On Being

Columba Stewart is the executive director of the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library at Saint John’s Abbey and University. Getatchew Haile is a MacArthur Fellow and the curator of the Ethiopian Study Center at the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library at Saint John’s Abbey and University.

Saint John's University and Abbey in rural Minnesota houses a monastic library that rescues writings from across the centuries and across the world. There are worlds in this place on palm leaf and papyrus, in microfilm and pixels. And the relevance of the past to the present is itself revealed in a new light.

Mercedes Doretti is co-founder and senior researcher of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF). She received a MacArthur “genius” grant for her work in 2007.

With an Argentinean scientist, we explore the human landscape of forensic sciences and its emergence as a tool for human rights. Doretti has unearthed bones and stories of the dead and "the disappeared" in more than 30 countries, including victims of Argentina's Dirty War, over two decades. She shares her perspective on reparation, the need to bury our dead, and the many facets of justice.

A filmmaker and scholar gives us a parallel story to the ubiquitous news of China's economy and politics. Mayfair Yang discusses the ancient and reemerging traditions of reverence and ritual — revealing background to its approach to Tibet. And, she tells us how China gleaned some of its recent dismissive attitudes towards religion from the West.

Mayfair Yang is Director of the East Asia Center at the University of California in Santa Barbara. She has produced two films about China and is the author of Chinese Religiosities: Afflictions of Modernity and State Formation.

The word "healing" means "to make whole." But historically, Western medicine has taken a divided view of human health. It has stressed medical treatments of biological ailments. That may be changing. Mehmet Oz, a cardiovascular surgeon, is part of a new generation of doctors who are taking medicine to new technological and spiritual frontiers.

The word "healing" means "to make whole." But historically, Western medicine has taken a divided view of human health. It has stressed medical treatments of biological ailments. That may be changing -- Mehmet Oz, a cardiovascular surgeon, is part of a new generation of doctors who are taking medicine to new technological and spiritual frontiers. Krista's interview with cardiovascular surgeon Mehmet Oz for "Heart and Soul" underwent some merciless editing in order to fit our hour-long radio format. Here's your chance to listen to their entire, unedited conversation and observe the editorial process. And let us know what you think. http://www.onbeing.org/program/heart-and-soul-mehmet-oz/108

Robert Wright charts an intellectual path beyond the faith versus reason debate. He takes a relentlessly logical look at the history of religion, exposing its contradictions. Yet Wright also traces something "revelatory" moving through human history. In this public conversation -- recorded before a live audience -- we explore the story he tells, the import he sees in it for our culture, and where it has personally taken him.

Robert Wright charts an intellectual path beyond the faith versus reason debate. He takes a relentlessly logical look at the history of religion, exposing its contradictions. Yet Wright also traces something "revelatory" moving through human history. In this public conversation -- recorded before a live audience -- we explore the story he tells, the import he sees in it for our culture, and where it has personally taken him. Our unedited conversation with journalist and scholar Robert Wright. This interview is included in our program "Robert Wright on The Evolution of God" and was recorded on February 2, 2010 in front of a live audience at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/evolution-god/193