Arika Okrent is a linguist and the author of "In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Logian Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language."
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
After all the debates about the Muslim world, it’s refreshing to look back at one of the world’s great mystics - the Sufi poet Rumi.
Elizabeth Little is a writer and editor who collects languages. She tells Jim Fleming about the perils of learning tonal languages.
Cultural scientist Alana Conner believes we all navigate different identities, and not just along racial or ethnic lines. She finds many cultural conflicts boil down to two competing types of selves.
Human and animal history is so intertwined it's hard to imagine one species without the other.
Eugene Mirman is an indie comic and the author of an outlandish self-help send-up called "The Will to Whatevs." He tells Jim Fleming that school was horrible for him and gave rise to his nerd humor.
Alastair Bonnett's Dangerous Idea? Let's change our cities to promote urban biodiversity.
Bill Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground, which set off a series of bombs around the country in protest against the Vietnam War. Ayers insists he was not a terrorist, since his objective was never to kill people. He believes his own actions showed restraint in comparison with the enormity of the harm he believed the Vietnam War was causing.
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