How To Academy Podcast

The central figure of the New Weird, an unofficial movement fusing science fiction, fantasy, and horror with a literary sensibility, China Mieville is equally known for his award-winning, internationally bestselling novels, which include Perdido Street Station, The City and the City and The Last Days of New Paris, and his work as activist, historian, and scholar of the Marxist Left.

He joins us for a (mostly) spoiler-free conversation unveiling his most ambitious work of fiction to date. A heady brew of literary fiction, military and espionage adventure stories, horror, post-colonial magical realism, and much else besides, The Rouse is a milestone in Mieville's career and a landmark in modern fantasy writing. We discuss how he has personally changed in the two decades of the novel's gestation, the social status of the octopus, the end of the British empire, and the nature of grief and loss. Also: Ghostbusters!

Join us live! How To Academy hosts world-renowned artists, thinkers, and leaders live on stage across the UK and USA. Find out who’s appearing near you at ⁠howtoacademy.com⁠.

Become a Member: How To Plus members receive £15 off every live event ticket, free access to biweekly livestreams, and an exclusive members-only podcast. Find out more at ⁠howtoacademy.com/htasubscribe⁠.
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A scholar, author, artist, and musician, Amy Jeffs is a polymath of British mythology, bringing the greatest stories of the Middle Ages to life in extraordinary books including Storyland, Wild, and Old Songs. She returns to the podcast to share a new life of King Arthur -- drawn not from Mallory's Morte d'Arthur, as most modern adaptations of his story are, but from older, darker, stranger, and more magical sources. This is a story you have never heard before: of a warlord and Roman Emperor, raised by fairies to conquer much of the known world.

Join us live! How To Academy hosts world-renowned artists, thinkers, and leaders live on stage across the UK and USA.  Find out who’s appearing near you at ⁠⁠⁠⁠howtoacademy.com⁠⁠⁠⁠.    

Become a Member: How To Plus members receive £15 off every live event ticket, free access to biweekly livestreams,  and an exclusive members-only podcast. Find out more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠howtoacademy.com/htasubscribe⁠⁠⁠⁠.

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Zahra Joya grew up under the first Taliban regime, when girls were banned from school. For years she dressed as a boy to access the basic rights denied to her. She became a journalist in Kabul, and founded a news organisation reporting on the lives of Afghan women. In 2021, when the Taliban took over power once again, she was forced to flee the country.

In this episode of the podcast, Zahra discusses her experience of growing up under Taliban rule, the US-led war, their withdrawl in 2021, and the world's decision to look away in the wake of the Taliban's return to power. Zahra reflects on exile, the women still reporting from inside Afghanistan, and why she believes women's rights are everyone's responsibility.

Join us live! How To Academy hosts world-renowned artists, thinkers, and leaders live on stage across the UK and USA.  Find out who’s appearing near you at ⁠⁠⁠howtoacademy.com⁠⁠⁠.    

Become a Member: How To Plus members receive £15 off every live event ticket, free access to biweekly livestreams,  and an exclusive members-only podcast. Find out more at ⁠⁠⁠howtoacademy.com/htasubscribe⁠⁠⁠.
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When Kimon de Greef began an investigation into the smuggling of white sage, a Californian herb popular in the wellness movement, he could not have foreseen that the story would lead him into the dark heart of the psychedelic renaissance and one of its most prominent advocates, Dr. Octavio Rettig: a Mexican physician dedicated to spreading the practice of smoking the secretions of the Sonoran Desert toad. The experience promises extraordinary relief for those suffering from PTSD, depression and drug addiction - but can also be fatal...

Join us for a story of cults, cartels, and corporations that is stranger than fiction and still unfolding today.

Join us live! How To Academy hosts world-renowned artists, thinkers, and leaders live on stage across the UK and USA. Find out who’s appearing near you at ⁠howtoacademy.com⁠.

Become a Member: How To Plus members receive £15 off every live event ticket, free access to biweekly livestreams, and an exclusive members-only podcast. Find out more at ⁠howtoacademy.com/htasubscribe⁠.
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What if the present moment – the ‘now’– isn’t just a tick of the clock? We feel that the present is everything; all we can know, yet physics finds no universal 'now'. So where does that leave us – and what is the 'now' we experience?

Science journalist Jo Marchant draws on state-of-the-art discoveries in neuroscience, psychology, cosmology and quantum physics, to show how we each carve out our lived experience – sensations and emotions, actions and decisions – through our interactions with the world. Join us to explore how this evolving, interconnected tapestry is the source of our lives and selves, and perhaps even reality itself.

Join us live! How To Academy hosts world-renowned artists, thinkers, and leaders live on stage across the UK and USA.  Find out who’s appearing near you at ⁠⁠howtoacademy.com⁠⁠.    

Become a Member: How To Plus members receive £15 off every live event ticket, free access to biweekly livestreams,  and an exclusive members-only podcast. Find out more at ⁠⁠howtoacademy.com/htasubscribe⁠⁠.
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