Think from KERA

The truth is out there…but when it comes to alien hunters, no one can agree on where to find it. Stephen Rodrick, senior writer for Rolling Stone, joins host Krys Boyd to talk about the love of the chase to find the unexplainable from his article “How UFO culture took over America.”

Some people applaud her work as a first lady, senator and secretary of state while others focus on Benghazi and her e-mails. Michael D’Antonio joins host Krys Boyd to talk about his research into how one woman, identifiable by her first name only, became a symbolic cudgel for modern politics. His new book is “The Hunting of Hillary: The Forty-Year Campaign to Destroy Hillary Clinton.”

The nomination speeches have been given, pundits have weighed in, now it’s time for voters to make the choice. Washington Post’s national political reporter and Washington Week moderator Robert Costa joins host Krys Boyd to talk about the Biden and Trump campaign strategies to woo voters ahead of Election Day.

It’s hard to be a rough-and-tumble girl in a world where pink and princesses equals feminine and everything else is boy stuff. Journalist Lisa Selin Davis joins host Krys Boyd to talk about how tomboys have pushed our ideas about gender conformity, which she writes about in “Tomboy: The Surprising History and Future of Girls Who Dare to Be Different.”

From the plow to the pill, the newest invention to hit the market has always carried the power to revolutionize women’s lives. Harvard Business School professor Debora L. Spar joins host Krys Boyd to talk about how technological advancement has reshaped the nuclear family. Her book is “Work, Mate, Marry, Love: How Machines Shape Our Human Destiny.”

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” The words of President Abraham Lincoln still ring true…even as movements to dissolve the union are still very much alive. Richard Kreitner, contributing writer to The Nation, joins host Krys Boyd to look at past and present attempts to dissolve the United States. His book is “Break It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America’s Imperfect Union.”

When we donate clothing and other goods to a charity, do we really know where they go? Turns out, our decluttering fuels a global, billion-dollar, second-hand trade system. Adam Minter joins host Krys Boyd to talk about people who find treasure in our trash — and why, with all our stuff, we continue to buy new things. His new book is called “Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale.” 

The enduring myth that enslaved people were loyal and happy to serve their masters is not only harmful to historical accuracy, it’s just plain wrong. Farah Peterson, law professor and legal historian at the University of Chicago Law School, joins guest host John McCaa to set the record straight on the Black experience dating back to the time of the nation’s founding. Her article “The Patriot Slave” appears in The American Scholar.

We’re in the home stretch of the 2020 presidential election, and the stakes are high. Niambi Carter, associate professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Political Science at Howard University, joins host Krys Boyd to reflect on the Democratic and Republican National Conventions – and talk about what Howard alum Kamala Harris brings to the Joe Biden ticket.

In the Navajo nation, elders are the pillars of the community, keepers of history and culture. And during the current pandemic, they are often alone and uncared for. Sunnie R. Clahchischiligi is a writing instructor at the University of New Mexico and a member of the Navajo Nation, and she joins host Krys Boyd to talk about the fallout of stay-at-home orders on remote areas of Navajo lands. Her article published in Searchlight New Mexico is headlined “Navajo Elders: Alone, Without Food, in Despair.”