220. Elif Shafak (writer) – the cemetery of the companionless
“Maybe the opposite of goodness is not evil. Maybe the opposite of goodness is, in fact, numbness.” There are so many questions we never ask. So many assumptions we make every second of every day bec...
16 Nov 201959min
219. Reginald Dwayne Betts (poet) – nothing to resurrect after prison
Some experiences change you so completely that you’re left with a choice: either spend your life running from them or spend your life turning them over in memory, trying to find new ways in, through, ...
9 Nov 20191h 3min
218. Bill Bryson (writer) – the most extraordinary machine
Do you have a body? I do, but I was mostly unaware of this fact until somewhere in my mid-30s, when my life strategy of living like a bourbon-loving brain-in-a-vat became increasingly untenable. Since...
2 Nov 201952min
217. Ibram X. Kendi (author, activist) – Antiracism 101
I grew up in the almost entirely white suburbs of 1980’s Bethesda, Maryland thinking of myself and my world as 100% not racist. It’s hard to notice what’s missing: for example pretty much any black or...
26 Okt 201947min
216. Gail Collins (NY Times columnist) – The brief social media life of Glam-ma
In 1972, the year I was born, there was apparently a famous TV ad for Geritol. My guest today describes it thus: “…a husband spoke to the camera while his wife draped herself over his shoulder, smilin...
19 Okt 201951min
215. Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie: the cognitive segregation of America
I don’t even know where to begin with this one. You’ve probably heard of Cambridge Analytica. Maybe you know they’re a company that did some nefarious things involving facebook and the 2016 US preside...
12 Okt 201948min
214. Liz Plank (journalist) – men, masculinity, and the unfinished conversation
In the past half century or so feminism has had its hands plenty full dealing with the abuse and inequality women suffer at the hands of horribly behaved men and the systems they build. Too full to wo...
5 Okt 201955min
213. Catherine Wilson (philosopher) – the Epicurean cure for what ails ya
If the word ‘epicurean’ brings to mind a porcine man in a toga reclining on a velvet couch and dropping fat juicy grapes into his open mouth, one by one, you are not alone. But this caricature, probab...
28 Sep 201950min
