David Hajdu recently wrote a controversial article for The New Republic about the legacy of Alan Lomax. Lomax and his father made field recordings of thousands of folk and blues songs including work by Leadbelly and Muddy Waters.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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“I learned virtually nothing about mortality when I was in medical school,” Dr. Atul Gawande says. “I was terrible at knowing how to have a successful conversation with people facing terminal illness.” Gawande, author of the bestselling “Being Mortal,” is now trying to get people talking about better ways to live out the final chapter.
These days beauty’s got a complicated reputation. One professor of literature and aesthetics at Harvard is giving beauty a makeover.
David Thomson is a film critic. His new book is called "‘Have You Seen...?': A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films." He tells Steve Paulson the book is not just a list of the thousand greatest films.
People have gathered together to dance for centuries. Barbara Ehrenreich says we've become so obsessed with personal happiness, we often neglect the pleasures of collective joy.
FMA Live! is a multi-media theatrical presentation that tours schools using a hip hop beat to teach Newton's Three Laws of Motion.
Bill Welden, an expert on Tolkien’s Elvish languages, talks about Elvish derivations and vocabulary and remembers his visit to the set of the “The Lord of the Rings” movie.
Carl Klaus is the author of "Letters to Kate." It's a collection of the letters he wrote to his wife in the first year after her death.
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