Philosopher Susan Brison faced a personal and professional crisis after she was attacked and raped in France. She tells Anne Strainchamps how traditional philosophy failed to comfort her.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
One of the many utopian groups that started during the late 19th century and early 20th century was the House of David—perhaps the first cult to become a pop culture sensation. Their compound in Benton Harbon, Michigan had an amusement park and a zoo; they had a baseball team that once played an exhibition game against Babe Ruth and the Yankees, and they had bands—highly regarded, touring bands. Here's Henry Sapoznik—the director of the Mayrent Institute for Yiddish Culture here at the University of Wisconsin—on the mythology and music of the House of David.
Americans are still fighting over the legacy of the Vietnam War, but one perspective is missing: the Vietnamese experience. Novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen provides a Vietnamese perspective.
Simon Winchester talks with Jim Fleming about the short-sightedness of placing cities where the planet doesn't think they should be.
People who like baseball call it "the thinking person’s game," but for the first 100 years, baseball was governed by a surprisingly limited range of critical thinking. Decisions were made by insiders, the current and former players who spent a lifetime around the diamond, and did things mostly one way: the way they've always been done. But in the last 3 or 4 years, that storehouse of common knowledge—much of which was kept guarded in a true "old boy's club"—has been cracked wide open. Now the game isn't driven by intuition, it's driven by data. And the math nerds who rode the bench in Little League—if they played at all—are now telling pro ballplayers what to do. Journalist Travis Sawchik tells Steve Paulson the story.
Science writer Jennifer Ouellette spent a year confronting her math phobia straight on. She taught herself calculus. It helped her win at Vegas, get a good mortgage, and might just save her from a zombie apocalypse.
Sara Nelson tells Anne Strainchamps what publishers can do to make a book a best-seller and why the actual number of copies sold is a state secret.
Filmmaker Werner Herzog is obsessive about many things, including walking. Listen to find out why Werner walks.
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