Scott Straus is Professor of Political Science and International Studies at UW-Madison, where he also serves as Associate Chair/Director of Graduate Studies of Political Science. Scott specializes in the study of genocide, political violence, human rights, and African politics and he'll be providing insights into how genocide can be prevented.

Free association, transference—the Oedipus Complex. When he invented psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud also developed therapeutic techniques and concepts that, a hundred years later, are still part of our language. His analysis of dreams as wish fulfillment and his studies of repression led him to develop his theory of the unconscious and his concepts of the three-part structure of the human psyche—the id, the ego, and the super-ego. How well do his ideas about sex, compulsion, hate, death and guilt hold up today?

Amy Herzog’s “4,000 Miles,” a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in Drama, traces cross-generational connections between a 21-year-old, free-spirited man estranged from his family and friends and his eccentric grandmother. Forward Theatre’s Jennifer Uphoff Gray (Director) and lead actors Susan Sweeney and Mitch Bultman discuss and sample this groundbreaking play.

WPR All Things Considered host Brady Carlson will take us on a tour of presidential grave sites, monuments, and memorials to tell the death stories of our greatest national leaders. Mixing biography and travelog, he’ll question whether William Henry Harrison really died of a cold, why Zachary Taylor’s remains were exhumed 140 years after his death, and reveal that what killed James A. Garfield wasn’t an assassin’s bullet. Along the say, we’ll find out how the ways we memorialize our presidents reveal a good deal about the men themselves.

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. On December 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the Constitution ) was adopted, having been ratified by three-fourths of the states, including the still controversial Second Amendment. What did the founding fathers have in mind when they wrote that amendment into the Bill of Rights and how much leeway is there in interpreting it today. Constitution expert John Kaminski will give us some insight into why the amendment remains so controversial

At Ten Chimneys, James Pickering and Iannone will act out two scenes from plays associated with Broadway greats Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. Nat Burger and Laura Rook will share scenes from their American Players Theatre production of the two-actor play "Mary's Wedding." And Florentine Opera director William Florescu will take us behind the scenes for highlights of some of the company's standout performances.

Liberia elected the first woman president in Africa, Uganda has a female vice president, and Angola has more than a majority of seats in Parliament held by women. In this hour, Professor Aili Tripp explores the way women have gained political offices and brought about constitutional reforms in African nations recovering from long wars.

For centuries, no one was sure if the Troy of Homer’s Iliad really existed. Since the discovery of the legendary city, archeologists have learned a lot about what life was like there and how it came to be destroyed—more than once. Troy archeologist William Aylward will tell us about some of the latest discoveries there.

Scottish-born naturalist John Muir became one of the first great advocates for the preservation of the American wilderness. His boyhood and youth in Wisconsin did a lot to develop the traits that would make him a forceful and articulate spokesman for a life lived in harmony with nature. Historian Daniel Einstein will tell us about Muir’s boyhood on a Wisconsin farm, his years as an inventor and entrepreneur at the University of Wisconsin, and his first forays into the American West.

During his long career, Milwaukee criminal defense attorney Dean Strang has taken on many challenging cases, including that of Steven Avery that was the subject of the ten-part Netflix documentary Making a Murderer . Dean Strang tells us why pardons, commutations, and paroles have declined markedly since the 1960s and what the decline says about the effectiveness of the criminal justice system and we’ll also look at the role that politics plays in the granting of clemency and parole. It’s University of the Air with criminal defense attorney Dean Strang—next on the Ideas Network of WPR.