Karen Armstrong is one of the world's best-known writers on religion, but her own spiritual path hasn't been easy. She tells us why she joined a convent and then left - and how she later came to appreciate religious texts.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Historian Orville Vernon Burton tells Jim Fleming about the parallels between Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama.
Piers Vitebsky studies the Eveny or Reindeer People of Siberia. They keep herds of reindeer for meat, but also have personal, consecrated reindeer animal doubles, which they believe will die for them.
Jo Tatchell and Nabeel Yasin talk about poetry in Iraq, how Yasin got out of the country, and what it was like for him to go back after 27 years.
Jerome Wakefield tells Steve Paulson how the medical profession's attempts to make precise diagnoses have led them to define emotional states as medical conditions.
A New York Times film critic talks about the role of film criticism in contemporary society.
Poet and writer Kenneth Goldsmith talks about his "Uncreative Writing" course in which students are penalized for showing any originality and creativity. Goldsmith is the author of "Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age."
Photographer Michael Nye made portraits of mentally ill and homeless people in San Antonio, where he lives, and also recorded their stories.
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