Episodes

  • Jesse Eisenberg Hated Bar Mitzvahs As A Kid

    Jesse Eisenberg Hated Bar Mitzvahs As A Kid
    Jan 21 2025
    Eisenberg's film, A Real Pain, follows two cousins on a Jewish heritage tour of Poland, which includes a stop at the Majdanek death camp. Eisenberg spoke with Terry Gross about tragedy tourism, and his own relationship to Judaism. The "Hebrew school dropout" says the suburban bar mitzvah scene made his 12-year-old stomach turn.

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    44 mins
  • MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker

    MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
    Jan 20 2025
    NYT columnist and sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom and scholar Eddie Glaude Jr. reflect on the struggle for civil rights and what it means to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the same day that President Donald Trump is sworn into office. "Perhaps the juxtaposition of seeing Donald Trump preside over the official state memorialization of Martin Luther King will remind us of our responsibility to remembering King as he actually was ... as he was a philosopher, an organizer of the people," Cottom says.

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    45 mins
  • Best Of: Learning From Silence / Comic Roy Wood Jr.

    Best Of: Learning From Silence / Comic Roy Wood Jr.
    Jan 18 2025
    Writer Pico Iyer lost everything in a 1990 California wildfire. After being rendered homeless and sleeping on a friend's floor, he was told about a Benedictine monastery. His time spent in silence on retreat there changed him both as a person and as a writer. He spoke with Terry Gross about his new memoir about the experience, Aflame.

    Also, comic and former Daily Show correspondent Roy Wood Jr. talks with Tonya Mosley about his new comedy special, Lonely Flowers.

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    48 mins
  • The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'

    The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
    Jan 17 2025
    Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys has been adapted for the big screen. In 2019, Whitehead spoke with Dave Davies when the book was released. It's set in the early '60s, based on the true story of the Dozier reform school in Florida, where many boys were beaten and sexually abused. Dozens of unmarked graves have been discovered on the school grounds. "If there's one place like this, there are many," he says.

    Later, guest critic Martin Johnson reviews a new recording featuring two giants of jazz. And film critic Justin Chang reviews Mike Leigh's new film, Hard Truths.

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    45 mins
  • The Secret History Of The Rape Kit

    The Secret History Of The Rape Kit
    Jan 16 2025
    Rape kits were widely known as "Vitullo Kits" after a Chicago police sergeant. But a new book tells the story of Marty Goddard, a community activist who worked with runaway teenagers in the 1970s.

    Also, TV critic David Bianculli reviews the Western miniseries American Primeval, now streaming on Netflix.

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    45 mins
  • How Losing Everything In A Wildfire Led Pico Iyer To Seek Silence

    How Losing Everything In A Wildfire Led Pico Iyer To Seek Silence
    Jan 15 2025
    In 1990, writer Pico Iyer watched as a wildfire destroyed his mother's Santa Barbara home, where he also lived. In Aflame, he recounts the devastation of the fire — and the peace he found living in a Benedictine monastery.

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    44 mins
  • Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy

    Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
    Jan 14 2025
    In the past, Donald Trump talked about keeping America out of foreign conflicts — but lately he's talked about potentially using force or economic pressure to acquire Greenland, the Panama Canal, even Canada. We'll speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning NYT national security correspondent David Sanger. He'll talk about how Trump might handle the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and Iran's growing nuclear threat.

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    45 mins
  • Roy Wood Jr. Thinks Of Comedy As Journalism

    Roy Wood Jr. Thinks Of Comedy As Journalism
    Jan 13 2025
    A good comedian has to "know what regular people are going through," Roy Wood Jr. says. In his new Hulu special, Lonely Flowers, Wood riffs on how isolation has sent society spiraling. He spoke with Tonya Mosley about leaving The Daily Show, learning from other comics, and how an arrest pushed him to pursue stand-up.

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    45 mins