The Gray Area with Sean Illing

  • Revisiting the American Dream

    In America, there’s been an increase of available jobs, and there’s also been a series of high-profile layoffs, strikes, and calls for unionization. The social safety net for workers is disappearing, so what can people…


  • The cost of saving pandas

    The giant panda is no longer endangered. This, of course, is good news. But the model of conservation that worked to protect these iconic bears has failed to help the countless other threatened species on…


  • Breaking our family patterns

    Sean Illing speaks with marriage and family therapist Vienna Pharaon, whose new book The Origins of You aims to help us identify and heal the wounds that originated from our family, which shape our patterns…


  • For Black horror fans, fact is scarier than fiction

    Guest host Alissa Wilkinson talks with Dr. Robin R. Means Coleman about her new book, The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar. Dr. Coleman is the Vice President & Associate…


  • Taking Nietzsche seriously

    Sean Illing talks with political science professor Matt McManus about the political thought of Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19th-century German philosopher with a complicated legacy, despite his crossover into popular culture. They discuss how Nietzsche’s work…


  • The dark history of Silicon Valley

    Sean Illing speaks with Malcolm Harris, a journalist, critic, and author of the new book Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World. Together, they discuss the weird history of the city that’s…


  • The value of being a “hater”

    Guest host Rebecca Jennings talks with Justin Charity, cultural critic and senior staff writer at The Ringer, about what it means to be dubbed a “hater” on the internet. Rebecca and Justin talk about the…


  • Behind the blue wall

    Sean Illing speaks with Rosa Brooks, a former reserve police officer and current law professor at Georgetown University. Brooks wrote Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City about her experience going through the police…


  • Best of: Imagine a future with no police

    Guest host Fabiola Cineas talks with author, lawyer, and organizer Derecka Purnell about her recent book Becoming Abolitionists. They discuss Derecka’s journey to defending the idea of police abolition, and what that position really entails.…


  • Is America broken?

    Sean Illing speaks with Alana Newhouse, the editor-in-chief of Tablet magazine. They discuss her recent essay on “brokenism,” a term she coined in an effort to redefine political divisions in America. Newhouse argues that the…