The Gray Area with Sean Illing

  • Uncovering the history of psychedelics in Christianity

    Vox’s Sean Illing talks about the the little-known history of psychedelics and spirituality in the Western world with Brian Muraresku, author of The Immortality Key. What role did psychedelic drugs play in the rise and…


  • Biden’s immigration architect on racism, reform, and the Obama legacy

    NPR journalist, memoirist, and host of the upcoming WBEZ podcast The Art of Power Aarti Shahani talks with Cecilia Muñoz, a former aide to Obama and part of Biden’s transition team. It’s a conversation about…


  • The Capitol Siege and American Revolution

    Vox’s Dylan Matthews talks with author and Revolutions podcaster Mike Duncan about what history can tell us about the insurrection at the US Capitol. Is America experiencing a true moment of revolution? So many republics…


  • Why fascism in Post-Trump America isn’t going away

    Vox’s Sean Illing talks to Yale professor and author Jason Stanley about why American democracy provides such fertile soil for fascism, how Donald Trump demonstrated how easy it was for our country to flirt with…


  • The Joe Biden experience

    Ezra Klein is joined by Evan Osnos, a staff writer at the New Yorker and the author of Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now to discuss our new president. President Biden…


  • What it means to be a “good” rich person

    Vox columnist Anne Helen Petersen talks with sociologist Rachel Sherman about her research into the anxieties of wealthy people and their desire to be seen as “middle class.” Sherman’s work exposes the flawed stories we…


  • Peter Kafka and Kevin Roose on big tech’s power and responsibility

    Recode’s Peter Kafka speaks with New York Times’s Tech columnist Kevin Roose about big tech’s power and responsibility – and whether it is going to have accountability. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices


  • Sam Sanders and Olivia Nuzzi on President Trump’s last days

    New York magazine’s Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi spent the past four years covering the Trump White House. In this inaugural episode of Vox Conversations, Nuzzi talks to guest host Sam Sanders, host of NPR’s It’s…


  • Best of: We don’t just feel emotions. We make them.

    How do you feel right now? Excited to listen to your favorite podcast? Anxious about the state of American politics? Annoyed by my use of rhetorical questions? These questions seem pretty straightforward. But as my…


  • Best of: Ending the age of animal cruelty, with Bruce Friedrich

    You often hear that eating animals is natural. And it is. But not the way we do it. The industrial animal agriculture system is a technological marvel. It relies on engineering broiler chickens that grow…