What do you do when you’re an African-American filmmaker living in a country full of people who dress up in blackface at Christmastime? You pick up a camera. Roger Ross Williams talks about his new documentary, "Blackface." It's about the traditional Dutch celebration of "Black Pete" -- a Santa's helper who dresses in blackface, an Afro wig, red lipstick and big hoop earrings.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Timothy Ferris is the author of nearly a dozen books of popular science, including “Seeing in the Dark: How Backyard Stargazers Are Probing Deep Space and Guarding Earth from Interplanetary Peril.”
Do you believe in love at first sight?
James Bennett says he experienced... well... something like it.
You've heard the saying, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Journalist David Rieff thinks that's rubbish, and he says if you want peace, it's sometimes better to forget historical crimes than try to get justice.
When Asra Normani got an assignment to research Tantra - an ancient form of yoga - she thought she'd have an adventure. She ended up on a journey of the spirit and the heart.
Summer festivals are a huge part of the American music scene -- and of the music marketplace. Why do millions of people risk sunburn and dehydration when they could hear the same music better with earbuds? Music critic Maura Johnston unpacks the economics and the atavistic lure of the summer music festival.
Jim Fleming read “Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and philosopher Sadie Plant talks with Steve Paulson about drug use by some famous writers, from Coleridge to Freud.
Nina Simone's powerful voice and turbulent life are the subjects of an Oscar-nominated documentary, a new biography and a forthcoming Hollywood biopic. But it's her politics that speaks most forcefully to a new generation of African American activists. Biographer Alan Light talks about the incandescent soul singer and Black Power icon.
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