Los Angeles comic and humor columnist Alan Olifson reads an essay on the dangers of enjoying irony.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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In the mid-1930's, Alan Turing made the revolutionary discovery that launched the digital age. He proved that information can be translated and communicated using nothing but a series of ones and zeroes. And that was just the first of Turing's intellectual achievements. Biographer Andrew Hodges explained Turing's genius to Jim Flemming in 2012.
Before there was iTunes, Spotify, or Pandora, there was the mixtape. Jason Bittner is nostalgic for those days, when sweethearts would spend days crafting the perfect playlist. He's the editor of a book and former website called "Cassette From My Ex". He shares some songs from his collection, and explains why the mixtape is such a powerful medium.
Annie Murphy Paul talks with Jim Fleming about her research into the field of fetal development. As if pregnancy wasn’t scary enough!
When evangelical Christians say they talk to God, what do they mean? Anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann wanted to find out, so she spent two years as a participant observer in a Charismatic church, talking to the congregation and even praying herself. She says prayer involves cultivating the imagination. Luhrmann also describes her cross-cultural study of schizophrenics who hear voices.
The celebrated poet Edward Hirsch says the history of poetry is the history of poetic forms. And to prove it he wrote a 700-page compendium about all things poetry.
In 2011, as a relatively unknown writer, Hugh Howey released a dystopian science fiction novella on the internet. Readers loved it and clamored for more. Before any print copies had even been published, Howey's WOOL series sold hundeds of thousands of copies, earning him a small fortune. He believes that self-publishing is the future for lots of writers.
Alistair McGrath teaches Historical Theology at Oxford University and he’s the author of “In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible, and How It Changed a Nation, a Language and a Culture.”
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