If there’s one writer who’s identified with the Mississippi River, it’s Mark Twain. He grew up in Hannibal, Missouri — on the river’s edge — and as a young man, he worked as a steamboat pilot. And then he wrote the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” the novel that turned the Mississippi into myth. But it also created one of the most enduring controversies in American literary history: how to depict race relations in America's past. In this interview, Andrew Levy says that "Huckleberry Finn" is actually anti-racist — and when it was first published, the big controversy was about Twain’s depiction of wild children.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Patricia O’Connor tells Jim Fleming there’s nothing wrong with splitting an infinitive and that people should stop trying to make English behave like Latin.
Jim Fleming talks with Mairin Ui Cheide, a sean-nos singer. Sean-nos is old-style traditional singing where songs usually tell a story.
For centuries, the oddities of nature - like two-headed cats and conjoined twins - fascinated people. Science historian Lorraine Daston says a history of wonders is to some degree a history of pre-modern science.
Jan Edwards tells Steve Paulson why she thinks corporations have too many legal rights and don’t deserve their status as legal persons.
Peggy Orenstein tells Jim Fleming about her ambivalence about having children, her difficulties becoming pregnant, and her adventures with fertility treatments.
Filmmaker Marina Lutz talks about her award-winning documentary, "The Marina Experiment," which chronicles her shocking discovery about her father.
Rachel Brennan suffered severe brain trauma and has no short-term memory. Karen tells the story of her daughter’s long road to recovery in the memoir “Being with Rachel.”
Pages
