Latest Stories

A mushroom
Articles

Pharmaceutical companies have a long history of hunting for medicinal drugs, often in Indigenous cultures. Historian Lucas Richert tells the story of how one company went bioprospecting for peyote.

Length: 
5:38
Rachel Fernandez
Articles

Sutton King wants to change the culture around psychedelic medicines by confronting historical wrongs and getting Indigenous people into key decision-making roles in the psychedelic industry. 

Length: 
13:13
an unspeakable terror humming in the distance
Audio

Dean Lockwood talks about the important role that sound plays in creating the cosmic horror of Lovecraft's work.

Length: 
6:51
what lives in a black hole
Audio

H.P. Lovecraft's influence on pop culture has exploded in recent years. But why? Erik Davis is a cultural critic and the author of the essay, "Calling Cthulhu: H.P. Lovecraft's Magickal Realism." He fell under Lovecraft's spell as a teenager.

Length: 
9:55
Audio

Although Jeff VanderMeer's work may seem to have a Lovecraftian influence, VanderMeer says that's not the case. He actually thinks weird fiction needs to move out from the shadow of Lovecraft's incredible influence. He introduces us to one writer who is doing that -- Thomas Ligotti, "the best kept secret in contemporary horror fiction."

lovecraftian
Audio

Think that it's too soon to get your kids hooked on H.P. Lovecraft's cosmic horror? Think again. They might be enchanted by "The Call of Cthulhu for Beginning Readers" by Richard Ivankovic, alias Doctor Faustus AS.

The Labyrinth
Video

In “Somnium DreamViewer,” a mysterious company has developed the technology to capture still images from our dreams — with unsettling effects on our waking hours. Creator Holly Fernwright explains the inspiration behind the series.

Length: 
17:49
Maria Sabina
Audio

The story of Mazotec healer Maria Sabina is a notorious example of how psychedelic enthusiasts have exploited the knowledge of Indigenous cultures they don’t really understand.

Length: 
18:54
Conversation with Samantha, the artificial intelligence
Audio

To a certain extent, loneliness is part of the human condition. You can be lonely anywhere, even surrounded by friends. But modern life has exacerbated it, and that requires modern solutions. Indie game designer Jason Rohrer has one — an artificial friend named Samantha.

Length: 
15:10
a silent walking figure
Audio

John Francis, the "planetwalker," walked all over the country in silence for nearly 20 years. Steve and Anne met John a few years ago at the Geography of Hope Conference in Point Reyes, California – back where his journey began.
 

Length: 
12:47
Jim Thorpe (left) and Tall Paul (right) on the cover of Tall Paul's latest album.
Articles

Tall Paul is an Anishinaabe and Oneida rapper enrolled on the Leech Lake reservation in Minnesota. His new album is called "The Story of Jim Thorpe." Charles Monroe-Kane spoke with him about Thorpe’s legacy, sports and hip-hop.

Jim Thorpe on the football field, the Olympic track, and the baseball diamond.
Audio

Drawn from conversations with hip-hop artist Tall Paul, journalist Patty Loew and biographer David Maraniss, we hear stories from the NFL, from baseball, and, of course, from what made Thorpe a legend —the 1912 Olympic Games.

Length: 
22:13
An African imagination of the future.
Articles

Given the chance, how do Africans tell stories about their own imagined future? And how might the story be different? To get a sense of where African science fiction is heading, we talked with Nnedi Okorafor and Ainehi Edoro.

Length: 
19:20
"You're not ok, that's ok" yard sign
Articles

During the height of the pandemic, producer Charles Monroe-Kane made a yard sign — 300 of them, in fact. They read "You're not ok. That's ok." He put a few in his yard and the rest on his porch. Soon they were gone.

Length: 
19:49
Articles

Jessi Kneeland, a fitness trainer turned body neutrality coach, suggests that aiming for a neutral stance toward one's body — rather than unconditional love — might be more realistic and attainable for many of us.

Length: 
19:53
feet
Audio

Rae Johnson is a somatic movement therapist and the author of “Embodied Activism.” They say the process of making change is more sustainable when you listen to your body. 

Length: 
13:38
Frans Hals, Meeting of the Officers and Sergeants of the Calivermen Civic Guard, 1633
Photo Gallery

The Frans Hals Museum in the Netherlands holds an exquisite collection of 16th and 17th century Dutch art — and the largest collection of paintings by artist Frans Hals himself. Steve Paulson takes us along on a tour of Hals’ work, and talks with Steven Nadler, a philosopher who has written a new book about Hals.

Length: 
19:36
Lucrezia de’ Medici (1545-1561)
Articles

In her latest novel, Irish novelist Maggie O’Farrell takes us into the world of Renaissance Italy, where she unravels the tale of a young woman, Lucrezia de’ Medici. Shannon Henry Kleiber talked with O’Farrell about what we can learn about history and ourselves through the many layers of portraits.

Length: 
14:51
Photo Gallery

Peter Brathwaite has now researched and re-imagined more than a hundred paintings of Black subjects. What began as a game is now a book and a museum exhibition called “Rediscovering Black Portraiture.

Length: 
16:30
water
Articles

David Foster Wallace gave the commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005. It was popular enough to eventually be published in a thin little book called “This Is Water.”

Length: 
3:23
David Foster Wallace
Audio

Over the years, we did several interviews with Wallace himself. The last was in 2004, about his collection of short stories — "Oblivion." It’s an interview that’s been collected in two Wallace anthologies.

Length: 
11:34
Cruises suck
Audio

David Foster Wallace's essays have their own unique cult following. There’s one, “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” which is a hilarious diatribe about cruise ships, which convinced many of us we should never, ever go on a cruise.

Tennis in the Sierpinski triangle
Audio

The most famous thing David Foster Wallace wrote is "Infinite Jest," his huge, sprawling novel set in a dystopian near future. It’s a little eerie how well he predicted our world today.

Length: 
3:40
a poet reads from a telephone pole
Articles

Rodrigo Toscano is a serious poet. He’s also a longtime OSHA outreach trainer of workers and the national projects director of The Labor Institute, a non-profit focusing on the contracts and workplace safety of telecommunications workers.

Length: 
11:54
A family
Articles

While caring for other human beings may be the most important work of all, it sure isn’t reflected in the pay scale. That train of thought led Angela Garbes to her book, “Essential Labor: Mothering As Social Change.”

Length: 
12:05
Articles

Geologist Marcia Bjornerud has a profound understanding of Earth's deep history. The author of "Timefulness," she says geologic literacy would give us a much healthier sense of time. 

Length: 
19:48
a woman waiting for a job interview
Audio

Andrea Dobynes Wagner is legally, but not obviously, blind. Every time she sits down for a job interview, Andrea weighs the pros and cons of disclosure. Will telling people she has a disability help or hurt her chances?

Length: 
14:50
Gul Dolen
Articles

Gül Dölen is a pioneering neuroscientist who's investigating the “critical periods” of psychedelics, including studies where she's given MDMA — also known as “Molly” — to octopuses.

Length: 
50:54
Two figures in the rain
Audio

Maia Szalavitz is an expert in addiction. She is also someone who has experienced it personally as a young woman. It was during that time that she came upon a concept that is only now changing how we think about recovery on a mass scale —harm reduction.
 

Length: 
11:13
a worker walks a maze
Audio

Sitting together to reflect on Barbara's years of work to shine a light on the experiences of middle and lower class Americans, her friend and colleague Alissa Quart recorded this interview with her in 2021. Ehrenreich died in September of 2022.

Length: 
09:56

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