Rebecca Dopart was working as a Peace Corps volunteer in Poland, in the mid-90s. While there, she fell in love and got married. Just three weeks after her wedding, her father-in-law died. In this story, Dopart recalls how her husband tended to his father’s body.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Piers Vitebsky is an anthropologist who studies the Eveny or Reindeer People of Siberia. They depend on the reindeer for their survival. They keep herds of them for meat - but their connection goes even deeper. Vitebsky says that they also have personal, consecrated reindeer animal doubles, which they believe will die for them.
David Gessner discovered the American West as a young man, and the huge mountains and wide open spaces changed his life. He recently took a road trip through the West, following in the footsteps of two literary heroes, Edward Abbey and Wallace Stegner. Gessner says their books help us see the West in all its complexity.
White Americans of European descent will make up less than half the population by 2042, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In other words, white people will soon become a demographic minority. Philosopher Linda Martin Alcoff says that shift represents a sea change in how we'll think about American identity. She’s the author of the new book “The Future of Whiteness.” Alcoff told Steve Paulson that before we contemplate the future, we need to grapple with what it means to be white today.
Thomas Chatterton Williams is a young writer who grew up listening to hip hop, but lost touch with the culture upon entering college.
Tom Hayden, one of the founders of Students for a Democratic Society and later a State Assemblyman and Senator in California, talks with Steve Paulson.
Ron Powers tells Jim Fleming that today’s teens may turn to violence to express their individuality since all the traditional means for signaling coolness have been co-opted by corporate consumer culture.
Anne Strainchamps talks with biologist Tyler Volk and science writer Dorion Sagan, co-authors of "Sex and Death" or "Death and Sex" if you flip the book upside down.
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