Hahrie Han is a Political Science Professor at Johns Hopkins University, whose research focuses on grass-roots political activism, particularly against systemic racism. She has partnered with a wide range of civic and political organizations and movements around the world, including those in the United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Korea, helping develop the leadership skills of young scholars and practitioners, especially women and people of color. In addition to writing columns in major news publications and articles in leading scholarly journals, she has written five books. Her most recent book, Undivided: The Quest for Racial Solidarity in an American Church, is the subject of today’s interview.

Recorded 10/1/24.

Wladimir Lyra is an astronomer at New Mexico State University, whose research focuses around high-end computer simulations of planet formation, both in our own solar system and beyond, i.e., exoplanets and their solar systems. In this interview, we discuss empirically-based theories of time and space, their relationship to each other, and current ideas about the beginning and end of time.

Recorded 9/24/20.

Thomas Schaller and Paul Waldman and the co-authors of Rural White Rage: The Threat to American Democracy.

Tom Schaller, who is a professor of political science at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, is the author of The Stronghold: How Republicans Captured Congress but Surrendered the White House; Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South; and co-author, with fellow UMBC political scientist Tyson King-Meadows, of Devolution and Black State Legislators: Challenges and Choices in the Twenty-First Century. He is a former political columnist for the Baltimore Sun and his commentaries have appeared in major newspapers, as well as in radio and television interviews. He has given lectures on American elections in 19 countries on behalf of the U.S. State Department.

Paul Waldman is a journalist and opinion writer, whose commentaries have appeared in dozen of major newspapers, magazines and digital media. He is the author or co-author of four previous books on media and politics: The Press Effect: Politicians, Journalists, and the Stories That Shape the Political World , written with Kathleen Hall Jamieson; Fraud: The Strategy Behind the Bush Lies and Why the Media Didn't Tell You; Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success; and Free Ride: John McCain and the Media.

Recorded 9/19/24.

Historians Andrea Balis and Elizabeth Levy are co-authors of the Bringing Down a President: The Watergate Scandal, published in 2019, and Witch Hunt: The Cold War, Joe McCarthy, and the Red Scare, published just this year and the subject of today’s interview. Andrea was a professor at the City University of New York for 30 years, has worked as a theater director and playwright, and has written young adult fiction and non-fiction. Elizabeth is prolific and award-winning author of fiction and non-fiction books for children and young adults.

Recorded 9/10/24.

Alice Driver is a writer from the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas. She is the author of More or Less Dead: Feminicide, Haunting, and the Ethics of Representation in Mexico, published in 2015, and the translator of Abecedario de Juárez, published in 2022. Her latest book, The Life and Death of the American Worker: The Immigrants Taking on America's Largest Meatpacking Company, was published this year and won the Lukas Work-in-Progress Prize from Columbia Journalism School and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. Alice has also written articles for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Oxford American, and National Geographic.

Recorded 9/3/24.

Caroline Crampton is a writer and a podcaster, and the author of two books. The Way to the Sea, published in 2019, recounts the stories, literature, and history about the Thames Estuary in the U.K. Her second book, published in 2024 and the subject of today’s interview, is A Body Made of Glass: A Cultural History of Hypochondria. Crampton creates and hosts the award-winning detective fiction podcast Shedunnit, curates articles as editor-in-chief of The Browser, and writes reviews and essays for such publications as Time, Literary Hub and The Guardian.

Recorded 8/29/24.

Beth O’Leary is a Professor Emerita at New Mexico State University, whose areas of interest include both cultural anthropology and archaeology. She is one of the creators and experts in Space Archaeology and Heritage, investigating the heritage status of the Apollo 11 Tranquility Base site on the Moon. In 2010, she and colleagues successfully nominated objects and structures at the Tranquility Base to the State Registers of Cultural Properties in both California and New Mexico. Her books include: The Final Mission: Preserving NASA’s Apollo Sites (co-authored with L.Westwood and M.W. Donaldson in 2017), (2015) The Archaeology and Heritage of the Human Movement into Space (co-edited with, P.J. Capelotti, in 2015); and The Handbook of Space Engineering, Archaeology and Heritage (co-edited with A. Darrin, CRC Taylor, and Francis Press in 2009). Dr. O’Leary has chaired five international symposia on Space Archaeology and Heritage. Dr. O’Leary has also conducted research on Athapaskan cultures in Canada and the U.S.

Recorded 11/17/20.

Ian Buruma is a Professor of Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College. Originally from the Netherlands, he is a prolific writer with broad interests, including Japanese and Chinese culture and history, organized religion and religious intolerance, and intellectual and political freedom or lack thereof. He has been a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, the New York Times Magazine, New Republic, New Yorker, and The Guardian and has also written two novels. His most recent book, published earlier this year and the subject of today’s interview, is Spinoza: Freedom’s Messiah. Buruma provides historical and biographical context to Spinoza’s life, as well as drawing out the relevance of Spinoza’s value system to current political controversies.

Recorded 8/20/24.