Podcast Episodes

Stress-Testing the Rule of Law

What is breaking down or what’s broken when the governor of Illinois says he’s being invaded by the National Guard of Texas under President Trump’s orders, or when the president is dueling with Oreg…

Published on 15 hours ago

Mrs. Dalloway at 100

Call this Mrs. Dalloway’s podcast. We’re reading classic fiction from a century ago for light on the strangeness of the world in our day, or maybe just for relief reading a great old book. The dazzl…

Published on 2 weeks ago

Where Are the Intellectuals?

We’re with the cultural historian Robin D.G. Kelly at UCLA, who has the nerve to ask: where have our thinkers gone in Trump time? Not the experts or the influencers, but the grander minds who might …

Published on 4 weeks ago

Russia and Ukraine in 2025

We’re in the fourth summer of hot warfare between Russia and Ukraine. It’s a cruel and deadly war that doesn’t know how to stop.

Anatol Lieven.

Our guest to offer a helping hand is the journalist…

Published on 1 month, 1 week ago

America, América

We’re grappling with the prize historian Greg Grandin’s take on the making of the modern world. There’s a 600-page version in hard covers, but also a two-word version in his title, America, América,…

Published on 1 month, 3 weeks ago

The Hard Work of Organizing

We’re retracing our steps out of the last bad-dream era in American life. Michael Ansara was in the thick of that struggle too, around war and justice. The Hard Work of Hope is his memoir of many lo…

Published on 2 months, 2 weeks ago

Occupied America

We’re in Saratoga, New York, with the soulful American believer Marilynne Robinson, prize novelist and teacher of novelists. She’s known over the decades as the storyteller we trust to observe the t…

Published on 2 months, 4 weeks ago

Trump at War

We’re in the Orwellian aftermath of what President Trump has called his 12-day war in the Middle East. It’s over, he proclaimed on Monday. “Congratulations world,” he said on his Truth Social site, …

Published on 3 months, 1 week ago

Divided, Defensive Democracy

This week, it’s a conversation on the democracy question and the embattled fate of our own, beset as it is from within. Philosopher-historian Danielle Allen is our guest examiner of the cranky Ameri…

Published on 3 months, 2 weeks ago

The Last Supper

We’re with the writer Paul Elie, recalling the moment when popular culture came to sound like public prayer. There was Madonna in 1989, singing her number one hit “Like a Prayer.” The song is a mark…

Published on 4 months ago