New Yorker staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert joins us to talk about how scientists are looking to address climate change by studying the ways plants and animals have already adapted to live alongside humans.
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Rethinking Russia’s Place On The International Stage
Kathryn E. Stoner is the deputy director of Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and she joins us to explain how Vladimir Putin has used his iron grip on domestic power to rachet up his country’s influence on international affairs.
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How Public Education Props Up Our Democracy
University of South Carolina School of Law professor Derek W. Black joins us to talk about why a public education system built to serve all students is fundamental to creating an equitable society.
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Economic Growth Isn’t The Answer To Inequality
Stephen J. Macekura of Indiana University joins us to make the case that an ever-increasing GDP isn’t the answer to inequality and other social issues.
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How Ancient Cities Created The Modern World
Author Ben Wilson joins us to talk about the innovations of ancient cities, which connect the Sumerian city of Uruk to the world’s urban mega-centers of today.
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How Pocahontas Kept The Peace
Karen Ordahl Kupperman, Silver Professor of History Emerita at New York University, joins us to talk about how Pocahontas collaborated with a trio of English boys to keep communication flowing between the colonists and their Indian neighbors.
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How A Murderer Got Out To Kill Again
Robert Riggs joins us to talk about the flaws in the parole system that allowed a murderer to walk free several times over.
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Life As A Black Vegan
Amirah Mercer is the founder of Other Suns, a wellness guide for Black women, and she joins us to talk about her switch to a vegan lifestyle, the isolation from community she initially felt, and her subsequent deep dive into the long history of plant-based diets in the Black diaspora.
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The Heavy Weight of American Racism
Mary-Frances Winters, president and CEO of diversity and inclusion consulting firm The Winters Group, joins us to discuss the exhaustion that comes with constantly fighting for a seat at the table, especially amid white fragility and empty promises for change.
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Is America Really A Christian Nation?
Boston University professor Jay Wexler joins us to talk about religious rights in the public sphere beyond Christianity, Judaism and Islam and how they fit into a country that increasingly disavows religion altogether.
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The Slow Demise Of The Death Penalty
Maurice Chammah is a staff writer for The Marshall Project, and he joins us to talk about his in-depth look at capital punishment and how the execution of a person affects many lives.
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What The World Demands Of Deaf People
Jaipreet Virdi, assistant history professor at the University of Delaware, joins us to talk about her research into medicine’s long legacy of promised hearing cures and why science has yet to achieve a universal solution.
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