The 7th Avenue Project

Historian and cultural critic Todd Gitlin examines the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel and says it's not just political; it's providential. The two countries have been shaped by a shared sense of heavenly purpose, a belief that God is on their side. We discuss his new book "The Chosen Peoples: America, Israel and the Ordeals of Divine Election," co-written by Liel Leibovitz.

Linguist Guy Deutscher discusses the restless, ever-shifting nature of human languages. Have languages gotten more complex or simpler over the centuries? Does improper usage threaten the integrity of language? How do grammatical systems arise? How much of our linguistic mastery is innate, and how much is acquired through experience?

Our adventures in subatomic wonderland with particle physicist Bruce Schumm continue. We'll pick up where we left off last week, searching for underlying order—maybe even simplicity—amidst all the quantum complexity. We'll learn about the Feynman rules, symmetry and gauge theory, as well as gaps in the Standard Model of particle physics, the search for missing pieces (like the Higgs field) and the possibility of grand unification (a “theory of everything”).

We get a tour of the subatomic realm from particle physicist Bruce Schumm, the author of "Deep Down Things: The Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physics." We'll focus on the Standard Model of particle physics, which encompasses most of what scientists know about the universe at small scales. In this first of a two-part series, we'll learn about some of the basic ingredients of the model, including particles, fields and forces. Coming up in part two, the deeper organizing principles (gauge theory and symmetry), holes in the Standard Model and next steps.

NPR recently fired news analyst Juan Williams after his controversial comments about Muslims on Fox News' O' Reilly Factor. We examine journalistic ethics in light of the Williams affair, asking whether news organizations need to better enforce the traditional separation of reporting and opinionating, or if it's time to lighten up. Guests include Alicia Shepard, NPR ombudsman; Kevin Smith, ethics chair of the Society of Professional Journalists; Tom Goldstein, professor of journalism at U.C. Berkeley; James Rainey, On the Media columnist for the Los Angeles Times; and Judy Muller of USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

The best-selling author of This is Your Brain on Music returns to our show. Neuroscientist, musician and record producer Dan Levitin discusses his most recent book, "The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature." Levitin contends that music played a key role in human evolution. (Interview originally boradcast in 2008.)

The Poetic Justice Project is a theater company for the formerly incarcerated, presenting stories of prison and jail by people who've been there. Members of the project discuss their lives behind bars and after parole, the impact of prison art programs and their performances in a new musical drama, Off the Hook, that's been touring California.

The ever-trenchant social critic Laura Kipnis schools us on scandal and explains what public humiliations, meltdowns and flameouts tell us about their participants and the rest of us. Laura's new book is "How to Become a Scandal: Adventures in Bad Behavior."

As the legendary Firesign Theatre comedy troupe prepared for a reunion tour, two of its members, Phil Austin and Phil Proctor, talked about their upcoming performances, their classic recordings, their methods and madness.

Co-host of NPR's "All Things Considered" Michele Norris contemplates America's racial past by way of family history in her new memoir The Grace of Silence. In this interview she reflects on the things her parents did and didn't tell her about their lives as African Americans, the importance of oral history and her feelings about her own work as a radio journalist.