Zoe Strimpel is turning her sights from artsy academic interests to much more concrete ones.

Cultural warfare and events in the Middle East have left her feeling, she says, as if she's in a 'ceaselessly enraged world'.

So instead of her usual contacts in sociology, anthropology and political science, she's seeking out engineers, agriculturalists and silversmiths - 'people who actually know something about the everyday things we all depend on and how it all works.'

'I find this far more dazzling these days than a new insight on cultural Marxism, and also less depressing,' Zoe writes, 'in a world that feels as if things are in freefall, and increasingly subject to entropic and evil forces.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong