Garry Wills tells Jim Fleming that we know very little about the historical Jesus and that it doesn't matter because faith does not depend on historical facts.More
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Interviews By Topic
Historian Garry Wills tells Jim Fleming that despite his “Confessions,” Augustine was no libertine, and dealt with all the major theological problems of early Christianity.More
Helen Macdonald's book "H is for Hawk" turned her goshawk Mabel into one of the most memorable literary characters of recent years. Mabel is no longer with her, but Helen tells Anne Strainchamps about her new avian companion - an ornery and very smart parrot.More
Shattered by her father's sudden death, writer Helen Macdonald began dreaming of wild hawks. In an effort to move beyond her grief, she bought and trained a wild goshawk -- one of the world's fiercest birds of prey. But between the bird and her grief, she became, in her words "more hawk than human."More
Biologist David George Haskell spent a year making weekly visits to the same one-square-meter patch of old-growth forest near his home in Tennessee. His writes about his experiment in "contemplative science" in a series of gorgeous essays, called "The Forest Unseen".More
Brian Boyd talks with Anne Strainchamps about how our love of storytelling helped us evolve.More
David Abrams tells Steve Paulson about his animistic beliefs and recounts a remarkable story about a shaman who could turn himself into a raven.More
Journalist DT Max tells Steve Paulson about David Foster Wallace's creative struggles with the novel he left unfinished when he committed suicide in September of 2008. It's called "The Pale King" and explores Wallace's longtime preoccupation with boredom.More
Joey Skaggs is a master of the hoax. His elaborate pranks have been fooling media outlets since the 1960s.More
Renowned biologist E.O. Wilson talks with Steve Paulson about the difficulty of reconciling science and religion.More
Writer Karen Armstrong's dangerous idea is to love your enemies.More
David Byrne is one of those artists who just keeps reinventing himself -- first as frontman of Talking Heads. Then by making films and writing books. Lately, he's been making historical musicals -- one about Joan of Arc and one about Imelda Marcos. He's just released an updated version of his book, "How Music Works," which includes a new chapter called "Infinite Choice: The Power of Curation."More
Where do you go if you want to see dinosaur footprints, ancient rock art and remote desert wilderness? There's no better place than the Grand Staircase-Escalanate National Monument in southern Utah. Steve and Anne spent an afternoon exploring this area with nature guide Nate Waggoner.More
Bart Ehrman talks about the complex set of beliefs that existed in the early days of Christianity and says it was several hundred years before a single version of the truth was negotiated.More
Are we witnessing the birth of a new "dark green religion"?More
Stephen Burn recommends David Foster Wallace's critically-acclaimed novel, "Infinite Jest." The book was published 20 years ago, on February 1st, 1996.More
Eugene Thacker talks to Anne Strainchamps about his book, "In the Dust of This Planet: Horror of Philosophy, Volume 1."More
Lauret Savoy believes too many nature writers focus on pristine wilderness and neglect the gritty reality of the places where people actually live - in cities, for instance, maybe even near toxic waste sites. And writing about these places means grappling with difficult questions about race and poverty. More