Interviews By Topic

"Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis" book cover

Spooks and Psychics: Inside the Military's Top-Secret ESP Unit

Joe McMoneagle was a "remote viewer" for the U.S. military. Using ESP — or was it a clever magic trick? — he identified the Soviet's secret Shark submarine. McMoneagle and journalist Annie Jacobsen recount this history of government psychics.More

Phos-chek drop during the 2013 Springs Fire

Fighting Wildfires As One Of The Few Women On A Hotshot Crew

Reflecting on the devastating fires in California, we revisit a conversation with a longtime "hotshot" crew firefighter, Mary Pauline Lowry. More

Where We're Going, We Don't Need Talk Show Sets

What's it like to host a talk show in virtual reality? We talk avatars with Will Smith, host of “The Foo Show.”More

An Old-Fashioned Movie House Wedding

Our digital producer, Mark Riechers, tells us why he got married in a movie theater.More

The Sudden Demise of a Beloved DIY Venue

Matt Conboy, co-founder of one of NYC’s most famous indie music venues, tells us how “Death By Audio” died.More

What It Means To Be A Permanent Outsider

Author Min Jin Lee grew up Korean-American and she thought she knew her ancestors. But when she moved to Tokyo, she discovered a history she didn’t know. The history of Koreans in Japan.More

Our Five Favorite Literary Insights from Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro just won the Nobel prize. Here's the best stuff he's said to us.More

Torah and jad - exhibits in Big Synagogue Museum, Wlodawa - Poland. (CC BY 2.5)

Going Deep Into the Kabbalah

The story of one famous mathematician’s obsession with the ancient and mystical and numerical world of the Kabbalah, from Shlomo Maital of the podcast "Israel Story."More

A Physicist Tries To Answer The "Beautiful Question"

Frank Wilczek is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist at MIT. He's kind of obsessed, in his own way, with understanding the universe. Specifically, he’s interested in what he calls “the beautiful question." Is the universe naturally, inherently beautiful?More

Plastic crochet corals from the "Crochet Coral Reef" project by Christine and Margaret Wertheim and the Institute For Figuring.

Crocheting the Unknowable Geometry of Spacetime

What if the geometric structure of the universe has been hidden, for centuries, in crochet? Margaret Wertheim can help you get there with a ball of wool, a crochet hook, and some non-Euclidean geometry.More

Student activist and Raza studies student Pricila from the film "Precious Knowledge."

Is Teaching Mexican-American Studies Un-American?

Teachers Curtis Acosta and Jose Gonzalez explain the origins of Tucson's Mexican-American Studies program—and how their personal histories in school led them to teach these courses.More

What Happens When Math And Science Rule The School?

Humanities programs are under siege. Their budgets are getting slashed as critics say schools should focus on job skills. But essayist Mark Slouka believes this is a tragic mistake.More

Ulixes mosaic at the Bardo Museum in Tunis, Tunisia. 2nd century AD.

The Crankiest Student In Your Class? That's Your Dad.

Daniel Mendelsohn was surprised—and unnerved—when his 81-year father enrolled in his seminar on "The Odyssey." And then delighted to see how his dad’s cranky comments excited his students. The experience also brought Daniel closer to his dad.More

Listener Mail: The Women On The Dark Side of the Moon

A listener reminds us that it wasn't just teenage boys listening to Pink Floyd in 1973. More

A Titan Of Science Fiction Who Poured His Own Helplessness Onto The Page

Jonathan Lethem considers Philip K. Dick one of his literary heroes. Lethem talks about how Dick was able to combine his brilliant imagination with his original mainstream ambitions to produce the groundbreaking literary science fiction that he's known for.More

Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.