What does it mean to be free? And what does it mean to live a personally authentic, honest life with ourselves and with others? These are the questions that Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and their existential friends wrestled with in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Sarah Bakewell makes the case that their late-night conversations are especially relevant today. She's the author of "At the Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails."
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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"Religion always starts with mysticism," says David Steindl-Rast. Now 89, he's been a Benedictine monk since 1953. Brother David was one of the first Roman Catholics to engage in dialogues between Christians and Buddhists. He tells Steve Paulson about the joys of life in the monastery.
The asexual movement calls into question everything you thought you knew about love and romance. We talk with David Jay, founder of AVEN, the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network.
Diamanda Galas is a classically trained pianist, with a vocal range of three and a half octaves whose music is dark and intense.
NRBQ has been called the world’s greatest bar band, but prefer to say they play “omni-pop,” and explain that’s why they’ve lasted for over 35 years.
Nalini Nadkarni has been called “the queen of canopy research,” in part because of her personal philosophy to bring together two groups - the trees and the general public. She does this by collaborating with dancers, rappers, artists, and prisoners, just to name only a few. She created the Big Canopy Database to help researchers around the world to store the rich trove of data she and others are uncovering.
Do physicists think about End Times? Noted string theorist Brian Greene does. He looks into the far future - billions of years from now - and sees a very dark universe.
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