Our lives are so rushed, so busy. Always on the clock. Counting the hours, minutes, seconds. Have you ever stopped to wonder: what are you counting? What is this thing, that’s all around us, invisible, inescapable, always running out? What is time?

Original Air Date: November 18, 2023

Interviews In This Hour:

Time, loss and the Big Bang — Finding solace in the vastness of space — Carlo Rovelli's white holes, where time dissolves

Guests:

Marcelo Gleiser, Marjolijn van Heemstra, Carlo Rovelli

Check out the full series at ttbook.org/deeptime

Ever want to quit your job, leave the rat race behind, and head back to the land? Buy an old farmhouse or build a solar-powered home and live self-sufficiently on a few acres of your very own? Generations before you have shared that dream. The reality is more complicated. Even owning your own land is an ethical minefield.

Original Air Date: December 18, 2021

Interviews In This Hour:

Can you live off the land and still live ethically? — What does 'owning' land actually mean? — How the Land Back movement is reclaiming land stolen from Indigenous people

Guests:

Makenna Goodman, Simon Winchester, Hayden King

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Radical politics and radical movements are on the rise everywhere. Against racial violence, and climate change; against gender inequality, corporate greed, low wages, oil pipelines, opioids.  Maybe at heart they all have a common cause.  Maybe they're all — in one way or another — a rebellion against capitalism.

Original Air Date: February 11, 2023

Interviews In This Hour:

The Communist Manifesto still inspires — The radical philosopher mapping the crises of capitalism — Are we living through a 'hinge point' moment?

Guests:

China Miéville, Nancy Fraser

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We've always told ghost stories, huddling around campfires, scaring ourselves silly. Today there’s a new venue for spooky stories – YouTube, where creators are turning cobwebby VHS video tapes and other relics of the early internet into a new genre – analog horror. In this hour, we celebrate weird fiction in all its forms, going back to the original eldritch being himself, H.P. Lovecraft.

Original Air Date: October 28, 2023

Interviews In This Hour:

When dreams escape sleep: the analog horror of 'Somnium DreamViewer' — Kelly Link on 'Pretty Monsters' — The Ecology of Noise in Lovecraft's Fiction — The Magickal Realism and Continuing Influence of H.P. Lovecraft

Here's the original broadcast from 2015 that featured more on Lovecraft, including reckoning with his racist views. 

Guests:

Holly Fernwright, Kelly Link, Dean Lockwood, Erik Davis

Check out our previous episode on H.P. Lovecraft.

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It’s easy to get caught up in the hype about how psychedelics might revolutionize the treatment of mental illness. But there are also lots of ethical concerns. And probably none are so troubling as the charges of exploitation and cultural appropriation. The fact is, the knowledge about many psychedelics — like magic mushrooms and ayahuasca — comes from the sacred ceremonies of Indigenous cultures. But over the past century, Western scientists and pharmaceutical companies have been going into these cultures, collecting plants and synthesizing their chemical compounds.

Even if science is all about building on the knowledge of earlier discoveries, what is the psychedelic industry's ethical responsibility? Can psychedelics be decolonized?

Original Air Date: October 21, 2023

Interviews In This Hour:

The Tragic Story of Maria Sabina's Sacred Mushrooms — Empowering Indigenous voices in the psychedelic industry — Bioprospecting for psychedelics: How Pharma hunted for Indigenous plant medicines — Spirit Medicine: Yuria Celidwen's vision for an ethical psychedelics

Guests:

Michael Pollan, Dennis McKenna, Erika Dyck, Katherine MacLean, Sutton King, Rachel Fernandez, Lucas Richert, Yuria Celidwen

For more from this series, visit ttbook.org/luminous.

Jim Thorpe was one of the greatest athletes the world has ever known — a legend in the NFL, MLB, NCAA, and in the Olympics. Today he is being celebrated by a new generation of Native Americans.

Special thank to Robert W. Wheeler and the Smithsonian for archival audio.

Original Air Date: January 14, 2023

Interviews In This Hour:

Was Jim Thorpe the greatest athlete who ever lived? — The white man's trophy — A hero who looks like me — Indigenous excellence: Hip hop and the legacy of Jim Thorpe

Guests:

Tall Paul, Suzan Shown Harjo, Patty Loew, David Maraniss

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Wakanda is a very American version of an idealized African future. So how do African science fiction writers tell stories about their own imagined future? In this hour, produced in partnership with the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI), we explore Africanfuturism and beyond.

Original Air Date: December 10, 2022

Interviews In This Hour:

Deconstructing 'Black Panther': African Scholars Respond to the Hollywood Blockbuster — 'Africanfuturism' and dreaming of bigger, bolder African futures — How Marlon James Created His African 'Game of Thrones'

Guests:

Mshai Mwangola, Nnedi Okorafor, Ainehi Edoro, Marlon James

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When you look at your body in the mirror, do you love what you see? Do you pick out the things you don’t like? Maybe you’ve heard of body positivity. But what if we just felt neutral about our bodies? In this episode, we talk about our bodies — how we move through the world in these fleshy vessels, how it feels to exist in our bodies in a world that asks so much from them. How do we live full and embodied lives?

Original Air Date: September 30, 2023

Interviews In This Hour:

Finding Peace in Neutrality: Jessi Kneeland on Rethinking Body Positivity — The Body Speaks: Rae Johnson on Reconnecting with Ourselves to Transform Society — Multiple Identities, One Body: Sami Schalk Discusses Black Disability Politics

Guests:

Jessi Kneeland, Rae Johnson, Sami Schalk

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Before family photos, or school pictures or Instagram, there were hand-drawn and painted portraits. Throughout the ages, portrait artists have captured expressions and personalities on canvas or paper, and those who view the picture interpret this “likeness” in their own way. We talk with a philosopher, a musician and a novelist about the role of portraits through history, and how we see ourselves —and others — through these deeply personal images.

Original Air Date: September 23, 2023

Interviews In This Hour:

Re-envisioning history: A journey through Black portraiture — The painting tells a story: 'The Marriage Portrait' author on love, loss and layers of meaning in the Italian Renaissance — Portraits of perfection: Discovering Frans Hals' legacy in Haarlem

Guests:

Peter Brathwaite, Maggie O'Farrell, Steven Nadler, Thijs Gerbrandy, Norbert Middelkoop

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Fifteen years ago, David Foster Wallace died by his own hand. He was a celebrated writer, but he now faces renewed criticism over his treatment of women, in his life and his books. After years of adulation, Wallace has become a symbol of lit-bro culture, and he's now facing a moment of reckoning. So how should we read him today?

This week, we talk with Wallace fans and critics. Many still consider him the greatest voice of his generation — even as they grapple with new details about his life. We also hear from Wallace himself — including a notable conversation he had with us on the eve of his greatest literary success.

Original Air Date: September 08, 2018

Interviews In This Hour:

The Genius and The Misogynist — David Foster Wallace on 'Infinite Jest' — A podcast for readers struggling with the 'Virtuosic Masterpiece' of the 'Great American Hype Machine' — Our final conversation with David Foster Wallace — 'I can still hear his voice': Amy Wallace-Havens remembers her brother — Life and work in the mind of a literary giant

Guests:

Clare Hayes-Brady, Colleen Leahy, Makini Allwood, David Foster Wallace, Amy Wallace-Havens

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