Tad Williams is the author of several best-selling fantasy novels. He talks with Jim Fleming about the fantasy genre and how readers can use it to explore ideas about the real world.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
How do you best portray a strong female character, either in TV or in film? That’s a question culture critic Tasha Robinson has been asking herself for a long time now, first during her 13 years as an editor for the A.V. Club and most recently as the senior editor of the movie commentary site, The Dissolve. She tells Charles Monroe Kane that it's relatability — not toughness — that defines a strong woman on screen.
There's money to be made in the future. It's Liz Crawford's job to help big corporations figure out how to prepare for possible futures.
Tom Wolfe reads the opening to "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and explains why it's his favorite.
Neuroscientist Sebastian Seung takes us inside the "connectome": the audacious project to create a detailed map of the human brain.
You can also listen to the EXTENDED interview, and read the extended transcript.
Philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco wrote a history of beauty. A few years later, he followed it up with a study of ugliness. Here’s what he found
There are many ways to react to the tragedies of the past. Politically. Historically. And even… musically.
When Samuel Clemens took on the pen name “Mark Twain,” he was doing more cleverly appropriating a measure of depth. He was also tapping into one of the most well-known sounds along the river: sounding calls. Owen Selles tells about these calls in this piece, adapted from an essay he originally wrote for the online magazine Edge Effects.
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