John Updike talks with Steve Paulson about the business of being interviewed. Updike is skittish about giving interviews, but often finds himself saying more than he’d planned once he gets going.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Physicist Janna Levin tells Steve Paulson why she wanted to write about mathematicians Alan Turing and Kurt Godel, and why her book is a novel.
Historian John D'Emilio tells Jim Fleming that Bayard Rustin was crucial to the civil rights movement but has been forgotten because he was gay.
If your mind is nothing more than brain chemistry, do you have free will? In this EXTENDED interview, cognitive neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga says new brain science should change our thinking about this old philosophical question.
The State Department used jazz musicians as a weapon in the cold war to win hearts and minds in the Third World. Louis Armstrong, Dizy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Dave Brubek were among the so-called "jazz ambassadors."
Michio Kaku and Jim Fleming have a grand time exploring levels of impossibility and why the impossible just takes longer.
Historian Joseph Persico tells Jim Fleming that Roosevelt loved the thrilling, clandestine aspects of espionage, and had to learn to appreciate the advantages of electronic spying.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie won the National Book Critics Circle award for her new novel, "Americanah." We went back to our archives and found this memorable interview with Adichie from 2010, when Steve Paulson spoke to her about her earlier novel "The Thing Around Your Neck."
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