Welcome to the Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures podcast! The aim of the podcast is to bring to light new stories and new perspectives on mountain landscapes and mountain communities around the world, with help from a wide range of expert guests. The podcast showcases exciting new academic research on mountain history, and work by creative practitioners engaging with mountain landscapes in a range of different media.
In this episode Jason König and Faidon Moudopoulos-Athanasiou interview Giannis Apostolou about his work as a landscape archaeologist. Giannis is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. Giannis first explains his family connections to the mountains, and introduces the topography and culture of the region he works on, Grevena in northern Greece. He then lays out the key objectives of his research: to reconstruct the landscapes and history of regions that in the past have ...
10 Sept 2026
Seven Summits with Vanessa Archontidou
In this episode Jason König interviews Vanessa Archontidou. Vanessa is a mountaineer and explorer. She was a member of the first female Greek team to reach the summit of Everest, in 2019, and she has climbed the Seven Summits, the highest mountain on all seven continents. Side by side with her mountaineering career, she is an EU Climate Pact Ambassador, and founder of the organisation AWomanCanBe and the outdoor guiding company Up&out. We start by talking about Vanessa’s first experience ...
27 Aug 2026
Boulouki with Ionas Sklavounos and Marilena Mela
In this episode Jason König and Faidon Moudopoulos-Athanasiou interview Ionas Sklavounos and Marilena Mela about the work of Boulouki. Boulouki is a collective that studies and transmits traditional building crafts as an active and sustainable body of knowledge, through educational and participatory projects, many of them in mountain areas in Greece. It brings together architects, engineers, craftspeople, researchers, heritage professionals, creators, and local communities who co-shape its wo...
3 Jul 2026
Trekking Hellas with Stefanos Sidiropoulos
In this episode Jason König and Maria Christodoulou interview Stefanos Sidiropoulos about his work running the Bafi Refuge on Mount Parnitha and the outdoor company Trekking Hellas, and about why it matters to get more young people into the mountains. Stefanos talks about the 20th-century history of the Bafi refuge, and about his own experience of taking on the lease of the refuge in 2004, which involved living up on the mountain full time, initially with very few visitors, but then with a hu...
24 Jun 2026
Excavating Mount Lykaion with David Gilman Romano
In this episode Jason König interviews David Gilman Romano, from the University of Arizona, about his many years of archaeological research on Mount Lykaion in Arkadia. We start by discussing David’s first visit to Mount Lykaion, in 1978. David sketches out the mythological importance of the site, which was claimed as one of the birthplaces of Zeus, its importance for Arcadian identity in antiquity, and its athletic significance, as the venue for the festival of the Lykaia which was held high...
17 Jun 2026
Anavasi with Penelope Matsouka
In this episode Jason König interviews Penelope Matsouka, co-founder of Anavasi, about map-making in the mountains of Greece. We start by talking about Penelope’s experience of the mountains as a student, and about the first steps in setting up Anavasi, which has had a transformative impact on the accessibility of the mountains of Greece over the last few decades. She discusses the past and future challenges for cartography, including the inaccessible and incomplete military maps which ...
27 May 2026
The Greek Herbalist with Maria Christodoulou
In this episode Jason König interviews Maria Christodoulou about her work as a herbalist and about the mountain plants of Greece. Maria is a clinical herbalist. She runs ancient herbal medicine courses and herbal tours around Greece. Her book Herbs of Greece: Four Seasons of Ancient Plants for Modern Health is forthcoming with Timber Press in 2027. You can see more about Maria's work at her website. We talk first about Maria's experience of moving to Greece as an adult, encountering a landsca...
20 May 2026
Under the Forest with Faidon Moudopoulos-Athanasiou
In this episode Jason König interviews Faidon Moudopoulos-Athanasiou about his work as a landscape archaeologist in the mountainous region of Zagori in northwest Greece. Faidon is Marie-Curie Postdoctoral Researcher in the Computational Archaeology Research Group at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, working on a project entitled ‘Under the Forest’. His 2022 book, The Early Modern Zagori of Northwest Greece offers a very wide-ranging reassessment of the landscape archaeology of the region i...
13 May 2026
Lifelines with Julian Hoffman
In this episode Jason König interviews Julian Hoffman about living in the mountainous region of Prespa in northern Greece, and about his latest project on the Aoos river. Julian is the prize-winning author of The Small Heart of Things (2012), Irreplaceable: The Fight to Save our Wild Places(2019), and most recently Lifelines: Searching for Home in the Mountains of Greece (2025), which tells the story of his move to Prespa, where he has lived for the last two decades. We start by talking...
22 Apr 2026
Boundary stones of Mt Taygetos with Socrates Koursoumis
In this episode Jason König interviews Socrates Koursoumis about his archaeological work in the mountains of Greece, especially on Mount Taygetos. Socrates is an archaeologist of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture. He has been a staff member of the Central Department of the Ministry, as well as the Ephorates of Lesbos, Attica, Elia, Messenia and the Corinthia. He has undertaken several excavations in Attica, the Peloponnese, the Aegean islands, and Crete, and carried out three surveys at Lavreo...
15 Apr 2026
History of the Pindus with Molly Greene
In this episode Jason König interviews Molly Greene about her research on the history of the Pindus mountains in Ottoman Greece, from 1400-1821. Molly is Professor of History and Hellenic Studies at Princeton University. Her research has focused on many different aspects of the history of the Mediterranean Basin, the Ottoman Empire, and the Greek world. Her interests include the social and economic history of the Ottoman Empire, the experience of Greeks under Ottoman rule and the early modern...
8 Apr 2026
Paths of Greece with Fivos Tsaravopoulos
In this episode Jason König interviews Fivos Tsaravopoulos, founder and manager of Paths of Greece. This is the first episode in our new Mountains of Greece series within the Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures podcast project. Paths of Greece was founded in 2010 as a social co-operative enterprise, and has played a leading role over the last fifteen years in developing new hiking routes across Greece. We talk first about Fivos' childhood spent on archaeological sites around Greece, and then h...
25 Mar 2026
somewhere nowhere with Harriet and Rob Fraser
In this episode, Jason König and Jonathan Pitches interview Harriet and Rob Fraser, collectively known as somewhere nowhere, an environmental art and research practice undertaken collaboratively using their skills as a writer and photographer respectively. Harriet and Rob use photography, poetry and other art forms, along with walking and research to focus on what they identify as sensitive environments and cultures. They work alongside scientists, farmers and analysts as well as public organ...
11 Mar 2026
Peak Pursuits with Caroline Schaumann
In this episode, Jason König and Jonathan Westaway interview Caroline Schaumann about her work on the history of mountaineering. Caroline is Professor of German Studies at Emory University. She combines an interest in ecocriticism and the environmental humanities with expertise in the history of exploration and mountaineering. Her 2020 book Peak Pursuits: The Emergence of Mountaineering in the Nineteenth Century (Yale University Press) offers a reassessment of the history of explor...
25 Feb 2026
Summit Positions with Peter Hansen
In this episode, Jason König and Jonathan Westaway interview Peter Hansen about his research on mountain history in the Alps and the Himalayas. Peter Hansen is Professor of History and Director of International and Global Studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. He has been a leading figure in the recent expansion of interest in mountaineering history. His 2013 book The Summits of Modern Man: Mountaineering after the Enlightenment explored the idea of the summit position—i...
11 Feb 2026
Why Everest? with Lachlan Fleetwood
In this episode, Jason König and Jonathan Westaway interview Lachlan Fleetwood about his research on Himalayan history. Lachlan is a historian of science, empire, geography and environment. He completed his PhD in History at the University of Cambridge in 2020, and has subsequently held research fellowships at University College Dublin, Yale and Munich. His first book, Science on the Roof of the World: Empire and the Remaking of the Himalaya, was published by Cambridge University Press in May...
28 Jan 2026
Into the Mountain with Simone Kenyon
In this episode Jonathan Pitches and Jason König interview Simone Kenyon about her work as a practice researcher, performer, artist and producer. We focus especially on her work as the choreographer and artistic creator of the place-sensitive performance piece Into the Mountain, inspired and informed by the lyrical and embodied prose of Nan Shepherd’s 1974 book, The Living Mountain. Building on six years of preparatory work Into the Mountain drew on the input of nearly 100 women, many o...
16 Dec 2025
Xenophobic Mountains with Alexandra Cotofana
In this episode, Jason König and Jonathan Westaway interview Alexandra Cotofana about her work on the mountains of Romania. Alexandra is a cultural anthropologist and Assistant Professor at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi. She is the author of Xenophobic Mountains. Landscape sentience reconsidered in the Romanian Carpathians, (2022), and co-editor of Sentient Ecologies: Xenophobic Imaginaries of Landscape (2022). The episode begins with a discussion of Alexandra’s experience of growing in...
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
1 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
1 ratings
Contact Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures
Guest appearances
Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Host of Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures?
Claim your podcast to manage its listing and keep your show details accurate.
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show Podcast research with Pod Engine
