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Well, that's about it for the story of planet Earth, poor Earth, reduced to not much more than a piece of burnt coal. But, as Deb Olin Unferth shows in her latest electrifying novel, life and love persist, even in the most unexpected, inhospitable places.Two women meet on a beach of artificial sand. One was raised in a pod in the ocean and the other may or may not be a robot. Their love—or any love—seems so unlikely. Earth is severely depopulated. Some people have given up, gone off to Mars. Others pursue eternal life as digital code. And yet others, like Dylan and Melanie, are holdouts—and some of those holdouts are constructing a vast molecular collection in hopes that a future person may be alive to make a new Earth. Foolhardy? Misguided? Quixotic? Probably. But what can a human (or a robot) do?By the end of Unferth's wild, poetic, revelatory, and slyly philosophical novel, the reader has traveled to the very edges of the cosmos as a “soul globule” and between grains of sand as a microscopic tardigrade. A slim book tackling big questions (is all matter conscious? will we tech ourselves into salvation, or out of existence?), Earth 7 (Graywolf Press 2026) is a poignant inquiry into death, mourning, and indefatigable life, the most exhilarating work to date by one of our most original and beloved writers. Deb Olin Unferth is the author of seven books, including Barn 8 and Wait Till You See Me Dance. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and four Pushcart Prizes, and was a National Books Critics Circle Award finalist. Her work has appeared in Harper's, The Paris Review, Granta, and McSweeney's. She's a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches for the Michener Center, the New Writers' Project, and she also directs the Pen City Writers, the prison creative-writing program at a south Texas penitentiary. Recommended Books: Victor Pelevin, Omon Ra Jean Stafford, A Mother in History Tanya Tagaq, Split Tooth Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Well, that's about it for the story of planet Earth, poor Earth, reduced to not much more than a piece of burnt coal. But, as Deb Olin Unferth shows in her latest electrifying novel, life and love persist, even in the most unexpected, inhospitable places.Two women meet on a beach of artificial sand. One was raised in a pod in the ocean and the other may or may not be a robot. Their love—or any love—seems so unlikely. Earth is severely depopulated. Some people have given up, gone off to Mars. Others pursue eternal life as digital code. And yet others, like Dylan and Melanie, are holdouts—and some of those holdouts are constructing a vast molecular collection in hopes that a future person may be alive to make a new Earth. Foolhardy? Misguided? Quixotic? Probably. But what can a human (or a robot) do?By the end of Unferth's wild, poetic, revelatory, and slyly philosophical novel, the reader has traveled to the very edges of the cosmos as a “soul globule” and between grains of sand as a microscopic tardigrade. A slim book tackling big questions (is all matter conscious? will we tech ourselves into salvation, or out of existence?), Earth 7 (Graywolf Press 2026) is a poignant inquiry into death, mourning, and indefatigable life, the most exhilarating work to date by one of our most original and beloved writers. Deb Olin Unferth is the author of seven books, including Barn 8 and Wait Till You See Me Dance. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and four Pushcart Prizes, and was a National Books Critics Circle Award finalist. Her work has appeared in Harper's, The Paris Review, Granta, and McSweeney's. She's a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches for the Michener Center, the New Writers' Project, and she also directs the Pen City Writers, the prison creative-writing program at a south Texas penitentiary. Recommended Books: Victor Pelevin, Omon Ra Jean Stafford, A Mother in History Tanya Tagaq, Split Tooth Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Well, that's about it for the story of planet Earth, poor Earth, reduced to not much more than a piece of burnt coal. But, as Deb Olin Unferth shows in her latest electrifying novel, life and love persist, even in the most unexpected, inhospitable places.Two women meet on a beach of artificial sand. One was raised in a pod in the ocean and the other may or may not be a robot. Their love—or any love—seems so unlikely. Earth is severely depopulated. Some people have given up, gone off to Mars. Others pursue eternal life as digital code. And yet others, like Dylan and Melanie, are holdouts—and some of those holdouts are constructing a vast molecular collection in hopes that a future person may be alive to make a new Earth. Foolhardy? Misguided? Quixotic? Probably. But what can a human (or a robot) do?By the end of Unferth's wild, poetic, revelatory, and slyly philosophical novel, the reader has traveled to the very edges of the cosmos as a “soul globule” and between grains of sand as a microscopic tardigrade. A slim book tackling big questions (is all matter conscious? will we tech ourselves into salvation, or out of existence?), Earth 7 (Graywolf Press 2026) is a poignant inquiry into death, mourning, and indefatigable life, the most exhilarating work to date by one of our most original and beloved writers. Deb Olin Unferth is the author of seven books, including Barn 8 and Wait Till You See Me Dance. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and four Pushcart Prizes, and was a National Books Critics Circle Award finalist. Her work has appeared in Harper's, The Paris Review, Granta, and McSweeney's. She's a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches for the Michener Center, the New Writers' Project, and she also directs the Pen City Writers, the prison creative-writing program at a south Texas penitentiary. Recommended Books: Victor Pelevin, Omon Ra Jean Stafford, A Mother in History Tanya Tagaq, Split Tooth Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-fiction
Well, that's about it for the story of planet Earth, poor Earth, reduced to not much more than a piece of burnt coal. But, as Deb Olin Unferth shows in her latest electrifying novel, life and love persist, even in the most unexpected, inhospitable places.Two women meet on a beach of artificial sand. One was raised in a pod in the ocean and the other may or may not be a robot. Their love—or any love—seems so unlikely. Earth is severely depopulated. Some people have given up, gone off to Mars. Others pursue eternal life as digital code. And yet others, like Dylan and Melanie, are holdouts—and some of those holdouts are constructing a vast molecular collection in hopes that a future person may be alive to make a new Earth. Foolhardy? Misguided? Quixotic? Probably. But what can a human (or a robot) do?By the end of Unferth's wild, poetic, revelatory, and slyly philosophical novel, the reader has traveled to the very edges of the cosmos as a “soul globule” and between grains of sand as a microscopic tardigrade. A slim book tackling big questions (is all matter conscious? will we tech ourselves into salvation, or out of existence?), Earth 7 (Graywolf Press 2026) is a poignant inquiry into death, mourning, and indefatigable life, the most exhilarating work to date by one of our most original and beloved writers. Deb Olin Unferth is the author of seven books, including Barn 8 and Wait Till You See Me Dance. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and four Pushcart Prizes, and was a National Books Critics Circle Award finalist. Her work has appeared in Harper's, The Paris Review, Granta, and McSweeney's. She's a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches for the Michener Center, the New Writers' Project, and she also directs the Pen City Writers, the prison creative-writing program at a south Texas penitentiary. Recommended Books: Victor Pelevin, Omon Ra Jean Stafford, A Mother in History Tanya Tagaq, Split Tooth Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature
How do distant galaxies form? If you have two distant clouds of hydrogen, why does one turn into a star and another doesn't? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome Dr. Erika Hamden, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Arizona. If Erika looks familiar, that might be because her TED Talk or “New Frontiers,” the TV show she hosts on Arizona Public Media. As always, though, we start off with the day's joyfully cool cosmic thing, Artemis II, our first manned mission around the moon since 1972. Chuck, Allen and Erika share their excitement watching the mission, and especially the landing, while we watch the “only good video of the moon ever taken with a phone” that Reid Wiseman shot on his iPhone. Dr. Hamden tells us about her research into how distant stars and galaxies form. To fill in the blanks of this cosmic puzzle, she observes hydrogen in its elemental or molecular form – not looking at the stars themselves, but the emissions from hydrogen atoms. You'll learn about star formation in our galaxy and how Erika discerns the moment that a new star “first turns on.” Then it's time for our first audience question. Emma B. asks, “How many galaxies are there?” Erika says that in the observable universe, it's an outrageously large number, probably hundreds of billions or more. We take a look at the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image, which reflects a “tiny, tiny part of the sky,” where every dot except for the 3 stars is a galaxy. And that's just the universe we can see. Chuck asks Erika to tell us about her book, “Weird Universe: Everything We Don't Know about Space (and why it's important).” Professor Hamden shares her belief that anyone can understand anything if it's explained the right way to them. She talks about a poem by Rebecca Elson called “Responsibility to Awe” and the responsibility scientists have to share the wonders of the world with everybody. For our next audience question, Ava asks, “What is the craziest job in Astronomy that you have seen AI take over from humans?” Erika talks about using LLMs to review the digitized photographic plates of stars and the massive amount of data from the Vera Rubin Observatory, and also which activities still require human creativity. Speaking of creativity, it turns out that before becoming an astrophysicist, Erika got a diploma at Le Cordon Bleu in London and had a career as a professional chef. She still loves to cook and shares her recipe (below) for the Swedish-style cardamom buns she shows us in the episode. Finally, before we go, we congratulate Emily on recently being awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. She shares some wisdom and advice she's learned on her journey that she also tells her students, but according to her it's a bit “cheesy” so we'll let her tell you in the show. If you'd like to know more about Dr. Hamden, you can keep up with her research, follow her on her social media accounts, and find out about her book by visiting her website. We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. Erika's Cardamom Bun Recipe You can find the original recipe here on Cecilia Tolone's Substack. Erika's Modifications: “My changes are that I add more milk- about 75 grams more, because American flour is drier and Tucson is especially dry! And I played around with adding chiltipin flakes (a local, very spicy pepper) to the filling to make it kind of spicy. It's great! Finally, I use whole cardamom seeds from Penzey's that I grind before putting in.” Credits for Images Used in this Episode: Artemis II end of mission splashdown. – Credit: NASA/ Bill Ingalls. Artemis II astronaut Reid Wiseman's iPhone video of the Earth and the Moon with his iPhone 17 ProMax, using 8x zoom, which he said is comparable to what he was seeing from the Artemis II capsule. – Credit: NASA /Reid Wiseman Hydrogen observed in the Milky Way Galaxy. – Credit: HI4PI Collaboration The Hubble Ultra Deep Field. – Credit: NASA/ESA Example of a photographic plate of stars, including notation marks, aka a Schmidt ammonia-sensitized, near-IR (Kodak I-N) objective-prism plate exposed for 1 hr. – Credit: STScI/ESO/Carnegie. Additional Credits: A Responsibility to Awe, by Rebecca Elson CHAPTERS 00:00 - We welcome University of Arizona Astrophysics Prof. Dr. Erika Hamden 02:43 - Joyfully Cool Cosmic Thing: Artemis II Mission and Return 08:14 - How Do Distant Stars and Galaxies Form? 15:46 -How Many Galaxies Are There? 18:25 - Weird Universe and Scientists' Responsibility to Awe 24:06 - What Jobs in Astronomy Has AI Taken Over from Humans? 31:33 - Chef Erika and her Swedish-style Cardamom Buns 39:10 - Parting Advice and Wisdom from Professor Erika Hamden #LIUniverse #CharlesLiu #AstronomyPodcast #ErikaHamden #GalaxyFormation
In this episode, we feature historian Sven Beckert discussing his sweeping new book, “Capitalism: A Global History.” We dig into how capitalism emerged over the last thousand years, why it's not just “markets” but a specific, historically created social order, and how it became a genuinely global system built on “connected diversity” of labor regimes—from wage work and peasant farming to slavery and colonial extraction. Beckert explains the crucial role of state power, empire, and the countryside in capitalism's rise, and traces how different historical phases—mercantile, industrial, and neoliberal—have reshaped our world. We also talk about capitalism's dual legacy of technological dynamism and staggering inequality, and why “denaturalizing” capitalism matters for how we think about today's crises, from inequality to climate change. If you're interested in the history of capitalism, global political economy, or the roots of our current social order, this conversation offers an accessible big‑picture overview from an author recognized as one of the world's leading scholars on the history of global capitalism, 19th-century United States history, and labor. About Sven Beckert Sven Beckert is the Laird Bell Professor of History at Harvard University and one of the leading historians of capitalism working today. Born in Germany and trained in history, economics, and political science before earning his PhD at Columbia University, Beckert's research focuses on the economic, social, and political history of capitalism in the nineteenth-century United States and from a global perspective. He is the author of the widely acclaimed “Empire of Cotton: A Global History”—winner of the Bancroft Prize and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. At Harvard, Beckert co-chairs the Program on the Study of Capitalism and the Weatherhead Initiative on Global History, teaches courses on American and global capitalism, and has helped lead major projects on the university's historical ties to slavery, while receiving numerous honors and fellowships, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Order the book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/541160/capitalism-by-sven-beckert/ Sven's Website: https://www.svenbeckert.com/ Sven's Substack: https://substack.com/@svenbeckert Greg's book review on MLToday: https://mltoday.com/thinking-about-capitalism/ Pat's Substack: https://patcummings.substack.com/ #SvenBeckert#CapitalismAGlobalHistory#capitalismhistory#historyofcapitalism#globalcapitalism#economichistory#politicaleconomy#laborhistory#EmpireofCotton#industrialcapitalism#mercantilecapitalism#neoliberalism#globalization#globaltrade#slaveryandcapitalism#colonialism#connecteddiversity#Harvardhistorian#workingclasshistory#capitalismandinequality#capitalismanddemocracy#capitalismandclimatechange#worldhistory#Marxisthistory#criticaltheory#PatCummings#PatrickCummings#GregGodels#ZZBlog#ComingFromLeftField#Podcast#zzblog#mltoday
Episode 528 / Beverly FishmanBeverly Fishman is an artist born in 1955 in Philadelphia, who lives and works in Detroit. She received her Master of Fine Arts in 1980 from Yale University and her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Philadelphia College of Art in 1977.Her work has been the subject of recent solo exhibitions at CUE Art Foundation, New York, NY; Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI; Gavlak Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago, IL; KOTARO NUKAGA, Tokyo, Japan; Kravets Wehby Gallery, New York, NY; Library Street Collective, Detroit, MI; Louis Buhl & Co., Detroit, MI; Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; Ronchini Gallery, London, United Kingdom; SOCO Gallery, Charlotte, NC; The Contemporary Dayton, Dayton, OH; and Walter Storms Galerie, Munich, Germany.She has been included in group exhibitions at numerous international institutions including the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY; Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul, Turkey; Circulo de Bessa Artes, Madrid, Spain; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH; Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI; Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI; Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, MI; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; National Academy of Design, New York, NY; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS; The Drawing Center, New York, NY; Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC; and White Columns, New York, NY, among others.Her work is in the collections of Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul, Turkey; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH; Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI; Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI; Eli and Edythe Broad Museum, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI; MacArthur Foundation Collection, Chicago, IL; Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University, Houston, TX; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS; University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI; Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC, and elsewhere.Beverly was inducted as a National Academician of the National Academy of Design in 2020. She is the recipient of the Anonymous Was A Woman Award; the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Hassam, Speicher, Betts, & Symons Purchase Award; a Guggenheim Fellowship in the Fine Arts; and a Fellowship Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Episode 528 / Beverly FishmanBeverly Fishman is an artist born in 1955 in Philadelphia, who lives and works in Detroit. She received her Master of Fine Arts in 1980 from Yale University and her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Philadelphia College of Art in 1977.Her work has been the subject of recent solo exhibitions at CUE Art Foundation, New York, NY; Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI; Gavlak Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago, IL; KOTARO NUKAGA, Tokyo, Japan; Kravets Wehby Gallery, New York, NY; Library Street Collective, Detroit, MI; Louis Buhl & Co., Detroit, MI; Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; Ronchini Gallery, London, United Kingdom; SOCO Gallery, Charlotte, NC; The Contemporary Dayton, Dayton, OH; and Walter Storms Galerie, Munich, Germany.She has been included in group exhibitions at numerous international institutions including the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY; Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul, Turkey; Circulo de Bessa Artes, Madrid, Spain; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH; Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI; Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI; Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, MI; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; National Academy of Design, New York, NY; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS; The Drawing Center, New York, NY; Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC; and White Columns, New York, NY, among others.Her work is in the collections of Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul, Turkey; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH; Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI; Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI; Eli and Edythe Broad Museum, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI; MacArthur Foundation Collection, Chicago, IL; Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University, Houston, TX; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS; University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI; Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC, and elsewhere.Beverly was inducted as a National Academician of the National Academy of Design in 2020. She is the recipient of the Anonymous Was A Woman Award; the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Hassam, Speicher, Betts, & Symons Purchase Award; a Guggenheim Fellowship in the Fine Arts; and a Fellowship Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
We are resharing this episode in memory of Michael Harrison, who passed away on April 17, 2026. He was 67. In this episode, we discuss the life and work of musician and Sufi teacher Hazrat Inayat Khan with composer/pianist and Inayat Khan scholar Michael Harrison. Hazrat Inayat Khan ( July 1882 – 5 February 1927) was an Indian professor of musicology, singer, exponent of the saraswati vina, poet, philosopher, and pioneer of the transmission of Sufism to the West. At the urging of his students, and on the basis of his ancestral Sufi tradition and four-fold training and authorization at the hands of Sayyid Abu Hashim Madani (d. 1907) of Hyderabad, he established an order of Sufism (the Sufi Order) in London in 1914. By the time of his death in 1927, centers had been established throughout Europe and North America, and multiple volumes of his teachings had been published. Michael Harrison (October 24, 1958 - April 17, 2026) forged a new approach to composition through just intonation (the system of tuning based on pure harmonic proportions). His works blend classical music traditions of Europe and North India. He is a Guggenheim Fellowship and NYFA Artist Fellowship recipient. Michael created dedicated tuning systems for many of his works. He pioneered a structural approach to composition in which the proportions of harmonic relationships organically determine other musical elements such as pitch, duration, and dynamics. He also invented the “harmonic piano,” a grand piano that plays 24 notes per octave, documented in the Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Harrison seeks expressions of universality via the physics of sound – music that brings one into a state of concentrated listening as a meditative and even mind-altering experience. At the time of his death he was working on “The Raga Cycle”, a series of albums charting the hours of the day through Hindustani raga. The first installment, Evening Light, was released in March 2026 on Cantaloupe Records. More albums in the series were recorded before he became too ill to continue. They will be released in the years ahead. Donations in his memory can be made to the Michael Harrison Foundation for Just Music at JustMusic.org. Topics 00:00 Podcast Welcome 00:22 Encore Tribute 02:28 Mysticism Book Intro 02:49 Spiritual Music Path 04:32 Conservatory And Tonality 06:37 Daily Raga Practice 12:55 Voice Breath And Wazifa 16:48 Creation As Vibration 20:14 Harmony East And West 24:07 Math Of Consonance 25:32 Temperament Versus Just 28:24 Tuning The Soul Quote 32:03 Piano Retuning Journey 35:54 432 Versus 440 39:56 Music As Universal Religion 46:02 Cage Oliveros Deep Listening 51:16 Commentary And Curriculum 53:08 Teaching Programs 55:26 Closing Thanks And Outro Links Michael Harrison — His Own Work Evening Light: Raga Cycle I — Cantaloupe Music (2026) Seven Sacred Names — Bandcamp (2021) Revelation: Music in Pure Intonation — Cantaloupe Music (2007) From Ancient Worlds — michaelharrison.com Time Loops with Maya Beiser — Cantaloupe Music (2012) Michael Harrison website Episode Music Michael Harrison — "Mureed" from Seven Sacred Names (2021, Cantaloupe Music) Michael Harrison — "Alim: Polyphonic Raga Malkauns" from Seven Sacred Names (2021, Cantaloupe Music) Michael Harrison — "Qadr: Etude in Raga Bhimpalasi" from Seven Sacred Names (2021, Cantaloupe Music) Hazrat Inayat Khan — "Purvi Khal: Kamli Wale Tope Sabkuchhvare" (2022, Primitiv) Michael Harrison – “Sami: The Acoustic Constellation” from Seven Sacred Names (2021, Cantaloupe Music) Hazrat Inayat Khan The Mysticism of Sound and Music — Goodreads Inayat Khan 1909 78rpm Recordings — YouTube Hazrat Inayat Khan — Wikipedia The Inayat Order — Pir Zia Inayat Khan Turning Toward the Heart — SAND Podcast with Pir Zia Inayat Khan Teachers & Lineage Pandit Pran Nath — Wikipedia La Monte Young — Wikipedia Terry Riley — Wikipedia Pir Vilayat Khan — Wikipedia Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan — Wikipedia Other Composers & Artists Referenced Pauline Oliveros — Center for Deep Listening® — Michael Reiley's teacher; creator of Deep Listening practice Pauline Oliveros — paulineoliveros.us John Cage — Wikipedia — composer, Zen Buddhist, creator of 4'33" Arvo Pärt — Wikipedia Hildegard of Bingen — Wikipedia Ravi Shankar — Wikipedia George Harrison Concert for Bangladesh — YouTube Roomful of Teeth — website John Eliot Gardiner — Wikipedia Josquin des Prez — Wikipedia Claudio Monteverdi — Wikipedia J.S. Bach — Wikipedia Programs & Institutions Arts, Letters and Numbers — Creative Music Intensive Michael Harrison Foundation for Just Music — donations in his memory Manhattan School of Music — where the harmonic piano is now archived Contact SAND podcast@scienceandnonduality.com Support the mission of SAND and the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member
Photographer and educator Eli Durst joins PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf to discuss his photobooks, artistic practice, and the evolving definition of documentary photography. Durst reflects on what it means to push and rethink documentary work today, from image-making to long-term engagement with subjects and place. Drawing on his experience working with Joel Meyerowitz, Durst also shares how he learned to build a sustainable life as an artist, balancing creative work with family. He discusses the role of mentorship, ongoing learning, and how collaboration with publishers and editors can reshape a project through new perspectives on sequencing and editing. The conversation also explores the importance of community in documentary practice, and how embedding within a community is often central to the work, sometimes even more than the act of photographing itself. https://www.elidurst.com https://www.instagram.com/durzt Eli Durst is an American artist whose work explores the social forces and group dynamics that shape the suburban American experience. Durst's photographs have been exhibited internationally and have been featured in Aperture, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Vogue, and The Atlantic among others. He has published three monographs: The Community (Mörel, 2020), The Four Pillars (Loose Joints, 2022), and The Children's Melody (Gnomic 2025). Durst lives and works in Austin, Texas, where he teaches at the University of Texas College of Fine Arts. Durst has received numerous prizes, including the 2016 Aperture Portfolio Prize and a 2017 Aaron Siskind Individual Photographer's Fellowship Grant, and a 2025 Guggenheim Fellowship.
Mea Culpa welcomes back one of the most dialed-in journalists of the last several decades, Jane Mayer. Mayer has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1995. As the magazine's chief Washington correspondent, she covers politics, culture, and national security. Previously, she worked at the Wall Street Journal, where she covered the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, the Gulf War, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1984, she became the paper's first female White House correspondent. She is the author of the 2016 Times best-seller “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right,” She also wrote the 2008 Times best-seller “The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals,” which was named a National Book Award finalist. She is the co-author, with Jill Abramson, of “Strange Justice,” also a National Book Award finalist, and, with Doyle McManus, of “Landslide: The Unmaking of the President 1984-1988.” She has won numerous prizes and awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Nellie Bly Award for Investigative Reporting. Michael and Jane dig into Clarence Thomas and the Supreme Court, GOP's scary policies, and Trump's legal woes.
Patrick Radden Keefe is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the New York Times bestselling author of London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth (Doubleday). Patrick's other books include the New York Times bestsellers Rogues, Empire of Pain (winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction), and Say Nothing, which received a National Book Critics Circle Award and was named one of the Twenty Best Books of the Twenty-First Century by The New York Times Book Review. He is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Magazine Award, and the Orwell Prize for Political Writing. He served as an executive producer on the awardwinning FX series Say Nothing and is also the creator and host of the podcast Wind of Change, which The Guardian and Entertainment Weekly named the #1 podcast of 2020. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc. Get How to Write a Novel, the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors. Subscribe to Brad's email newsletter. Support the show on Patreon Merch Instagram TikTok Bluesky Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In the words of the Los Angeles Times, “A new book by (Patrick Radden) Keefe means drop everything and close the blinds; you'll be turning pages for hours.” Keefe is an award-winning investigative journalist, a staff writer at the New Yorker, the creator of a popular podcast, and the author of six books, including the bestsellers Rogues, Empire of Pain, and Say Nothing. “When I go out looking for a good story,” says Keefe, “I almost never find one. Instead, the really good ones tend to fall in my lap.” Say Nothing was prompted by reading an obituary. A wild-seeming rumor about the 90's heavy metal band The Scorpions led to the podcast Wind of Change, a sweeping tale of government secrets, Soviet spies, propaganda, and 90's power ballads. To call his research “meticulous” is an understatement. Keefe's book, Snakehead, required over 300 interviews to complete. Say Nothing found him speaking to thousands of sources. While writing about the opioid epidemic in EMPIRE OF PAIN, Keefe was blocked from speaking to the Sackler family, so instead, he amassed thousands of correspondences from personal emails to Bar Mitzvah announcements. Though Keefe's doggedness recalls the detective stories that inspired him early on, he is perhaps more hopeful than hardboiled. By approaching those forces that appear too vast to unravel, he proves that even institutions and systems that seem unassailable can, in fact, be broken down and examined—one interview, one receipt, one wedding invitation at a time. Like all the great whodunnits, his books contain breathtaking plot twists. Though he has, on at least one occasion, solved a murder mystery, Keefe is less interested in pointing to a perpetrator and more interested in holding up a mirror. The question at the heart of his work is one that pertains to everyone: What does it mean to be human? His newest book, London Falling, is an investigation into the mysterious death of 19-year-old Zach Brettler and its connection to both London's criminal underworld and its elite circles. The author Katherine Rundell says, “Nobody writes like Patrick Radden Keefe; nobody makes achieving something so powerfully complex and difficult look so easy. It's a form of intellectual generosity and, I think, a form of genius.” Patrick Radden Keefe is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of the New York Times bestsellers Rogues, Empire of Pain, and Say Nothing, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, was selected as one of the ten best books of 2019 by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and The Wall Street Journal, and was named one of the top ten nonfiction books of the decade by Entertainment Weekly. His previous books are The Snakehead and Chatter. His work has been recognized with a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing and the Orwell Prize for Political Writing. He is also the creator and host of the eight-part podcast Wind of Change.
Ada Limón's poems expertly combine brilliant observations of our complex world with a tender sincerity. As a two-term Poet Laureate of the United States, Limón focused on using poetry to connect us more strongly with the natural world. She is the author of seven books of poetry, including Startlement: New & Selected Poems; The Hurting Kind, The Carrying; and Bright Dead Things. Her newest book, Against Breaking, is an expanded version of her final talk as Poet Laureate - and a celebration of poetry's ability to heal and connect us. Her awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and a MacArthur Fellowship. Limón was raised in Sonoma, California. On April 14, 2026, Ada Limon came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with KQED host Alexis Madrigal, which was a co-presentation with Litquake.
Photographer, director, and producer Mitch Epstein joins PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf to discuss his storied career in photography, environmental activism, and artistic influences. From early inspiration by Garry Winogrand to guidance from John Szarkowski, Epstein reflects on how he evolved into a research-driven, project-based photographer focused on environmental issues. He also discusses his work in film as a production designer and co-producer on Mississippi Masala (1991) and Salaam Bombay! (1988), and shares insights on privilege, longevity, and sustaining a life in photography. https://www.mitchepstein.net Mitch Epstein has photographed the landscape and culture of America for half a century. A graduate of Cooper Union, he became a pioneer of 1970s fine-art color photography. Epstein has been inducted into the National Academy of Design (2020) and was awarded the Prix Pictet (2011), Berlin Prize (2008), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2002). His work has been shown and collected by museums worldwide, including New York's Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Gallery in Washington DC, The Art Institute of Chicago, Tate Modern in London, Museum of Modern Art in Paris, Los Angeles's Getty Museum and LACMA, the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, TX, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Recent exhibitions include “American Nature” (photographs and multi-media installations) at the Gallerie d'Italia museum in Torino, Italy (2024-25); “In India,” (photographs and films) at Les Rencontres d'Arles in the Abbey of Montmajour, Arles, France (2022); and “Property Rights” at The Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas (2020-21). Epstein's seventeen books, mostly published by Steidl Verlag, include Recreation (2022, 2005), Property Rights (2021), New York Arbor (2013), American Power (2009), and Family Business (2004), winner of the Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award. Epstein's mixed media work includes films, moving image with sound installations, and performance. In 2013, The Walker Art Center commissioned and premiered a theatrical rendition of his American Power series. Directed by Annie B. Parsons and Paul Lazar, the performance combined original live music by Erik Friedlander and live storytelling by Epstein; and included video, projected photographs, and archival material. In documentary film, Epstein was director of Dad and Retail (2003) and director of photography for India Cabaret (1988). He was production designer and co-producer for the feature films Mississippi Masala (1991) and Salaam Bombay! (1988). Epstein's most recent exhibition, American Nature, assembles three self-contained yet integrated photographic series (Old Growth, Property Rights, American Power); a multi-channel video-sound installation with tonal music by Mike Tamburo and Samer Ghadry filmed performing in the forest (Forest Waves), and a looped projection with music by David Lang, performed by Maya Beiser (Darius Kinsey: Clear Cut). Together these five pieces investigate notions of wilderness and human society; and their both collaborative and troubled co-existence. Epstein lives in New York City and Massachusetts.
“Don't.” That's the first of Roger Rosenblatt's More Rules for Aging, and the underpinning of many of the new book's 114 others. Don't try to catch that 20-something jogger who just left you in the dust on your morning walk. Don't criticize. Don't worry about awards or accolades—or, for that matter, regrets. And don't retreat, especially to Vermont. Embedded in these wry and often funny maxims is genuine, hard-won wisdom gathered from a life now in its ninth decade of reading, teaching, and perhaps above all, writing. Rosenblatt is here to share some of it with us today. Roger Rosenblatt is a New York Times guest essayist whose work has been published in 15 languages, the author of five New York Times Notable Books and three best sellers. He has received two George Polk Awards for journalism, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Emmy, and a Peabody. He held the Briggs-Copeland appointment in the teaching of writing at Harvard, has received seven honorary doctorates, the Kenyon Review Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement, and a Fulbright to Ireland, where he played on the Irish international basketball team. He received his PhD in English and American literature and language from Harvard Griffin GSAS in 1968.
Today I have the immense pleasure of speaking with author Anna Badkhen about her new collection of essays, To See Beyond. Badkhen talks about how her experiences as a veteran war correspondent exposed her to War's multiple forms of violence, destruction, and carnage, and how that compelled her to write these essays about survival, and hope. Speaking from many global locations and from a wide range of historical and cultural perspectives, from antiquity to the present, Badkhen's essays draw together amazingly imaginative connections across peoples, and ways of seeing. Ultimately, we are shown how to both recognize violence, and hope as well. Anna favors us by reading select passages from this marvelous, and necessary, book.Anna Badkhen's new essay collection, To See Beyond, is out from Bellevue Literary Press in April 2026. She is the author of seven other published books, most recently Bright Unbearable Reality, which was a finalist for the 2026 Tiziano Terzani International Literary Prize and was longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award and for the 2023 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature. Badkhen's awards include the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Barry Lopez Visiting Writer in Ethics and Community Fellowship, and the Joel R. Seldin Award from Psychologists for Social Responsibility for writing about civilians in war zones.A former war correspondent, Badkhen grew up in the Soviet Union and is a US citizen. She is an Artist-in-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania.
There aren't many contemporary poets who have name recognition beyond poetry circles, but Ada Limón, a MacArthur fellow and former two-term poet laureate of the United States, certainly does. Limón is one of the most decorated poets working today. A winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, a finalist for the National book Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award as well as the Griffin Poetry Prize. Her latest project is the book ‘Startlement: New and Selected Poems' and it is published by Milkweed Editions.
At a time when social media and our societal structures demand our constant attention to the rigged algorithm, we've stopped paying attention to what really matters, the world around us. Using poetic examples and stories from real life, poet Ada Limón invites us to remember that we are alive and will help us reconnect to what matters. According to Limón, “Poets often are very good at the myopic and being present, deeply looking, paying attention. But I think we're also good at the long view, expanding outward, thinking about the planet itself, thinking about what happens when neither you nor I are here. So I think that it's about witnessing, paying attention, and being curious about who we are as individuals and as a collective.” Ada Limón is the author of seven books of poetry, including Startlement: New & Selected Poems; The Hurting Kind, which was a finalist for the Griffin Prize; The Carrying, which won the National Books Critics Circle Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award; and Bright Dead Things, which was named a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Award. Limón is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and was named a 2024 Time Magazine Woman of the Year. She is the author of two picture books, In Praise of Mystery as well as And, Too, The Fox, and was the editor of the anthology You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World. She served as the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States.
Ada Limón is the author of Against Breaking: On the Power of Poetry, available from Scribner. She served as the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States. Ada Limón is the author of seven books of poetry, including Startlement: New & Selected Poems; The Hurting Kind, which was a finalist for the Griffin Prize; The Carrying, which won the National Books Critics Circle Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award; and Bright Dead Things, which was named a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Award. Limón is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and was named a 2024 Time Woman of the Year. She is the author of two picture books, In Praise of Mystery as well as And, Too, The Fox, and was the editor of the anthology You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc. Get How to Write a Novel, the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors. Subscribe to Brad's email newsletter. Support the show on Patreon Merch Instagram TikTok Bluesky Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Host Jason Blitman talks to acclaimed journalist Patrick Radden Keefe about his latest book, London Falling. London Falling is the April 2026 Late Show with Stephen Colbert Book Club pick. Conversation highlights include:
Anne Aghion has been praised as a filmmaker of poetic vision and a unique documentarian whose films, in the words of one critic, “pull us deep into the social fabric” of the places she covers. She gained international renown for “The Gacaca Series” (pr. ga-CHA-cha), four films on post- genocide justice and social reconstruction in Rwanda. There, Anne Aghion charted the emotional impact of a controversial system of justice that returned killers to their homes to live side-by-side with the survivors of unimaginable violence. The final film in the series, “My Neighbor My Killer“, premiered in Official Selection at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival; was nominated for Best Documentary at the Gotham Awards; and earned Aghion the Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival. Additionally, other films in the series received an Emmy Award and the UNESCO Fellini Prize. The 2008 feature “Ice People” was described by Variety as “staggeringly beautiful,” and New York Magazine's noted critic Bilge Ebiri wrote that “it might be the most immersive documentary I've ever seen.” The film, which explores the physical, emotional and spiritual adventure of living and conducting science in Antarctica, was produced with ARTE France and ITVS International in association with Sundance Channel. Her award-winning 1996 directorial debut “Se Le Movió El Piso: A Portrait of Managua (The Earth Moved Under Him),” examines how Nicaraguan slum dwellers had survived the double ravages of political and natural disasters. In 2024, Anne Aghion finished “Turbulence” which poses the question: How do we overcome the heartbreaks, sorrow and traumas we endure or witness, and come out whole? The film, written, directed and produced by Aghion, is made in association with Arte France – La Lucarne, and with the participation of the French Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée, Procirep & Angoa, Jewish Story Partners, and the New York State Council on the Arts. Anne Aghion has collected numerous prestigious awards for her work, among them a Guggenheim Fellowship. She has earned a host of grants from such organizations as the United States Institute of Peace, the National Science Foundation, the French Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée, and the Soros and Sundance Institute Documentary Funds. She has had residencies at the MacDowell Colony in the United States, the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center, and others. For “Turbulence” she also received a Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship to India. She has served as a juror for La Scam's L'Oeil d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) and the International Documentary Association (IDA), among others. She is an international speaker at universities and has conducted documentary workshops and master classes at film programs in countries including Haiti, India, Morocco, Lebanon, France and the United States. She serves on the board of Camargo Foundation's French association. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0FgITLEiKE Both “My Neighbor My Killer” and “Turbulence may now be streamed on the platform kinema.com.
Whether you know him from his award-winning and bestselling novel set in Puget Sound, Snow Falling on Cedars, or his columns in Pacific Northwest publications, Bainbridge writer David Guterson may be one of our region's most well-known writers. He's written a new novel, Evelyn in Transit, which explores what it means to live a righteous life, maybe even in spite of our imperfections. Guterson's novel introduces Evelyn Bednarz, who is radically open-minded, formidably strong, and unusually clear-eyed about herself and others. Yet Evelyn has always been a misfit in society. She's easily bored, unsuited to life at school, asks odd questions about faith and time, and sees through conventions others take for granted. Seeking to be true to herself, she hitchhikes across the American West, taking odd jobs. Meanwhile, in distant Tibet, another life unfolds: the life of a boy named Tsering, raised as a Buddhist monk in the mountains of Tibet, who eventually becomes a high lama. And yet, Evelyn and Tsering are linked, which Evelyn discovers when a trio of Buddhist lamas show up at her door to announce that her five-year-old son, Cliff, is the seventh reincarnation of the illustrious Norbu Rinpoche, recently deceased. The lamas' visit sets off a family crisis and a media firestorm over Cliff's future. As he's done in his other writing, Guterson links the Pacific Northwest with universal human truths. Evelyn in Transit asks us what it might mean to "live the right way," and to closely examine humanity's strivings for transcendence. David Guterson is the author of several novels: the national best seller Snow Falling on Cedars; East of the Mountains; Our Lady of the Forest, a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year; The Other; and Ed King. He is also the author of two story collections, two books of poetry, a memoir, and the work of nonfiction Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he lives in Washington state. Karen Maeda Allman is a bookseller alum, having worked for over 30 years at Independent Bookstores (including as author events co-coordinator for the Elliott Bay Book Company). She has served on many jury and awards panels, including for the National Book Award for Translated Literature, the DSC Prize and the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction. She's currently at Wales Literary Agency and also serves on the Board of Seattle Arts and Lectures. Buy the Book Evelyn in Transit: A Novel Elliott Bay Book Company
This reading, part of MIT's William Corbett Poetry Series, welcomes former U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze back to the campus where he began his literary journey. Introduced by Chloe Garcia Roberts and Nick Montfort, the event reflects on poetry's enduring place at MIT and its power to shape lives and communities across generations. Sze's visit highlights the unexpected connections and “rhymes” that emerge over time through teaching, mentorship, and the art of poetry. Sze is the author of twelve books of poetry, including Into the Hush (2025) and The White Orchard: Selected Interviews, Essays, and Poems (2025); The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (2021); Sight Lines (2019), for which he won the National Book Award; Compass Rose (2014); The Ginkgo Light (2009); Quipu (2005); The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970–1998 (1998); and Archipelago (1995). He also authored Transient Worlds: On Translating Poetry (forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press, 2026), The Silk Dragon II: Translations of Chinese Poetry (2024), and edited Chinese Writers on Writing (2010). His poetry has been translated into fifteen languages, including Chinese, Dutch, German, Portuguese, and Spanish. He received the 2025 Bollingen Prize for lifetime achievement in American poetry, the 2024 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, 2024 National Book Foundation Science + Literature award, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Jackson Poetry Prize, a Lannan Literary Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among others. A chancellor emeritus of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he was the 2023–2024 Mohr Visiting Poet at Stanford University. Professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), Sze was the first poet laureate of Santa Fe, where he lives with his wife, the poet Carol Moldaw. The reading was presented by Comparative Media Studies/Writing and the William Corbett Poetry Series, with Lit@MIT and the MIT Press Bookstore.
In these episodes Fred speaks with Professor Robert Wuthnow about his book, ‘Nurturing Happiness: How Religion Shapes Emotional Practice.' His research explores how religious institutions in America have historically managed and shaped their followers' experiences of happiness, viewing it not just as a feeling but as a social and emotional practice. He argues that religious leaders use their authority to define what constitutes "proper" happiness, distinguishing it from worldly pursuits, and create social spaces (like revival meetings or church socials) where these emotions are cultivated, managed, and expressed according to specific rules. Wuthnow examines this through historical examples, from colonial-era ideas of heavenly joy to modern concepts of spiritual play, revealing an ongoing tension between strict religious rules and the encouragement of joy. Bio from Oxford University Press: Robert Wuthnow is Professor of Sociology Emeritus at Princeton University. He is also an elected fellow of the American Philosophical Society, an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, former president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, and the recipient of numerous awards for his scholarly work. Theme music "Nigal."
"Welcome to Harshaneeyam!"Can a work of art ever truly be washed clean of the hands that funded it? Is it possible to create a masterpiece in the shadow of a monster? Today, we are exploring these haunting questions through the lens of The Director—the latest novel by the brilliant German author Daniel Kehlmann. Set against the harrowing backdrop of the late 1930s and 1940s, the story follows the legendary film director G.W. Pabst as he returns to Nazi-occupied Austria.Pabst finds himself ensnared by the propaganda machine of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Enlightenment and Propaganda, who wielded absolute control over the German press and arts to serve the regime's twisted ideology. Pabst believes his creative genius can transcend such a system, but at what cost?Upon its original release in Germany under the title Lichtspiel, the novel became an immediate sensation, sparking intense literary debates about the moral compromises of artists during the Third Reich. This buzz has only grown as the book enters the global stage, with the English edition published in the year 2025. Now, having been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026, the novel stands as one of the most anticipated and discussed works of contemporary fiction."Joining me today is the man who brought this intricate, tonal masterpiece into English: the award-winning translator Ross Benjamin. We discuss the 'moral acrobatics' of the artist and the 'tonal agility' required to translate one of the most important voices in contemporary German literature. This is a conversation about light, shadow, and the high cost of staying silent."We believe that every great book is an invitation to a new world. Harshaneeyam serves as your gateway to these contemporary global masterpieces, connecting you with the authors and translators who shape our literary landscape.If you enjoy Harshaneeyam please follow the show on Apple, Spotify, or your favourite podcasting platform and leave a review for us. It will help truly help us; and don't forget to Share our podcast link with your other friends who enjoy similar content.To help us provide even more value, head over to our website www.harshaneeyam.com to complete our brief Listener Survey. Your feedback is the secret ingredient that helps us improve and create content tailored to your interests!The Versatility of Kehlmann's VoiceOne of the most striking aspects of Daniel Kehlmann's writing is his ability to shift registers with surgical precision. Ross Benjamin notes that as a translator, the greatest challenge—and thrill—is capturing Kehlmann's "tonal range and agility." In The Director, the narrative moves seamlessly from the slapstick humor of a film set to the chilling, quiet terror of a propaganda ministry.Kehlmann's work is characterized by a "light touch." He avoids the heavy-handedness often found in historical fiction, opting instead for a style that is "sly and inventive." Whether he is writing about the magical realism of Tyll or the cinematic obsession in 'The Director' Kehlmann manages to be intellectually serious without ever losing his propulsive, vivid storytelling.Cinema and the Shadow of PropagandaThe Director follows the life of the legendary film director G.W. Pabst. After a failed stint in Hollywood, Pabst finds himself back in Nazi-occupied Austria. The novel explores the "adventure of not-knowing"—the tragic delusion that an artist can separate their craft from the political machine surrounding them.Ross Benjamin explains that the novel is not just a biography; it is a meditation on the "moral issues" of creation. Pabst believes he can make a masterpiece even under the watchful eye of Joseph Goebbels. The Original German Title Licht Speil - "light play" refers not just to the flicker of the film projector, but to the deceptive game the artist plays with a monstrous regime.The Challenge for the TranslatorTranslating a work of this magnitude requires more than just bilingual fluency; it requires a deep understanding of historical subtext. Ross Benjamin discusses the difficulty of translating the "Propaganda Deutsch" of the era—a language designed to obfuscate and control."There's a specific humor in Kehlmann," Ross shares. "It's often found in the absurdity of the situations." In one scene discussed during the podcast, a group of officials descends on a film set, and the dialogue shifts into a terrifyingly polite, yet deadly, exchange. Capturing that "mask of civility" in English while maintaining the underlying threat is the "invisible labor" of the translator.Why ‘The Director' Matters TodayAs ‘The Director' makes its way to the International Booker Prize shortlist, its relevance is undeniable. It asks a question that resonates in every era: What is the cost of staying silent? Through the lens of 1940s cinema, Kehlmann and Benjamin provide a mirror to our own world, exploring how easily "art for art's sake" can be weaponized by those in power.For listeners of Harshaneeyam, this interview is a deep dive into the "Philosophy of Translation" and the meticulous craft required to bring a German masterpiece into the global literary consciousness.About the Author & TranslatorDaniel Kehlmann Daniel Kehlmann is one of the most successful contemporary German-language authors. Born in Munich in 1975, he rose to international fame with his 2005 novel Measuring the World (Die Vermessung der Welt), which became one of the biggest-selling German novels since WWII. His works frequently blend historical fact with magical realism and philosophical inquiry. He has received numerous awards, including the Kleist Prize and the Thomas Mann Prize. His previous collaboration with Ross Benjamin on the novel Tyll was also a global sensation and a finalist for the International Booker Prize.Ross Benjamin Ross Benjamin is an award-winning translator of German literature based in the United States. His translations include works by Franz Kafka, Friedrich Hölderlin, and Joseph Roth. He is perhaps best known for his definitive translation of The Diaries of Franz Kafka, which was hailed for its faithfulness to Kafka's original, unedited prose. Benjamin's work is noted for its linguistic sensitivity and his ability to capture the specific "musicality" of German authors. He is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize.The Director' in press -A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year 2025A New York Times Notable Book of 2025A Telegraph Book of the Year 2025A Guardian Book of the Year 2025An Observer Book of the year 2025* Please complete Harshaneeyam Listener Survey using the link below. It would be lovely to have your feedback. Your feedback will help us improve -https://www.harshaneeyam.com/survey/Listener/***Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by Interviewees in interviews conducted by Harshaneeyam Podcast are those of the Interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Harshaneeyam Podcast. Any content provided by Interviewees is of their opinion and is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
Ellen Langer was the first woman to be tenured in psychology at Harvard, where she is still professor of psychology. She is recipient of three Distinguished Scientists awards, and the Arthur W. Staats Award for Unifying Psychology, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Liberty Science Genius Award, and has published over 200 research articles and thirteen books, including the international bestseller Mindfulness and her most recent book, The Mindful Body: Thinking our way to chronic health. She is known worldwide as the “mother of mindfulness, the “mother of positive psychology” and the mother of mind/body medicine. She helps us understand how mindfulness can help us think our way to chronic health, even if we have a cancer diagnosis. https://www.ellenlanger.me/ Books: The Mindful Body and Mindfulness ___________ To learn more about the 10 Radical Remission Healing Factors, connect with a certified RR coach or join a virtual or in-person workshop visit www.radicalremission.com. To learn more about Radical Remission health coaching with Liz or Karla, Click Here Join our mailing list and you'll receive our free eBook, Kickstart Your Healing: 20 Radical Remission Tips, as a special thank you for joining. Subscribe Here To watch Episode 1 of the Radical Remission Docuseries for free, visit our YouTube channel here. To purchase the full 10-episode Radical Remission Docuseries visit Hay House Online Learning. Follow us on Social Media: Facebook Instagram YouTube ____ Our sponsors: Immunocine Cancer Center is focused on advancing personalized cancer immunotherapy by harnessing the power of the immune system. Their work centers on the Immunocine Dendritic Cell Treatment (IDCT) — a first-in-class therapy designed to train the immune system to recognize and respond to a patient's specific cancer. The process begins by collecting information from the patient's tumor and using it to program specialized immune cells called dendritic cells, which help activate targeted immune responses. A key differentiator in Immunocine's approach is something called double loading — cancer information is delivered to the dendritic cell both inside the cell and on its surface, giving the immune system a more complete blueprint of the cancer it needs to recognize and attack. And while this approach is unique to Immunocine and unique to use therapeutically, it is NOT unique to biology - since this is how the immune system was always meant to work! Immunocine treats patients from around the world at its clinic in Cancun, Mexico, combining advanced immune science with personalized care. As always, patients should first explore whether they may be eligible for a clinical trial in the United States. To learn more, visit Immunocine.com. Learn more about Immunocine: Website Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/immunocine/ YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/@immunocinecancercenter Linkedin — https://www.linkedin.com/company/immunocine/ Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/Immunocine/ ____ Nestled in the pristine, natural beauty of British Columbia, The Healing Oasis stands as Canada's first-of-its-kind cancer wellness retreat, where hope reignites and the body is empowered to heal. Here, our renowned naturopathic cancer expert, Dr. Sean Ceaser, designs a fully personalized protocol of advanced, non-toxic therapies—including high-dose IVs like mistletoe and vitamin C, cutting-edge hyperthermia, PEMF, oxygen therapy, red light, and more. Savor daily organic, cancer-fighting meals, rest deeply in serene cabins, immerse in restorative activities like forest walks and yoga, drink mineral-rich living water, and receive emotional support in a peaceful sanctuary that combines world-class care with profound nature immersion to reduce side effects, boost vitality, and spark radical healing. Your journey to feeling alive again begins today at thehealingoasis.ca. Learn More about The Healing Oasis: Website Testimonials Video Overview
Literary icon Nell Zink joins host Jaclyn Crupi to discuss her seventh much acclaimed novel, Sister Europe. In this dazzling satire of modern life, an eclectic cast of characters gathers at a tedious literary award ceremony in Berlin. Over the course of the evening, their assumptions, foibles and irrepressible humanity are slowly brought to light.A Guggenheim Fellowship recipient and the celebrated author of Avalon, Doxology and Nicotine, among others, Nell Zink is widely hailed as a singular voice in literary fiction. In a Melbourne first, she takes the stage at The Wheeler Centre to discuss her sharp and tightly wrought new novel, Sister Europe, and its animating themes: loneliness and the possibility of transcending it, the tension between old and new worldviews and the challenge of defining one’s identity in an increasingly complex world.This event was recorded on Tuesday 3rd March 2026 at The Wheeler Centre.The official bookseller was Hill of Content Bookshop.Featured music is Lucy’s Trail (Don’t Give Up) by Sarah, the Illstrumentalist.Support the Wheeler Centre: https://www.wheelercentre.com/support-us/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Naeem Murr, a dual US and UK citizen, is the author of four novels: The Boy, a New York Times Notable Book; The Genius of the Sea; and The Perfect Man, which was awarded The Commonwealth WritersʼPrize for the Best Book of Europe and South Asia, and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His new novel is Every Exit Brings You Home. He is a former Stegner Fellow at Stanford. Among his awards are a Pushcart Prize, a Lannan Residency Fellowship, a PEN Beyond Margins Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in Chicago and teaches at Northwestern University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this episode of The Archive Project, we feature poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong from Portland Arts & Lectures in January 2022. Hong became nationally famous in the spring of 2020 for her essay collection Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, a book so searing and powerful it landed her on the cover of Time magazine's 2021 issue featuring the 100 most influential people in the world. Minor Feelings is a collection of seven essays is both a deeply personal account of Hong becoming—and being—an artist, and is also an account of her and her family's experience as Korean Americans in this country. But she has emphasized that this is a book about America, not necessarily about being Asian. It is also a book infused with her sensibility as a poet, as someone who is fascinated with the endless mutability and power of language. Hong has published three acclaimed collections of poetry, and many listeners who know and have read Minor Feelings might be surprised to learn she primarily identifies as a poet not as an essayist. The theme of her talk is “community and belonging” and she threads a narrative through pop culture, religion, autobiography, and 20th century history, in order to try to understand the rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans during the pandemic, and the broader discrimination so many Americans experience in their daily lives. That she does this with anger, humor, and tenderness speaks to her remarkable powers as a writer and speaker. Cathy Park Hong is the author of three poetry collections and Minor Feelings, a New York Times bestselling book of creative nonfiction which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography and was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. Hong is a recipient of the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Her poems have been published in Poetry, The New York Times, The Paris Review, McSweeney's, and other journals. She is the poetry editor of The New Republic and full professor at Rutgers University–Newark.
Welcome back to scaling theory. My guest today is Scott E. Page, Distinguished University Professor of Complexity, Social Science, and Management at the University of Michigan, and an external faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship. His books include The Difference, Diversity and Complexity, The Diversity Bonus, and The Model Thinker.In this episode of Scaling Theory, Scott walks us through what complexity actually is. He unpacks the difference between complicated and genuinely complex systems, explains why cognitively diverse teams systematically outperform homogeneous ones on complex tasks, and what that means for how organizations scale. We also take up path dependence, the spillover effects of overlapping games across platform ecosystems, and where complexity tools have changed real decisions in practice. We close on the single open problem whose resolution would most reshape our understanding of social systems. As you will hear, Scott's thinking is exceptionally clear. It is always a pleasure to talk with him and to listen to his insights. I hope you enjoy our discussion.You can follow me on X (@ProfSchrepel) and BlueSky (@ProfSchrepel).**BooksPage, S.E. (2007). The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies. Princeton University Press.Page, S.E. (2011). Diversity and Complexity. Princeton University Press (Primers in Complex Systems).Page, S.E. (2018). The Model Thinker: What You Need to Know to Make Data Work for You. Basic Books.Miller, J.H. and Page, S.E. (2007). Complex Adaptive Social Systems: An Introduction to Computational Models of Social Life. Princeton University Press.Peer-reviewed articlesHong, L. and Page, S.E. (2004). "Groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101(46): 16385–16389.Page, S.E. (2006). "Path Dependence." Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 1(1): 87–115.Page, S.E. (2007). "Type Interactions and the Rule of Six." Economic Theory, 30(2): 223–241.Bednar, J. and Page, S.E. (2007). "Can Game(s) Theory Explain Culture? The Emergence of Cultural Behavior Within Multiple Games." Rationality and Society, 19(1): 65–97.Bednar, J., Bramson, A., Jones-Rooy, A. and Page, S.E. (2010). "Emergent Cultural Signatures and Persistent Diversity: A Model of Conformity and Consistency." Rationality and Society, 22(4): 407–444.
Naeem Murr is the author of the novel Every Exit Brings You Home, available from Murr is the author of three novels, including The Boy (a New York Times Notable Book) and The Perfect Man (longlisted for the Man Booker Prize). A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford, he's been awarded a regional Commonwealth Writers Prize, a PEN Beyond Margins Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in Chicago. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc. Get How to Write a Novel, the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors. Subscribe to Brad's email newsletter. Support the show on Patreon Merch Instagram TikTok Bluesky Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Most people remember exactly where they were the week of March 11, 2020. Life suddenly stopped. The world went quiet. And for a brief moment, everything about our routines, priorities, and pace of life was thrown into question. Six years later, the world is loud and fast again. But the real question is: what were we supposed to learn from the moment when everything slowed down?In this episode, Ryan talks with award-winning author Chloe Dalton about the strange stillness of those early pandemic months and how one unexpected encounter with a wild hare during lockdown completely changed the way she thought about time, work, and the life she was building. Later in the episode, novelist Susan Straight joins the conversation to reflect on why it's important that we don't rush to forget that time and what remembering the pandemic can still teach us.
Photographer and educator Curran Hatleberg returns to PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf to discuss his latest monograph, Blood Green (TBW Books). Hatleberg reflects on how the photobook emerged from images left out of his earlier publication, River's Dream, and how revisiting those omissions opened a new way of thinking about editing, continuity, and the evolving life of a body of work. He speaks about the ethics at the center of his practice, an engagement with people grounded in mutual curiosity and respect, and the role of presence, both with and without the camera. Now balancing his life as an artist, partner, and father, Hatleberg considers how time reshapes practice. The episode concludes with a meditation on art making as a form of self-portraiture, a record of who we were at a given moment. https://curranhatleberg.com https://tbwbooks.com/products/blood-green?_pos=2&_psq=curran&_ss=e&_v=1.0 Curran Hatleberg is a photographer based in Baltimore, MD. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including recent exhibitions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the High Museum, MASS MoCA, the International Center of Photography and Higher Pictures. In 2019, Hatleberg was featured in the Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art. His works are held in numerous public collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, SF MoMA, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the High Museum of Art among others. Hatleberg is the recipient of a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship, a 2020 Maryland State Arts Council Grant, a 2015 Magnum Emergency Fund grant, and a 2014 Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Photographer's Fellowship grant. He has published five books, most recently Blood Green in 2025. Lost Coast, his first monograph, was released by TBW Books in fall 2016, and his second monograph, River's Dream, was published by TBW Books in 2022. Hatleberg has taught photography at numerous institutions, including Cooper Union and Yale University where he is currently a visiting critic in photography. He holds a BA in painting from the University of Colorado, Boulder and an MFA in photography from Yale University.
Jack Gilbert (1925-2012) sat tangential to The Beats but was singularly distinct from them. As a self-described "serious romantic, “ Gilbert roared onto the scene with his book Views of Jeopardy, earning him a Guggenheim Fellowship and a loyal following. We look at books from The Great Fires as well as earlier work. An outsider poet, In 2013 he was posthumously selected as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.
Jessica Dimmock's work focusses on humanistic and intimate storytelling. She is the recipient of numerous international awards for her photography and video work, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, three World Press Photo Awards for short films, The Inge Morath Award from Magnum, the F Award for Concerned Photography from Forma and Fabrica, The Infinity Award for Photojournalist of the Year from the International Center of Photography, and The Kodak Award for Best Cinematography at the Hamptons International Film Festival. She is a Sundance Edit and Story Lab Fellow, and her first feature film The Pearl was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the Dallas International Film Festival and was executive produced by Impact Partners. Her clients include HBO, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Microsoft, The UNFPA, Aperture, Showtime and PBS. She is the co-director of the Netflix series Flint Town as and directed on the reboot of Unsolved Mysteries and AppleTV's Home. In 2007 Jessica produced a photobook entitled The Ninth Floor (Contrasto). Her most recent film, co-directed with her partner Zackery Canepari, is Thoughts & Prayers: How to Survive an Active Shooter in America, focussing on the USA's $3 billion active shooter preparadness industry and its effects on teachers and students, released in 2025. In episode 277, Jessica Discusses, among other things: Current projects Her attraction to dark subject matter Her TV mini series Captive Audience Forming close relationships with her subject The random coffee shop interaction that changed her direction forever The chance encounter that led to her first big photography project and subsequent book, The Ninth Floor How the musician Moby played a part in her journey Serendipity and her project The Pearl The challenge of landing lucrative commercial work The Netflix series she co-directed, Flint Town Her most recent film Thoughts & Prayers: How to Survive an Active Shooter in America Website | Instagram Become a A Small Voice podcast member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of 200+ previous episodes for £5 per month. Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here for everything A Small Voice related and much more besides. Follow me on Instagram here. Need a new website? I will build you one with Squarespace. Details here.
Notes and Links to Peter Orner's Work Peter Orner is the author of eight books, most recently the novel, The Gossip Columnist's Daughter, named one of the best books of 2025 by the New Yorker and the Chicago Tribune, as well as the essay collections, Still No Word from You, a finalist for the PEN Award for the Art of the Essay, and Am I Alone Here?, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. His story collection Maggie Brown and Others was a New York Times Notable Book. Other books include Love and Shame and Love (Winner of the California Book Award) Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge, The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo (finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award), and Esther Stories. A recipient of the Rome Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship, Orner is also the editor of three books of oral history for the Voice of Witness series, and co-editor with Laura Lampton Scott of a new oral history series from McSweeney's called “Dispatches.” His work has appeared in The New Yorker, the Atlantic, Harper's, the Paris Review and has been awarded four Pushcart Prizes. With Yvette Benavides, he's the co-host of the Lonely Voice Podcast on Texas Public Radio. Orner recently led short courses on James Joyce's Ulysses, and Melville's Moby-Dick for the Community of Writers/Writers' Annex. He teaches at Dartmouth College and lives in Vermont. Buy The Gossip Columnist's Daughter New York Times Review of The Gossip Columnist's Daughter Peter Orner's Website At about 2:30, Peter responds to Pete's question about the feedback he's gotten since the publication of At about 3:30, Peter expands on ideas of making Chicago concrete for his readers At about 4:40, Peter gives background on family's roots in Chicago and in Eastern Europe At about 6:25, Mike Ditka slander?! At about 7:50, Peter highlights Saul Bellow as a writer who influenced him, as well as Stuart Dybek, Betty Howland, and John Irving among others At about 10:05, Peter reflects on David Foster Wallace as an “Illinois writer” At about 12:10, Peter discusses Zadie Smith and Yiyun Li, and as impressive and chill-inducing contemporary writers At about 13:30, Peter lists some reading favorites of his university students, and he expands on how they are “blown away” by James Joyce's work At about 15:00, The two fanboy over James Joyce's “The Dead” At about 16:15, Peter reflects on Pete asking if his The Gossip Columnist's Daughter would be classified as “historical fiction” At about 17:15, Peter expands on his view of the book's epigraph from Chekhov At about 18:15, Pete cites another great epigraph and great book from Jess Walter At about 18:50, The two lay out the book's exposition, and Peter describes the book's inciting incident, a tragic death At about 20:20, The two discuss the book's beginning as in medias res At about 21:30, Peter talks about the character of Babs as inspired by grandmother, and Pete shares about his Chicago grandfather's longevity At about 22:55, Peter expands on the idea of Jed, the book's narrator, feeling that three key events in 1963 were a pivot point for the family At about 26:15, Jack Ruby and the provinciality and “small world” of Chicago At about 29:10, Pete and Peter lay out Jed's college professor setup At about 30:00, Peter explains the cause of death and theories and conspiracy theories around it At about 31:35, Peter responds to Pete's musings about the old-fashioned “imperative” headlines that At about 33:00, Some of Cookie Kupcinet's last writings are discussed At about 34:30, Peter reflects on the travails and pressures of Cookie At about 36:00, Some of the prodigious pull of Irv Kupcinet is discussed, and Pete compares Irv's work to that of Ace in Casino At about 37:55, Lou Rosenthal's reticence and kinship with Robert Todd Lincoln are discussed At about 39:00, Peter expands on a scene in which the “grieving” narrator walks by the house where his ex-wife and daughter live; he discusses the importance he places on place At about 41:40, Sidney Korshak and his historical background and Chicago connection is discussed At about 44:10, The two discuss doubts in the story about the way in which Cookie died At about 45:20, Cookie's legacy and the ways in which Jed, the narrator, gains a sort of obsession with conspiracy theories and marginalia At about 48:20, Peter talks about the book's storyline as a “family story” and using a “tiny kernel” as a “jump off” point for his book At about 49:20, Peter responds to Pete's questions about the state of the current conspiracy theories involving the Kupcinets and JFK's assassination At about 51:20, The two discuss the breakup of the friendship between the Rosenthals and Kupcinets, as Pete compares a turned-down piece of writing to the book's storyline At about 53:20, Peter reflects on the intrigue that comes with At about 55:00, Peter expands on the “Captain” moniker his grandfather have, and that he played off in his book At about 58:20, The two reflect on the memorable character of Solly At about 1:01:00, Theories involving traumas and low points and broken relationships are discussed At about 1:03:00, Pete highlights a resonant last scene You can now subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, and leave me a five-star review. You can also ask for the podcast by name using Alexa, and find the pod on Stitcher, Spotify, and on Amazon Music. Follow Pete on IG, where he is @chillsatwillpodcast, or on Twitter, where he is @chillsatwillpo1. You can watch other episodes on YouTube-watch and subscribe to The Chills at Will Podcast Channel. Please subscribe to both the YouTube Channel and the podcast while you're checking out this episode. Pete is very excited to have one or two podcast episodes per month featured on the website of Chicago Review of Books. The audio will be posted, along with a written interview culled from the audio. His conversation with Jeff Pearlman, a recent guest, is up soon at Chicago Review. Sign up now for The Chills at Will Podcast Patreon: it can be found at patreon.com/chillsatwillpodcastpeterriehl Check out the page that describes the benefits of a Patreon membership, including cool swag and bonus episodes. Thanks in advance for supporting Pete's one-man show, DIY podcast and extensive reading, research, editing, and promoting to keep this independent podcast pumping out high-quality content! This month's Patreon bonus episode features an exploration of formative and transformative writing for children, as Pete surveys wonderful writers on their own influences. Pete has added a $1 a month tier for “Well-Wishers” and Cheerleaders of the Show. This is a passion project, a DIY operation, and Pete would love for your help in promoting what he's convinced is a unique and spirited look at an often-ignored art form. The intro song for The Chills at Will Podcast is “Wind Down” (Instrumental Version), and the other song played on this episode was “Hoops” (Instrumental)” by Matt Weidauer, and both songs are used through ArchesAudio.com. Please tune in for Episode 323 with second-time guest Luke Epplin. He is the author Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and the World Series That Changed Baseball and Moses and the Doctor: Two Men, One Championship, and the Birth of Modern Basketball. The episode airs on February 13, three days after Pub Day for Moses and the Doctor. Please go to ceasefiretoday.org, and/or https://act.uscpr.org/a/letaidin to call your congresspeople and demand an end to the forced famine and destruction of Gaza and the Gazan people.
A note: On the interview concerning the 3 channel video “Same as me” from 2002 shows an abbreviated day in the life of a total of 18 different versions of the artist. Only viewed three at a time, the possible variations are synchronized across time and space or arise in daydreams of elsewhere or other than. For Campbell, the process of making the video revealed the thesis of the work. “It was very challenging to learn how to reenact my self…. it was hard to keep up with myself.” Beth Campbell, (USA, born in Illinois), demonstrates the inextricable entanglements of past, present, and future through her thought-provoking sculptures, installations, ceramics and works on paper. Equal parts humorous, prescient and morbid, Campbell confronts an overwhelming multiple future, culled from research on the philosophies that fueled the early internet and AI. Campbell is best recognized for her drawings and mobiles that draw from a specific moment in her life, multiplied into a profusion of speculative possibilities. The drawings, each titled with the opening line, “My potential future based on my present circumstances…”, mimic the form of a tree diagram, a graphic structure used to visualize probability and hierarchy. This diagram becomes Campbell's means to channel anxieties about an overwhelmingly multiple future. She began to make these drawings about her life as an artist in New York City in the late 1990's. In them, she suggests taking a moment to look both forward and backwards, taking into account actions and positions and the circumstances that led to them. Beth Campbell earned her BFA from Truman State University in 1993 (Kirksville, MO) and her MFA from Ohio University in 1997 (Athens, OH). She has held over a dozen solo exhibitions at galleries and institutions, including The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT (2017); Sculpture Center, Cleveland, OH (2010); “Following Room” at The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2007); Kate Werble Gallery, New York, NY (2020, 2017, 2012); the Public Art Fund, New York, NY (2007); White Columns, New York, NY (2000); and Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York, NY (2008, 2005, 2004). Her work has been shown at MoMA PS1, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Artists Space, and the Bloomberg Financial Offices in Conjunction with Sculpture Center. Campbell has also been featured in exhibitions at the Carnegie Museum of Art, (Pittsburgh, PA); Manifesta 7 (Italy); The Andy Warhol Museum, (Pittsburgh, PA); Contemporary Arts Center, (Cincinnati, OH); OK Center, (Linz, AT); and EX3 Centre for Contemporary Art, (Florence, IT). She has a large commission permanently on view in the Landmarks program at the University of Texas at Austin (Austin, TX). Campbell received a Guggenheim Fellowship (2011), a residency at John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Arts/Industry Residency (2010), a Louis Comfort Tiffany Fellowship (2009) a Pollock- Krasner Foundation Grant (2006) and a Rema Hort Mann Foundation Art Grant (2000). She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Beth Campbell, My Potential Future Based on Present Circumstances (11/3/25), 2025 Pencil on paper 50 × 38 ½ inches (127.00 × 97.79 cm) Courtesy of the artist and Kate Werble Gallery, New York Photo credit by Adam Reich photography Beth Campbell, There's no such thing as a good decision (fawn), 2025 Powder coated steel rod and wire, enamel paint 40 × 40 × 33 inches (101.60 × 101.60 × 83.82 cm) Courtesy of the artist and Kate Werble Gallery, New York Photo credit by Adam Reich photography Beth Campbell, lost socks, 2024 Tinted porcelain 2 ¼ × 6 ½ × 6 ¾ inches (5.72 × 16.51 × 17.15 cm) Courtesy of the artist and Kate Werble Gallery, New York Photo credit by Adam Reich photography
Richard Lange is the author of the story collections, Dead Boys and Sweet Nothing, and the novels, This Wicked World, Angel Baby, The Smack, Rovers, and Joe Hustle. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the International Association of Crime Writers' Hammett Prize, The Short Story Dagger from Great Britain's Crime Writers Association, and the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Los Angeles. Richard joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about his most recent novel, Joe Hustle, and topics they touch on include avoiding backstory that pulls down a story, structure devices, not being a one-genre writer, finding your voice, rejections, road trip stories, naming characters after friends, and more. For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds of past interviews on our website. You can help out the show and indie bookstores by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. It's stocked with titles by our guest authors, as well as our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you'll find an album's worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. It's perfect for writing. Look for the artist, Just My Type. We love to hear from our listeners. Email us at writersonwritingpodcast@gmail.com. (Recorded January 23, 2026) Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett Host: Marrie StoneMusic: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)
This week's episode is sweeping, interesting, and passionate. Guest Andre Dubus III takes us on a ride through some of memoir's more confounding territory—what's yours to tell; considerations of harm; writing about violence; and getting to truth on the page. Also, Grant has a new book out, and we talk about his book trailer in this week's episode. Watch here.Andre Dubus III has authored nine books including the New York Times' bestsellers House of Sand and Fog, The Garden of Last Days, and his memoir, Townie. His most recent novel, Such Kindness, was published in June 2023, and a collection of personal essays, Ghost Dogs: On Killers and Kin, was published in March 2024. Dubus has been a finalist for the National Book Award, and has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, The National Magazine Award for Fiction, three Pushcart Prizes, and is a recipient of an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature. He teaches at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Janet Echelman is an artist known for sculpting at the scale of buildings and city blocks, creating large-scale, fluid installations that merge art, architecture, and engineering. Her work transforms with wind and light, inviting viewers into immersive experiences rather than static observation. Echelman uses unconventional materials—from atomized water particles to fiber stronger than steel—blending traditional craft with advanced computational design. Her monumental works anchor public spaces across five continents, in cities including New York, London, Sydney, Shanghai, and Singapore. Permanent installations in locations such as San Francisco, Vancouver, and Porto continually evolve with shifting light and air. Echelman's unconventional path includes a degree from Harvard, five years living in a Balinese village, and graduate studies in both painting and psychology. Oprah ranked Echelman's work #1 on her List of 50 Things That Make You Say Wow!, and she received the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award in Visual Arts, honoring “the greatest innovators in America today.” Recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, she has taught at MIT, Harvard, and Princeton. Her interdisciplinary approach challenges artistic boundaries and redefines urban space through experiential public art. Her recent book, Radical Softness The Responsive Art of Janet Echelman is now available. Remembering the Future, on view at MIT Museum, and its maquette at Sarasota Art Museum retrospective. Photos: Anna Olivella Study (Butterfly Rest Stop 1/9 scale), on view at Janet Echelman: Radical Softness, Sarasota Art Museum through April 26, 2026. Photo: Ryan Gamma. Noli Timere, Echelman's sculpture-dance collaboration with choreographer Rebecca Lazier, currently traveling the eastern seaboard. Photos: Julie Lemberger
Call ins, legal and civic positions on ICE shooting and Noam's take on Dilbert Cartoonist Scott Adams. Guest: Professor Robert Jan Van Pelt, the principal expert witness on Nazi gas chambers in the David Irving trial, joins. Robert Jan Van Pelt is one of the world's leading experts on Auschwitz. An architectural historian who has taught at MIT and the University of Waterloo, he is best known for proving the reality of the gas chambers and crematoria. His work made him a central figure in the fight against Holocaust denial. He appeared in Errol Morris's Mr. Death and served as a key expert witness in the landmark Irving v. Penguin & Lipstadt trial. He has received major honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Jewish Book Award.
“Who can draw when the world is burning?” asks celebrated Vermont cartoonist Alison Bechdel in her new graphic novel, Spent.This tension between the political and personal has been a deep well for Bechdel in her art. Bechdel has been cartoonist laureate of Vermont, as well as a recipient of a MacArthur "genius award" and a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship.She garnered a cult following with her early comic strip, “Dykes to Watch Out For.” Her best-selling graphic memoir, Fun Home, was named Best Book of 2006 by Time. It was adapted into a musical that won five 2015 Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Fun Home tells the story of growing up in a family that ran a funeral home, and how, after Bechdel came out as a lesbian, her closeted gay father died in a presumed suicide.The cartoonist is also known for the Bechdel Test, which rates movies on whether they include at least one scene in which two women talk to each other about something other than men.Bechdel is now a professor in the practice at Yale University. She divides her time between teaching for a semester at Yale and living and drawing at her home in West Bolton, Vermont. Bechdel's wife Holly has been the colorist for her last two books. This week, she had an op-ed cartoon featured in the New York Times about how to stand up to tyranny.She spoke to me from her home in Vermont.
In this episode of ACM ByteCast, our special guest host Scott Hanselman (of The Hanselminutes Podcast) welcomes ACM Fellow Dawn Song, Professor in Computer Science at UC Berkeley, Co-Director of Berkeley Center for Responsible Decentralized Intelligence (RDI), and Founder of Oasis Labs. Her research interest lies in AI safety and security, Agentic AI, deep learning, security and privacy, and decentralization technology. Dawn is the recipient of numerous awards including the MacArthur Fellowship, the Guggenheim Fellowship, the NSF CAREER Award, the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, the MIT Technology Review TR-35 Award, ACM SIGSAC Outstanding Innovation Award, and more than 10 Test-of-Time awards and Best Paper awards from top conferences in Computer Security and Deep Learning. She has been recognized as Most Influential Scholar (AMiner Award) for being the most cited scholar in computer security. Dawn is an IEEE Fellow and an Elected Member of American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is also a serial entrepreneur and has been named on the Female Founder 100 List by Inc. and Wired25 List of Innovators. Dawn shares her academic journey in cybersecurity, which used to be a much smaller field and how the MacArthur Fellowship (aka the “Genius Grant”) and other prestigious recognitions enabled her to pursue impactful multidisciplinary research. Dawn and Scott cover a myriad of topics around Agentic AI, including current and future security vulnerabilities from AI-powered malicious attacks, Dawn's popular MOOC at RDI, and the associated AgentX-AgentBeats global competition (with more than $1 million in prizes and resources) focused on standardized, reproducible agent evaluation benchmarks to advance the field as a public good. AgentX-AgentBeats Agentic AI Competition Berkeley RDI Agentic AI MOOC
Susan Straight is the author of the novel Sacrament, available from Counterpoint Press. Straight has published nine previous novels, including Mecca, A Million Nightingales, and Highwire Moon, and one memoir, In the Country of Women. She's been a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the National Book Award, among other honors, and received the Lannan Prize, the O. Henry Award, the Edgar Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement from the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. Her fiction has been translated into ten languages. She was born in Riverside, California, where she lives with her family. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. This episode is sponsored by Ulysses. Go to ulys.app/writeabook to download Ulysses, and use the code OTHERPPL at checkout to get 25% off the first year of your yearly subscription." Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc. Get How to Write a Novel, the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors. Subscribe to Brad's email newsletter. Support the show on Patreon Merch Instagram TikTok Bluesky Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Individuation isn’t about becoming better. It’s about becoming whole. At 75, neurologist Oliver Sacks finally integrated the parts of himself he’d kept hidden—his sexuality, his need for love, his domestic life (who knew he kept a library of Jung's work). Bill Hayes talks intimately about Sacks’s late-life transformation which exemplifies Jung’s crucial insight: growth isn’t about fixing what’s broken. It’s about integrating what you’ve exiled. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in nonfiction, Bill Hayes is a frequent contributor to the New York Times and the author of seven books, including Sleep Demons; Five Quarts; The Anatomist; Insomniac City; and How We Live Now: Scenes from the Pandemic. His writing has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Review of Books, the New York Times “T” Style Magazine, BuzzFeed, and The Guardian. His most recent book, SWEAT: A History of Exercise, a narrative nonfiction look at exercise from antiquity to the present, is available now wherever books are sold. Hayes is also a photographer, with credits including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and the New York Times. His portraits of his partner, the late Oliver Sacks, appear in the volume of Dr. Sacks's suite of final essays Gratitude. A collection of his street photography, How New York Breaks Your Heart, was published in 2018 by Bloomsbury. His photographs are available for sale as limited edition prints exclusively by CLAMP art gallery in New York City. Books by Bill Hayes: Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she's been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings and has a private consulting practice in Chicago. Be informed of new programs and content by joining our mailing list! Support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store! Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all. This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.Executive Producer: Ben LawHosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera2025-2026 Season Intern: Zoe KalawMusic: Peter Demuth
Host Jason Blitman sits down with Reginald Dwayne Betts—poet, lawyer, and founder of Freedom Reads—for an intimate conversation about transforming America's prison system one library at a time. In an extraordinary turn of events, Dwayne receives a live call from Jermaine, a friend currently incarcerated at Lawrenceville Correctional Facility. Jermaine joins the conversation to share how not having a Freedom Reads library has impacted his own journey, offering rare, unfiltered insight into what literature means inside the prison system. Reginald Dwayne Betts is a poet and lawyer. A 2021 MacArthur Fellow, he is the Executive Director of Freedom Reads, a not-for-profit organization that is radically transforming the access to literature in prisons through the installation of Freedom Libraries in prisons across this country.For more than twenty-years, he has used his poetry and essays to explore the world of prison and the effects of violence and incarceration on American society. The author of a memoir and three collections of poetry, he has transformed his latest collection of poetry, the American Book Award winning Felon, into a solo theater show that explores the post incarceration experience and lingering consequences of a criminal record through poetry, stories, and engaging with the timeless and transcendental art of paper-making. His book Doggerel: Poems is available now.In 2019, Betts won the National Magazine Award in the Essays and Criticism category for his NY Times Magazine essay that chronicles his journey from prison to becoming a licensed attorney. He has been awarded a Radcliffe Fellowship from Harvard's Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Emerson Fellow at New America, and most recently a Civil Society Fellow at Aspen. Betts holds a J.D. from Yale Law School.Sign up for the Gays Reading Book Club HERESUBSTACK! MERCH! WATCH! CONTACT! hello@gaysreading.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jonathan Lethem is the author of A Different Kind of Tension: New and Selected Stories, available from Ecco. It was the official October 2025 pick of the Otherppl Book Club. Lethem is the bestselling author of thirteen novels, including Brooklyn Crime Novel, The Feral Detective, and Motherless Brooklyn, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. His five story collections include Men and Cartoons and Lucky Alan, and his short fiction has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, and the Paris Review, among other publications, garnering a Pushcart Prize, a World Fantasy Award, and inclusion in The Best American Short Stories. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship, he lives in Los Angeles and Maine. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc. Get How to Write a Novel, the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors. Subscribe to Brad's email newsletter. Support the show on Patreon Merch Instagram TikTok Bluesky Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
History has a way of looking calmer than it really was. In this PT. 2 episode, Ryan sits down with historian and author James Romm to talk about the messy, dangerous, and often absurd reality of life in ancient Greece and Rome, especially for the philosophers who tried to “advise” the powerful. From Plato's naïve trips to Syracuse, to Seneca's complicated dance with Nero, to Marcus Aurelius resisting the pull of corruption, they discuss the timeless tension between access and integrity. James Romm is an author, reviewer, and a Professor of Classics at Bard College in Annandale, NY. He specializes in ancient Greek and Roman culture and civilization. His reviews and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, the London Review of Books, the Daily Beast, and other venues. He has held the Guggenheim Fellowship (1999-2000), the Birkelund Fellowship at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars at the New York Public Library (2010-11), and a Biography Fellowship at the Leon Levy Center of the City University of New York (2014-15).Follow James on Instagram @James.Romm and check out more of his work at his website, www.jamesromm.com
What makes smart, principled people work for the worst leaders? In this conversation, historian and author James Romm and Ryan dig into the timeless trap that's snared some of history's greatest minds, from Plato and Seneca to modern politics. They talk about the seduction of access, the slow erosion of integrity, and why walking away from a tyrant's court is so much harder than it looks.James Romm is an author, reviewer, and a Professor of Classics at Bard College in Annandale, NY. He specializes in ancient Greek and Roman culture and civilization. His reviews and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, the London Review of Books, the Daily Beast, and other venues. He has held the Guggenheim Fellowship (1999-2000), the Birkelund Fellowship at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars at the New York Public Library (2010-11), and a Biography Fellowship at the Leon Levy Center of the City University of New York (2014-15).Follow James on Instagram @James.Romm and check out more of his work at his website, www.jamesromm.com