as a negotiator between Serbia and Kosovo, bringing them to an agreement, and she worked alongside John Kerry in the talks with Iran which led to the interim agreement on the Iranian nuclear programme.
    In 2023, she released her memoir titled 'And Then What? Inside Stories of 21st Century Diplomacy', about her time as a diplomat...
    Oh also, she's a big Doctor Who fan.
    Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Ashton
    Encyclopaedia Britannica https://www.britannica.com/biography/Catherine-Ashton-Baroness-Ashton-of-Upholland
    'And Then What?: Inside Stories of 21st-Century Diplomacy' publisher's site: https://eandtbooks.com/books/and-then-what/

    The Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada.
    Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-cluster-f-theory-podcast/id1736982916
    Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5V4bBn54hiImeoyDNmTcIr?si=729367e48b0940d9
    Thanks for reading The Cluster F Theory Podcast! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support the podcast.




    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

    • 43 min

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