We all love the feeling of getting lost in a good story and seeing the world through a character’s eyes. Recently, psychologists have been studying whether that experience actually changes readers. Novelist and cognitive psychologist Keith Oatley tells us about the latest research connecting fiction with empathy.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Terry Tempest Williams has spent much of her life trying to understand her mother - both a private woman and a trickster. Her memoir is also an exploration of silence and finding one's voice.
For a truly mind-bending experience, here’s an UNCUT interview with Stanislav Grof on his pioneering studies of LSD and other psychedelics.
Rudolph Bell tells Jim Fleming that Italian parents of 500 years ago had some very modern ideas about child rearing. And a few wacky ones about pre-determining the sex of your baby.
Thebe Medupe is an astrophysicist who grew up under apartheid. He talks about the stories he grew up hearing from his village elders and the astronomical legends of the Dogun people in Mali.
Larry Brilliant is a doctor, co-founder of the digital social network the Well, and he was the first executive director of Google.org. But back in the Sixties, he was a hippie doctor who joined Wavy Gravy's traveling bus caravan and then landed in an Indian ashram in the Himalayas, where his guru told him his destiny was to help cure smallpox. Miraculously, his U.N. team of doctors eradicated the world's remaining cases of this terrible disease. He tells Steve Paulson about a remarkable moment in history when anything seemed possible.
Steve Paulson loves the idea of personal library. For all the digital data out there, Paulson says there's nothing quite like a book. He tells producer Sara Nics about data, knowledge, and To the Best of Our Knowledge.
Looking for the EXTENDED conversation? Find it here.
And more photos? Check them out on Facebook.
Sara Gruen tells Anne Strainchamps why she chose an elephant as a main character for her story of love, avarice and power.
Pages
