Novelist Stacey Swann joins us to talk about interweaving down-to-earth characters, but with the characteristics of the legendary Greek gods.
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Why Do We Still Stigmatize Mental Illness?
Richard Grinker, professor of anthropology and international affairs at George Washington University, joins us to talk about how we are on the cusp of accepting a spectrum of neurodiversity and why it’s taken so long to shed stigma.
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Use Your Words
This hour we’ll talk with linguist John McWhorter about how we use profanity, Anna Sale of the “Death, Sex and Money” podcast about strategies for having difficult conversations and psychologist Katherine Kinzler about how the actual sound of our voices affects how people hear what we’ve got to say.
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An Immigrant Parent’s American Dream Meets A Child’s Reality
Sabreet Kang Rajeev joins us to talk about understanding her parents’ journey, their hopes for their new life, and connecting those to her own story as a first-generation American.
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The Black Roots Of Beer Culture
James Bennett II joins us to talk about why beer is often conflated today with a rich, white world and why something as simple as the backyard BBQ is essential to understanding how America chooses to drink.
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Rights Shouldn’t Be A Zero-Sum Game
Columbia Law professor Jamal Greene joins us to talk about why courts have an outsized role in determining what Americans fight for and against, a method he says is out of line with what the framers of the Constitution envisioned.
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When Kids Carry Their Identities In Their Lunchboxes
Jaya Saxena is a staff writer at Eater, and she joins us to talk about what it’s like to feel like an outsider simply because of what your well-meaning parents packed you for lunch.
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How A Girl Becomes A Woman
Melissa Febos joins us to talk about the flawed ways we ask children to shape their identities from puberty and her own coming-of-age story as she worked to find her voice and set boundaries.
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The Rich Skip The Line While The Rest Of Us Wait
New York Times business reporter Nelson Schwartz joins us to talk about how easy for some it is to buy convenience – and about how corporations have shifted strategies to cater to the wealthy in order to increase the bottom line.
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When Mom Left, Thank God For Grandma
Danielle Henderson, TV writer and cohost of the film podcast “I Saw What You Did,” joins us to discuss her experience being raised by her grandmother after her mother abandoned her – and about how her love of horror movies taught her to have faith in herself.
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A Plan For Piecing America Back Together
George Packer, staff writer at The Atlantic, joins us to discuss what he sees as four separate narratives dividing the country, and what each story says about the health of our nation as a whole.
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New To America? Here’s Where To Start
Roya Hakakian joins us to talk about her instruction manual for newcomers to this country, acting as tour operator for all the wonder of American sights and sounds.
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