Smarty Pants

Why does New York City smell? Is its smell distinguishable from that of other large cities? Does that smell tell us something about the world that our other senses cannot? Last year we spoke to historian Melanie Kiechle, who has devoted a considerable amount of brain- and nose-power to our long relationship with the scents around us. Her book, Smell Detectives, is an olfactory history of 19th-century urban America, from delightful scents to foul stenches, including those that everyday citizens used to bolster the budding environmental movement.

Go beyond the episode:

• Melanie Kiechle’s Smell Detectives: An Olfactory History of Nineteenth-Century Urban America
• On our episode page, we've got sanitary surveys of New Orleans and New York, along with sketches of the early respirators people used to protect themselves from foul odors
• Check out a modern-day smell map of the City of Light (and odor), from graphic designer Kate McLean
• Live in Pittsburgh? Download Smell PGH, the app that tracks pollution odors (read more here)

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In case you missed it, last month Forbes published an op-ed that stoked so much public outrage that the editors felt compelled to delete it. Libraries, it argued, should be replaced by Amazon to save taxpayers money. Yet Panos Moudoukoutas’s piece was based on a common misconception: that libraries are only repositories of books, whereas in truth, they provide myriad other services—and generate an enormous return on investment. To bust the myth that libraries could ever be replaced by a for-profit enterprise, we hit the stacks ourselves and spoke to librarian Amanda Oliver about the services that libraries don’t get enough credit for.

Go beyond the episode:

• Read Amanda Oliver’s stirring defense of the library
• Here are some of the Twitter highlights in response to Moudoukoutas’s op-ed (be sure to grab some popcorn)
• Read Ray Bradbury’s 1971 essay, “How, Instead of Being Educated in College, I was Graduated From Libraries,” fittingly published in the Wilson Library Bulletin
• Explore the DC Public Library’s Punk Archive documenting the singular Washington music scene
• Learn more about the services that social workers provide to libraries
• A New York Times reporter spent a year reporting the life of a homeless woman who was a fixture at her local library
• If you really love libraries, move to Finland: in addition to cutting-edge architecture and dazzlingly democratic services, Finnish kirjasto also offer library royalties to Finnish writers—nearly as much per borrowed book as per paperback sold

Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.

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Have suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes!

This episode features a beloved song from PBS’s Arthur. Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman.

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Forsyth County, Georgia, is infamous for being—for a remarkably long stretch of the 20th century—one of the only all-white counties in America. This week, we’re revisiting our interview with Patrick Phillips, whose book Blood at the Root is both a history of the county where he grew up and a personal reckoning with the “ghost story” that he heard for most of his childhood: the racial cleansing of 1912, when white night riders violently drove all 1,098 black citizens out of their homes, and out of the county. But the people who pushed out Forsyth’s black residents weren’t Klan members: their identities might well surprise you.

Go beyond the episode:

• Read more about Forsyth in Patrick Phillips’s new book, Blood at the Root
• View a slideshow of images from the book on our episode page
• Watch Oprah Winfrey’s televised 1987 visit to Forsyth County, Georgia
• Learn more about Forsyth, and other black citizens driven out of their communities, in the documentary Banished: American Ethnic Cleansings

Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.

Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • Acast

Have suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes!

This episode features Billie Holiday’s rendition of “Strange Fruit.” Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman.

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Eighteen years ago, Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell turned their 3,500-acre farm in West Sussex, England, into a massive outdoor laboratory. They decided to cede control of their land to nature and watched it slowly grow wild again. Now, at what they call Knepp Wildland, herds of fallow deer, Exmoor ponies, and longhorn cows do battle with scrubland and tree branches, while Tamworth pigs rustle in the hedgerows and strengthen mycorrhizal networks in the soil. The result of this experiment is burgeoning biodiversity and resilience, as endangered species like turtledoves, nightingales, and rare butterflies inhabit a landscape unseen in England since the Middle Ages. Isabella Tree joins us to talk about what life is like in a wild world, and how Knepp has ignited a reckoning with traditional methods of land stewardship and conservation.

Go beyond the episode:

• Isabella Tree’s Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm
• View photos and video from Knepp Wildland on our episode page
• Read more about Knepp (and plan a visit!) on their website
• Watch a short video about Knepp’s beaver-like efforts to return the River Adur to a rewilded state
• Check out the whole range of “Kneppflix” wildlife videos
• Elizabeth Kolbert’s profile of Frans Vera’s work at the Oostvaardersplassen
• Learn more about rewilding efforts across Europe, from Portugal to Poland

Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.

Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • Acast

Have suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In her summer cover story for the Scholar, “In the Labyrinth of #MeToo,” Sandra M. Gilbert looks at how far the newest feminist movement has come—and how far we have to go yet to achieve feminism’s goals. Her essay places the latest wave in the mythic feminist tradition, expresses her qualms about certain directions the movement has taken, and asks how we should regard the work of artists whose offensive behavior has been revealed. On our podcast, she these questions and much more.

Go beyond the episode:

• “An Open Letter from Dylan Farrow,” and her first television interview detailing her sexual assault allegations against Woody Allen
• The full letter that the survivor in the Stanford rape case read at Brock Turner's trial
• Roxane Gay, “Can I Enjoy the Art but Denounce the Artist?”
• Hadley Freeman, “What does Hollywood’s reverence for child rapist Roman Polanski tell us?”
• A. O. Scott, “My Woody Allen Problem”
• Claire Dederer, “What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?”
• Jason Farago, “Gaugin: It’s Not Just Genius vs. Monster”

Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek

Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • Acast

Have suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The most unusual brains are not the largest, nor the ones that can remember the most digits of the number pi. What fascinates Helen Thomson—a neuroscientist by training, a journalist by trade—are the brains that see auras, feel another’s pain, or play music around the clock. In her new book, Unthinkable, she travels the globe to find out what life is like for these people who perceive a completely different world than she does. How does a man who believes he’s a tiger live in a human community? How can a father who believes that he’s dead go to dinner with his kids? What’s it like to be lost in your own living room? The answers can teach you something about your own noggin.

Go beyond the episode:

• Helen Thomson’s Unthinkable
• Read her interview with a dead man—or at least, a man who thinks he’s dead
• Scientific American lists 10 of the biggest ideas in neuroscience of the 21st century
• Meet the scientists who discovered the brain’s internal GPS
• Think you might be a synesthete? Take neuroscientist David Eagleman’s “Synesthesia Battery” questionnaire to measure your perception

Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.

Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • Acast

Have suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1956, John Okada wrote the first Japanese-American novel, No-No Boy, a story about a Nisei draft-resister who returns home to Seattle after years in prison. It should have been a sensation: American literature had seen nothing like it before. But the book went of print, Okada never published again, and the writer died in obscurity in 1971. That would have been the end of the story, were it not for a band of Asian-American writers in 1970s California who stumbled upon the landmark novel in a used bookshop. Frank Abe, one of the co-editors of a new book about Okada—and a friend to the “CARP boys” who discovered him—joins us to talk about the era in which No-No Boy was written and what the novel can teach us about our own moment in history.

Go beyond the episode:

• John Okada: The Life and Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No Boy
• No-No Boy by John Okada
• Watch Frank Abe’s film about the Japanese-American draft resisters, Conscience and the Constitution

An incomplete list of the best literature about the hyphenated American experience:

• Americanah by Chimamamda Ngozi Adichie
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
• The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
• Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat
• Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
• The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
• The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
• The Comfort Women by Nora Okja Keller
• Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid
• Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
• Native Speaker by Chang-Rae Lee
• The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
• The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
• Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien (close enough!)

Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.

Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • Acast

Have suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In case you missed it, the grassy courts of Wimbledon are open once again for the annual championship—the oldest tennis tournament in the world. Seven-time Wimbledon champion Serena Williams is back in action, moving through the singles bracket and joining sister Venus in the doubles, and Roger Federer is looking for his ninth win. To commemorate the most famous fortnight in sports, we’re revisiting our interview with Elizabeth Wilson, an English tennis fan and cultural historian. Among her surprising insights, given the pay gap between genders in modern tournaments: the game’s Victorian reboot found men and women on the same playing field.

Go beyond the episode:

• Elizabeth Wilson’s Love Game: A History of Tennis from Victorian Pastime to Global Phenomenon
• Your place for live scores and other updates from the BBC
• “At Wimbledon, Married Women Are Still ‘Mrs.’” 
• “Roger Federer, $731,000; Serena Williams, $495,000: The Pay Gap in Tennis”
• And Claudia Rankine’s superb profile, “The Meaning of Serena Williams”

Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.

Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • Acast

Have suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s hard to believe that one of the biggest and oldest creatures of the planet is also the most mysterious. But whales have been around for 50 million years, and in all that time, we still haven’t figured out how many species of whales have existed—let alone how many exist today. How did these creatures of the deep get to be so big, and how did they make it back into the sea after walking on land? Most importantly, what will happen to them as humanity and its detritus increasingly encroach on their existence? The Smithsonian’s star paleontologist, Nick Pyenson, joins us to answer some of our questions about the largest mysteries on Earth, and how they fit into the story of the world's largest ecosystem: the ocean.

Go beyond the episode:

• Nick Pyenson’s Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth’s Most Awesome Creatures
• Take a 3D tour of the Cerro Ballena site, where dozens of intact whale fossils were found by the side of the road in Chile
• Check out Phoenix’s website at the Smithsonian, where you can learn all about this right whale (to search for sightings of her, follow this link to the North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog and enter “Whale Name: Phoenix” on the “Search for Individual Whales” page)
• Explore the hidden lives of minke whales, who live in rapidly warming Antarctic waters
• Tag along on marine biologist Ari Friedlaender’s trips to tag whales in the ocean(“extreme field science in action!”)
• Listen to an incredible story about one woman and a baby whale on the “This Is Love” podcast
• There are some amazing, tear-jerking whale videos on YouTube that we stumbled upon in our research for this episode. To get you started, here’s the story of how a whale saved biologist Nan Hauser's life
• The inimitable David Attenborough mingles his voice with the dulcet tones of humpback whale song in this clip from the BBC's Animal Attraction
• And listen to our interview with Marcus Eriksen, who sailed the Pacific on a “junk raft” to raise awareness about aquatic plastic pollution—one of the leading causes of death in marine creatures
• We used whale songs in this episode that were recorded by the Cornell Ornithology Lab. Check out their archive the “Sea of Sound” here.

Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.

Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • Acast

Have suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For more than 100 years now, we’ve been blessed with National Parks, beginning with Yellowstone in 1872; Pinnacles, created in 2013, is the 59th and most recent National Park to join the list. Other kinds of natural national treasures exist, though—protected monuments and seashores and recreation areas, plus an abundance of state parks and lands. This week, we’re revisiting our interview with Terry Tempest Williams, who marked the centennial of the National Park Service with The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks. From the Grand Tetons to the Gulf Islands, Alcatraz to the Arctic, each place is imbued, in Williams’s telling, with the depth of history, a sense of longing, and her indelible, close observation of the peaks and twigs around her.

Go beyond the episode:

• Episode page
• Terry Tempest Williams’s The Hour of Land
• Go find a park at the National Park Service website’s interactive map.
• Check out Ansel Adams’s historic black and white portraits of our National Parks
• Read “How an Obscure Photographer Saved Yosemite,” a profile of Carleton Watkins (whose photograph of El Capitan adorns Williams’s book) in Smithsonian magazine
• Read our Summer 2016 cover story by David Gessner about learning to love the crowds at America’s National Parks, “The Taming of the Wild”

Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.

Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • Acast

Have suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.