Stuart Kelter interviews Amanda Montell, a linguist, cultural commentator, and host of the weekly podcast Sounds Like a Cult. In addition to essays published in Time, Cosmopolitan, and other magazines, she has published three books. Her first, Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language, released in 2019, established her as a writer who deconstructs biases in our culture, using humor, anecdotes, and discussions of research to enlighten us about our own linguistic and cognitive tendencies. Her second book, Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism, published in 2021, was partially inspired by the experiences experiences of Montell's father, who spent his teen years in the cult Synanon. Her third book, The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality, which was just published in April 2024 and is the subject of today’s interview, explores the cognitive biases that form the warp, if not the woof, of human nature.
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