Stephanie Bastek

Stephanie Bastek is the senior editor of the Scholar and the producer/host of the Smarty Pants podcast.

A Solstice Send-Off

A Slavic folktale to tell around the holiday fire

By Stephanie Bastek | Wednesday December 23, 2020

Pencil-Pushing Spies

The secret history of how Imperial Russia kept an eye on its Chinese neighbor

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday December 18, 2020

If I Only Had a Brain!

Inside the extraordinary minds of people who feel others’ emotions, hear hallucinations, and get lost in their own homes

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday December 11, 2020

I Will Not Make Any More Boring Podcasts

What John Baldessari’s conceptual art can teach us about life during the pandemic

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday December 4, 2020

Sitting Down With Witold Rybczynski

The writer and architect talks chairs

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday November 27, 2020

Four-Legged Friends

How the horse has carried us through history

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday November 20, 2020

The Ghosts of Nazi Germany

We’ve all but forgotten the frenzy of witch trials and wonder doctors of the postwar period—but why?

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday November 13, 2020

Berlin Bops

How East German punks tore down the wall that divided them

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday November 6, 2020

Morbid and Misunderstood

The science and history of books bound in human skin

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday October 30, 2020

In Search of the Good Death

Examining our changing relationship with the afterlife

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday October 23, 2020

Kinship and Contradictions

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday December 13, 2024

Overconsumed

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday November 29, 2024

American Horror Story

By Stephanie Bastek | Thursday October 31, 2024

The Writing on the Wall

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday October 18, 2024

This Woman’s Work

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday October 4, 2024

Queen of the Night

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday September 20, 2024

A Toothsome Tale

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday September 6, 2024

A Rebel to Remember

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday August 23, 2024

Going for Gold

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday August 9, 2024

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