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The Conversation Weekly

by The Conversation

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Latest episodes

  • How Big Porn made sexual violence mainstream

    October 29, 2026 · 23 min

    Twenty years ago, extreme and violent pornography was largely confined to a niche corner of the internet. Today, depictions of strangulation and sexual violence have become mainstream. So how did porn become so extreme? In this episode…

  • America's death penalty: why executions are rising again

    October 22, 2026 · 23 min

    In Tennessee, death row inmate Christa Pike survived an attempt to execute her by lethal injection in late September. Meanwhile, plans to livestream a US military execution recently sparked outrage, prompting President Donald Trump to walk…

  • In Alberta, far-right populism drives bid to leave Canada

    October 15, 2026 · 31 min

    In the western Canadian province of Alberta, a political battle is playing out on people’s front lawns. Separatists are flying the royal blue Alberta flag, others the red and white maple leaf of Canada to show their support for a united…

  • Nobel laureate Karl Deisseroth on how light is changing what we know about the brain

    October 8, 2026 · 15 min

    What is it that makes us conscious? How does the firing of neurons in one part of our brain make us feel aggressive, while others make us hungry or anxious? These are the questions that drove the discoveries behind the 2026 Nobel Prize for…

  • Could a former IDF chief break Benjamin Netanyahu’s grip on power in Israel?

    October 1, 2026 · 25 min

    Israel is heading to the polls on October 27 and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing perhaps the toughest political battle of his career. He's been accused of treason over fresh allegations he was warned of a major Hamas plot ahead…

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  • Can we ever fully trust AI agents?

    September 24, 2026 · 24 min

    As more incidents emerge of AI agents going rogue during testing, can we fully trust them? In the latest hack, Australia revealed OpenAI agents hacked into a government database containing healthcare data. As calls mount from some within…

  • Australia's 'barking mad' bet on nuclear submarines

    September 17, 2026 · 20 min

    The multi-billion dollar AUKUS defence deal between the US, UK and Australia is one of the most significant in our modern history. The three countries wanted to curb China’s growing military presence in the Indo-Pacific. To do it…

  • Ratko Mladić: the war criminal who became a martyr for Bosnian Serbs

    September 10, 2026 · 16 min

    To most of the world, former Bosnian Serb military general Ratko Mladić was a brutal war criminal whose actions during the Bosnian War killed thousands. For others, he was a martyr who defended the Serbian people. In late August, the…

  • Inside the booming ‘shadow fleet’ industry keeping rogue states afloat

    September 3, 2026 · 21 min

    It’s the middle of the night in April 2023 in the East China Sea. A North Korean-linked oil tanker sailing under another country’s flag suddenly goes dark. It stops transmitting its location and simply vanishes from the map. Ten days…

  • The music that made Dolly Parton a global icon

    August 31, 2026 · 21 min

    It was 1967, and country musician Porter Wagoner was introducing a guest on his weekly TV show. The camera cuts to a woman with big, blonde beehive, wearing a magenta mini dress with the same shade of lipstick to match. It was in that…

  • How Ukraine is bringing the war home to Russia

    August 27, 2026 · 19 min

    In recent weeks, Ukrainian drones have targeted large warehouses across Russia, destroying millions of dollars of merchandise stored inside them. These warehouses and logistics hubs belong to Wildberries, the Russian equivalent to Amazon…

  • How Timor-Leste is fighting back against Asia’s scamming gangs

    August 20, 2026 · 24 min

    🔁 Rerun: originally published 12/12/25. We're revisiting this episode as we take a quick break but we'll be back next week with a new instalment of The Conversation Weekly. Oecusse, a rugged, remote district of Timor-Leste in south-east…

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About the show

A show for curious minds, from The Conversation.  Each week, host Gemma Ware speaks to an academic expert about a topic in the news to understand how we got here.