The Cluster F Theory Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

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The Cluster F Theory Podcast

Timotheus Vermeulen and Gia Milinovich

Society & Culture

Frequency: 1 episode/9d. Total Eps: 53

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

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🇬🇧 Great Britain - philosophy
11/08/2026
#88
🇬🇧 Great Britain - philosophy
05/06/2026
#62
🇩🇪 Germany - philosophy
14/04/2026
#79
🇩🇪 Germany - philosophy
29/03/2026
#70
🇬🇧 Great Britain - philosophy
11/03/2026
#83
🇩🇪 Germany - philosophy
13/02/2026
#87
🇩🇪 Germany - philosophy
12/02/2026
#67
🇩🇪 Germany - philosophy
07/01/2026
#94
🇨🇦 Canada - philosophy
18/12/2025
#78
🇬🇧 Great Britain - philosophy
17/12/2025
#86

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https://www.yada-yada.net/
60 shares
https://theclusterftheory.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38
53 shares
https://www.dcturner.co.uk/
10 shares

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder
2 shares

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Score global : 53%

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30. First Nations' Rights - Brenda L Croft

Thursday, August 29, 2024 • Duration 50:41

The artist and thinker Brenda L Croft is from the Gurindji/Malngin/Mudburra peoples from the Victorian River region of the Northern Territory of Australia, and Anglo-Australian/German/Irish/Chinese heritage. She has been a key participant in the Australian First Nations and broader contemporary arts and cultural sectors as a multi-disciplinary creative practitioner—artist, arts administrator, consultant, curator, educator and researcher—since the mid-1980s. Brenda is a Professor of Indigenous Art History and Curatorship, Australian National University. In 2023—2024 Brenda is Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser Chair of Australian Studies at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.

Australian National University faculty page: https://researchportalplus.anu.edu.au/en/persons/brenda-croft

ORCID page: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4913-6238

Harvard page: https://afvs.fas.harvard.edu/people/brenda-croft

Australian National Portrait Gallery: https://www.portrait.gov.au/people/brenda-l-croft-1964

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_L_Croft

Brenda’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brendalcroft/

The Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada https://www.yada-yada.net/.

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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

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29. Hope and Anchor - Tamsin Edwards

Thursday, August 22, 2024 • Duration 49:44

Note: This interview was recorded before the most recent General Election in the UK.

Professor Tamsin Edwards is a climate scientist specialising in quantifying the uncertainties of climate model predictions, particularly for the ice sheet and glacier contributions to sea level rise. She was a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report published in 2021.

Tamsin regularly provides expert advice on climate science to the public, policymakers, media and businesses, and is currently the first Parliamentary Thematic Research Lead for Climate & Environment, advising the UK Parliament on research evidence to better inform scrutiny, legislation and debate.

She is an award-winning communicator and co-presents the BBC Radio 4 series “39 Ways to Save the Planet”.

Tamsin's faculty page: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/tamsin-edwards

Tamsin's wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamsin_Edwards

All Models Are Wrong: https://allmodels.plos.org/

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

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20. Fear and Bravery - Tracy King

Thursday, June 20, 2024 • Duration 52:21

Thank you for listening to The Cluster F Theory. If you don’t already subscribe at Substack, please sign up on our page in order to receive an email when new episodes are released. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it or review it wherever you listen and share it with your friends. Thank you!

Tracy King is a writer, producer and consultant based in both Birmingham and London. She has written for publications such as the New Statesman, The Guardian, The Telegraph, and The New European. Alongside her writing, she has produced various animations including Tim Minchin's Storm and was the producer and organiser of the charity science and critical thinking conference TAM London.

She is currently involved in a campaign to save Birmingham's libraries from closure an her spare time Tracy does stand-up comedy, makes miniature furniture, and plays Minecraft.

Her brilliant memoir, Learning To Think, has been published this year.

Tracy's website: https://www.tracyking.co.uk/

Tracy's author page at Penguin Books: https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/245465/tracy-king

An extract from Tracy's memoir Time To Think ("I always believed my funny, kind father was killed by a murderous teenage gang. Three decades on, I discovered the truth", The Guardian) https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/feb/24/funny-kind-father-murderous-teenage-gang-three-decades-on-i-discovered-the-truth

The Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at .

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit

19. Immediacy - Anna Kornbluh

Thursday, June 13, 2024 • Duration 31:19

Anna Kornbluh is a professor of English at the University of Illinois, Chicago, where she founded InterCcECT, the Inter Chicago Circle for Experimental Critical Theory. Her research and teaching interests center on the novel, film and cultural aesthetics in theoretical perspective, including formalist, Marxist and psychoanalytic approaches. She is the author of Immediacy or The Style of Too Late Capitalism; The Order of Forms, Realism, Formalism, and Social Space; Marxist Film Theory and Fight Club; and Realizing Capital, Financial and Psychic Economies in Victorian Form. Her essays have appeared in various publication such as the Los Angeles Review of Books, Diacritics, Public Books and Differences. Anna is also an active community organizer. She's a co-founder of Humanities Works, an initiative to debunk myths about the dire prospects of Humanities graduates, and is an active member of the UIC United Faculty bargaining team.

Anna Kornbluh: http://www.annakornbluh.com

Anna Kornblum's faculty page: https://engl.uic.edu/profiles/kornbluh-anna/

InterCcECT: http://interccect.com/

Humanities Works: http://humanitiesworks.org/

UIC Faculty: https://uicunitedfaculty.org/

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The Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at .

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit

18. The Weather (not really) - Richard Wiseman

Thursday, June 6, 2024 • Duration 43:31

Richard Wiseman holds Britain’s only Professorship in the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, and has published over 100 academic papers examining the psychology of magic and illusion, deception, luck and self-development. He has written several popular psychology books (including The Luck Factor and 59 Seconds) that have been published around the world.

Richard has also created psychology-based YouTube videos that have attracted over 800 million views, he is one of the most followed psychologists on social media, and the Independent On Sunday chose him as one of the top 100 people who make Britain a better place to live. He is a member of the Inner Magic Circle, and acts as a creative consultant on several stage and television projects, including work with Derren Brown.

The first season of his On Your Mind Podcast reached No.1 in Apple Podcast’s Science charts, and in 2023 Richard was given the Royal Society’s prestigious David Attenborough Award for his research and public engagement activities.

https://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wiseman

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17. Buffering - Tom McCarthy

Thursday, May 30, 2024 • Duration 43:59

Tom McCarthy is a novelist whose work has been translated into more than 20 languages and adapted for cinema, theatre and radio. His first novel, Remainder, won the 2008 Believer Book Award. His third, C, was a 2010 Man Booker Prize finalist, as was his fourth, Satin Island, in 2015.

Tom is also the author of the study Tintin and the Secret of Literature and of the essay collection Typewriters Bombs Jellyfish. He contributes regularly to publications such as the New York Times, the London Review of Books, Harper's and Art Forum. In 2013, he was awarded the inaugural Windham Campbell Prize for fiction. His latest novel, The Making of Incarnation was published in 2021.

Since 1999, Tom has been the general secretary of a semi fictitious organisation that he co-founded with the philosopher Simon Critchley called the International Necronautical Society, INS, which is, "devoted to mind bending projects that would do for death what the surrealists had done for sex".

Tom's Wikipedia Entry

International Necronautical Society

The Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada.

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16. Mortality - Richard Bacon

Thursday, May 23, 2024 • Duration 46:21

Richard Bacon has been a household name for over 25 years in the UK. As a tv presenter he's known for shows such as Blue Peter, Top of the Pops, The Big Breakfast and Good Morning Britain. As a radio presenter he's been on pretty much every channel you can think of. He's started his own production company, Yes Yes Media, creating and producing tv shows, including the very popular I Literally Just Told You.

Richard' Twitter post as he was first admitted to hospital.

Richard's Instagram post and photo thanking the NHS for saving his life 5 years earlier:

“Thanks for everything you did for me 5 years ago today NHS (your 70th).Thanks to the 40 people at NHS Lewisham who worked to save me over 2 weeks.Especially my consultant Vic.Happy 75th.Couldn’t do it* without you.(*Live).The NHS treats more than a million people a day. And we’ve all got our stories.Thank yoooou ❤️.”

Presenter Richard Bacon 'getting better' after days in coma (13 July 2018, BBC)

Richard Bacon out of hospital after coma scare (19 July 2018, BBC)

Richard Bacon thinks about death ‘every day’ as he opens up about nine-day coma (Metro)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit

15. Social Mediocrity - Katrin Tiidenberg

Thursday, May 16, 2024 • Duration 45:24

Katrin Tiidenberg is a Professor of Participatory Culture at the Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School at Tallinn University in Estonia. She has held fellowships at Durham University, Aarhus University and Microsoft Research New England.

Katrin's research focuses on the hows and whys of people's online and social media practices with a particular emphasis on visuality, sex and political participation. Her research engages the most relevant issues of our day, identity, community, norms and power.

How do we present ourselves online? What is normal? Who is in charge? And what happens to sex and to pleasure? She's the author and editor of multiple books on social media and digital cultures and research methods, including Sex and Social Media, Selfies: Why We Love and Hate Them and Metaphors of Internet: Ways of Being in the Age of Ubiquity.

https://katrin-tiidenberg.com/

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14. Scenes - Adam Thirlwell

Thursday, May 9, 2024 • Duration 49:37

Adam Thirwell is an award-winning novelist and screenwriter. Among his best-known books are Lurid & Cute, Politics, Multiples and Kapow!.

His latest novel is The Future Future, which Salman Rushdie described as "A dazzling performance, unlike anything else you'll read this (or any other) year".

He has twice been selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists, received a Somerset Maugham Award in 2008, and was a recipient of the EM Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2015. He wrote and directed Utopia, a short film starring Lily Cole and Lily McMenamy, for Channel 4; and wrote another short film, Everyday Performance Artists – featuring Shia LaBeouf, Gemma Chan and James Norton, and directed by Polly Stenham – which was broadcast on Channel 4 in 2016. His essays appear regularly in the New York Review of Books. He is Advisory Editor at the Paris Review, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

http://www.adamthirlwell.com/

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

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13. Parafiction - Carrie Lambert-Beatty

Thursday, May 2, 2024 • Duration 44:59

Professor Carrie Lambert-Beatty is a contemporary art historian. She holds a joint appointment in the Department of History of Art and Architecture and the Department of Art, Film and Visual Studies at Harvard. She's the author of some of the most influential arts writing of the 21st century, including the award-winning book Being Watched, Yvonne Rainer in the 1960s and the essay, Make Believe: Parafiction and Plausibility (pdf). Carrie is also a co-editor at the illustrious arts theory journal October.

Her current research is on 30 years of fiction presented as fact in contemporary art, asking what happens when artworks deceive their audiences? What do the experiences of artists’ trickery teach about contemporary ways of knowing? And how can contemporary art help in developing a progressive epistemic set, one able to counter the culture of post-truth and to resist an epistemic return to order?

Artworks mentioned:

A Tribute to Safiye Behar (2005) by Michael Blum

Nike Ground (2003) by Eva & Franco Mattes

He Named Her Amber (2007) by Iris Häussler

Carrie Lambert-Beatty: What Happens When an Artwork Deceives Its Audience?

Faculty page: https://haa.fas.harvard.edu/people/carrie-lambert-beatty

Website: https://scholar.harvard.edu/lambert-beatty

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit