Your brain isn’t so private anymore
Guest host Sigal Samuel talks with professor of philosophy and law Nita Farahany about her new book The Battle for Your Brain. In it, Farahany details the new brain-scanning tech that has already arrived, and…
Brian Stelter thinks the news has a reliability problem
Will the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox News be a watershed moment? Is the media industry beyond repair? Sean Illing is joined by media reporter Brian Stelter, the former host of CNN’s Reliable Sources and the…
How corporations got all your data
Sean Illing speaks with Matthew Jones, historian of science and technology, and co-author (with data scientist Chris Wiggins) of the new book How Data Happened. They discuss the surprisingly long history of data from the…
The case for failure
Is our society’s fixation with success hindering our ability to find humility? Sean Illing speaks with Costica Bradatan about his new book In Praise of Failure: Four Lessons in Humility, which explores failure through the…
Poetry as religion
Sean Illing speaks with poet and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht, whose new book The Wonder Paradox asks: if we don’t have God or religion, what — if anything — do we lose? They discuss how…
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…