Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas21 Sep

368 | Elizabeth Alexander on Why Democracy Needs Imagination

In all sorts of ways, the modern world makes it difficult to nurture our individual humanity and connect with the humanity of others. The disciplines that try to do so are, naturally enough, the humanities. Poet Elizabeth Alexander's new book, Signals Across Vast Distances, grapples with the question of how literature and other humanistic studies can help us build empathy and become better people, and why that task is crucial to a flourishing democratic society.

Blog post with transcript: https://preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/09/21/368-elizabeth-alexander-on-why-democracy-needs-imagination/

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Elizabeth Alexander received a Ph.D. in English from the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to her work as a poet and writer, she is currently the President of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She composed and read a poem for Barack Obama's inauguration in 2009. Among her honors are a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Magazine Award, and several Pushcart Prizes for poetry.

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Avsnitt(445)

Mindscape Ask Me Anything, Sean Carroll | September 2026

Welcome to the September 2026 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by P...

14 Sep 3h 52min

367 | Jared Diamond on the Course of History and the Role of leaders

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7 Sep 1h 17min

366 | Jim Al-Khalili on Time, Quantum, Biology, and Cosmology

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31 Aug 1h 15min

365 | Vitor Cardoso on Why Black Holes Are Special

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24 Aug 1h 5min

364 | Stuart Firestein on How Science Relies on Ignorance and Failure

One of the paradoxes of science is that it seeks objectively true understanding of the world, but its methodology is driven by ignorance, failure, and uncertainty. Some phenomena we understand pretty ...

17 Aug 1h 16min

363 | Chandra Sripada on How LLMs and Humans are Cognitive Cousins

Large Language Models display an uncanny ability to construct human-sounding speech, and can synthesize concepts in novel ways. Is this because they are truly thinking like human beings in some way, o...

10 Aug 1h 51min

Mindscape Ask Me Anything, Sean Carroll | August 2026

Welcome to the August 2026 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patr...

3 Aug 3h 57min