The Intellectual

A curated playlist of the best new podcasts on arts & culture. Powered by The Syllabus. (To see the articles, books, reports and videos that are also part of The Intellectual, check out our site: the-syllabus.com)

The Intellectual is a arts podcast hosted by The Syllabus / Listen Notes, with 282 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

The Syllabus / Listen Notes hosts The Intellectual, a arts show with 282 episodes published.

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  The Intellectual

  “Cisgender” with Perry Zurn

  Aug 1, 202646 min

  Podcast : Queer Lit (LS 31 · TOP 5% what is this? ) Episode : “Cisgender” with Perry Zurn Pub date : 2026-07-20 Get Podcast Transcript → powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarization Who coined the term cis and why are some people calling it a slur? Amazing return guest Perry Zurn joins me to discuss what the concept of cis does, why it’s helpful to look at its origins and etymology and where it might oversimplify the project of gender. Not one to be missed! References: Perry Zurn’s Cisgender: Disorienting a Category (Duke UP, 2026) Perry Zurn’s How We Make Each Other: Trans Life at the Edge of the University (Duke UP, 2024) John Hollister Riva Lehrer’s Golem Girl Marquis Bey’s Cistem Failure: Essays on Blackness and Cisgender (Duke UP, 2022) Stephanie Clare’s Nonbinary: A Feminist Autotheory (Cambridge UP, 2023) Jonathan Ned Katz’s The Invention of Heterosexuality (1995) Questions you should be able to respond to after listening: What does cis mean? Which term is older: cis or trans? When does the term cis emerge? Which community coined the term cisgender and why? What is Perry saying about simplified notions of cis and which example does he give? How does Perry put disability and race in dialogue with cisness and transness? The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Lena Mattheis, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.

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  The Intellectual

  The Ethics of Knowledge

  Jul 25, 202657 min

  Podcast : Free Thinking (LS 54 · TOP 0.5% what is this? ) Episode : The Ethics of Knowledge Pub date : 2026-07-10 Get Podcast Transcript → powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarization Do we have a responsibility to inform ourselves about the state of the world? Is the experience of some people valued more highly than that of others? Matthew Sweet investigates the ethics of knowledge in Radio 4's round table discussion programme. With: Quassim Cassam, philosopher and author of Intellectual Vices Havi Carel, a philosopher who's worked extensively on imbalances of knowledge in healthcare and other areas Ian Kidd, philosopher specializing in the ethics of knowledge Ebony Reid, author of Trapped Lives Marianna Spring, the BBC's misinformation correspondent Producer: Luke Mulhall Part of a series of programmes across Radio 4 looking at what drives us apart and how to bring us together – look for Common Ground. The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC Radio 4, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.

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  The Intellectual

  Rachel Silveri, "The Art of Living in Avant-Garde Paris: Ethics and Self-Making in Dada, Simultanism, and Surrealism" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

  Jul 18, 202659 min

  Podcast : New Books in Literary Studies (LS 34 · TOP 3% what is this? ) Episode : Rachel Silveri, "The Art of Living in Avant-Garde Paris: Ethics and Self-Making in Dada, Simultanism, and Surrealism" (U Chicago Press, 2026) Pub date : 2026-07-04 Get Podcast Transcript → powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarization With The Art of Living in Avant-Garde Paris: Ethics and Self-Making in Dada, Simultanism, and Surrealism (University of Chicago Press, 2026), Rachel Silveri takes a fresh look at the desire to unify art and life, an ambition long regarded as foundational to the European historical avant-gardes. She reveals how many early twentieth-century artists saw their own everyday lives—their bodies, identities, and relationships—as a type of creative material and a central component to their avant-garde practice. These artists abandoned traditional forms of artmaking and venues of art viewing, instead aspiring to integrate art with everyday life, creating an “art of living.” Considering Tristan Tzara’s performances of Dadaist identity, Sonia Delaunay’s simultaneous fashions and self-branding, and the collective endeavor to open and operate the Surrealist Research Bureau, Silveri offers a new narrative about how the artists of interwar Paris developed experiential life practices that resisted dominant forms of “lifestyle” and normative discourses surrounding gender, ethnicity, and office work. This book argues that ethical questions of “How should I live?” and “How should I relate to others?” were as important to the avant-garde as politics, and that aspirations to change the world played out in daily practices of self-making. Hannah Freed-Thall is Professor of French Literature, Thought and Culture at NYU. She is the author, most recently, of Modernism at the Beach: Queer Ecologies and the Coastal Commons . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from New Books Network, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.

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  The Intellectual

  Design for the Ineffable: Crafting a Flourishing world with Dr Jenna Mikus

  Jul 11, 20261h 6m

  Podcast : Accidental Gods (LS 51 · TOP 0.5% what is this? ) Episode : Design for the Ineffable: Crafting a Flourishing world with Dr Jenna Mikus Pub date : 2026-07-01 Get Podcast Transcript → powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarization How do we encourage human flourishing? How, in fact, do we make the thriving of all 8 billion humans and the More than Human World central to all that we are and do? It's a core tenet of this podcast, that if each of us were able to discover what's ours to do - and, more importantly, to be - and were supported in the inter-becoming that would arise from bringing the best of ourselves to the table…we'd be well on the way to the transformation we need to get us through the pinch points of the climate, cultural and technological apocalypses that are heading our way. So in today's episode, we're talking with someone who crosses many disciplines in search of eudaimonia - the concept of human flourishing, of 'finding our best self' proposed by Plato and expanded by Aristotle. Dr Jenna Mikus is an engineer and architect by training, and is now a consultant and strategic advisor who specialises in balancing architectural science with wellbeing science to promote flourishing health and wellbeing by design across a wide range of environments. As you'll hear, she did her PhD during lockdown in the ways it might be possible to help elderly people find meaning and purpose - in scientific terms, to attain self determination - in their lives. And now she is an academic and consultant who acts as an ideas "alchemist," helping companies curate environments & experiences for eudaimonia to support optimal health and wellbeing, precipitate ineffable emotions like delight & awe, promote meaning, inspire creativity, & catalyse belonging, and innovate. She's founder of the Eauda-Group and helped found the 'Flourishing by Design' (FxD) community of practice affiliated with Harvard's Human Flourishing Network. In a world where those who accumulate wealth are increasingly leaning towards mass extinction as if it were somehow going to be useful, it's so refreshing to explore the ways we can be differently human. Enjoy! Jenna on LinkedIn Jenna on Google Scholar — About Accidental Gods— We offer three strands all rooted in the same soil, drawing from the same river: Accidental Gods , Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'BECOMING A GOOD ANCESTOR' which will run on Sunday 13th September 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here . You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along, but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake , you'll find us here . If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass , the details are here Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Accidental Gods, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.

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  The Intellectual

  Do plants have personalities?

  Jul 5, 202629 min

  Podcast : CrowdScience (LS 58 · TOP 0.5% what is this? ) Episode : Do plants have personalities? Pub date : 2026-06-05 Get Podcast Transcript → powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarization CrowdScience listener George is showing Alex Lathbridge around a small, dark, and extremely hot shed, just outside the city of Accra in Ghana. Inside are row after row of shelves, stacked high with bulging grow-bags. And out of some of them, gorgeous cascades of oyster mushrooms are bursting into bloom. We’re on George’s mushroom farm, and he’s noticed something interesting. Even though the conditions in his grow-shed are tightly controlled – they have exactly the same food, water, and light as each other – nevertheless, they respond differently. Some are more vigorous than others, some bloom quicker, others last longer, and some are more tolerant when the conditions change. And this got George wondering. Could ‘brainless’ lifeforms like mushrooms, and plants, have different ‘personalities’? Do they experience the world differently, and live their lives differently from each other? Alex Lathbridge is on the case. He visits the PGRRI, the Plant Genetic Resources Research Centre, for a quick lesson on genetic variation in the plant world. Plants are all different at the genetic level, and it’s those differences which can result in a tastier fruit, or a hardier crop. But would we call traits like these personality? In the Minimal Intelligence Lab in the University of Murcia in Spain, Paco Calvo thinks that we absolutely should. He studies plant intelligence, and points Alex to a whole host of examples of plants being smart in ways which might surprise you. Each one is an individual, and if we can only slow down enough to appreciate them properly, we’d be able to understand them better too. Back in Ghana, Alex meets plant physiologist Dr Acheampong Atta-Boateng, in the beautiful grounds of Aburi Botanical Gardens, to meet some of these plants for himself. And he discovers that there’s a whole world of smart, resilient, and resourceful little organisms in the plant world, full of personality, if you know where to look. Who needs a brain!? Presenter: Alex Lathbridge Producer: Emily Knight Editor: Ben Motley (Photo: Drawing of a face and smiling eyes on a sunflower flower - stock photo- Credit: Jose A. Bernat Bacete via Getty Images) The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC World Service, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.

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