

Keen On America
Andrew Keen
Nobody asks sharper or more impertinent questions than Andrew Keen. In KEEN ON, Andrew cross-examines the world’s smartest people on politics, economics, history, the environment, and tech. If you want to make sense of our complex world, check out the daily questions and the answers on KEEN ON.
Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best-known technology and politics broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running show How To Fix Democracy and the author of four critically acclaimed books about the future, including the international bestselling CULT OF THE AMATEUR.
Keen On is free to listen to and will remain so. If you want to stay up-to-date on new episodes and support the show, please subscribe to Andrew Keen’s Substack. Paid subscribers will soon be able to access exclusive content from our new series Keen On America – keenon.substack.com
Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best-known technology and politics broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running show How To Fix Democracy and the author of four critically acclaimed books about the future, including the international bestselling CULT OF THE AMATEUR.
Keen On is free to listen to and will remain so. If you want to stay up-to-date on new episodes and support the show, please subscribe to Andrew Keen’s Substack. Paid subscribers will soon be able to access exclusive content from our new series Keen On America – keenon.substack.com
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jul 29, 2022 • 40min
Darrell M. West; How Seriously Should We Take the Paranoia Amongst Our Educated Elite About the Crisis of America?
Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now.In this episode, Andrew is joined by Darrell M. West, author of Power Politics: Trump and the Assault on American Democracy.Darrell M. West is vice president of the Governance Studies program at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of Divided Politics, Divided Nation: Hyperconflict in the Trump Era. West lives in Washington, DC.

Jul 29, 2022 • 30min
Simran Jeet Singh: What the Sikh Religion Can Teach Us About Disrupting Bias, Building Empathy, and Seeking Wisdom
Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now.In this episode, Andrew is joined by Simran Jeet Singh, author of The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life.Simran Jeet Singh is executive director for the Aspen Institute’s Religion & Society Program and a visiting professor of history and religion at Union Theological Seminary. He is a Soros Equality Fellow with the Open Society Foundations, and in 2020 TIME magazine recognized him among sixteen people fighting for a more equal America. He is a columnist for the Religion News Service, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and on CNN. Singh is the author of the award-winning children’s book Fauja Singh Keeps Going. He lives in New York City with his family.

Jul 28, 2022 • 35min
Erika L. Sánchez: Why Risk-Taking, Rebellious Immigrants Capture the Spirit of What It Should Mean To Be a 21st Century "American"
Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now.In this episode, Andrew is joined by Erika L. Sánchez, author of Crying in the Bathroom.Erika L. Sánchez is a Mexican-American poet, novelist, and essayist. Her debut poetry collection, Lessons on Expulsion, was published by Graywolf in July 2017, and was a finalist for the PEN America Open Book Award. Her debut young adult novel, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, published in October 2017 by Knopf Books for Young Readers, was a New York Times bestseller and a National Book Awards finalist. It is now is being made into a film directed by America Ferrera. Sanchez was a 2017-2019 Princeton Arts Fellow, a 2018 recipient of the 21st Century Award from the Chicago Public Library Foundation, and a 2019 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

Jul 28, 2022 • 35min
Matthew Ball: How the Metaverse Will Revolutionize Everything and Why That Might Not Be Such a Bad Thing
Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now.In this episode, Andrew is joined by Matthew Ball, author of The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything.Matthew Ball is the CEO of Epyllion and the former global head of strategy for Amazon Studios. He has written for the New York Times, the Economist, and Bloomberg. His self-published essays on the Metaverse have been read millions of times and cited by leaders at Epic Games, Facebook, Tencent, and Coinbase. Ball divides his time between Toronto, New York City, and Miami.

Jul 27, 2022 • 37min
Orna Ophir: How a Pathology of "Schizophrenia" Might Reflect a Broken Society As Much as a Broken Mind
Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now.In this episode, Andrew is joined by Orna Ophir, author of Schizophrenia: An Unfinished History.Orna Ophir is an Associate Director of the DeWitt Wallace Institute of Psychiatry: History, Policy & the Arts, Weill Cornell Medical College, and an Adjunct Associate Professor at New York University, where she teaches at The Gallatin School for Individualized Studies and is affiliated with the Department of Comparative Literature. Ophir is a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City and a member of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA), serving on its Committee on the History of Psychoanalysis.

Jul 27, 2022 • 33min
Leah McLaren: A Daughter's Memoir of a Mom Who Passed Down Her Trauma and Made Their Lives Impossible to Disentangle
Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now.In this episode, Andrew is joined by Leah McLaren, author of Where You End and I Begin.Leah McLaren is an award-winning journalist, screenwriter, and novelist. Her two novels, The Continuity Girl and A Better Man, have been published in half a dozen countries and translated into several languages. She has also written for film and television. She began her career as a columnist for the Globe and Mail, where she spent a decade on staff and was posted to the London bureau. For many years she was Europe correspondent for Maclean’s magazine, for whom she now serves as a contributing editor. She is a frequent contributor to many respected publications, including the Guardian, the Observer Magazine, the Spectator, and Toronto Life. In 2013, she won a gold National Magazine Award in the long-features category. She was born in rural Ontario, and grew up in Cobourg and Toronto, Ontario. Today she lives in London, England, with her husband and two sons.

Jul 27, 2022 • 33min
Alice Mah on Plastics, the One Word That Best Describes Our Global Environmental Crisis
Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now.In this episode, Andrew is joined by Alice Mah, author of of Plastic Unlimited: How Corporations Are Fuelling the Ecological Crisis and What We Can Do About It.Alice Mah is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick.

Jul 26, 2022 • 44min
Harald H.H.W. Schmidt: Why "The End of Medicine As We Know It" Will Make All of Us Healthier and Happier
Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now.In this episode, Andrew is joined by Harald H.H.W. Schmidt, author of of The End of Medicine as We Know It— And Why Your Health Has a Future.Professor Harald H.H.W. Schmidt is a German physician and pharmacist, chairing the Department of Pharmacology and Personalized Medicine, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, at the University of Maastricht. Netherlands.After his double degree in medicine and pharmacy, he distinguished himself as an internationally highly recognized researcher in the fields of drug therapy, elucidation of the causes of disease and prevention.He headed and heads various research programs as an Advanced Investigator of the European Research Council (ERC), coordinator of Horizon 2020 project REPO-TRIAL and Collaboration on Science and Technology (COST) actions.He founded companies with which he brought therapeutics and diagnostics to market, is co-editor of the journal Network and Systems Medicine, and has written over 200 peer-reviewed international publications, reviews and books with a Hirsch factor of 92 and over 30,000 citations.Part of his early research training he conducted in the USA with the later Nobel Laureate, Ferid Murad, and led international institutes and research centers in Germany, Australia and the Netherlands. He is also the editor of a textbook on drug therapy and several expert handbooks in drug therapy.As a broadly experience and critical analyst, he recognized the fundamental conceptual crisis in medicine and became one of the pioneers of systems medicine, i.e. a complete redefinition of what we actually call a disease, how we organize medicine and how we use Big Data to heal rather than treat and ideally to prevent diseases.He is a dedicated, international keynote speaker, podcaster, YouTuber and initiator of the German patientenwiewir.de patient platform. One of his hobbies is sports. For a long time, he was a soccer referee. His social engagement at Rotary International and different clubs introduced him to Homeless World Cup and sharpened is awareness and engagement for homeless people. Recently, his interested in sociocritical and political contemporary art recently started him to create his own small oeuvre under the concept of realitychanges.de, which has been selected for several solo and group exhibitions

Jul 25, 2022 • 46min
Ariel Ezrachi: How Cities, Rather Than Big Tech, Should Be the Engine for a More Equitable Digital Future
Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now.In this episode, Andrew is joined by Ariel Ezrachi, co-author of of How Big-Tech Barons Smash Innovation—And How to Strike Back.Ariel Ezrachi is the Slaughter and May Professor of Competition Law and a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford. He serves as the Director of the University of Oxford Centre for Competition Law and Policy. He is co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (OUP) and the author, co-author, editor and co-editor of numerous books, including Virtual Competition – The Promise and Perils of the Algorithm Driven Economy (2016, Harvard), EU Competition Law – An Analytical Guide to the Leading Cases (6th ed, 2018, Hart), Global Antitrust Compliance Handbook (2014, OUP), Research Handbook on International Competition Law (2012 EE), Intellectual Property and Competition Law: New Frontiers (2011, OUP), Criminalising Cartels: Critical Studies of an International Regulatory Movement (2011, Hart), Article 82 EC – Reflections on its recent evolution (2009, Hart) and Private Labels, Brands and Competition Policy (2009, OUP).

Jul 18, 2022 • 30min
Monique Roffey: The Common Sense of Magic Realism and Why The Mermaid of Black Conch is a "Caribbean Novel"
Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now.In this episode, Andrew is joined by Monique Roffey, author of of The Mermaid of Black Conch.Monique Roffey is a senior lecturer in creative writing at the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is the author of seven books, four of which are set in Trinidad and the Caribbean region. The Mermaid of Black Conch won the 2020 Costa Book of the Year Award and was short-listed for several other major prizes. Roffey’s work has appeared in The New York Review of Books, Wasafiri, and The Independent. She was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and educated in the United Kingdom. Her website is moniqueroffey.com.


