Podcast appearances and mentions of stephanie bastek

Zayd Ayers Dohrn was born underground, the son of Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, two cofounders of the Weather Underground, a militant, radical leftist group of the 1970s that used tactics like the after-hours bombings of government buildings—including the Capitol, the State Department, and the Pentagon—to protest the Vietnam War and racial injustice. “When I was just 3 years old, I learned to recognize plainclothes police officers and undercover agents in a crowd,” Dohrn writes, “It was a bit like playing a game—a grown-up version of dress-up or make believe—that only my family was good at or knew all the rules.” By the time Dohrn was born in 1977, his parents had been hiding from the FBI for close to a decade, working cash jobs from San Francisco to Harlem using assumed names and forged papers. Their decision to have a family while on the run is just one of the tangled contradictions that Dohrn writes about his new book, Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young, which is both a family memoir and a social history of a forgotten chapter of American activism. An acclaimed playwright and screenwriter, Zayd Ayers Dohrn is a professor at Northwestern University and director of the MFA in Writing for Screen and Stage at Northwestern University. He is the creator of the narrative podcast Mother Country Radicals and the rock protest musical Revolution(s).Go beyond the episode:Zayd Ayers Dohrn's Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary UndergroundListen to Mother Country RadicalsIn 2022, we interviewed another member of the underground: Laura Kaplan, a member of the Jane collective that provided abortions before Roe v. WadeTune in every other week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes/Apple • Amazon • Google • Acast • PandoraHave suggestions for projects you'd like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Thomas Hardy's “The Field of Waterloo” from The Dynasts. Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Paula Bohince's “The Lambs Are Not for Sale.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Summer cometh: the grills get scraped clean, the buns are split, and hungry Americans get set to boil or broil their wursts, wieners, and sausages. In the summer of 2021, Jamie Loftus drove from coast to coast, tasting the vast array of hot dogs that America has to offer, consuming as many as four a day—and in one notable (or regrettable) instance, five. Chicago-style and the Coney Island special; drive-through and deli; chili and chile: Loftus devoured them all. Her ensuing book, Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs, brings the glory and the gory. It may be the first to detail not only the different genders of pickle jars one can buy at a gas station, but also the horrific treatment of animals and workers at slaughterhouses, conditions that got distinctly worse during the pandemic. Loftus—stand-up comedian, TV writer, and creator of such illustrious one-season podcasts as “My Year in Mensa” and “Ghost Church”—joins us to talk about the wild world of that iconic American food.This episode originally aired in 2023.Go beyond the episode:Jamie Loftus's Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot DogsProPublica's exposé of the meatpacking industry during Covid revealed awful conditions, and government collusionDelight your senses with PBS's classic A Hot Dog ProgramA few of the varieties mentioned in this episode:The Texas Tavern (not in Texas)Hungarian hot dogs … in ToledoThe baloney-wrapped hot dogs at Attman'sWhat'll ya have at the Varsity?Ben's Chili Bowl, where half-smokes and chili dogs reignThe Sonoran hot dogBut Loftus's top five are:Rutt's Hut in Clifton, New JerseyHot Dog Ruiz Los Chipilones in Tucson, ArizonaKing Jong Grillin in Portland, OregonThe hot dog carts across the street from the Crypto.com Arena, or near Union Station in Los Angeles, CaliforniaTexas Tavern in Roanoke, VirginiaTune in every other week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you'd like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Gwendolyn Brooks's “The Boy Died in My Alley.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Robert Browning's “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

No place is better suited to those with a taste for champagne but a beer budget than the humble estate sale. Its various guises—be they church rummage sales, yard sales, or online auctions—offer a variety of ways to acquire quality pieces and a little bit of history, with the bonus of saving grandma's treasures from the landfill. For several years, vintage enthusiast Kate Davis has been writing a popular weekly newsletter, Midwestern Estate Sailing, that not only spotlights upcoming sales of note but offers a guide for the uninitiated. Her new book, Bring Cash, distills those lessons (the first one is in the title) along with essays about favorite finds and what to look for: dovetail joints in furniture, finished seams in clothing, the sign-in sheet at the front of the line so you're not the last one admitted into the designer's midcentury bungalow. Davis joins the podcast this week to talk about what she's learned from estate sailing, her term for the ritual of trekking out to someone's house and wandering its halls for treasure—which is almost always sure to include at least one inexplicable maritime tchotchke.Go beyond the episode:Kate Davis's Bring Cash: A Guide to Estate Sales in the Midwest and BeyondHer newsletter, Midwestern Estate SailingFor more on the afterlives of secondhand stuff, listen to our interviews with Adam Minter (on global thrifting) and Dana Thomas (on fast fashion)Tune in every (other) week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.Subscribe: iTunes/Apple • Amazon • Google • Acast • PandoraHave suggestions for projects you'd like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Jane Kenyon's “Twilight: After Haying.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads David Mason's “Before the Loon Calls.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Medieval psychology” might sound nearly a millennium out of date, irrelevant to modern science, with its reassurances of cognitive data and peer-reviewed studies. But we often say that Shakespeare's 400-year old plays communicate the human condition, and that wouldn't be possible if the Bard didn't have a deep understanding of what makes our minds tick. Rewind the clock just 200 years further and you'll find, with the help of a Middle English glossary, that the autobiographical writings of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe—not to mention Chaucer—seem achingly familiar in their yearning, their humor, and their determination. We're not so different, mentally, from our forebears, and beyond literature, medieval writings on morality and psychology have a lot to offer us. But since cracking open a vellum manuscript to read cramped Latin text is beyond most of us, historian Peter Jones can be our guide in his new book, Self-Help from the Middle Ages. And the starting point for much medieval guidance on living a better life is quite familiar: the Seven Deadly Sins, which were less a catalog of forbidden behaviors than a path to self-knowledge. Just ask Dante. Go beyond the episode:Peter Jones's Self-Help from the Middle Ages: What the Seven Deadly Sins Can Teach Us About LivingFor more about medieval women's religious experience of food, you can't do better than Caroline Walker Bynum's Holy Feast and Holy FastGuillaume de Deguileville's The Pilgrimage of Human Life, in scanned manuscript or translationBernard of Clairvaux's The Steps of Humility and Pride Thomas Aquinas's works are available online in a free side-by-side translationDon't sleep on the early Christian mystics: Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, and Catherine of Siena Tune in every (other) week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.Subscribe: iTunes/Apple • Amazon • Google • Acast • PandoraHave suggestions for projects you'd like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Philip Levine's “The Return.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Forugh Farrokhzad's “Only Voice Remains,” translated from the Farsi by Sholeh Wolpe. Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Defining words is hard, no matter what they are, but the difficulty only doubles when the word in question is a purely visual referent like color. How do you define blue? Or red, or green, or—God forbid—pink? Well, Webster's Third New International Dictionary has this to say about teal duck, sense two, which transcends its origin as waterfowl: “a dark greenish blue that is bluer and duller than average teal, averaging teal blue, drake, or duckling.” Elegant. Fun, even, for a dictionary, whose defining characteristic is kind of to be dull as dust—which raises the question of how and why some of these colorful definitions came to be. That's the subject of lexicographer Kory Stamper's new book, True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color–from Azure to Zinc Pink, which takes her from the pink and buff archives of Merriam-Webster's offices to the warring color standards of the early 20th century, from the glossy pages of the Sears & Roebuck catalog to the trenches of World War I. Go beyond the episode:Kory Stamper's True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color–from Azure to Zinc PinkRead Scholar executive editor Bruce Falconer's essay, “What Is the Perfect Color Worth?” on the inscrutable world of color forecastingTune in every (other) week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.Subscribe: iTunes/Apple • Amazon • Google • Acast • PandoraHave suggestions for projects you'd like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Tony Hoagland's “Personal.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Randall Jarrell's “Field and Forest.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Songbirds are disappearing at an alarming rate, with some species teetering on the verge of extinction, barely clinging to their endangered habitats. Birders, not to mention scientists, are sounding the alarm. But true as these words are today, they also describe the 19th century, and the valiant—and occasionally violent—efforts to protect birds from the utter devastation of human activity. This is the subject of James H. McCommons's new book, The Feather Wars. Birds were threatened by aggressive logging, farming, hunting, sport, and the desire to put a feather in a woman's cap. But they were also imperiled by the very people who claimed to love them—ornithologists, and their kindred oologists, whose hobby consisted of killing thousands upon thousands of birds and collecting their eggs to fluff out their collections. McCommons takes us behind the battle lines of the first American effort to save the birds, in the hopes that some lessons might apply to our current circumstances.Go beyond the episode:James H. McCommons's The Feather Wars: And the Great Crusade to Save America's BirdsGet to know the birds in your back yard with eBird from the Cornell Lab of OrnithologyLearn how to garden for wildlifeRead this viral essay about keeping your cat indoors: “The Domestic Cat: Bird Killer, Mouser and Destroyer of Wild Life; Means of Utilizing and Controlling It” (1916)Tune in every (other) week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.Subscribe: iTunes/Apple • Amazon • Google • Acast • PandoraHave suggestions for projects you'd like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Sylvia Plath's “A Birthday Present.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Ibrahim Nasrallah's “In Love You Rise” from Palestinian, translated from the Arabic by Huda J. Fakhereddine. Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a cramped rent-controlled apartment on the lousy end of the Upper East Side, a dying woman in a diaper writes the story of her life. She is Barbara Rosenberg, high on OxyContin and determined to explain herself, if not exactly apologize, to the two people she loved most: her estranged trans son and her best friend, Sugar Becker, whose betrayals she has yet to forgive. This delirious monologue is the heart of Jordy Rosenberg's new novel, Night Night Fawn, which gives voice to Barbara's deepest disappointments about her friends, her family, her in-laws, and maybe, if she's being honest, her own silver-screen aspirations. But Barbara's most unhinged thoughts—about serving cold cuts at a funeral or the lesbian perils of a corduroy jacket; the schmucks of 1960s Flatbush or bad 1980s nose jobs; Karl Marx or yenta science—reach a crescendo with the unexpected reappearance of her long-lost loves.Mentioned in this episode:Jordy Rosenberg's Night Night FawnGillian Rose's Mourning Becomes the LawMichelle de Kretser's Theory & PracticeSophie Lewis's Enemy FeminismsRoberto Bolano's By Night in Chile, translated by Chris AndrewsAdania Shibli's Minor Detail, translated by Elisabeth JaquetteJordy Rosenberg's Confessions of the Fox (listen to our 2018 interview here)Amy Kaplan's Our American IsraelGretchen Felker-Martin's ManhuntGrace Byron's HerculineZefyr Lisowksi's Uncanny Valley GirlsTorrey Peters's Stag Dance and Detransition, BabyAnd, of course, Karl Marx's Capital (best read with an introduction)Tune in every (other) week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.Subscribe: iTunes/Apple • Amazon • Google • Acast • PandoraHave suggestions for projects you'd like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Galway Kinnell's “After Making Love We Hear Footsteps.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Nelly Sachs's “But Maybe God Needs Our Longing,” translated from the German by Stephanie Bastek. Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Elizabeth Bathory is alleged to have been the most prolific serial killer of all time, responsible for butchering as many as 650 virgins and bathing in their blood. Her Hungarian water castles are the sites of gruesome ghost tours, a metal band named itself for her, and for years she was in the Guinness Book of World Records. The number of women she's said to have killed is four times the population of an average 17th-century village, but when it comes to Bathory's story, even the Guinness Book concedes that “it is impossible to separate fact from fiction.” Shelley Puhak disagrees: In her new book,The Blood Countess, she contends that Bathory was instead the victim of possibly the greatest misinformation campaign in history, brought against a powerful, wealthy woman at a tumultuous time. Lutherans and Calvinists were at one another's throats at the height of the Protestant Reformation, the Ottoman Empire lurked just across the border, and medicine in upheaval, with both new and old practices bringing accusations of heresy and witchcraft. It was a dark time to be a woman—especially one with 17 castles to her name, and no husband to defend her.Go beyond the episode:Shelley Puhak's The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a MonsterTune in every (other) week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.Subscribe: iTunes/Apple • Amazon • Google • Acast • PandoraHave suggestions for projects you'd like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Ruth Stone's “Curtains.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Lynette Roberts's “The Temple Road.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Since 2011, the at-home DNA testing company 23andMe has invited its users to “celebrate your ancient DNA” with its Neanderthal report, which tells users whether their prehistoric genes predispose them to certain behaviors, like hoarding or not getting hangry. In the 1880s, Neanderthals were not being celebrated at all—they were depicted as little more than troglodytes with tools—and the 1980s weren't much better: rough hair, swarthy skin, dull eyes, jutting foreheads … an evolutionary dead end. Today, armed with recently decoded Neanderthal DNA, researchers are reconstructing these archaic people as lighter-skinned, blue-eyed, and blond. For historian Stefanos Geroulanos, however, this new account raises difficult questions. “Are Neanderthals now smart because they are no longer depicted as dark-skinned? Or, conversely, have they become blond and white because they are now believed to have been smart, able, quintessentially human?” Questions like these form the heart of his book, The Invention of Prehistory: Empire, Violence, and Our Obsession with Human Origins, which has just won Phi Beta Kappa's Ralph Waldo Emerson Book Award. Geroulanos contends that our claims about the deep past—whether made in 1726 or 2026—tell us more about the moment we propose them than anything else.Go beyond the episode:Stefanous Geroulanos's The Invention of Prehistory: Empire, Violence, and Our Obsession with Human OriginsListen to Geroulanos in conversation at the Phi Beta Kappa 2025 Book AwardsReconstructed ancient languages like Proto-Indo-European have been similarly weaponized for political ends, as Laura Spinney describes on an earlier episodeAnd our understanding of the more recent past—like Viking history, similarly prone—has been challenged by recent archaeological discoveries too, as Eleanor Barraclough explains in Embers of the HandsTune in every (other) week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.Subscribe: iTunes/Apple • Amazon • Google • Acast • PandoraHave suggestions for projects you'd like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads A. R. Ammons's “The Brook Has Worked out the Prominences of a Bend.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Elizabeth Bishop's “The Armadillo.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Nizar Qabbani's “Maritime Poem,” translated from the Arabic by Rana Bitar and Robert Bensen. Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Léopold Sédar Senghor's “Femme Noire,” translated from the French by Melvin Dixon. Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads E. E. Cummings's “i thank You God for most this amazing day.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads “Poem III” from Adrienne Rich's Twenty-One Love Poems.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Elizabeth Jennings's “Absence.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Stevie Smith's “Was He Married?” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Audley Moore mentored Malcolm X, popularized reparations for African Americans in a 1963 essay, and advanced the cause of Black women in both the Black nationalist and civil rights movements. She rubbed elbows with the Mandelas, Jessie Jackson, and Rosa Parks. Once a household name in the mid-20th century, she has fallen out of the history books, despite a career of organizing and activism that spanned a century, her artifacts lost and her archives scattered. But more than 100 years after Moore's birth and 28 years after her death, Ashley D. Farmer has written the first biography of Moore, Queen Mother: Black Nationalism, Reparations, and the Untold Story of Audley Moore. Farmer brings together a decade of research spanning oral history, archival work from Louisiana to New York City, and, of course, reams of FBI documents to paint the fullest picture of this icon's life to date.Go beyond the episode:Ashley D. Farmer's Queen Mother: Black Nationalism, Reparations, and the Untold Story of Audley MooreSpeaking of neglected Black figures: read Harriet A. Washington's Winter 2026 cover story on Rudolph Fisher, Harlem Renaissance manTune in every (other) week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.Subscribe: iTunes/Apple • Amazon • Google • Acast • PandoraHave suggestions for projects you'd like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Jane Kenyon's “The Little Boat.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Robert Lowell's “Epilogue.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads W. B. Yeats's “Leda and the Swan.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In ancient Greece, the view from on high was known as catascopos, or “the looker-down.” It's a privileged perspective, and in the modern world, one increasingly taken by machines: drones, satellites, spy cameras, airplanes, sentient doorbells. In his new book, Look Out: The Delight and Danger of Taking the Long View, Edward McPherson surveys the cultural history of top-down and far-ranging perspectives from aviation and warfare to quarantine and protest. “We continue to make decisions based on the big picture,” he writes. “Politicians and planners confront the challenges of today with lofty intelligence, always pointing to the forest, not the trees.” Often that view can be obscuring, even as its accuracy is hailed. Consider the dead civilians mistaken for combatants in drone warfare the world over, or the wrong face recognized on CCTV. And in some cases, the forest isn't even there, as in John B. Bachelder's birds-eye map of Gettysburg and its imaginary copse of trees. Is distance the straightest path to truth? What dangers lie in prioritizing the big picture? McPherson joins Smarty Pants to muddle through the trees.Go beyond the episode:Edward McPherson's Look Out: The Delight and Danger of Taking the Long ViewRead “Lost and Found,” his essay about the house in Gettysburg built by his great-great-grandfather, also named Edward McPhersonTune in every (other) week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.Subscribe: iTunes/Apple • Amazon • Google • Acast • PandoraHave suggestions for projects you'd like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads “XXVIII” from Derek Walcott's Midsummer. Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Louis MacNeice's “Soap Suds.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Lucille Clifton's “New Bones.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stories of the undead tormenting the living supposedly entered the English-speaking world in 1732, with a report from the Hapsburg military of events in Serbia—events that would go on to inspire the most famous vampire of all, Dracula. But the count from Transylvania was neither the first undead man in England (British corpses went walking in 680, and again in 1090) nor the most emblematic of the folk tales that preceded him (that would be Carmilla, who embodies a type seen from China to the Eastern Roman Empire). In Killing the Dead: Vampire Epidemics from Mesopotamia to the New World, John Blair uses examples from the far-flung ancient world—a “vampire belt” stretching from Scandinavia and the North Sea through central and eastern Europe, western Russia, the Near East, India, and China to Indonesia—to make the case that “corpse-killing is mainstream and not marginal, therapeutic and not pathological.” The undead have seemingly always been with us, as has our need to kill them to exorcise our own anxieties. “Killing the dead is better than killing the living,” Blair writes. “Like other extreme rituals, it is depressing at the time but leaves people feeling good afterwards.”Go beyond the episode:John Blair's Killing the Dead: Vampire Epidemics from Mesopotamia to the New WorldListen to our interview about the modern vampire with Nick Groom, the Prof of Goth, and our conversation with Ronald Hutton about witch persecutions through the agesYou know we love horror—visit our episode page for a list of spookiest episodesTune in every (other) week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.Subscribe: iTunes/Apple • Amazon • Google • Acast • Pandora • RSS FeedHave suggestions for projects you'd like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes!Music featured from Master Toad (“Dreadful Mansion”) and 8bit Betty (“Spooky Loop”), courtesy of the Free Music Archive. Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Stanley Kunitz's “Halley's Comet.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Louise Glück's “Brennende Liebe.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Foraging has been part of the human story forever, and its post-pandemic resurgence is a return to ways of living with the natural world that have only recently been forgotten. Gabrielle Cerberville, or the Chaotic Forager, as she's known online, is one of the voices championing the practice on social media. Her videos distill the beauty of living with the seasons into bite-size videos, many of them including recipes, from pine-syrup mugolio to simple dry-sauteed mushrooms. Her new book, Gathered: On Foraging, Feasting, and the Seasonal Life, combines personal essays with a kind of narrative field guide, along with—of course—dozens of wildly creative recipes, making for the book version of walking through the woods with a friend.Go beyond the episode:Gabrielle Cerberville's Gathered: On Foraging, Feasting, and the Seasonal LifeFind foraging workshops and videos on her website, TikTok, and InstagramRead Michael Autrey's account of foraging for mushrooms, or Matthew Desmond's reporting on the wild ginseng trade in AppalachiaVisit our episode page for a list of recommended field guides and cookbooksTune in every (other) week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.Subscribe: iTunes/Apple • Amazon • Google • Acast • PandoraHave suggestions for projects you'd like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Thomas Hardy's “The Rejected Member's Wife.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Agha Shahid Ali's “Of Light.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Boxy Moskvitch and Lada cars, pastel-green concrete tiles, derelict playgrounds, intermittent hot water: these were the markers of Izidora Angel's childhood in 1980s Sofia. “Banana Yellow Trabants,” her essay for our Autumn 2025 issue, takes its name from the Duroplast car that her grandfather, and then her father, Solomon, drove in the 1980s. But bananas show up elsewhere, too: in the myths that young girls would tell each other about the diets of Bulgaria's famed rhythmic gymnastics team and once, miraculously, on her family's holiday table. The Angel family's antics suffuse the essay with warmth and humor, but churning beneath the surface is Solomon's ambition. “He would be the boss, the creative vision and force behind all his future endeavors,” Angel writes, “opening the hottest nightclub in the capital, running five restaurants, renovating city landmarks, building the first manufacturing plant in the country after communism, developing plans to build a whole city.” That city was never built, and Angel lives in Chicago today, sent here alone on a plane more than 20 years ago. She joins us to talk about how her life has been an act of translation.Go beyond the episode:Read Izidora Angel's “Banana Yellow Trabants” in our Autumn 2025 issue, and an essay on translation and her father, “The Alphabet of Supposition”For more on Angel's translation, read this interview from Reading in Translation about her forthcoming translation of She Who Remains by Rene KarabashIn 2023, the Bulgarian novel Time Shelter, written by Georgi Gospodinov and translated by Angela Rodel, won the International Booker Prize—here are more Bulgarian books in translationTune in every (other) week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.Subscribe: iTunes/Apple • Amazon • Google • Acast • PandoraHave suggestions for projects you'd like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Wallace Stevens's “A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Lawrence Ferlinghetti's “I Am Waiting.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you'll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.