To The Best Of Our Knowledge

It's summer, and you might be pulling out your binoculars, filling your bird feeders, and looking up as you hear a melodious song. But for many birdwatchers, it's not just a simple pastime. Identifying bird calls, tracking rare breeds through marshes and waters, and watching our feathered friends as they watch you has turned into true love of birds — an avian obsession.Original Air Date: June 17, 2023Interviews In This Hour: 'Utterly unlike other birds': The inscrutable brilliance of owls — Mark Obmascik on Competitive Bird Watching — The Indelible Myth and Meaning of Ravens — Christopher Benfey on 'A Summer of Hummingbirds'Guests: Jennifer Ackerman, Mark Obmascik, Charles Monroe-Kane, Christopher BenfeyNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

What's the last dream you remember having? Some of us dream every night. But we're in too much of a hurry to remember our dreams or think about them the next day. Others of us are dream-deprived. What if we embrace our dreams — and our night selves — as a way to understand ourselves better, to connect to each other, even to lead a better life?Original Air Date: February 24, 2024Interviews In This Hour: The perils of a 'wake-centric' world — The lives we live inside our dreams — A dreaming mind, illustrated — Embracing your night selfGuests: Rubin Naiman, Kelly Bulkeley, Roz Chast, Annabel Abbs-StreetsNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Most of us have no idea what will happen when we die. But some do — people who actually started the process of dying and then came back with remarkable stories — like meeting dead relatives. Science is not only extending the lives of patients who've been declared clinically dead; it's also beginning to tell us what happens in near-death experiences.Original Air Date: September 21, 2024Interviews In This Hour: Sebastian Junger reckons with the possibility of an afterlife — How science is revolutionizing our ideas about life and deathGuests: Sebastian Junger, Sam ParniaNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

We celebrate Mother's Day with a collection of stories from our archives, by and about moms. Stories about care and about courage — about the work of mothering.Original Air Date: May 13, 2023Interviews In This Hour: The all-encompassing worlds of motherhood and poverty — Eula Biss on 'The Argonauts' — Jacqueline Plumez on Mother Power — Amanda Henry on the Road to Motherhood — Ayelet Waldman on Trying to Be a Decent MotherGuests: Stephanie Land, Eula Biss, Jacqueline Horner Plumez, Amanda Henry, Ayelet WaldmanNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Sharing an episode of “What It's Like to Be…” from author Dan Heath. On the podcast, Dan explores the world of work, one profession at a time, and interviews people who love what they do. He finds out: What does a couples therapist think when a friend asks for relationship advice? Is a Secret Service Agent supposed to pretend like they're not there when they're around the president? What are the 3 clocks that govern the life of a long-haul truck driver? If you've ever met someone whose work you were curious about, and you had 100 nosy questions but were too polite to ask… this is the show for you. In this preview, Dr. Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa [kee-NYO-nes EE no ho sah] (“Dr. Q”), a brain surgeon at the Mayo Clinic, describes his work: zapping parts of the brain to know where to cut, operating a mouth-controlled microscope, and carrying the weight of life-or-death decisions. How do you preserve a mathematician's expertise when removing tumors? And how did Dr. Q go from picking tomatoes to performing brain surgery?You can listen to more episodes of What It's Like to Be at https://link.mgln.ai/ttbookdanheath

It can be hard to enjoy the natural world these days without anxiety. You notice a butterfly on a flower and wonder why you don't see more. How's the monarch population doing this year? And shouldn't there be more bees? The challenge is to live in this time of climate change – but still find joy and refuge in it. Original Air Date: July 27, 2024Interviews In This Hour: Ecologies of love: Heather Swan's stories of insects and the web of life — Becoming edible: Philosopher Andreas Weber's mystical biologyGuests: Heather Swan, Andreas WeberNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Rooted in reality, written with a keen observer's eye, and shaped with a sense of song, documentary poetry tells the truth in an artist's voice. For generations, through wars, crisis, and political upheaval, documentary poets have helped make sense of some of our most difficult moments – by expressing what might otherwise be impossible to say. So what are they writing about today?This episode was produced in partnership with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.Original Air Date: January 13, 2024Interviews In This Hour: The gospel of Suncere Ali Shakur — This is how I drew you — The poetry that bears witness to the everydayGuests: Philip Metres, Suncere Ali Shakur, Kaia Sand, Camille DungyNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

How does someone become an official saint?  Meet Dorothy Day — journalist, radical activist, mother and lay minister to the poor who died in 1980 — who is being considered for sainthood by the Catholic Church. Shannon Henry Kleiber walks in her footsteps through New York City, where she lived and worked, looking for miracles, talking with people whose lives were changed by her, and wondering how and why saints matter today.We are grateful for additional music for this show from Tom Chapin, Si Kahn and the Chapin Sisters. Thanks also to the Dorothy Day Guild, and The Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Marquette University Archives, which houses Dorothy Day's papers and photos.Original Air Date: April 19, 2025Interviews In This Hour: In search of miracles, favors and graces — Inside the ‘agony and ecstasy' of Maryhouse — We are all ‘called to be saints'Guests: Robert Ellsberg, Martha Hennessy, Fr. James MartinNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Maps, whether drawn by hand or by satellite, reflect the time they were drawn for. How will the next generation of cartographers deal with challenges like a world being reshaped by climate change? Original Air Date: December 09, 2023Interviews In This Hour: Why are islands in the South Pacific disappearing? — Cartography in the age of Google Maps — This is your brain on maps — The mysterious music of the 'phantom islands'Guests: Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson, Mamata Akella, Bill Limpisathian, Andrew PeklerNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Some 500 years ago, the Scientific Revolution transformed civilization. It paved the way for new technology and commerce, but it also created a worldview that set humans above and apart from the rest of nature, leading to the abuse of the planet's resources. Today, a new scientific paradigm is taking shape; an understanding that all life on Earth — from the tiniest bacteria to the largest ecosystem — is interconnected. Call it biocentrism or “Gaia 2.0.” Anne and Steve travel to the Island of Knowledge in Italy to meet a new generation of scientists and philosophers.Original Air Date: April 05, 2025Interviews In This Hour: Why the human imagination is both our greatest gift and weapon — Just how smart is a robot dog? — How Galileo helped create the modern world — The new science of 'planetary intelligence'Guests: Peter Tse, Marcelo Gleiser, Adam FrankNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

What can we learn from whales – and whales from us? Technology like AI is fueling new scientific breakthroughs in whale communication that can help us better understand the natural world. And, there's an international effort to give whales a voice by granting them personhood.Special thanks to Ocean Alliance and whale.org for some of the whale recordings heard on this episode.Original Air Date: August 24, 2024Interviews In This Hour: Translating whale, with the help of AI — Searching for a whale alphabet — Giving a voice to the whale ancestors — Roger Payne touches a whaleGuests: Shane Gero, Carl Zimmer, Mere TakokoNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Our lives are so rushed, so busy. Always on the clock. Counting the hours, minutes, seconds. Have you ever stopped to wonder: what are you counting? What is this thing, that's all around us, invisible, inescapable, always running out? What is time?Deep Time is a series all about the natural ecologies of time from To The Best Of Our Knowledge and the Center for Humans and Nature. We'll explore life beyond the clock, develop habits of "timefulness" and learn how to live with greater awareness of the many types of time in our lives.Original Air Date: November 18, 2023Interviews In This Hour: Time, loss and the Big Bang — Finding solace in the vastness of space — Carlo Rovelli's white holes, where time dissolvesGuests: Marcelo Gleiser, Marjolijn van Heemstra, Carlo RovelliNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Music crosses boundaries between traditional and modern, local and global, personal and political. Take jazz — a musical form born out of forced migration and enslavement. We typically think it originated in New Orleans and then spread around the world. But today, we examine an alternate history of jazz — one that starts in Africa, then crisscrosses the planet, following the movements of people and empires -- from colonial powers to grassroots revolutionaries to contemporary artists throughout the diaspora.This history of jazz is like the music itself: fluid and improvisatory.  In this hour, produced in partnership with the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) — a global consortium of 270 humanities centers and institutes — we hear how both African and African-American music have shaped the sound of the world today. Original Air Date: July 04, 2020Interviews In This Hour: How Meklit Hadero Reimagined Ethiopian Jazz — So You Say You Want A Revolution — Reclaiming the Hidden History of South African Jazz — 'We Are All African When We Listen'Guests: Meklit Hadero, Valmont Layne, Gwen Ansell, Ron RadanoFurther Reading:CHCI Ideas from Africa HubNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

It's been five years since the start of the pandemic. Some 1.2 million Americans died of COVID. That's a lot of grief. But our loss is much more than death. Many lost the friendship of the workplace. And for a subset of teenagers, there was the loss of two years of high school. And the list goes on. Many of us are still left unmoored. But maybe our collective grief can bring us together.Original Air Date: March 08, 2025Interviews In This Hour: What happens when a nation doesn't grieve? — What the Civil War can teach us about American grief — How a funeral singer helps us to mournGuests: David Kessler, Drew Gilpin Faust, Lauren DePinoNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Most Americans take their sovereignty for granted — the nation's right to make its own laws and govern its own people. The same rights we recognize in other sovereign nations, with one glaring exception — the Native nations and tribes who were here first. For Native Americans, sovereignty is not some abstract idea. It's an ongoing, daily struggle. Original Air Date: July 13, 2024Interviews In This Hour: The battle over tribal rights in Bad River — Quannah ChasingHorse's two worlds – Native activist and supermodel — Are Indian casinos the key to tribal sovereignty? — No more Native American 'trauma porn'Guests: Mary Mazzio, Quannah ChasingHorse, Steven Andrew Light, David TreuerNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

When you look at your body in the mirror, do you love what you see? Do you pick out the things you don't like? Maybe you've heard of body positivity. But what if we just felt neutral about our bodies? In this episode, we talk about our bodies — how we move through the world in these fleshy vessels, how it feels to exist in our bodies in a world that asks so much from them. How do we live full and embodied lives?Original Air Date: September 30, 2023Interviews In This Hour: Finding Peace in Neutrality: Jessi Kneeland on Rethinking Body Positivity — The Body Speaks: Rae Johnson on Reconnecting with Ourselves to Transform Society — Multiple Identities, One Body: Sami Schalk Discusses Black Disability PoliticsGuests: Jessi Kneeland, Rae Johnson, Sami SchalkNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Some artists work with pen and ink, some use brushes and paint. And some make art out of time. Meet some contemporary artists who are finding new ways to bridge the distance between us and the furthest reaches of time.Deep Time is a series all about the natural ecologies of time from To The Best Of Our Knowledge and the Center for Humans and Nature. We'll explore life beyond the clock, develop habits of "timefulness" and learn how to live with greater awareness of the many types of time in our lives.Original Air Date: February 15, 2025Interviews In This Hour: Crafting cosmic art through deep time — What if clocks were synced to the flow of a river? — Capturing a symphony of time in a dawn chorusGuests: Katie Paterson, Jonathon Keats, Alex BraidwoodNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Jim Thorpe was one of the greatest athletes the world has ever known — a legend in the NFL, MLB, NCAA, and in the Olympics. Today he is being celebrated by a new generation of Native Americans.  Rapper Tall Paul's album is called, “The Story of Jim Thorpe." Tall Paul is an Anishinaabe and Oneida Hip-Hop artist enrolled on the Leech Lake reservation in Minnesota.  Biographer David Maraniss is the author of "Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe." Activist Suzan Shown Harjo is the recipient of a 2014 Presidential Medal of Freedom. She is Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee. Patty Loew is the director of the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research at Northwestern University. She is a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe. Special thanks to Robert W. Wheeler and the Smithsonian for archival audio.Original Air Date: January 14, 2023Interviews In This Hour: Was Jim Thorpe the greatest athlete who ever lived? — The white man's trophy — A hero who looks like me — Indigenous excellence: Hip hop and the legacy of Jim ThorpeGuests: Tall Paul, Suzan Shown Harjo, Patty Loew, David MaranissNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Floods and fires have always been with us, but now we may have crossed over into a new stage of permacrisis. So what does resilience look like when you know this fire or flood won't be the last one? What survival strategies do we need for this age of climate disaster? Original Air Date: February 01, 2025Interviews In This Hour: Resilience or recklessness? The risks of rebuilding where disaster strikes — Can we still talk about 'natural disasters' in the age of climate change? — Why we need better stories to persevere in uncertain timesGuests: Brian Stone, Lorraine Daston, Annalee NewitzNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Americans used to believe that news anchors were basically reporting the truth. But in recent years, trust in journalism has largely evaporated. And that's not an accident as the news media have been weaponized. So what can journalists do to regain the public trust?Original Air Date: June 15, 2024Interviews In This Hour: Journalist Ezra Klein on podcasting, pundits and when to take yourself out of the news — Reclaiming journalism in a fast-changing media landscape — How a hyperlocal newsletter is redefining the ‘news'Guests: Ezra Klein, Deborah Blum, Rob GurwittNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Sometimes the world is just too much. Too much awful news, too many things to worry about, too much to do. When you can't take another headline, can't handle another email, when you know inside you need something deeper than a vacation—maybe it's time for a retreat.Original Air Date: January 18, 2025Interviews In This Hour: Pico Iyer's second home — A plant scientist explores her interior wildernessGuests: Pico Iyer, Monica GaglianoNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

In the first episode of "Luminous," our series about the philosophy and the future of psychedelics, how can psilocybin ease our fears about dying? And how can psychedelics change the way we approach the end of life?Original Air Date: April 08, 2023Interviews In This Hour: How a pioneering psychedelic researcher 'leaned in' to his terminal cancer diagnosis — Dying without fear: How psychedelics can ease the anxiety of terminal illness — The terror and the ecstasy of psychedelicsGuests: Roland Griffiths, Lou Lukas, Anthony BossisNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Maybe it's your grandmother's molasses cookies, the garlicky tomato sauce your spouse cooked when you were first dating, or the chicken noodle soup you made every week when your kids were little. The sights, smells and tastes of certain foods can instantly remind us of a person or transport us back to a particular time in our lives. In this episode, we'll meet kitchen ghosts from Kentucky, hear how religion and food are intertwined, and talk about how flavor evokes emotion – from grief to joy.Original Air Date: May 25, 2024Interviews In This Hour: The comfort and community of ancestral food — Slow down and take a 'flavor trip' — The perfect french fries of Kewaunee, Wisconsin — The surprising intersections of food and faith — Tasting the past: Food memories stir our emotions and sensesGuests: Crystal Wilkinson, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Christina Ward, Joe HardtkeNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Before family photos, or school pictures or Instagram, there were hand-drawn and painted portraits. Throughout the ages, portrait artists have captured expressions and personalities on canvas or paper, and those who view the picture interpret this “likeness” in their own way. We talk with a philosopher, a musician and a novelist about the role of portraits through history, and how we see ourselves —and others — through these deeply personal images.Original Air Date: September 23, 2023Interviews In This Hour: Re-envisioning history: A journey through Black portraiture — The painting tells a story: 'The Marriage Portrait' author on love, loss and layers of meaning in the Italian Renaissance — Portraits of perfection: Discovering Frans Hals' legacy in HaarlemGuests: Peter Brathwaite, Maggie O'Farrell, Steven Nadler, Thijs Gerbrandy, Norbert MiddelkoopNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

The longest nights of the year are here, but how many of us will see them? The global spread of light pollution is making it harder to experience dark skies and natural darkness. Learning how to reconnect with the planet's ancient nocturnal rhythms can be profoundly restorative. Nature writers and darkness activists tell us what we're missing.Deep Time is a series all about the natural ecologies of time from To The Best Of Our Knowledge and the Center for Humans and Nature. We'll explore life beyond the clock, develop habits of "timefulness" and learn how to live with greater awareness of the many types of time in our lives.Original Air Date: December 21, 2024Interviews In This Hour: Listening to the song of the night — Adjusting our eyes to wonders of the nocturnal worldGuests: Sam Lee, Leigh Ann HenionNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

We get the message before we're out of training pants – when the going gets tough, look on the bright side, make lemonade out of lemons and just do it. We're going to consider the exact opposite – the wisdom of giving up and letting go. Because sometimes, the strongest and most courageous thing you can do is walk away. Original Air Date: April 27, 2024Interviews In This Hour: The boundary-breaking power of fasting — How do we know when to call it quits? — Escaping the tyranny of certaintyGuests: John Oakes, Adam Phillips, Maggie JacksonNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Have you ever wondered how plants find enough light and water? How they ward off attacks from predators? It turns out they're a lot smarter than you realize. Some plants can hear a caterpillar munching on its leaves and then send out distress signals to activate their immune system. Certain flowers can trick bees into pollinating them, even when there's no pollen. Plants also have memories. And they may even be able to see.Original Air Date: December 07, 2024Interviews In This Hour: Plants don't have brains, so why are they so smart? — How do trees ‘talk' to each other?Guests: Zoë Schlanger, Suzanne SimardNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

AI can do amazing things – write your term papers, sequence your genes, maybe replace your therapist. But even super-intelligence has limits. So, does AI really have a mind — or a soul? We'll explore the frontiers of artificial intelligence — from robots painting masterpieces to software engineers trying to create god-like machines.Original Air Date: March 30, 2024Interviews In This Hour: Stop worrying about deepfakes — Does AI have a soul? — Can robots paint a masterpiece?Guests: Walter Scheirer, Meghan O'Gieblyn, Sougwen 愫君 ChungNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Every click on your computer, every swipe on your smartphone, leaves a data trail. Information about who you are, what you do, who you love, the state of your mind and body… so much data about you, expanding day by day in the digital clouds. The question is—do you care? Would owning your data, or having more digital privacy, make life better? And what happens to all that data when you die?Original Air Date: November 22, 2024Interviews In This Hour: A former child test subject seeks the data that shaped her life — In an age of surveillance, do you still care about your privacy? — When you die, what will happen to your data?Guests: Susannah Breslin, Lowry Pressly, Carl ÖhmanNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

We all feel better after a good cry. In fact, humans are the only animals who cry emotional tears. But what about people who don't cry? And have you ever wondered why a sad song or movie makes you cry?Original Air Date: August 05, 2023Interviews In This Hour: Hip-hop artist Dxtr Spits on teaching men to cry — The evolution and neuroscience of tears — What happens when an actor criesGuests: Dxtr Spits, Michael Trimble, Jen PlantsNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Sometime in the last couple of years, America's collective morning routine shifted. We used to start the day with coffee. Now it's coffee and Wordle. Or Spelling Bee. Or both, plus the crossword. We're living in a golden age of word games – which is fun, and one way to get just a tiny bit of relief when the world feels out of control. Original Air Date: November 09, 2024Interviews In This Hour: Getting into the puzzle mindset — Welcome to my crossworldGuests: A. J. Jacobs, Anna SchectmanNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

For all the talk about how psychedelics might transform psychiatric care, there's still a fascinating question at the heart of psychedelic science. Is it the mind-blowing experience that fundamentally changes a person's outlook on life? Or is it the powerful molecules that rewire the brain?Original Air Date: December 16, 2023Interviews in this hour:Does psychedelic therapy need the trip? - Will psychedelics replace antidepressants? - Spiritual warriors in the psychedelic undergroundGuests:David Olson, Charles Raison, Rachel HarrisNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

As a culture we've long been fascinated by witchcraft, with witches through the ages practicing magic and making spells. Even through the spread of misinformation, and when they've been hunted and silenced. We take you from the 17th century to the online witch communities of today.Original Air Date: October 30, 2021Interviews in this hour:WitchTok, the super-connected coven - Are you now, or have you ever been, a witch? The witch hunt of Kepler's mother - From alchemy to internet witchcraft - the thousand-year history of magic - Spellcraft, field hockey and Emilio Estevez - the girl power of novelist Quan Barry's teen witchesGuests:Honey Rose, Rivka Galchen, Chris Gosden, Quan BarryNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

What's the last dream you remember having? Some of us dream every night. But we're in too much of a hurry to remember our dreams or think about them the next day. Others of us are dream-deprived. What if we embrace our dreams — and our night selves —  as a way to understand ourselves better, to connect to each other, even to lead a better life?Original Air Date: February 24, 2024Interviews In This Hour: The perils of a 'wake-centric' world — The lives we live inside our dreams — A dreaming mind, illustrated — Embracing your night selfGuests: Rubin Naiman, Kelly Bulkeley, Roz Chast, Annabel Abbs-StreetsNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

What would it be like to live in a world where magic is still alive? Not weird, not woo-woo, just ordinary. 400 years ago, consulting a magician in downtown London was as unremarkable as calling a plumber today. Even now, there are places where magic never died – like Iceland, where 54 percent of the population believes in elves, or thinks they might exist. Original Air Date: October 12, 2024Interviews In This Hour: Why do Icelanders believe in elves? — Deborah Harkness uncovers the real history of witches — Practical magic and the “cunning folk” of Tudor EnglandGuests: Nancy Marie Brown, Deborah Harkness, Tabitha StanmoreNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

In 2020, Donald Trump won 84 percent of the white evangelical vote. Lately, he's been leaning even more deeply into the rhetoric of Christian nationalists. Who are they, and what's their role in the evangelical church? We talk with some Southern Baptists today, whose views may surprise you. Original Air Date: March 09, 2024Interviews In This Hour: The 'simmering violence' of Donald Trump and Christian nationalism — Examining the role of Southern Baptist women — Why one Black pastor left the Southern BaptistsGuests: Jeff Sharlet, Beth Allison Barr, John OnwuchekwaNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

In the world of internet influencers and YouTube stars, it's not enough to be ordinary anymore. You need to be special. But where did this craze for personal branding come from? Why are we so obsessed with ourselves? To understand this cult of the self, we need to go back to 19th century spiritual movements and the rise of the huckster — and also the myth of rugged individualism. But if we're always shouting “Me me me,” what are we losing? What has it cost us?Original Air Date: February 03, 2024Interviews In This Hour: If nobody sees you online, do you exist? — How personal branding became an American religion — Why rugged individualism is a dangerous myth — The philosophers who invented the modern selfGuests: Angelo Bautista, Tara Isabella Burton, Alissa Quart, Andrea WulfNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Most of us have no idea what will happen when we die. But some do—people who actually started the process of dying and then came back with remarkable stories—like meeting dead relatives. Science is not only extending the lives of patients who've been declared clinically dead; it's also beginning to tell us what happens in near-death experiences.Original Air Date: September 21, 2024Interviews In This Hour: Sebastian Junger reckons with the possibility of an afterlife — How science is revolutionizing our ideas about life and deathGuests: Sebastian Junger, Sam ParniaNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Rooted in reality, written with a keen observer's eye, and shaped with a sense of song, documentary poetry tells the truth in an artist's voice. For generations, through wars, crisis, and political upheaval, documentary poets have helped make sense of some of our most difficult moments – by expressing what might otherwise be impossible to say. So what are they writing about today?This episode was produced in partnership with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.Original Air Date: January 13, 2024Interviews In This Hour: The gospel of Suncere Ali Shakur — This is how I drew you — The poetry that bears witness to the everydayGuests: Philip Metres, Suncere Ali Shakur, Kaia Sand, Camille DungyNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Maps, whether drawn by hand or by satellite, reflect the time they were drawn for. How will the next generation of cartographers deal with challenges like a world being reshaped by climate change? Original Air Date: December 09, 2023Interviews In This Hour: Why are islands in the South Pacific disappearing? — Cartography in the age of Google Maps — This is your brain on maps — The mysterious music of the 'phantom islands'Guests: Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson, Mamata Akella, Bill Limpisathian, Andrew PeklerNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Human creativity — whether it's solving a tough problem or writing a novel — is one of our defining traits. It's also deeply mysterious. Where does that creative spark come from?Original Air Date: February 09, 2019Interviews In This Hour: A Neuroscientist and a Novelist Put Creativity Under a Microscope — Is This The Price of Genius? — Alma Mahler: 'Malevolent Muse' or Early Feminist Composer? — Was The Art Worth All The Pain?Guests: Heather Berlin, Siri Hustvedt, Jim Holt, Mary Sharrat, Nathaniel Mary QuinnNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

What can we learn from whales – and whales from us? Technology like AI is fueling new scientific breakthroughs in whale communication that can help us better understand the natural world. And, there's an international effort to give whales a voice by granting them personhood.Special thanks to Ocean Alliance and whale.org for some of the whale recordings heard on this episode.Original Air Date: August 24, 2024Interviews In This Hour: Translating whale, with the help of AI — Searching for a whale alphabet — Giving a voice to the whale ancestors — Roger Payne touches a whaleGuests: Shane Gero, Carl Zimmer, Mere TakokoNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.Categories: whales, language, marine life, oceans

How we live is indelibly intertwined with the care and empathy we give to each other. What if we put care into helping Americans find homes and build dwellings, into keeping their bodies and minds sound, and finding meaningful and well-paid work? In this three part series, "To The Best Of Our Knowledge" and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project bring you real life stories about economic struggle in our time, as well as ideas for solutions.Original Air Date: November 19, 2022Interviews In This Hour: Do they need to know that I'm blind? — The work of care is vital. Why don't we pay like it is? — A sonnet for a lineworker — Barbara Ehrenreich on writing the American labor storyGuests: Andrea Dobynes Wagner, Angela Garbes, Rodrigo Toscano, Barbara EhrenreichNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

How we live is indelibly intertwined with the care and empathy we give to each other. What if we put care into helping Americans find homes and build dwellings, into keeping their bodies and minds sound, and finding meaningful and well-paid work? In this three part series, "To The Best Of Our Knowledge" and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project bring you real life stories about economic struggle in our time, as well as ideas for solutions. Post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health challenges can push people into poverty. Meanwhile, the experience of financial desperation can also create even more trauma, even more suffering. How do you break the cycle? How do we truly care for people mentally and financially?If you or someone you know are having mental health struggles, we wanted to make sure you are aware of some resources. The National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available 24 hours a day by calling 9-8-8. The National Alliance on Mental Illness reminds us that one in five people in the US has a mental health concern every year. You can find support and education at their web site, nami.org.Original Air Date: November 12, 2022Interviews In This Hour: Trauma and poverty: The perfect storm experienced by U.S. veterans — Learning to cope when mental health care feels out of reach — More than one way to treat a mind — How harm reduction disrupts painful cycles of addictionGuests: Alex Miller, Katie Prout, Daniel Bergner, Maia SzalavitzNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

How we live is indelibly intertwined with the care and empathy we give to each other. What if we put care into helping Americans find homes and build dwellings, into keeping their bodies and minds sound, and finding meaningful and well-paid work? In this three part series, "To The Best Of Our Knowledge" and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project bring you real life stories about economic struggle in our time, as well as ideas for solutions. In the first of three episodes of "Going For Broke" all about the care economy, we're thinking about housing. Many of us would consider it a basic human right. But in America, it can be hard to come by.Original Air Date: November 05, 2022Interviews In This Hour: When the walk home from school keeps changing — Creating a compassionate geography — More supportive housing can start with sharing space. And upending assumptions. — The infrastructure of careGuests: Bobbi Dempsey, David Harvey, Annabelle Gurwitch, Justin Garrett MooreNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

It can be hard to enjoy the natural world these days without anxiety. You notice a butterfly on a flower and wonder why you don't see more. How's the monarch population doing this year? And shouldn't there be more bees? The challenge is to live in this time of climate change – but still find joy and refuge in it. Original Air Date: July 27, 2024Interviews In This Hour: Ecologies of love: Heather Swan's stories of insects and the web of life — Becoming edible: Philosopher Andreas Weber's mystical biologyGuests: Heather Swan, Andreas WeberNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Our lives are so rushed, so busy. Always on the clock. Counting the hours, minutes, seconds. Have you ever stopped to wonder: what are you counting? What is this thing, that's all around us, invisible, inescapable, always running out? What is time?Original Air Date: November 18, 2023Interviews In This Hour: Time, loss and the Big Bang — Finding solace in the vastness of space — Carlo Rovelli's white holes, where time dissolvesGuests: Marcelo Gleiser, Marjolijn van Heemstra, Carlo RovelliNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Most Americans take their sovereignty for granted - the nation's right to make its own laws and govern its own people. The same rights we recognize in other sovereign nations, with one glaring exception — the Native nations and tribes who were here first. For Native Americans, sovereignty is not some abstract idea. It's an ongoing, daily struggle. Original Air Date: July 13, 2024Interviews In This Hour: The battle over tribal rights in Bad River — Quannah ChasingHorse's two worlds – Native activist and supermodel — Are Indian casinos the key to tribal sovereignty? — No more Native American 'trauma porn'Guests: Mary Mazzio, Quannah ChasingHorse, Steven Andrew Light, David TreuerNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.Categories: tribal sovereignty, sovereignty, native american, land, land back

It's easy to get caught up in the hype about how psychedelics might revolutionize the treatment of mental illness. But there are also lots of ethical concerns. And probably none are so troubling as the charges of exploitation and cultural appropriation. The fact is, the knowledge about many psychedelics — like magic mushrooms and ayahuasca — comes from the sacred ceremonies of Indigenous cultures. But over the past century, Western scientists and pharmaceutical companies have been going into these cultures, collecting plants and synthesizing their chemical compounds.Even if science is all about building on the knowledge of earlier discoveries, what is the psychedelic industry's ethical responsibility? Can psychedelics be decolonized?Original Air Date: October 21, 2023Interviews In This Hour: The Tragic Story of Maria Sabina's Sacred Mushrooms — Empowering Indigenous voices in the psychedelic industry — The long history of psychedelic theft — Spirit Medicine: Yuria Celidwen's vision for an ethical psychedelicsGuests: Michael Pollan, Dennis McKenna, Erika Dyck, Katherine MacLean, Sutton King, Rachel Fernandez, Lucas Richert, Yuria CelidwenNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Radical politics and radical movements are on the rise everywhere. Against racial violence, and climate change; against gender inequality, corporate greed, low wages, oil pipelines, opioids.  Maybe at heart they all have a common cause.  Maybe they're all — in one way or another — a rebellion against capitalism.Original Air Date: February 11, 2023Interviews In This Hour: The Communist Manifesto still inspires — The radical philosopher mapping the crises of capitalism — Are we living through a 'hinge point' moment?Guests: China Miéville, Nancy FraserNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Jim Thorpe was one of the greatest athletes the world has ever known — a legend in the NFL, MLB, NCAA, and in the Olympics. Today he is being celebrated by a new generation of Native Americans.  Rapper Tall Paul's album is called, “The Story of Jim Thorpe." Tall Paul is an Anishinaabe and Oneida Hip-Hop artist enrolled on the Leech Lake reservation in Minnesota.  Biographer David Maraniss is the author of "Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe." Activist Suzan Shown Harjo is the recipient of a 2014 Presidential Medal of Freedom. She is Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee. Patty Loew is the director of the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research at Northwestern University. She is a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe. Special thanks to Robert W. Wheeler and the Smithsonian for archival audio.Original Air Date: January 14, 2023Interviews In This Hour: Was Jim Thorpe the greatest athlete who ever lived? — The white man's trophy — A hero who looks like me — Indigenous excellence: Hip hop and the legacy of Jim ThorpeGuests: Tall Paul, Suzan Shown Harjo, Patty Loew, David MaranissNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.