Mapping the Mysterious

Alison Bashford is award-winning author and historian of science and medicine. She is Fellow of the British Academy, Honorary Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and Scientia Professor of History at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. Her book, An Intimate History of Evolution: The Story of the Huxley Family won the Nib Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Cundill History Prize. In 2021 she was awarded the Dan David Laureate Prize for contributions to the history of medicine. Her latest book, Decoding the Hand: A History of Science, Medicine, and Magic, is published this year.

Described by The Guardian as ‘one of the country’s finest pop culture historians’, Travis Elborough has been a freelance author, broadcaster and cultural commentator for over two decades now. His books include Atlas of Vanishing Places, winner of Edward Stanford Travel Book Award in 2020 and Through the Looking Glasses: The Spectacular Life of Spectacles.

Maxim Samson is a geographer and the author of Invisible Lines: Boundaries and Belts That Define the World and Earth Shapers: How Humans Mastered Geography and Remade the World. 

He has taught and presented keynote lectures at universities in the United Kingdom, the United States and Indonesia. In addition to working as an adjunct professor at DePaul University in Chicago, he serves as Immediate Past Chair of the American Association of Geographers' Religions and Belief Systems research specialty group and associate editor of the Journal of Jewish Education. In his free time, he enjoys long-distance running and exploring the culture and language of his favorite country, Indonesia.