dunc tank: Recent Episodes
Duncan Gammie
Noah Kumin is the editor of the Mars Review of Books, and the author of "Stop All the Clocks: A Novel."
Matthew Gasda is a playwright and novelist based in New York City. He is the founder of the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research, and the author of The Sleepers.
Jean-Pierre Isbouts is a Biblical scholar, the author of "The Fractured Kingdom," and the host of the Amazon Prime show "Searching for the Historical Jesus."
James Fallon was a neuroscientist and author. Sadly, he passed away, but he was a frequent guest on the show, so please enjoy this memorial episode, a compilation of some of my favorite moments of his on the show.
William Deresiewicz is a former English professor at Yale, and the author of numerous books, including "The End of Solitude."
Jonathan Mann is a security architect, a Good Judgment Super Forecaster, and a faculty member in the Computer Science department at NYU. He writes at https://abstraction.substack.com/
Thomas Barfield is an anthropologist at Boston University, and the author of several books, including The Nomadic Alternative.
Stuart Reid is an executive editor at Foreign Affairs, and the author of The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination.
Robin Hanson is an economist at George Mason University. His Substack is Overcoming Bias, and he is the author of multiple books, including The Elephant in the Brain.
Ellen Bass is a poet, the winner of three Pushcart Prizes, and the author of several collections, including Indigo.
Nicholas Krohley is a founder of FrontLine Advisory, and the co-author of Warrior Diplomats: Civil Affairs Forces on the Front Lines.
Michael Katz is a professor of Russian and East European Studies at Middlebury College. He is a translator of several works of Dostoevsky, including Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov.
Dave Rearick circumnavigated the globe, and is the author of Spirit of a Dream: A Sailor's Ultimate Journey Around the World Alone.
Michael Joyce is a novelist, poet, critic and the author of works of electronic literature, including afternoon, a story.
Milan Ćirković is a professor at the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade, and the author of The Great Silence: Science and Philosophy of Fermi's Paradox.
Robert L. Kelly is an archaeologist at the University of Wyoming, and the author of several books including The Fifth Beginning: What Six Million Years of Human History Can Tell Us about Our Future.
Andrew Walder is a political sociologist at Stanford, and the author of several books on Mao and the Cultural Revolution. His latest book is Civil War in Guangxi: The Cultural Revolution on China's Southern Periphery.
The podcast now has a Patreon! Available here: https://www.patreon.com/dunctank
Matt Simon is a writer at Wired Magazine, and the author of A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies.
Warren Motte is a professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is the author of several books, and an editor of Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature.
Robert Beachy is a history professor at Yonsei University and the author of Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity.
Malcolm Harris is a journalist and author of several books. His most recent work is Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism and the World.
Derrick Jensen is an author and environmentalist. He is the author of several books, including The Myth of Human Supremacy.
Alan Mikhail is a professor of history at Yale, and the author of God's Shadow: The Ottoman Sultan Who Shaped the Modern World.
Steve Fuller is a professor of sociology at the University of Warwick. He is the author of several books, including Post-Truth: Knowledge as a Power Game.
David Yaffe is a professor of humanities at Syracuse University and the author of Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell. His Substack is: https://davidyaffe.substack.com/
Adam Hochshild is a historian and the author of, American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis.
Dave Andrews is an activist and the author of several books, including Christi-Anarchy: Discovering a Radical Spirituality of Compassion.
Bev Stohl was formerly the assistant of Noam Chomsky for over 20 years. She recently wrote a book called, Chomsky and Me: A Memoir.
William Deresiewicz taught English at Yale University and is the author of Death of the Artist: How Creatives are Struggling to Survive in the Age of Billionaires and Big Tech and most recently, The End of Solitude: Selected Essays on Culture and Society.
James Stevens Curl is an architect and historian, and the author of a book about Modern architecture, Making Dystopia: The Strange Rise and Survival of Architectural Barbarism.
Malachi O'Doherty is a journalist in Northern Ireland, and the author of several books, including The Telling Year: Belfast 1972.
Marc Levinson is an economist and author of, "The Box: How Shipping Containers Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger."
Hannah Lucinda Smith is a journalist with The Times of London, and the author of Erdoğan Rising: The Battle for the Soul of Turkey.
Jed Rasula is a professor at the University of Georgia, and the author of Destruction Was My Beatrice: Dada and the Unmaking of the Twentieth Century.
Anna Lembke is a psychiatrist and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. She is the author of Drug Dealer, MD and Dopamine Nation.
Jhanelle Thomas is a psychology researcher and the co-author of, "Disappearing in the Age of Hypervisibility: Definition, Context, and Perceived Psychological Consequences of Social Media Ghosting."
James Curtis is a biographer, and the recent author of Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker's Life.
Loren Toussaint is a professor of psychology at Luther College, and the director of their "Laboratory for the Investigation of Mind, Body, and Spirit."
Rosamund Bartlett is an expert on Russian literature, and the author of several books, including, "Tolstoy: A Russian Life."
Jan Swafford is an American composer, as well as a music critic and author of several musical biographies.
Jason Lewis is an American politician, a former talk radio host and represented Minnesota's 2nd Congressional District in the House of Representatives. He is the recent author of "Party Animal: The Truth about President Trump, Power Politics and The Partisan Press," available to purchase here.
Richard Davies is an economist at Bristol University and the author of, "Extreme Economies: What Life At The World's Margins Can Teach Us About Our Future."
Meirion Jones is a journalist and editor at The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. He has worked on a number of high-profile stories, including exposing the crimes of Jimmy Savile.
James Fallon is a neuroscientist and professor of psychiatry and human behavior at UC Irvine School of Medicine.
Chris McNamara is a big wall climber, ex-wingsuit BASE jumper and the author of more than ten books.
David Vincent is a social historian at the Open University, and is the author of, "A History of Solitude."
Daniel K. Richter is a professor of American history at the University of Pennsylvania, and the author of "Facing East from Indian Country."
Ananyo Bhattacharya is a correspondent for The Economist, and the author of The Man From The Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann.
Gabriel Licina is a biohacker and the founder of Scihouse, a non-profit bioengineering group.
Vitali Shkliarov is an expert in US-Russian relations and worked on the Presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders.
Timothy Denevi is a professor at the MFA program at George Mason University, and is the author of "Hyper" and "Freak Kingdom: Hunter S. Thompson's Manic Ten-Year Crusade Against American Fascism."
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst is a professor of English at Oxford University, and the author of numerous books, including most recently, "The Turning Point: A Year that Changed Dickens and the World."
Steve Fuller is a philosopher at the University of Warwick and the author of a number of book's including, "Humanity 2.0: What it Means to be Human Past, Present and Future."
Neil Lanctot is a historian and author, whose most recent book is "The Approaching Storm: Roosevelt, Wilson, Addams and Their Clash Over America's Future."
Peter Neumann is a computer scientist at SRI International, edits ACM's RISKS Digest, and formerly worked at Bell Labs.
Derrick Jensen is an author, speaker and environmentalist. His most recent book is, "Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It."
Doron Zeilberger is a mathematician at Rutger's University, and is well known for his work in combinatorics and his strong opinions about the mathematical establishment.
Robert McChesney is a professor in the Department of Communication at University of Illinois, and is the author of several books, including "Dollarocracy" and "The Problem of the Media."
Richard Neupert is a professor in the department of Theatre and Film Studies at the University of Georgia, and is the author of several books, including "French Animation History" and "A History of the French New Wave."
Alan Robock is a climatologist at Rutgers University and a member of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. His research interests include geoengineering and the climate effects of nuclear winter.
Robin Hanson is an economist at George Mason University, and the author of multiple books, including "The Age of Em" and "The Elephant in the Brain." His blog is called "Overcoming Bias."
Pauline Boss is a professor emeritus at University of Minnesota, a pioneer of the field of ambiguous loss, and the author of numerous books, the most recent of which is called "The Myth of Closure: Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic."
Rolf Potts is the author of "Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel." His podcast is called "Deviate with Rolf Potts."
Robert Gross is a historian at the University of Connecticut and the author of "The Transcendentalists and Their World."
James Fallon is a neuroscientist and professor of psychiatry and human behavior at UC Irvine.
Dean Baker is an economist at the Center for Economic Policy Research. His blog is called "Beat the Press."
Laurence Bergreen is a historian and author of several biographies of famous explorers, including most recently, "In Search of a Kingdom: Francis Drake, Elizabeth I, and the Perilous Birth of the British Empire."
Charles Prebish is a former professor of religious studies, and the author of numerous books including, "American Buddhism."
Donald Prothero is a paleontologist, geologist and the author of numerous books, including "Abominable Science" and "The Story of Life in 25 Fossils."
Jan Swafford is a composer and author of multiple biographies, the most recent of which is, "Mozart: The Reign of Love."
Nicole Prause is a neuroscientist and sexual psychophysiologist, and is the founder of Liberos LLC.
Martin Gurri is a former CIA analyst and the author of "The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium."
Adam Johnson is co-host of the "Citations Needed" podcast and the author of The Column on Substack.
Nicholas Schou is an award-winning journalist and the author of multiple books, including "Kill the Messenger" and "Spooked."
Clay Tumey is an award-winning poet from Texas, and the author of "The Blue Chip Store: How Bank Robbery Changed My Life."
Mikhail Dyakonov is a professor of physics at Montpellier University, and the author of "Will We Ever Have a Quantum Computer?"
Richard Hanania is a former fellow at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, and the current President of The Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, as well as the host of their podcast.
Rick Perlstein is a historian and author of numerous best-selling books, the most recent of which is Reaganland, now available in paperback.
Vijay Seshadri is a poet, essayist and literary critic, whose 2014 poetry collection "3 Sections" won the Pulitzer Prize.
John McCourt is a Professor of English at University of Macerata. He is the author of a number of books on James Joyce, and is President of the International James Joyce Foundation.
Steven Callahan survived 76 days adrift at sea, and his since written the books "Adrift" and "Capsized," and has consulted for numerous films and TV shows.
Tom Oliver is a professor of applied ecology at the University of Reading, and the author of, "The Self Delusion: The Surprising Science of How We Are Connected and Why That Matters."
Neil Woods is a former undercover police officer in the UK, author of the book Drug Wars, and a member of the reform group Law Enforcement Action Partnership.
Robin Hanson is an economist at George Mason University. He is the author of a number of books, including The Age of Em and The Elephant in the Brain. His blog is called Overcoming Bias.
Forrest Gander is a poet, translator and novelist, whose 2018 poetry collection, "Be With," won the Pulitzer Prize. His most recent collection of poems is, "Twice Alive."
David Burns is considered one of the founders of CBT and is a psychiatrist and professor at the Stanford School of Medicine. He is author of "Feeling Good," which sold over three million copies, and most recently wrote, "Feeling Great."
Bill Ayers is a former leader of the Weather Underground and professor of education at University of Illinois at Chicago.
Ross King is a novelist and historian who has authored a number of books about Renaissance artists, including, "Leonardo and the Last Supper" and "Brunelleschi's Dome."
James Fallon is a neuroscientist at UC, Irvine. He is the author of, "The Psychopath Inside."
Benjamin Teitelbaum is a professor of ethnomusicology and international affairs at University of Colorado, Boulder, and the author of, "War for Eternity: The Return of Traditionalism and the Rise of the Populist Right."
Richard Norman is a professor of moral philosophy at the University of Kent, and the author of, "On Humanism."
Clint Penick is a former punk musician and the current head of Penick Lab at Kennesaw State University, where he studies social insects.
Jan Swafford is an American classical composer and the author of several musical biographies, including most recently, "Mozart: The Reign of Love."
David Gerard is the author of the book and blog, "Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Ethereum & Smart Contracts."
Heather Clark is a professor at University of Huddersfield, and the author of "Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath."
Derrick Jensen is an environmentalist and author. His latest book is, "Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It."
Peter Neumann is the Chief Scientist at the SRI International Computer Science Lab and the moderator of the ACM Risks forum.
Dale Beran is a journalist and the author of, "It Came From Something Awful: How a Toxic Troll Army Accidentally Memed Donald Trump Into Office."
Wade Davis is an anthropologist, ethnobotanist and author. He is the author of several best-selling books, the most recent of which is, "Magdalena: River of Dreams."
Rachel Corbett is a journalist, a deputy editor at Artnet, and the author of "You Must Change Your Life: The Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin."
Kevin Knight is Chief of Staff to Congressman David Schweikert (R-AZ). He is a former member of the Minnesota House of Representatives.
Brendan Leonard is an adventure writer, award-winning film-maker, and the creator of Semi-Rad.com.
Phoebe Hoban is an American journalist and the author of the best-selling biography, "Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art."
Steve Fuller is a social philosopher at the University of Warwick. Some of his most recent books are, "Post Truth: Knowledge as a Power Game," and, "A Player's Guide to the Post-Truth Condition."
Tamim Ansary is an author and historian, whose works include, "Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes," and most recently, "The Invention of Yesterday: A 50,000-Year History of Human Culture, Conflict, and Connection."
Henri Cole has been called the "central poet of his generation" and is the author of numerous poetry collections, the most recent of which is Blizzard.
David S. Brown is a history professor at Elizabethtown College, and the author of "Paradise Lost: A Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald."
Fredrik DeBoer is a journalist and author of "The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice."
Eric Raymond is one of the early pioneers of the open source software movement, and is the author of a book on the subject, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar."
Peter Pomerantsev is a former producer of Russian television, and currently the Visiting Senior Fellow at the Institute of Global Affairs at London School of Economics. He is the author of This is Not Propaganda and Nothing is True and Everything is Possible.
Derrick Jensen is an environmentalist, author, and anti-civilization advocate. His most recent book is, "The Myth of Human Supremacy."
James Shapiro is a professor of English at Columbia University, and the author of several books about William Shakespeare, most recently, "Shakespeare in a Divided America."
Sam Wasson is an author and film critic, whose most recent book is "The Long Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood."
Miguel Farias is an experimental psychologist at Coventry University, where he leads the Brain, Belief, and Behavior research group. He is co-author of the book, "The Buddha Pill: Can Meditation Change You?"
Jay Parini is a poet, novelist, professor of English at Middlebury College, and the author of several books, most recently "Borges and Me: An Encounter."
Dr. James Lineback is a practicing pulmonary physician with an academic appointment at the University of California Riverside, College of Medicine, as associate clinical professor of medicine. James Fallon is a neuroscientist and a professor at UC Irvine school of medicine.
Srdja Popovic is a Serbian political activist, whose student group Otpor! helped topple Serbian president Slobodan Milošević. His group CANVAS teaches activists around the world how to overthrow autocratic governments.
Ervand Abrahamian is considered to be one of the world's leading experts on modern Iran, and is a professor of history at City University of New York. He is the author of several books, including "The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations."
Russell Foster is a neuroscientist at the University of Oxford, and is the Director of the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology, as well as the head of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute.
Alex Hutchinson is a former Canadian national team runner, a contributing editor to Outside Magazine, and the author of "Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance."
James B. Steele is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, and the author of "America: What Went Wrong?" and "Howard Hughes: His Life and Madness."
Graeme Turner is a professor of cultural studies at the University of Queensland, and the author of several books, including "Understanding Celebrity" and "Ordinary People and the Media."
Lyndall Gordon is a senior research fellow at Oxford University, and the author of several biographies, including "Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds."
Liam Vaughan is an investigative journalist for Bloomberg and the author of "Flash Crash: A Trading Savant, a Global Manhunt, and the Most Mysterious Market Crash in History".
Emerson Brooking is a fellow at the Atlantic Council and the co-author of "LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media."
David Mikics is a professor of English at the University of Houston, and the recent author of "Stanley Kubrick: American Filmmaker."
Peter Marshall is a historian from the University of Sussex and the author of "Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism."
Adam Zamoyski is a historian and the author of several books about Napoleon, most recently, "Napoleon: The Man Behind the Myth."
Peter Fritzsche is a historian at University of Illinois, and the author of several best-selling books, most recently, "Hitler's First Hundred Days: How Germans Embraced the Third Reich."
Marya Hornbacher is a best-selling author of "Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia" and "Madness: A Bipolar Life".
Jan Swafford is an American composer and the author of biographies of Charles Ives, Brahms, and most recently, "Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph".
Scott Aaronson is a computer scientist and director of UT Austin's Quantum Information Institute.
Steven Callahan survived 76 days in the Atlantic Ocean, adrift on a life raft after his boat sunk. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling book "Adrift", and has gone on to consult for movies such as Life of Pi.
Christof Koch is a neuroscientist, a former professor at Cal Tech and the current President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and his most recent book is The Feeling of Life Itself.
Richard Wrangham is a primatologist, a recipient of a MacArthur "Genius" Grant, and the author of "Demonic Males" and "The Goodness Paradox."
Patrick Kroupa was a former member of the hacker collective Legion of Doom, and co-founder of MindVox, one of the first ISPs in America.
Mary Dearborn is an author and biographer of figures like Norman Mailer, Peggy Guggenheim, and most recently of Ernest Hemingway.
Joshua Shenk is the author of "Lincoln's Melancholy" and "Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs".
Craig Packer is a biologist and the former director of the Serengeti Lion Project. He has written for and appeared in National Geographic numerous times, and is the author of "Lions In The Balance."
Rick Alan Ross is a cult deprogrammer who has helped over 500 people escape from cults. He is the founder of the Cult Education Institute, and the author of "Cults Inside Out."
Malcolm Harris is a journalist and the author of "Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials."
Jerry Lembcke is a professor of sociology at Holy Cross College, and the author of several books, including "The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam."
John McAfee is the founder of McAfee Antivirus, is a candidate for President under the Libertarian Party, and is currently on the run from the United States government.
Miles J. Unger is an art critic for The Economist, and has several best-selling books about subjects like Michelangelo and Machiavelli. His most recent book is "Picasso and the Painting that Shocked the World."
The author's Facebook page can be found at https://www.facebook.com/milesjunger His personal website is http://www.milesjunger.com/ And his Instagram handle is @heraclitus59
Sam Vaknin is a professor of psychology and an expert in narcissism. He is also the author of the book "Malignant Self-Love".
Randy Wolbert is a DBT therapist and trainer and teacher of Zen. He trained under the founder of DBT, Marsha Linehan, and is the author of “Treating BPD: Incorporating Zen and Mindfulness”.