Under the Radar Podcast

Our pop culture experts are back! After two Emmy ceremonies just this year, could the excellence in television award show be leading the charge on Hollywood’s diversity efforts? Meanwhile, the Country Music Awards have snubbed Beyonce, who received zero nominations for her critically acclaimed and record-breaking country album, “Cowboy Carter.” Plus, Kendrick Lamar scores the Super Bowl halftime show, the shocking charges behind Sean “Diddy” Combs’s arrest and bidding farewell to three titans of entertainment: James Earl Jones, Tito Jackson and Frankie Beverly.

Author Kate Feiffer’s first adult novel “Morning Pages” is a play within a play: the main character is a playwright and much of her internal dialogue is on the page as scenes from a play. Moreover, she’s turned to a popular daily artist’s exercise to jumpstart her imagination. It’s fair to say that “Morning Pages” is pretty meta. All that as the fictional Elise Hellman is caught in a life’s passage tending to the needs of an aging mother and a teenage son. “Morning Pages” is our September selection for  “Bookmarked: The Under the Radar Book Club.”

In 1964, Wendell Arthur Garrity was United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts – not yet a judge on the District Court of Massachusetts. Ruth Batson was a frustrated parent and civil rights activist – not yet director of Boston’s Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, or Metco, the voluntary desegregation program. Louise Day Hicks was a member of Boston’s School Board – not yet the leader of ROAR: Restore Our Alienated Rights – and the face of white opposition to the integration of Boston Public Schools. Ten years later, they would all be major players in the battle to desegregate Boston Public Schools. As the city marks 50 years since Judge Garrity’s ruling on busing, we consider the importance of the period before busing – a time expert Zebulon Miletsky refers to as Boston’s ‘true civil rights movement.’

In September, 1974 – two days after her 14th birthday – Leola Hampton boarded a school bus that would launch her into the heart of one of the most divisive and defining moments in Boston history: court-ordered school desegregation. She and her older sister, Linda Stark, were bused from their home in the predominantly Black neighborhood of Roxbury into the white, working-class neighborhood of South Boston. They navigated a violent and virulently racist high school experience so scarring that a half-century later, they are only now beginning to discuss it with each other. In a new documentary called “‘Never Cried’: Boston’s Busing Legacy,” produced by GBH News’ Emily Judem and Stephanie Leydon, Leola and Linda, along with their family and experts in local history and trauma, share their story. 

For 10 years, Oberon – the American Repertory Theater’s second performance space in Cambridge – was known to locals and visitors alike for “The Donkey Show,” a disco rendition of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The show closed in 2019, and in 2021, Oberon shuttered, too. Now, a new venue called Arrow Street Arts is taking over the existing space, and it’s kicking off its grand opening in a big way with Arrowfest, a 10-day arts festival showcasing local actors, musicians, dancers, circus performers, puppeteers and more. We speak with Arrowfest’s lead curator and two performers debuting a new work at the festival.

Wednesday, September 11, 2024, marks the 23rd anniversary of the deadliest terrorist attack in history – 9/11. In the wake of the four coordinated attacks carried out by the Islamist extremist group, al-Qaeda, America went after the attackers and moved to reshape its strategy for national security. More than two decades after 9/11, do Americans feel terrorism is still the greatest threat? And what is the state of national security in the United States today? Three experts tell us how national security is much more than border walls, cyber safety … or taking off our shoes at the airport.

Cellular and molecular biologist Jason Buenrostro is one of 2023’s MacArthur Foundation fellows. Buenrostro, who is also a Harvard University associate professor, studies the mechanisms that “turn on” genes, and is the pioneer of a popular method to assess chromatin accessibility across the genome. We spoke with Professor Buenrostro for Under the Radar's series, “The Genius Next Door.”

Oceans, rivers and lakes are chock-full of thousands of underwater plants and algae collectively described as seaweed. Demand for seaweed — kelp, specifically — has exploded as scientists have confirmed its dietary benefits and its potential as a tool in the fight against climate change. From food to biofuel and everything in between, some experts believe this billion-year-old algae is the wave of the future. 

More than 20 years ago, Stephen L. Carter’s debut novel, “The Emperor of Ocean Park” spent 11 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, raking up accolades and award nominations. Interest in the novel has continued, and now, “The Emperor of Ocean Park” has been adapted into a streaming series starring Academy Award-winner Forest Whitaker. We speak with author Carter about the inspiration and underlying themes of the novel, and with show creator Sherman Payne about adapting the thrilling whodunit from page to screen.

They came as housekeepers, whalers and indentured servants in the 19th century: Black families who settled permanently on Martha’s Vineyard. Their hidden history is uncovered in a new book, “Black Homeownership on Martha’s Vineyard: A History,” by authors Thomas Dresser and Richard Taylor. We speak with Dresser and Taylor about tracing the existence of Black people on the Vineyard to before the Revolutionary War, unearthing centuries-old stories and why Martha’s Vineyard has been a haven for Black families for generations.