According to historian Thomas Laqueur, neither sanitation nor the soul fully explain the rang of rituals we've developed for caring for dead bodies. For him, there is a deeper anthropological truth at work: caring for the dead marks the human transition from nature into culture.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Media theorist Douglas Rushkoff's Dangerous Idea? Open source currency as the next money model.
Esperanza Spalding is one of the brightest young stars in jazz - except she resists being labeled a "jazz musician." In fact, her new album "Emily's D+ Evolution" sounds more like rock than jazz. When she sat down in our studio with Steve Paulson, she talked about her childhood roots in classical music before her momentous discovery of jazz improvisation.
Christopher Caldwell talks with Steve Paulson about the European discomfort with the rising tide of Muslim immigration.
Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Her most noted novel is called “Half of a Yellow Sun.”
I dunno, but it seems kind of extreme, not to mention risky, to bio-engineer a mass mosquito die-off. So Steve Paulson tracked down the world’s greatest living entomologist to see what he has to say. E. O Wilson is sometimes called “the ant man” – that’s the insect he studied most – but he’s best known as the evolutionary biologist and a champion of biodiversity. He’s 86 years old now, and has just finished what is probably his last book – called “Half Earth”. It’s a passionate plea to save humanity by dedicating half the planet to nature. You’d assume that Wilson would be happy to let mosquitos live in that half… but that’s not what he told Steve.
After all the debates about the Muslim world, it’s refreshing to look back at one of the world’s great mystics - the Sufi poet Rumi.
Daphne Merkin responds to Hilary Clinton as a cultural symbol and public personality.
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