As editor of Poetry Magazine, Christian Wiman reads thousands of new poems a year. Who better to check in with on the state of English language poetry?
To hear Wiman talk about his own writing, listen here.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Keli Carender is a Seattle area blogger considered by many to be the very first Tea Party activist. She tells Steve Paulson what the first protests were like.
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.
Richard Davidson is a neuro-psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a longtime friend of the Dalai Lama. He tells Steve Paulson about observing contemplatives with a brain scanner.
John Haught is a Roman Catholic theologian at Georgetown University, and the author of “God After Darwin” and “God and the New Atheism.”
Jon Kabat-Zinn talks with Steve Paulson about what it means to be mindful of the body’s functioning, like breathing.
Harriet Tubman will soon be gracing our twenty dollar bill. Most of us know only one image of her. It's an iconic image taken later in her life in which her hair's covered in a dark cloth and she has a stern expression. But there are other images of Harriet Tubman as well, including a wood cut of her carrying a musket.
Law professor Nicholas Johnson says the image of Harriet Tubman carrying a rifle doesn’t fit with how most Americans view abolitionists and civil rights leaders. After all, weren’t they supposed to be peaceful? But as Johnson tells Steve Paulson, there's a rich tradition of Black Americans owning guns for self-defense.
Pat Willard is the author of “Secrets of Saffron.” She tells Steve Paulson how you harvest saffron and why it’s more than a flavoring.
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