We’re living through a period of mass human migration, with people on the move all over the planet. What does it take to take an unfamiliar place and make it yours?Read more
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Episode Archives
There's a new kind of music packing nightclubs with young fans. It's jazz — but not the sound of your grandparents' supper club. Infused with hip hop and other popular musical forms, jazz is being remade.Read more
Original Air Date:
November 27, 2016
Hip hop created a sound that changed music, art, fashion, and politics. What's next? Diplomacy? Journalism? Education? Philosophy?Read more
Original Air Date:
November 20, 2016
How does it feel to know that the commodity everyone wants is inside your skull? This hour, we focus our attention — on attention. Read more
Original Air Date:
November 13, 2016
How do we put the fairness and the fun back in American elections? In this hour, we present a few simple ideas for how to remake the electoral process.Read more
Original Air Date:
October 30, 2016
Psychologists say telling a good life story can make you happier. But do we also create an inauthentic version of ourselves if we turn everything into a narrative?Read more
Original Air Date:
October 23, 2016
This hour, we explore our obsession with time travel. Why is such a recurring them in movies and TV shows? And what can time travel teach us about ourselves?Read more
Original Air Date:
October 09, 2016
Can we ever get inside the mind of an animal? Can we really know how a chimp or a parrot thinks and experiences the world?Read more
Original Air Date:
September 03, 2016
"We live by wild mercy," Terry Tempest Williams writes. In this hour, she takes us to some of her favorite national parks, from Big Bend to Arches. We also explore the desert wilderness of Utah's Escalante area, and hear about a father and daughter's remarkable adventure into the Arctic National...Read more
Original Air Date:
July 24, 2016
When suicide bombers blow up crowded marketplaces, or a lone shooter attacks a nightclub, one question we’re always left with is why. This hour, a look at the underlying psychology of political violence.Read more
Original Air Date:
July 16, 2016
Have you ever thought about tracking down someone who bullied you when you were a child? Allen Kurzweil thought about it and actually confronted him. We'll hear his story in this hour as we explore the bullying epidemic. Also, we'll find out how the Internet has transformed bullying into a...Read more
Original Air Date:
July 03, 2016
When you don't have a voice, when you feel like lawmakers just won't listen to you, protest is one way of capturing the world's attention. But does it work? Read more
Original Air Date:
June 26, 2016
There are nearly 250 million migrants across the world right now. Some will be escaping war or oppression, others will be seeking out freedom or economic prosperity, but whatever the reason, the kind of life they're looking for lies across a border that's policed and restricted. What if it didn'...Read more
Original Air Date:
May 01, 2016
We grow up scribbling with crayons and covering sidewalks with chalk, and then around middle school most of us stop. Maybe we think it's childish or just too hard. So what can we learn from the people who never stopped making art?Read more
Original Air Date:
April 17, 2016
There's a lot of hand-wringing these days about the American Empire. Is it doomed to come crashing down the way the Roman Empire did?Read more
Original Air Date:
February 21, 2016
Do you ever get the feeling that this is Big Soda's world and we're just living in it? Even though soda sales have declined in recent years, Big Soda looms large in our popular culture. In this hour, we explore "Coca-Cola Capitalism" and soda politics.Read more
Original Air Date:
February 07, 2016
Reading books isn't always the best way to learn. Some things you need to learn from your elders, and their wisdom has often been passed down through the generations. Read more
Original Air Date:
January 31, 2016
So what about that phrase “a more perfect union”? What does that mean? And how do we reconcile all the different visons of what a more perfect union might be? Especially the ones you disagree with.Read more
Original Air Date:
January 24, 2016
Can science tell you how to "get happy?" This hour, the psychology and history behind the very idea of happiness. Read more
Original Air Date:
January 11, 2016
Procrastination can be an occasional bad habit, but it can also be a lot worse. It can lead to depression, low self-esteem, anxiety. Today, we try to answer the question, Why do we put things off and how can we stop?
...Read more
Original Air Date:
January 03, 2016
Why are we so obsessed with the future? Is it because we can't handle the present and all of our current problems, like climate change, racism and terrorism? That's one theory.Read more
Original Air Date:
January 02, 2016
Some people talk to God and some think God talks to them. Read more
Original Air Date:
December 27, 2015
