Richard Powers reads an excerpt from his novel, "Orfeo," inspired by the music of Mahler and set to Mahler's "Kindertotenlieder."
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Harriet Tubman will soon be gracing our twenty dollar bill. Most of us know only one image of her. It's an iconic image taken later in her life in which her hair's covered in a dark cloth and she has a stern expression. But there are other images of Harriet Tubman as well, including a wood cut of her carrying a musket.
Law professor Nicholas Johnson says the image of Harriet Tubman carrying a rifle doesn’t fit with how most Americans view abolitionists and civil rights leaders. After all, weren’t they supposed to be peaceful? But as Johnson tells Steve Paulson, there's a rich tradition of Black Americans owning guns for self-defense.
Jon Scieskza tells Anne Strainchamps that boys like to read funny stuff, not the books their female teachers loved as girls.
Chandra McCormick and Keith Calhoun have been photographing life in the Louisiana State Penitentiary for 30 years. They talk about the conditions in the prison - nicknamed Angola, for the plantation that was formerly on the site - and how they've changed over time. When they see the inmates working in the fields, they say, it looks a lot like slavery.
How did non-life become life? University of Wisconsin geochemist Nita Sahai talks with Anne Strainchamps about how life might have begun on Earth.
Joshua Shenk tells Jim Fleming that Abraham Lincoln never attempted suicide, that we know of, but referred to it in a poem he wrote, and Shenk recites the poem.
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