Stephanie Bastek

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

Family/History

David Levering Lewis digs into his own origin story

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday February 14, 2025

The Epic Viking Saga of the Everyday

Eleanor Barraclough on the ordinary people of Norse history

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday January 31, 2025

Keepers of the Old Ways

Eliot Stein on the people keeping cultural traditions alive

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday January 17, 2025

The Snow Maiden

Our final episode of 2018 is a send-off to the solstice

By Stephanie Bastek | Monday December 30, 2024

Ho Ho Horror

Why not make this Christmas a little darker?

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday December 27, 2024

Kinship and Contradictions

Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz on the complexities of Native American identity

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday December 13, 2024

Overconsumed

Adam Minter on what happens to all the stuff we downsize, declutter, and discard

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday November 29, 2024

Fiction, Fakery, and Factory Farming

Spanish novelist Munir Hachemi talks about Living Things

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday November 15, 2024

American Horror Story

Jeremy Dauber on our obsession with fear

By Stephanie Bastek | Thursday October 31, 2024

The Writing on the Wall

Augustine Sedgewick on his discovery of Henry David Thoreau’s connection to slavery

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday October 18, 2024

Once and Future Food

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday September 29, 2017

Rhapsodies in Blue

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday September 15, 2017

Scientists and Saints

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday September 1, 2017

What the Nose Knows

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday July 28, 2017

From Beer to Eternity

By Stephanie Bastek | Tuesday June 27, 2017

From the Horse’s Mouth

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday June 9, 2017

Twin Peaks

By Stephanie Bastek | Tuesday May 16, 2017

The Fox in the Big House

By Stephanie Bastek | Thursday April 20, 2017

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