Arts and Culture

Is the American criminal justice system perpetuating racial castes? Civil rights attorney and activist Michelle Alexander breaks down the systemic racism inherent to our justice system.More

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In 2005, David Foster Wallace addressed the graduating class at Kenyon College in California.  Anne Strainchamps looks back at this recording and what it's come to mean to her and her family.More

statue of angel

Welcome to the death revolution.  Across the country - in cafes, dining rooms, and community centers - there's a new conversation taking shape. Funeral professionals, hospice workers, academics, artists, and just plain folks are working together to change the way we talk about death and dying.More

DNA

Ray Kurzweil tells Steve Paulson humans will merge with new technology and vastly improve their intelligence.More

Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni reads "Poem for Lady Whose Voice I Like"More

book glasses

Some of the world's most celebrated scientists and artists have been dyslexic.  Cognitive scientist Maryanne Wolf says dyslexia can be a gift, but schools must learn how to teach dyslexics to read.More

Kazuo Ishiguro discusses his latest novel, "The Buried Giant." Set in a mythic past with ogres and pixies, it's a dramatic shift from his previous work.More

At the height of the Vietnam War, on the night of the full moon, a baby girl is born along the Song Ma River in her mother's grave. Her name is Rabbit, and she can hear the dead. In a luminous debut novel, "She Weeps Each Time You're Born," Wisconsin poet and writer Quan Barry explores wartime Vietnam through the eyes of a little girl with an uncommon gift.More

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Nicola Griffith was born in England, is a lesbian and has MS.  She's also a writer, whose character Aud, the deep-minded, has starred in several mysteries.More

Devo performing live at the Forecastle Festival, in Louisville, Kentucky, 2010 Left to right: Gerald Casale (bass), Mark Mothersbaugh (vocals; keyboards), Bob Casale (keyboards; guitar), and Bob Mothersbaugh (guitar)

Mark Mothersbaugh is co-founder of the new-wave band Devo. They think humanity is de-evolving.More

mary and jesus puppet

The Reduced Shakespeare Company perform an even further abridged version of their theatrical show "The Bible: The Complete Word of God" - abridged.More

Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni reads Untitled (For Margaret Danner).More

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Nicola Griffith set her award-winning historical novel, "Hild," in seventh-century Britain. It's based on the real life of the fierce young girl who eventually became one of the most powerful women of her day -- St. Hilda of Whitby.More

a honeybee

Pattiann Rogers is a celebrated essayist and poet.  She's won numerous awards and is the author of fourteen books.  She shares some of her favorite bee poems with Anne.More

 Marcel Proust (seated), Robert de Flers (left) and Lucien Daudet (right), ca. 1894

Jonah Lehrer says that the great French writer Proust described insights into the way the mind processes memory long before the scientists could prove how the brain worked.More

electrode

Richard Holmes talks with Steve Paulson about how art and science influenced each other during the Romantic period.More

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Lauren Beukes talks about her new novel, "The Shining Girls."More

Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni reads her poem, "For Saundra."More

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