Latest Stories

a view of the Manhattan skyline from the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Queens.
Audio

One of the greatest walkers of our time, William Helmreich — known for exploring every street in New York City — was an early casualty of COVID-19. But composer David Rothenberg got to walk with him one last time, around wetlands in Queens.

Length: 
7:45
A path near Lake Wingra in Madison, Wisconsin.
Audio

Any hiker has to wonder about the trails they walk on. Who made them? And why does the trail follow this particular route? Robert Moor has traveled around the world exploring animal and fossil trails, and he's investigated ancient roads and neural networks. He says paths embody a deep wisdom.

listening
Articles

Valmont Layne grew up under apartheid in South Africa. Music, along with protest movements, radicalized him. He tells Anne and Steve that South African jazz became a musical current that’s traveled across oceans, spreading ideas about freedom.

Length: 
9:24
A frog
Audio

Humans are not the only creatures who vocalize. Birds, whale and frogs have voices too—but are we listening? Bernie Krause has been recording environmental sounds all over the world since the 1970s. He says it's time for humans to shut up.

Length: 
10:00
A show at Fendika in Addis Ababa.
Audio

To unpack the history of African musical migration, you have to go back to European colonization, says musicologist Ron Radano. He's been rewriting the history of race and Black music, and he says, "We are all African when we listen."

Length: 
13:42
Audio

Afghan women are complicated. They pray, have affairs, and get mad at their children. But it seems one thing binds them — the landay. Poet and journalist Eliza Griswold went to Afghanistan in 2012 learn more about a type of poem that Afghan women have been sharing since 1700 BCE.

Length: 
10:02
Afghan carpet for sale
Audio

Anna Badkhen spent a year in the remote Afghan village of Oqa. She got to know the master weavers, who make some of the world's most beautiful carpets.

A performer on "Afghan Star."
Audio

In the midst of chaos in her home country, Humaira Ghilzai recently sat down with Charles Monroe-Kane to talk about what might be lost culturally as the Taliban take power.

Length: 
15:25
Apache attack helicopter in approach, Sep 2020
Articles

In her book, "Against White Feminism," Pakistani Rafia Zakaria argues that white American feminists prolonged the bloodshed during the 20 year war in Afghanistan. She asks if these feminists ever asked Afghan women of the region what they wanted.

Length: 
13:43
Albert Camus in the 1950s
Audio

Albert Camus’s first novel, "The Stranger," speaks strongly to the search for meaning. It’s the story of an alienated man who commits a senseless murder. Literary critic Alice Kaplan calls it "the perfect Black Lives Matter book."

Length: 
14:41
"Poison Squad" Volunteers taking in a dinner with a side of Borax.
Articles

Science writer Deborah Blum on the government scientists who made the case for food regulation by "eating dangerously."

Length: 
11:47
Tyrone  Muhammad
Articles

Tyrone Muhammad, also known as "Muhammad the Mortician," is the funeral director at Newark’s Peace and Glory Home for Funerals. He spent decades trying to stop the epidemic of gun violence in the black community he serves, but nothing prepared him for a pandemic.

Length: 
9:59
Window man
Articles

David Kessler is one of the foremost experts on death and grieving. He’s written many books on the subject, and worked with Elizabeth Kubler Ross on famous five stages of grief. He recently added a sixth: finding meaning.

Length: 
11:35
flowers
Audio

The poet Nikki Giovanni, reading her poem "One Ounce of Truth Benefits Like a Ripple on a Pond."

Length: 
2:22
Woman in mirror
Articles

Suzanne O’Sullivan on what medical science is missing about mysterious illnesses. 

light in the dark
Articles

Philosopher John Kaag discusses how the 19th century thinker William James might help us seek meaning and purpose in a confusing time.

Length: 
10:36
Brandy Clark
Deep Tracks

One of Charles’ favorite musician interviews is with country music star Brandy Clark. Brandy and Charles have a similar upbringing and he had a strong connection with her album “Big Day in a Small Town.”

Length: 
10:21
Moken
Deep Tracks

Moken is from Cameroon. He is a storyteller, with a voice both beautiful, bold, and at times bizarre. Charles sat down with him to talk about his new album “Missing Chapters” and to hear some incredible live music.

Length: 
13:15
Lisa Bielawa
Articles

With "Broadcast From Home," New York City composer and musician Lisa Bielawa hopes to set the thoughts and emotions of quarantine to music, in the voices of anyone willing to contribute a performance. 

Length: 
13:32
"From War is Beautiful" by David Shields, published by powerHouse Books.
Photo Gallery

David Shields says the New York Times is complicit in romanticizing war through imagery.

Mark Art, Not War
Audio

Is war inevitable? Leymah Gbowee loudly and strongly says no. And she’s got proof.

Length: 
11:40
James Nachtwey, Collapse of the South Tower, Church of St. Peter, September 22, 2001.
Articles

James Nachtwey is one of the world's great war photographers. For more than three decades, he's covered just about every major armed conflict around the world, and he's been wounded several times on the job. He talks about his harrowing work in Afghanistan, Iraq and where those wars began — Ground Zero in 2001.

Length: 
14:35
man moving steel
Articles

Alissa Quart spent the last few years traveling around the country, talking with all kinds of people about work. What she found is a lot of people with jobs that look good on paper but who feel — in a word — squeezed.

Length: 
12:26
punch the clock
Dangerous Ideas

When we talk about reforming work, fixing work, creating new kinds of work — author and historian James Livingston thinks perhaps we’re not going far enough. 

Length: 
4:51
Dæmon Pan and the alethiometer in HBO's adaptation of "His Dark Materials"
Articles

Philip Pullman, the celebrated English writer has just written a 630-page sequel brimming with contentious ideas about religious tyranny, the loss of imagination and the nature of consciousness — all in a book that’s marketed to children.

Length: 
16:00
Henry Morton Stanley (center) meets David Livingstone (right)
Articles

Nineteenth century European explorer David Livingstone died of malaria nearly 150 years ago, but as author Petina Gappah explains, Africans are still debating his legacy today as they assess the impact of European colonialism.

Length: 
15:14
Blues People
Bookmarks

Alex Abramovich recommends "Blues People: Negro Music in White America" by Leroi Jones, who later changed his name to Amiri Baraka.

Length: 
2:23
Vijay Iyer
Deep Tracks

Celebrated jazz pianist Vijay Iyer talks improv and basketball with Steve backstage before a show.

Length: 
15:04
Band A Part
Deep Tracks

Norway's acclaimed pianist Tord Gustavsen recommends another Norwegian classic, Masqualero's album "Bande a Part."

Length: 
3:26
prison
Articles

Feeling regret about committing a crime matters in criminal sentencing. But if emotion isn't supposed to have a place in the law, should it matter? Susan Bandes tells us how judges and juries evaluate remorse, and why.

Length: 
9:26

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