Nelson Algren wrote “A Walk on the Wild Side” and won the first National Book Award for “The Man with the Golden Arm,” but was too gritty for most critics
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Tom Lessl conducted a study of the Darwin fish emblem some people slap on their cars. He says that it seems to have little to do with evolution but represents a rejection of fundamentalist Christianity.
Elizabeth Lunbeck talks about her book, "The Americanization of Narcissism."
Scott Topper's a poet, but that doesn't mean he's not conflicted about the twin powers of reading and writing.
Cultural historian William Miller, author of “The Mystery of Courage,” tells Steve Paulson that the airline passengers who confronted the hijackers on September 11th displayed extraordinary courage.
Ross Terrill talks with Steve Paulson about the internal politics of China and says the Communist Party is becoming irrelevant to Chinese life.
According to one estimate, the average young person spends about 8 hours a week playing video games. While many parents are worried about all that screen time, there's an emerging body of research that suggests some social and psychological benefits to gaming. And now there's a new generation of educators who want to bring video games into the classroom, not only to make it more fun, but also more effective. Journalist Greg Toppo writes about their efforts in "The Game Believes in You: How Digital Play Can Make Our Kids Smarter."
Memory is a hot topic in neuroscience, and it turns out the context of our memories is as important as the event itself. Dartmouth neuroscientist Jeremy Manning has found that people can intentionally forget past experiences by changing how they think about the context of their memories.
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