On Being with Krista Tippett

James Baldwin said, “American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.” Imani Perry embodies that prism. For the past few years, Perry has been pondering the notions of slow work and resistant joy as she writes about what it means to raise her two black sons — as a thinker and writer at the intersection of law, race, culture, and literature. This live conversation was recorded at the Chautauqua Institution.

Imani Perry is the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. Her books include More Beautiful and More Terrible, Prophets of the Hood, Looking for Lorraine, and, most recently, Breathe.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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James Baldwin said, “American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.” Imani Perry embodies that prism. For the past few years, Perry has been pondering the notions of slow work and resistant joy as she writes about what it means to raise her two black sons — as a thinker and writer at the intersection of law, race, culture, and literature. This live conversation was recorded at the Chautauqua Institution.

Imani Perry is the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. Her books include More Beautiful and More Terrible, Prophets of the Hood, Looking for Lorraine, and, most recently, Breathe.

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Imani Perry – More Beautiful." 

Find more at onbeing.org

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Science writer and reporter Erik Vance says today’s brain scientists are like astronomers of old: They’ve unsettled humanity’s sense of itself by redrawing our picture of the cosmos within our own heads. Vance has investigated the healing power of stories and the “theater of medicine” (white coats included). It turns out that the things that make us feel better are often more closely connected to what we believe and fear than to the efficacy of some treatments. In fact, most drugs that go to trial can’t beat what we’ve dismissively called the “placebo effect,” which is actually nothing less than an unleashing of the brain’s superpowers.

Erik Vance is a Pulitzer Center grantee and the author of “Suggestible You: The Curious Science of Your Brain's Ability to Deceive, Transform, and Heal.” His work has appeared in several publications, including the “New York Times,” “Harper’s Magazine,” “Scientific American,” and “National Geographic.“

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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Science writer and reporter Erik Vance says today’s brain scientists are like astronomers of old: They’ve unsettled humanity’s sense of itself by redrawing our picture of the cosmos within our own heads. Vance has investigated the healing power of stories and the “theater of medicine” (white coats included). It turns out that the things that make us feel better are often more closely connected to what we believe and fear than to the efficacy of some treatments. In fact, most drugs that go to trial can’t beat what we’ve dismissively called the “placebo effect,” which is actually nothing less than an unleashing of the brain’s superpowers.

Erik Vance is a Pulitzer Center grantee and the author of “Suggestible You: The Curious Science of Your Brain's Ability to Deceive, Transform, and Heal.” His work has appeared in several publications, including the “New York Times,” “Harper’s Magazine,” “Scientific American,” and “National Geographic.“ 

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the 

On Being

 episode "Erik Vance — The Drugs Inside Your Head." Find more at onbeing.org.

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Ta-Nehisi Coates says we must love our country the way we love our friends — and not spare the hard truths. “Can you get to a place where citizens are encouraged to see themselves critically, where they’re encouraged to see their history critically?” he asks. Coates is a poetic journalist and a defining voice of our times. He’s with us in a conversation that is joyful, hard, kind, soaring, and down-to-earth all at once. He spoke with Krista as part of the 2017 Chicago Humanities Festival.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is a distinguished writer in residence at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. His books include “Between the World and Me,” “We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy,” and the novel “The Water Dancer.” He’s also the current writer of the Marvel comics “The Black Panther” and “Captain America.”

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org. This episode originally aired in November 2017.

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Ta-Nehisi Coates says we must love our country the way we love our friends — and not spare the hard truths. “Can you get to a place where citizens are encouraged to see themselves critically, where they’re encouraged to see their history critically?” he asks. Coates is a poetic journalist and a defining voice of our times. He’s with us in a conversation that is joyful, hard, kind, soaring, and down-to-earth all at once. He spoke with Krista as part of the 2017 Chicago Humanities Festival.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is a distinguished writer in residence at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. His books include “Between the World and Me,” “We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy,” and the novel “The Water Dancer.” He’s also the current writer of the Marvel comics “The Black Panther” and “Captain America.”

This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Ta-Nehisi Coates — Imagining a New America." Find more at onbeing.org.

This interview originally aired in November 2017.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Movies can be whimsical, terrifying, life-altering, culture-changing experiences where the big ideas we take up at “On Being” show up in the heart of our lives. This hour we experience this through seven lives and seven movies — from “The Wizard of Oz” and “Black Panther” to “The Exorcist.” Get out the popcorn for this upcoming flavor of the new season of our On Being Studios podcast “This Movie Changed Me” — a love letter to movies and their power to teach, connect, and transform us.

Naomi Alderman is a professor of creative writing at Bath Spa University. Her books include “The Power” and “Disobedience,” which was adapted into a feature film starring Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams. She's also a game writer whose work includes the alternate-reality game “Perplex City” and the fitness game “Zombies, Run!”

Drew Hammond is an English teacher at Eagan High School in Eagan, Minnesota. He’s also an award-winning public speaking coach, a published playwright, and a former stand-up comedian. He is featured in the documentary “Figures of Speech,” which is out on Netflix.

Mark Kermode is the chief film critic for “The Observer,” host of the podcast “Kermode On Film,” and co-host of “Kermode & Mayo's Film Review” on BBC Radio 5 Live. His books on film include “Hatchet Job,” “It’s Only A Movie,” and “How Does It Feel? A Life of Musical Misadventures.”

Zahida Sherman is the director of the Multicultural Resource Center at Oberlin College. She was formerly the assistant director of black student success at University of the Pacific. Find her writings on race, gender, and adulthood in “Bustle and Blavity.”

Seth Godin writes the wildly popular daily, “Seth’s Blog.” His podcast is “Akimbo.” He’s the author of many best-selling books, online and in print, including “This is Marketing,” “Purple Cow,” “The Dip,” and “Linchpin.” In 2018 he was inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame.

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We were made and set here, the writer Annie Dillard once wrote, “to give voice to our astonishments.” Katy Payne is a renowned acoustic biologist with a Quaker sensibility. She’s found her astonishment — and many life lessons — in listening to two of the world’s largest creatures. From the wild coast of Argentina to the rainforests of Africa, she discovered that humpback whales compose ever-changing songs and that elephants communicate across long distances by infrasound

Katy Payne is a researcher in the bioacoustics research program of Cornell University’s Laboratory of Ornithology and part of the research team that produced the original recording “Songs of the Humpback Whale.” Her book is Silent Thunder: In the Presence of Elephants.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org. This interview originally aired in February 2007.

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