Saul Williams has been hailed as hip hop's poet laureate. He talks with Anne Strainchamps, and we hear some of his work.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Doug Gordon found Steve Nieve in Chicago and talked with him about his music and his collection of sounds.
Terry Tempest Williams reads from her book, "Red," and talks about the desert with Steve Paulson.
American Wendy Doniger holds two doctorates in Sanskrit and Indian studies from Harvard and Oxford. She’s the author of numerous books on Hinduism and has translated several Sanskrit texts. She’s widely considered one of the most important scholars on Indian religion in the world. So it might surprise you that there is one country in the world she can’t visit: India.
Doniger’s books have been targeted by Hindu Nationalists and by India’s ruling right-wing BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party). Her latest, “The Hindus: An Alternative History,” was the subject of a major lawsuit in India, and its publisher, Penguin Books India, not only pulled the book from circulation but destroyed all remaining copies. Since then, Doniger has received many death threats inside of India and no longer feels safe visiting there. But as she told Steve Paulson, her writing about Hinduism hasn’t changed in over 40 years. What has changed is India.
In this look behind the scenes, producer Veronica Rueckert and Anne Strainchamps remember our interview with Amy Wallace-Havens, the sister of the late David Foster Wallace.
Shulem Deen was a Skverer— a member of one of the most insular Hasidic sects in the U.S. Then he got curious about secular life and the world outside his small village in Rockland County, NY. The community branded him a heretic and expelled him. And his wife and five children renounced him.
Sherry Turkle discusses the ways in which we are already developing relationships with personal robotic devices from cellphones and iPods to toys like the Furby and My Real Baby.
Art critic, novelist and editor Wendy Lesser reads excerpts from her essay "Hitchcock's Vertigo."
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