Think from KERA

For people unsure about religion, the prospect of having to chart a spiritual course for a child can push some future parents to examine their belief systems. That was the case for Anjali Kumar, a lawyer for Google who learned she couldn’t just find her answers online. She joins us to talk about visiting shamans, witches, faith healers and many other figures on her quest for answers, which she writes about in “Stalking God: My Unorthodox Search for Something to Believe In” (Da Capo Press).

Productive conversations about race tend to break down into more focused discussions of privilege, police brutality, academic opportunity and other topics. Ijeoma Oluo joins us to talk about those issues and many others. Her new book is called “So You Want to Talk About Race” (Seal Press).

Addiction is a part of life that affects nearly every family. This hour on Think, we explore the topic with a former heroin addict, a historian who writes about America’s relationship with alcohol and a neuroscientist who studies the brains of addicts.

In December, the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal what’s known as net neutrality, meaning the Federal government will no longer regulate the Internet as a utility. Klint Finley of Wired magazine joins us to talk about how the decision will change the way we interact online with businesses – and each other.

In the early days of World War II, Alfred Lee Loomis made a fortune on Wall Street. And with that money, he funded a team of scientists charged with developing radar into a weapon that would defeat the Axis Powers. The story is told in the new American Experience documentary “The Secret of Tuxedo Park,” and director Rob Rapley joins us to talk about the outsized influence these relatively unknown men had on the outcome of the war. The film airs Jan. 16 at 8 on KERA-TV.

Each day, producers at CNN, NPR, Fox News and other media outlets wake up and immediately check Twitter to gauge how a tweet from the president might rearrange their days. SMU assistant professor Stephanie A. Martin joins us to talk about how social media has changed the way the media covers the White House. She’s the editor of “Columns to Characters: The Presidency and the Press Enter the Digital Age” (Texas A&M University Press).

About a century ago, liberal Protestants started to disagree with more conservative Christians over issues related to sexuality. R. Marie Griffith, director of the Danforth Center on Religion at Washington University in St. Louis, joins us to talk about how this split set the stage for many of the cultural battles still fought today. Her new book is called “Moral Combat: How Sex Divided American Christians & Fractured American Politics” (Basic Books).

One of every 10 Americans is walking around with a pacemaker, artificial knee or some other medical device implanted inside them. And the owners of these pieces of equipment might be horrified to know that they underwent little – if any – clinical trials before being inserted into their new owners. Jeanne Lenzer joins us to talk about the lack of oversight in the industry, which she writes about in “The Danger Within Us: America’s Untested, Unregulated Medical Device Industry and One Man’s Battle to Survive It” (Little, Brown and Company)

As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, cities – not nations – are seeing their power grow. That’s according to Bruce Katz, a global urbanization expert at the Brookings Institution. He joins us to talk about how cities can tackle everything from economic disparity to environmental sustainability, which he and co-author Jeremy Nowak write about in “The New Localism: How Cities Can Thrive in the Age of Populism” (Brookings).

Scott Tong’s parents fled communist China six decades ago for a new life in the United States. And when Tong was sent to Shanghai to open the “Marketplace” China bureau, it offered him a chance to learn more about what – and who – his parents left behind. Tong joins us to talk about the country’s modernization through the eyes of family members who experienced it, which he writes about in “A Village With My Name: A Family History of China’s Opening to the World” (University of Chicago Press).