Theres a puzzle in this podcast, and it comes with our prize sociologist, Tressie McMillan Cottom. Its roughly this: How does Kamala Harris, after the Democratic convention in Chicago and for the re

Cornel West is our guest, the preacher-teacher in a tradition of black prophetic fire, as he puts it, the line of holy anger in American history, and this time on the presidential ballot in a ...

The novelist Marilynne Robinson has a nearly constitutional role in our heads, our culture by now. Shes the artist we trust to observe the damaged heart of America, and to tell us what were going ..

In the strangeness of mid-summer 2024, the cosmopolitan novelist Joseph ONeill is our bridge between the Republican convention in Milwaukee and the Summer Olympics in Paris. He knows both sides of th

In a forlorn Fourth of July week, in the pit of an unpresidential, anti-presidential campaign year, 2024, we welcome back John Kaag, who writes history with a philosophical flair, never more colorful

Zionism has been the question that keeps changing. Once it was: How to build a safe home for the Jews of the world? Today its more nearly: How to build a safe neighborhood around the ...

Were on a hometown spree along the famous Fenway in the heart of Boston. Fenway Park is where the Red Sox play, John Updikes lyric little bandbox of a ballpark. Fenway Court, built around the ...

Were taking a drawing lesson with Nicholson Bakeryes, the multifarious writers writer Nick Baker; the COVID lab leak detective; the pacifist historian of World War II in his book Human Smoke; hes

Were sampling the uproar rising from American campuses: its a full blown, leaderless movement by now, in an established American tradition, but still contested, still finding its way, looking for it

The key battle taking place in this American crisis year of 2024 is happening in our heads, according to the master historian Richard Slotkin. Hes here to tell us all that were in a 40-year ...