Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
The kind of people who live in places like Jackson, Kentucky often get characterized as poor, white and angry. And worse, as redneck and racist – hillbilly white trash. J.D. Vance knows them well. They’re his people. He grew up in Kentucky coal country and the Ohio rust belt - places he left behind when he went to Yale Law School. Today he practices in Silicon Valley, but he’s just written a book called “Hillbilly Elegy," which should be required reading for this election year. Welcome to Jackson, Kentucky.
Stories of ghosts and clairvoyants are everywhere, but can they stand up to scientific scrutiny? A hundred years ago, William James led an elite group of scientists to investigate the paranormal. Deborah Blum tells this remarkable story.
Hanna Pylvainen's debut novel "We Sinners" is loosely based on her own history in a fundamentalist Lutheran community.
Political scientist and linguist George Lakoff thinks that Conservatives have devoted a lot of thought, care and money to developing a rhetoric that advances their social agenda.
Greg Critser says that most of the claims of the advocates of organic food have very little science behind them. He thinks chefs should concentrate on creating satisfying food and not saving the world.
Hendrik Hartog explodes the myth that the 19th century was the golden age of marriage. He tells Jim Fleming that separation, desertion, and bigamy were common long before divorce was legal.
Some people people prefer their medieval adventures up close and personal. Producer Aubrey Ralph takes inside one of those groups.
Pages
