In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Sari van Anders about gender/sex and sexual configurations theory. They talk about the sex binary and understanding a wider landscape, gender/sex, sexual configurations theory, endocrine system and hormones, neural correlates of hormones, mental health challenges, future of gender/sex research, and many more topics.

Sari van Anders teaches at Queen’s University as the Canada 150 Research Chair in Social Neuroendocrinology, Sexuality, and Gender/Sex, and Professor of Psychology, Gender Studies, and Neuroscience. Her work and lab has been recognized with over 80 awards, including the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the Society for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation & Gender Diversity, the APS Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions, as well as election to the Royal Society of Canada.

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Marinos Sariyannis about the Supernatural in the Early and Middle Ottoman periods. They discuss the differences between the natural, supernatural, and preternatural, Islam and the supernatural, magic, occult, and divination. They talk about the relationship between natural science and supernatural, Lettrism, Jinn, limits of supernatural belief, Sufism, hell and purgatory, witchcraft and divination, preternatural, and many more topics.

Marinos Sariyannis is Research Director at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies/FORTH in Rethymno, Greece. He has led research projects on the history of Ottoman political thought and on the Ottoman perceptions of the supernatural. He has published several books, articles and chapters on Ottoman social, cultural and intellectual history. He is the author of the recent book, Ottomans and the Supernatural: Nature and the Limits of Knowledge in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire, which you can find available for free through open access.

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Megan Kate Nelson about the American West. They discuss the frontier myth, Sacajawea, shared history in the Southwest, Maria Gertrudis Barcelo and her wealth, Jim Beckwourth and shifting stories. They also talk about the 1862 Homestead Act, Ovando Hollister and his paradox, Chinese-American immigrants, Little Wolf, and many more topics.

Megan Kate Nelson is a writer and historian based in Boston, Massachusetts. She has written about US western history, the Civil War, and American culture for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Slate, Time, and Smithsonian Magazine. Nelson earned her BA in history and literature from Harvard University and her PhD in American studies from the University of Iowa. She is the author of many books, including her most recent, The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier.