There are lots of ways we identify ourselves – where we come from, our race, our religion… but perhaps nothing shapes our identity more than whether we’re a man or a woman. But even that can get really complicated. Independent producer Aubrey Ralph explains.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Carel Van Schaik tells Steve Paulson that orangutans, those great red apes, use tools and pass learning down from one generation to the next.
Pre-Modern hunter and gatherer cultures believed that dying was a kind of trial which didn't begin until you left your physical body and entered the supernatural world, according to sociologist Allan Kellehear. In these cultures, death is not the destruction of the body, but the annihilation of the personality and its transformation into something new.
As the Books Editor of Paste Magazine, Charles McNair cares deeply about what we read. But McNair is concerned that we're only reading a handful of the artists available to us, thanks to what he calls a kind of geographic hegemony of taste-making. In other words - we're all reading the same books because a handful of respected critics on the East and West coasts tell us to.
Biologist and science writer David Bainbridge tells Steve Paulson that a prolonged adolescence is unique to humans and one of our greatest evolutionary advantages.
Cory Doctorow is a writer and digital activist who works to defend electronic freedom.
Benjamin Cavell reads a bit from a story called “The Ropes” - about an injured boxer - and talks with Steve Paulson about violence and masculinity.
Criminologist Nils Christie's Dangerous Idea? Treat prisoners as people.
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