Coming of age has always been a time of angst and inner turmoil, especially for girls. But today, those worries exist in a world of AR filters, TikTok “plastic surgeons,” dating apps, hookup culture, online porn, profit-driven therapy apps, and even fully customizable AI girlfriends. All of it is personalized by algorithms designed to prey on their deepest insecurities and delivered on platforms engineered to be addictive. While previous generations of women were relentlessly sold products and procedures, girls today have become the product.

In this episode of the podcast, Freya India will explore how technological and cultural shifts over the past decade have shaped the inner lives of young women and girls—from anxieties about appearance and reputation to the dynamics of friendships and romantic relationships. She will expose the ruthless commercialization of girlhood—an exploitation corporations are all too eager to profit from. Freya will also share ways for girls to reclaim their privacy, protect their dignity, and, above all, rediscover what it means to be people rather than products.

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Tom Holland is a storyteller whose range and erudition seem to be as unbounded as history himself. Already a wildly acclaimed bestselling author, his chart-topping podcast The Rest is History, the third most downloaded podcast globally, made superstars of Tom and his co-host Dominic Sandbrook. Now he shares with us his passion: Ancient Rome.

The ancient Roman empire was the supreme arena, where emperors had no choice but to fight, to thrill, to dazzle. To rule as a Caesar was to stand as an actor upon the great stage of the world. It was a world both familiar and utterly alien to our own.

In this episode of the podcast he shares a glimpse into the inner worlds of the first twelve Roman emperors with legendary comedian and writer Armando Iannucci.

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We all carry the imprint of our earliest years. Childhood is brief, yet its impact is lifelong. Some parts of us were met with love while other parts were met with silence, criticism, or disapproval. Many of us still protect the parts of ourselves that once felt unsafe. As adults, we often fall into patterns that feel irrational or out of character – shutting down, lashing out, people-pleasing, or self-sabotaging. Beneath those reactions lies our inner child, a younger part of us still trying to get its needs met the only way it knows how.

While we can't change what happened, we can change how it lives within us and impacts our lives today. In this episode of the podcast, Cornell trained holistic psychologist Nicole LePera will guide us through how we can meet our inner child to begin repairing our oldest wounds, and to question the stories we've long believed about who we have to be.

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Born into an upper-middle class family and raised in colonial Shanghai, JG Ballard's worldview was profoundly shaped by his internment by the occupying Japanese army in the Second World War — an experience that formed the basis of Empire of the Sun, the novel that brought him international fame. For his countless devoted fans his genius lies not only in this singular semi-autobiographical novel but in his outrageous, nihilistic, bravura works where cutting-edge technologies, social pathologies, and human nature collide — from 1973's Crash to his final novel Kingdom Come, which depicts the rise of the far-right in the UK.

The novelist Christopher Priest began a biography of Ballard before his passing in 2024; his wife Nina Allan completed the work, in the process turning a book about Ballard's life into a tribute to both Ballard and Christopher. In this episode of the podcast, she shares her insights into both authors' lives and works and explores what they have to say to us in 2026.

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When Russia's Dowager Empress was pregnant with the future Tsar, she dreamed that a peasant would one day kill her son. The idea terrified her, and for the rest of her days she 'lived under the pressure of the prophecy'. Grigori Rasputin had no official position. A barely literate moujhik from Siberia, he had no forces at his command. He was a devoted monarchist, not a revolutionary. And yet, through his uncanny seduction of the imperial household, he contributed more than any other individual to the collapse of the greatest autocracy in the world. Now one of our foremost historians, Sir Antony Beevor, joins us to pierce the fog of fantasy and reveal an unparalleled portrait of one of history’s greatest masterminds.

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Dr Suzanne Simard transformed our understanding of forests, her groundbreaking research for the Mother Tree Project revealing how the forest is a living symphony of finely honed cycles of birth, growth, death and rebirth that hold the key to protecting the natural world. In conversation with Robin Ince, Suzanne reveals this intricate interconnectedness and the luminous wonder that forests continue to inspire in human minds—and calls on us to protect these threatened ecosystems. By rediscovering our own kinship with nature, working closely with First Nations communities, and developing new understandings of sustainable forestry, Suzanne shares how we can protect and nurture these crucial networks for generations to come.

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From friendship, to romance, to even therapy, AI companions are on the rise, and AI companion apps alone have now been downloaded more than 220 million times worldwide. Oxford Internet Institute researcher James Muldoon takes us on a captivating and uncanny journey to the frontier of human-computer interaction, exploring what happens to our relationships with each other as artificial intelligence enters our personal lives. “They are real to me” may be the growing sentiment, but what are the tensions and contradictions at the heart of AI companionship? James explores what it means to be human in a world increasingly dominated by these sorts of relationships—what do we gain, and what do we lose? Crucially, what can we do to fulfil other people's emotional needs so they don’t turn to AI?

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Pioneering neuropsychologist Mark Solms reveals how science is proving Freud correct and explores what this might mean for our mental healthcare systems and our lives.

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Writer and broadcaster Zakia Sewell is on a mission to uncover an alternative spirit of Britain – found in otherworldly folk songs, ancient legends, Celtic seasonal rites and mystic stone circles that punctuate our landscape. She joined us for a conversation with the artist Jeremy Deller to bring a hopeful story of Britain out from the shadows, giving us a deeper sense of who we are, and heralding the promise of a brighter future.

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In 2026 the Seven Deadly Sins have become a bit of harmless fun, more associated with ice creams and videogame villains than the immortal soul. But in the medieval world, the Sins were a guide to the human mind, offering insight into the deepest questions of life, meaning, and happiness. Medievalist Peter Jones has uncovered their origins and significance and joins us on the podcast to show how these very old ideas can still show us who we are in the modern world.

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Daniel Levitin returns to How To Academy to explore how music can transform our health and wellbeing—repairing our bodies, calming our minds, and healing our deepest psychological wounds. By uncovering the cutting-edge neuroscience behind how rhythm and melody strengthen memory, reduce pain, and provide emotional equilibrium, Daniel will offer a compelling new vision for the future of music as medicine. Join us for a joyful celebration of one of humanity’s oldest and most powerful forms of healing—and why we all need more of it.

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