The Future of… is a new podcast series hosted by former BBC presenter Owen Bennett-Jones, which explores everything from consciousness and delusion, to race and sleep.
Bennett-Jones reported for the BBC for 30 years. He has been a resident foreign correspondent in Bucharest, Geneva, Islamabad, Hanoi and Beirut and presented Newshour on the BBC World Service.
What gets in the way of rational decision making? What is consciousness? And how can we identify a delusion? Owen Bennett-Jones has been interviewing some of the world’s leading academics to try to answer these and other questions for this New Books Network series.
Each episode explores topics as diverse as race and consciousness to life expectancy and why Africa is often mis-understood. Owen Bennett-Jones asks the world’s leading scholars to explain their areas of interest to discuss The Future of… their disciplines.
In the first episode, Bennett-Jones asks Derk-Jan Dijk Professor of Sleep and Physiology at University of Surrey, why the contribution of sleep is so important to brain function in healthy ageing and dementia? They discuss the role of circadian rhythms in sleep regulation; negative effects of sleep loss; and try to understand age and sex related differences in sleep physiology.
“New Books Network has one of the best informed and most thoughtful audiences on earth. It’s great to be able to make a series for people who want to learn more about the world,” says host, Owen Bennett-Jones.
The series is being launched by New Books Network, which was founded in 2007 with the sole purpose of public education. It has evolved to a network of more than 800 hosts, with 140 podcasts, spread over more than 100 subject categories and thousands of hours of listening material.
Each week 55 episodes are published serving a global audience which achieves 140,000 downloads a day.
The podcast producer has grown its audience organically to almost 5 million downloads each month, entirely on the appeal of its specialist hosts interviewing authors about their new books.
Founder and editor of the New Books Network, Marshall Poe commented: “Owen’s podcast is the perfect addition to our line-up. He’s committed to public education, and so is the New Books Network. It’s a great match, will enable us to reach new listeners and do an even better job of educating the public.”
The Future of… with Owen Bennett-Jones from New Books Network is available on all major podcast platforms including Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and the New Books Network from 22 February.
