Stephanie Bastek

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

The Shipping News

Ian Kumekawa tells the story of the global economy in one barge

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday May 9, 2025

Coming Home

Craig Thompson digs up memories of farm labor and the history of ginseng

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday April 25, 2025

Muscle Memory

Michael Joseph Gross on the importance of strength, past and present

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday April 11, 2025

The Most Famous Unknown Artist

David Sheff puts Yoko Ono in the spotlight

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday March 28, 2025

The Root Cause

Padraic X. Scanlan tells the real history of the Irish Potato Famine

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday March 14, 2025

Something New in the West

Kurt Beals on translating All Quiet on the Western Front

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday February 28, 2025

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

Ku Klux Kounty

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday October 7, 2016

How to Travel Without Seeing

By Stephanie Bastek | Monday September 26, 2016

Weapons of Math Destruction

By Stephanie Bastek | Friday September 9, 2016

The Story of Egypt

By Stephanie Bastek | Tuesday August 30, 2016

A Road Unforeseen

By Stephanie Bastek | Tuesday August 23, 2016

Women v. ISIS

By Stephanie Bastek | Tuesday August 23, 2016

I Contain Multitudes

By Stephanie Bastek | Tuesday August 9, 2016

Catullus’ Bedspread

By Stephanie Bastek | Wednesday July 27, 2016

Go West, Young Scholar

By Stephanie Bastek | Monday July 25, 2016

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