Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a prominent author and former member of the Dutch Parliament recognized for her work on women’s issues and civil liberties, joins Socrates in the City to share her extraordinary personal journey. Born in Somalia and raised in a strict Islamic environment, she recounts her flight from forced marriage and eventual political asylum in the Netherlands. A fierce critic of radical Islam, Hirsi Ali became a leading voice for secularism and embraced atheism—only recently undergoing a transformative journey that led her to embrace the Christian faith. In this compelling conversation, she reflects on faith, freedom, and the search for meaning in the modern world.

Can the world of academia be trusted? In an attempt to expose the insanity that he personally experienced in higher ed, James Lindsay and a small team came up with the idea of writing bogus papers which they submitted to peer-reviewed publications. Much to their surprise, many of these “academic articles” were accepted. The team went so far as to submit a paper that included chapter 12 of Mein Kampf – rewritten with trendy phrases like intersectionality – which was accepted by a feminist social work journal. While Lindsay and his team hoped this experiment would expose academic publishing, with the purpose of bringing truth and rigor back to the institutions, there were other unexpected consequences.

How do our minds make meaning? Iain McGilchrist is a former Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists to name a few. A leading scholar in the field of neurology he has published original research on neuroimaging in schizophrenia, the phenomenology of schizophrenia, and is the author of, The Master and his Emissary:The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World and The Matter With Things. He joins Socrates in the City host, Eric Metaxas to discuss how our minds make meaning out of purpose, divinity, and the relationship between matter and meaning. 

Headmaster of Michaela school, Katherine Birbalsingh sits down with host Eric Metaxas to discuss the challenges of speaking about the deficiencies in the UK school system and how it led her to begin her school and initiate a reform of Classical Education against the ‘soft bigotry of low expectations’.                           

Iain McGilchrist is a former Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists to name a few. A leading scholar in the field of neurology he has published original research on neuroimaging in schizophrenia, the phenomenology of schizophrenia, and is the author of, The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. He joins Socrates in the City host, Eric Metaxas to discuss the myths and misconceptions between the left and right hemispheres of our brain. McGilchrist highlights the importance of understanding the balance within our brains, and how this has shaped and changed Western Civilization.

What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What does the world of philosophy have to do with the world of religion?  Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the Faculty of Divinity, Dr. James Orr joins host Eric Metaxas to have a conversation on the Twilight of the West, the relationship between orthodoxy and orthopraxy, and the enduring influence of Hellenistic and Hebraic thought in our enlightened world.      

Is free speech a Western value? In our modern society are we more afraid of truth, or what that truth may ask of us? Writer, social commentator, co-host of TRIGGERnometry and comedian, Konstantin Kisin sits down with host Eric Metaxas to discuss the role of free speech in Western civilization, the difference between individualistic worldviews compared to collaborative Eastern environments, and the role of faith in understanding the values of free speech. They discuss the enemies of free speech, truth, and progress – and how society today maintains the balance of free speech and free expression.