Welcome!
My name is Cody, and I’m a PhD student in social psychology at Oxford. I write about psychology, travel, and the creative process, especially in writing and science. In my writing, I try to find an intersection between our theoretical understanding of the world and life as it’s actually lived. I believe that the point of life — one of them, anyway — is to appreciate as much of it as possible, as deeply as possible. When it comes to analysis, everything is fair game.
Here are a few of my favorite recent pieces:
For Free: On what it is about music that moves us emotionally
As with a Harvest: A story about a killer in the Rwandan genocide
Does Travel Reduce Prejudice?: A think-piece on intergroup contact theory
I’ve also written a lot about graduate school, especially how to do it better and how it can be improved:
Some other miscellaneous pieces I love include:
A four-part biographical sketch of Gordon Allport (audio version)
My favorite reads of 2021 (featuring Doors, Plots, Planets, and… Hungarians)
I also host a podcast, called Cognitive Revolution. You find can a list of my favorite episodes here. These were three of the most fun:
Benjamin Moser, Pulitzer Prize winning author
Steven Pinker, cognitive scientist and author
Nancy Kanwisher, neuroscientist and general purpose badass
By far my favorite form of writing is the travelogue. In 2020, I released a season of podcast called Notes from the Field, featuring my travel writing. Three of my favorite episodes from that season are:
An example of a more recent travelogue is my piece on football pitches in Oxford.
If you enjoy these or any of my other pieces, please consider becoming a premium subscriber. This goes a long way toward helping to support my work — especially as I transition from life as a PhD student to producing writing and podcasts full-time. You can get free month by subscribing at the link below.
I produce two series for premium subscribers.
(1) Re-Viewed — in which I revisit the works (books, podcasts, movies, etc) that have most influenced or inspired me. A couple teasers:
Journey by Moonlight, on Antal Szerb’s masterpiece of 20th century Hungarian literature
(2) Cog Rev Redux — in which I revisit old episodes of my podcast to give the backstory on my relationship with the guest and what from that conversation has stuck with me years later. Here are two freebees:
Paul Bloom
Steven Pinker
Thanks again for subscribing. If you ever want to get in contact with me, you can comment on any of my posts, reply to any of my emails, or send a note straight to my inbox. I’d love to hear from you.
As ever,
CEK
