Interviews By Topic

Greg Cootsona was born again on February 8, 1981. And this is his “testimony.”More

If you think of your life as a series of births, what changes? Why does the birth metaphor matter?More

How does it work out over time for people who have made the transition to a new gender? Steve Paulson reached out to a transgender man — Benn Marine — to hear his experience.More

Wendy Kline says the history of birth in America is the story of the medical establishment’s deliberate suppression of midwives. For her as for most mothers, it’s a story that’s political and personal.  More

Students testing their DNA

What's it like to discover that your own genetic ancestry is both black and white? At West Chester University in Pennsylvania, Anita Foeman leads the DNA Discussion Project, where students use DNA testing to learn about their mixed bloodlines.More

Philip Glass

Philip Glass the avant-garde composer has composed operas, symphonies, film scores. He also wrote a memoir called “Words Without Music.”More

Caryn McKechnie didn’t like high school, but now she’s a college senior working on her teaching certificate. She went back to her high school to interview her favorite teacher. And that teacher? He left the public schools altogether.More

Evelyn Glennie (Caroline Purday)

Evelyn Glennie is an award winning solo percussionist and composer who performs with great orchestras and popular artists. She's also deaf. She talks with Steve Paulson about touching sound.More

Toni Blackman

When it comes to crossing musical borders, hip hop artist Toni Blackman has crossed so many and traveled so far, she ended up at the US State Department as its first ever Hip Hop Ambassador. Here’s what she sounded like live in our studio.More

Jazz pianist Robert Glasper started messing around with hip hop. What emerged was a casserole of R&B, jazz, hip hop, and even rock and roll.More

Fighter jets

From the European Union to the United States, analysts have claimed that the Western world is seeing a resurgence of populism. Dutch philosopher Rob Riemen disagrees though, he says it's time to call the problem what it is: fascism.More

Dictators who are also authors

When they weren’t committing mass murder, many of the noteworthy authoritarian leaders of the 20th century wrote books. Terrible books. Journalist Daniel Kalder read all of them.More

From Vivienne's Shadow Walk in Venice

Sound artist Vivienne Corringham takes us on one of her "shadow walks," where she records local spaces and how they affect the people who live there, then "sings the walk" through vocal improvisations.More

Well, maybe not all of them. But we'd like to get there! In "Listening to the City" we travel from New York to Los Angeles to Jacksonville to Baltimore and beyond, seeking to better understand the urban environment through some seriously close listening. More

gas station

Can you hear racism and intolerance? Jennifer Stoever can when she listens to the “sonic color line” — a way to hear racial division, how it’s reinforced and maintained, by whom and why, and at what cost. 
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Amanda Shires

While pregnant with her first child, Amanda Shires was playing fiddle on the road for her husband, the country superstar, Jason Isbell. Near the end of her pregnancy, touring got to be too much. So she stayed home, alone, for weeks… with nothing to do but write songs.More

 The Great Lakes mobile, by Melanie Ariens

Melanie Ariens has become known for her water-themed art, a focus of her combined loves of art and environmental activism. She uses mostly recycled materials to make art that makes people think about the Great Lakes, the rivers, and the water we drink.More

Water walkers

Since 2003, Grandma Josephine Mandamin led fellow Anishinaabe women on sacred “water walks” around Great Lakes. Fellow water walker, Siobhan Marks, tells her story.More

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