If there’s one writer who’s identified with the Mississippi River, it’s Mark Twain. He grew up in Hannibal, Missouri — on the river’s edge — and as a young man, he worked as a steamboat pilot. And then he wrote the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” the novel that turned the Mississippi into myth. But it also created one of the most enduring controversies in American literary history: how to depict race relations in America's past. In this interview, Andrew Levy says that "Huckleberry Finn" is actually anti-racist — and when it was first published, the big controversy was about Twain’s depiction of wild children.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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In 2009, Eric Glatt did the unthinkable for an unpaid intern — he sued his employer, Fox Searchlight Pictures, alleging that they violated the Labor Department's standards for internships. He describes why he believes unpaid internships threaten workers everywhere.
Lawrence Millman wrote the foreward and saw through the publication of Edward Beauclerk Maurice's diary.
Jim Fleming reports how a new generation of American Buddhist teachers are adapting the Buddha's two thousand year old message for 21st century American audiences.
Jon Kabat-Zinn talks with Steve Paulson about what it means to be mindful of the body’s functioning, like breathing.
Fed Reserve Chairman Ben Bernake may wield more power over the economy than anyone else, even though he was never elected. Washington Post journalist Neil Irwin takes us inside the elite club of the world's leading central bankers.
For centuries, the oddities of nature - like two-headed cats and conjoined twins - fascinated people. Science historian Lorraine Daston says a history of wonders is to some degree a history of pre-modern science.
John Haught is a Roman Catholic theologian at Georgetown University, and the author of “God After Darwin” and “God and the New Atheism.”
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