Best Al Coates Podcasts (2026)

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Mike Jay, "Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind" (Yale UP, 2023) 43:43

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27m ago43:43

43:43

Mike Jay's Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind (Yale UP, 2023) is a provocative and original history of the scientists and writers, artists and philosophers who took drugs to explore the hidden regions of the mind. Until the twentieth century, scientists investigating the effects of drugs on the mind did so by experimenting on them…

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Matthew Davis, "A Biography of a Mountain: The Making and Meaning of Mount Rushmore" (St. Martin's Press, 2025) 1:06:05

4d ago1:06:05

1:06:05

Mount Rushmore is something of an American Rorschach test. Some look at the monument and see American patriotic ideals carved into a mountainside. Others see only the rank hypocrisy of American presidents blasted into an Indigenous sacred site. In A Biography of a Mountain: The Making and Meaning of Mount Rushmore, writer and journalist Matthew Dav…

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Adoption Disruption - Adoptive parent & SW Amy 27:36

3d ago27:36

27:36

Hello and welcome to the A&F Podcast. In this episode we're continuing to look at parenting from a distance and adoption disruption. It's a hugely sensitive matter with the impact on children adults and professionals often being catastrophic. Here, I speak to Amy an adoptive parent and social worker and she describes the events that led to crisis a…

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Tony Spawforth, "What the Greeks Did for Us" (Yale UP, 2023) 57:22

7d ago57:22

57:22

Our contemporary world is inescapably Greek. Whether in a word like “pandemic,” a Freudian state of mind like the “Oedipus complex,” or a replica of the Parthenon in a Chinese theme park, ancient Greek culture shapes the contours of our lives. Ever since the first Roman imitators, we have been continually falling under the Greeks’ spell. But how di…

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David Newheiser et al., "Art-Making as Spiritual Practice: Rituals of Embodied Understanding" (Bloomsbury, 2025) 1:28:44

10d ago1:28:44

1:28:44

Art-Making as Spiritual Practice: Rituals of Embodied Understanding (Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2025), edited by Professor David Newheiser, is a new collection asks if it’s possible to consider art-making as a spiritual practice independent of explicit religious belief or content. Where earlier research has focused on the religious significance of …

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Episode of the Year - 206 FASD with Anna Webster 1:07:39

10d ago1:07:39

1:07:39

This episode resinated with so many of our listeners. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder remains under discussed with a growing understanding of the prevalence and impact that many children are living with. In this episode of the A&F podcast we speak to adoptive parent and Neurodiversity Coaching Psychologist Anna Webster. She shares her experience of…

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Colin Williamson, "Drawn to Nature: American Animation in the Age of Science" (U Minnesota Press, 2025) 51:40

14d ago51:40

51:40

What do technical renderings of plant cells in trees have to do with Disney’s animated opus Fantasia? Quite a bit, as it turns out: such emergent scientific models and ideas about nature were an important inspiration for Disney’s groundbreaking animated realism. In Drawn to Nature: American Animation in the Age of Science (University of Minnesota P…

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Christmas Podcast with Fiona Wells from Patch 54:29

17d ago54:29

54:29

Hello and welcome to the AandF podcast Christmas special. In this episode we streamed live to Facebook and chat with Fiona Wells from Patch. We unpack all that's been happening with the raised awareness of the levels of adversity all members of adoptive households are having. There is a crisis in the adoption community and Fiona has spearheaded the…

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Maddalena Alvi, "The European Art Market and the First World War: Art, Capital, and the Decline of the Collecting Class, 1910–1925" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 1:00:08

22d ago1:00:08

1:00:08

The outbreak of the First World War shattered the established European art market. Amidst fighting, looting, confiscations, expropriation fears and political and economic upheaval, an integrated marketplace shaped by upper-class patrons broke down entirely. In its place, Maddalena Alvi argues, can be found the origins of a recognizably modern marke…

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Mariana Ortega, "Carnalities: The Art of Living in Latinidad" (Duke UP, 2024) 1:16:41

21d ago1:16:41

1:16:41

How can habits of racialization be affected by art, in its reception and its creation? How can a carnal aesthetics help us understand Latinx life? What if we listen to photographs? How might they undo us? Can we be undone? In Carnalities: The Art of Living in Latinidad (Duke UP, 2025), Mariana Ortega focuses on photography using a hermeneutics of l…

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Ulinka Rublack, "Dürer's Coats: Renaissance Men and Material Cultures of Social Recognition" (CEU Press, 2025) 37:35

24d ago37:35

37:35

Jana Byars meets one of her academic heroes when Ulinka Rublack joins her to talk about Dürer's Coats: Renaissance Men and Material Cultures of Social Recognition (Routledge, 2025). During the Renaissance, clothing became more and more elaborately decorated and expensive. It often emphasised the privilege of the male elite. Yet clothing could also …

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Conversations - Helio, Adult International Adoptee 49:05

24d ago49:05

49:05

Hello and welcome to conversations from the AandF podcast. In this episode I speak with Helio an adult adoptee, he shares his experience of being adopted from Brazil to an Italian family. There’s so much more to his story and as an adult he went onto what was a complex journey to reconnect with his biological mother. His resilience and the murky ci…

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Better Me Better Us Ep 31 - Back to basics 26:03

30d ago26:03

26:03

In this episode, we explore the importance of stripping everything back to the basics and showing up on a truly human level. It’s these foundations, warmth, consistency, repair and presence, that create safety and stability for our most traumatised children. We also reflect on how powerful our modelling is: what we, as professionals, model to paren…

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Shilla Lee , "Crafting Rural Japan: Traditional Potters and Rural Creativity in Regional Revitalization" (Routledge, 2024) 1:04:36

1M ago1:04:36

1:04:36

Centering collaborations and frictions around a Japanese town’s pottery industry, Crafting Rural Japan: Traditional Potters and Rural Creativity in Regional Revitalization (Routledge, 2024)n discusses the place of creative village policy in the revitalization of rural Japan, highlighting how rural Japan is moving from a state of regional extinction…

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Episode 221 - Adoption Crisis and More 58:25

1M ago58:25

58:25

Hello and welcome to this episode of the adoption and fostering podcast. With the wide ranging coverage in the news of the UK's adoption crisis we focus in on that in this episode as well as the response from adoption agencies and the children's minister. There's a lot to unpack but we give it a go and then have a little chat about the drop in fost…

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Stephen Murphy, "Buddhist Landscapes: Art and Archaeology of the Khorat Plateau, 7th to 11th Centuries (NUS Press, 2024) 55:48

1M ago55:48

55:48

This important new work, Buddhist Landscapes: Art and Archaeology of the Khorat Plateau, 7th to 11th Centuries (NUS Press, 2023) by Stephen Murphy, build on extensive fieldwork and archaeological surveys to reveal the Khorat Plateau as having a distinctive Buddhist culture, including new forms of art and architecture, and a characteristic aesthetic…

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Jean-Thomas Tremblay, "Breathing Aesthetics" (Duke UP, 2022) 1:03:40

1M ago1:03:40

1:03:40

In Breathing Aesthetics (Duke University Press (2022), Jean-Thomas Tremblay argues that difficult breathing indexes the uneven distribution of risk in a contemporary era marked by the increasing contamination, weaponization, and monetization of air. Tremblay shows how biopolitical and necropolitical forces tied to the continuation of extractive cap…

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Nicholas Gamso, "Art After Liberalism" (Columbia UP, 2022) 1:23:31

1M ago1:23:31

1:23:31

Art After Liberalism (Columbia UP, 2022) is an account of creative practice at a moment of converging political and social rifts – a moment that could be described as a crisis of liberalism. The apparent failures of liberal thinking are a starting point for an inquiry into emergent ways of living, acting, and making art in the company of others. Wh…

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Conference Report - The Adoption Forum 25:30

1M ago25:30

25:30

On the 19th November Al was invited to attend a conference in London organised by The Adoption Forum and this is his on the hoof podcast. Their goal is to bridge law, policy, and lived experience and to turn research and policy into practical, down to earth strategies that support children, families, and the professionals who work with them. You ca…

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Taylor McCall, "The Art of Anatomy in Medieval Europe" (Reaktion Books, 2023) 36:55

1M ago36:55

36:55

Taylor McCall's The Art of Anatomy in Medieval Europe (Reaktion, 2023) is the first history of medieval European anatomical images. Richly illustrated, The Art of Anatomy in Medieval Europe explores the many ways in which medieval surgeons, doctors, monks, and artists understood and depicted human anatomy. Taylor McCall refutes the common misconcep…

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Sebastian Truskolaski, "Adorno and the Ban on Images" (Bloomsbury, 2022) 58:05

1M ago58:05

58:05

Adorno and the Ban on Images (Bloomsbury, 2022) upends some of the myths that have come to surround the work of the philosopher Theodor W. Adorno – not least amongst them, his supposed fatalism. Sebastian Truskolaski argues that Adorno's writings allow us to address what is arguably the central challenge of modern philosophy: how to picture a world…

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Ilan Kelman, "Antarcticness: Inspirations and Imaginaries" (UCL Press, 2022) 42:16

1M ago42:16

42:16

Antarcticness: Inspirations and Imaginaries (UCL Press, 2022) edited by Ilan Kelman Antarcticness joins disciplines, communication approaches, and ideas to explore meanings and depictions of Antarctica. Personal and professional words in poetry and prose, plus images, present and represent Antarctica, as presumed and as imagined, alongside what is …

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Conversations - Foster Carer Amelie 31:42

2M ago31:42

31:42

Hello and welcome to conversations from the A&F podcast. In this episode I speak to former foster carer and author Amelie. She shares her family story of a serious allegation made against them that led to her own children being removed from her care. It’s a stark account and Amelie’s book, Broken, recounts that experience. Amelie is passionate to s…

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Ana Patricia Rodríguez, "Avocado Dreams: Remaking Salvadoran Life and Art in the Washington, D.C. Metro Area" (University of Arizona Press, 2025) 33:03

2M ago33:03

33:03

For more than four generations, Salvadorans have made themselves at home in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and have transformed the region, contributing their labor, ingenuity, and culture to the making of a thriving but highly neglected and overlooked community. In this episode, we sit down with Ana Patricia Rodríguez, author of Av…

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Dustin Condren, "An Imaginary Cinema: Sergei Eisenstein and the Unrealized Film" (Cornell UP, 2024) 1:07:57

2M ago1:07:57

1:07:57

An Imaginary Cinema: Sergei Eisenstein and the Unrealized Film (Cornell UP, 2024) explores the unfinished cinematic projects developed and abandoned by Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein between 1927 and 1937. Centred on seven major film concepts, the book examines what it means for a work of art—particularly a film—to remain unfinished or unrealis…

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Rizvana Bradley, "Anteaesthetics: Black Aesthesis and the Critique of Form" (Stanford UP, 2023) 1:02:09

2M ago1:02:09

1:02:09

In Anteaesthetics: Black Aesthesis and the Critique of Form (Stanford UP, 2023), Rizvana Bradley begins from the proposition that blackness cannot be represented in modernity's aesthetic regime, but is nevertheless foundational to every representation. Troubling the idea that the aesthetic is sheltered from the antiblack terror that lies just beyon…

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Episode 220 - Dads' Mental Health - Movember 1:28:19

2M ago1:28:19

1:28:19

Hello and welcome to the AandF podcast. *Warning!* We will be leaning into gender stereotypes. So, it's been a while since we had a proper natter so we catch up then dive into the tricky issue of mens'/dads' mental health and the specific challenges that adoption may bring. We think about blocked care and post adoption depression as well as conside…

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Better Me Better Us Ep 30 - Professional Relationships 29:38

2M ago29:38

29:38

Podcast 30 - Professional Relationships In this episode, we explore the power and complexity of professional relationships - how they shape our ability to ask for help, to trust, and to be trusted. We look at the systems we work within, and how they can both nurture and hinder the relationships we need to do our best work. As always you can connect…

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Conversations - How to start a Foster Care Agency with Dan Boxall-Simpson 45:40

2M ago45:40

45:40

Hello and welcome to conversations from the AandF podcast. In this episode I speak to Dan Boxall-Simpson, he’s returned to the podcast to update us on the progress of EPIC Fostering the independent foster care agency he is in the process of setting up. He shares some of the challenges of navigating the process, Ofsted applications and more. It’s in…

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Mattin, "Social Dissonance" (MIT Press, 2022) 59:44

2M ago59:44

59:44

We are not what we think we are. Our self-image as natural individuated subjects is determined behind our backs: historically by political forces, cognitively by the language we use, and neurologically by sub-personal mechanisms, as revealed by scientific and philosophical analyses. Under contemporary capitalism, as the gap between this self-image …

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Elizabeth Currie, "Street Style: Art and Dress in the Time of Caravaggio" (Reaktion, 2025) 37:51

2M ago37:51

37:51

In late sixteenth-century Rome, artists found inspiration in bustling streets and taverns, depicting soldiers, Romani fortune tellers, sex workers and servants among the city’s poorest inhabitants. Street Style: Art and Dress in the Time of Caravaggio (Reaktion, 2025) by Dr. Elizabeth Currie explores these hidden lives, uncovering how the stories o…

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Adoption Disruption - Vicki McKeown, social worker, counsellor and panel member 25:57

2M ago25:57

25:57

Hello and welcome to the A&F podcast. In this episode we’re focusing our gaze on the issue of adoption disruption. It’s a hugely sensitive subject matter with the impact on children, adults and professionals often being catastrophic. Here I speak to Vicki McKeown psychotherapeutic Counsellor at VLM Therapy Ltd & Director at Better Me Better Us Ltd,…

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Cosima Clara Gillhammer, "Light on Darkness: The Untold Story of the Liturgy" (Reaktion Books, 2025) 1:12:24

2M ago1:12:24

1:12:24

With implications for the history of religion and art alike, an exploration of the lasting influence of Christian liturgy across a range of media. Light on Darkness: The Untold Story of the Liturgy (Reaktion Books, 2025) offers a captivating journey through the history of religious rituals in Western Europe, showcasing the profound impact of Christ…

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Adair Rounthwaite, "This Is Not My World: Art and Public Space in Socialist Zagreb" (U Minnesota Press, 2024) 1:01:44

2M ago1:01:44

1:01:44

This Is Not My World: Art and Public Spaces in Socialist Zagreb (U Minnesota Press, 2024) examines the Group of Six Authors—a collective of young artists who staged provocative art events in the public spaces of socialist Yugoslavia during the 1970s and early 1980s. The book analyses how these spaces, which had long been forums of state ideological…

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Gilles Deleuze, "On Painting" (U Minnesota Press, 2025) 1:39:48

2M ago1:39:48

1:39:48

Charles J. Stivale (Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Wayne State University) and Dan Smith (Professor of Philosophy, Purdue University) join me to discuss: Deleuze, Gilles. 2025. On Painting. Edited by David Lapoujade, translated by Charles J. Stivale. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Although Charles is the translator of this New Book,…

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Converations. Andy Wallis adult adoptee. 44:50

3M ago44:50

44:50

Hello and welcome to conversations from the A&F podcast. In this episode I speak to adoptee Andy Wallis. We talk about his experience of being an adoptee and the impact on his mental health in adulthood. This is a thought provoking conversation and Andy is honest about the the complexity of being an adoptee. Andy blogs on the subject as well as hav…

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Joanna Woronkowicz, "Artists at Work: Rethinking Policy for Artistic Careers" (Stanford UP, 2025) 40:18

3M ago40:18

40:18

What does it mean to be an artist? In Artists At Work: Rethinking Policy for Artistic Careers (Stanford UP, 2025) Joanna Woronkowicz, the co-founder of the Center for Cultural Affairs and co-director of the Arts, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Lab at Indiana University Bloomington and currently based at Copenhagen Business School, tells the story …