The Joel Shepherd Podcast

Stephen Poropat is a paleontologist with the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum, and Curtin University. He's a brilliant speaker on all things dinosaurs, and I've wanted to have him on the podcast for a long time.Australian dinosaurs are especially interesting because with the fragmenting geology of the ancient super-continent of Pangaea, Australia was part of a landmass that inclu

Salvatore Babones is a quantitative comparative sociologist whose current research focuses on the political sociology of democracy. He recently hit the headlines in India because of an article he published in the Quadrant Magazine, titled 'Indian Democracy at 75; Who are the barbarians at the gates?'I was immediately fascinated, because I've long been fascinated by India's rise to

Dorinda Hafner is an international TV celebrity chef, actor, businesswoman and best-selling author with five TV series and eight books to her credit. She's been named 'African-Australian Woman of the Year', and in August 2012 she was awarded the title of 'Living Legend' at the Sydney Opera House, where Prime Minister Julia Gillard named her as a 'People of Australia Ambassador'.Dor

Pratim Ranjan Bose is an Indian business journalist, op-ed writer and researcher who is based in India's North East. His work has appeared in the Hindu Business Line, MSN India, Swarajya, The South Asia Journal and others, while he's also made appearances on MSN India and CNN News 18.I met Pratim nine years ago when I was doing a PhD in Indian foreign policy (never completed, you d

Don DeBats is Professor and Head of American Studies and Director of the Jeff Bleich Center for the US Alliance in Digital Technology, Security, and Governance. His research interests cover contemporary and past US politics; he is a frequent commentator on current US politics and has written extensively on US political history. In this episode we discuss the idea that the current p