If you wrote a list of all the things you own in your house, how long would it be? We surround ourselves with possessions, but at what point do they start to possess us?

Original Air Date: September 05, 2020

Interviews In This Hour:

The Magnum Opus Of Pointless Stuff — 'A $400K Container For A Washing Machine': An Author Grapples With The Inherent Ickiness Of Homeownership — The Global Garage Sale — Why Stuff Doesn't Last Anymore — A Museum Of The Mundane

Guests:

Angelo Bautista, Eula Biss, Adam Minter, Giles Slade, Clare Dolan

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We celebrate Mother's Day with a collection of stories from our archives, by and about moms. Stories about care and about courage — about the work of mothering.

Original Air Date: May 13, 2023

Interviews In This Hour:

The all-encompassing worlds of motherhood and poverty — Eula Biss on 'The Argonauts' — Jacqueline Plumez on Mother Power — Amanda Henry on the Road to Motherhood — Ayelet Waldman on Trying to Be a Decent Mother

Guests:

Stephanie Land, Eula Biss, Jacqueline Horner Plumez, Amanda Henry, Ayelet Waldman

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The pandemic has made it clear that parents are walking a tightrope with no safety net. We talk to parents about how they want to change the system, what it's like to raise black boys in a time of racial injustice, and how we might learn from ancient cultures to improve our parenting skills.

Original Air Date: May 22, 2021

Interviews In This Hour:

A Parenting Movement Emerges From the Pandemic — Modern Parenting Tips From Ancient Civilizations — Two Poets On Raising Black Teenage Boys In America

Guests:

Alissa Quart, Brittany Powell, Michaeleen Doucleff, Amaud Jamaul Johnson, Cherene Sherrard

Further Reading:

Economic Hardship Reporting Project

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Colonization in Africa was much more than a land grab. It was a project to replace — and even erase — local cultures. To label them inferior. Music, arts, literature and of course language. In other words, it permeated everything. So how do you undo that? How do you unlearn what you’ve been forced to learn?

In this hour, produced in partnership with the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) and Africa is a Country — we learn what it means to decolonize the mind.

Original Air Date: March 20, 2021

Interviews In This Hour:

Reckon with the Past To Decolonize the Future — Reclaiming the Hidden History of Blackness — Never Write In The Language of the Colonizer

Guests:

Adom Getachew, Simon Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o

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In some of our favorite science interviews — discover the joy of studying fossils, the invention of a paper microscope, the science of flow states, pioneering field studies of great apes, and the astrophysics of making a hard-boiled egg.

Original Air Date: April 22, 2023

Interviews In This Hour:

'Lab Girl' Author Discusses Women In Science, Life Lessons From Childhood — Could a 50 Cent Microscope Change the World? — Cooking With Neil deGrasse Tyson — The Science of Peak Performance — The Women Who Revolutionized Primatology

Guests:

Hope Jahren, Manu Prakash, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jamie Wheal, Jane Goodall, Jane Goodall, Birute Galdikas

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We all need a good fantasy world to retreat to sometimes – whether it's Hogwarts or Middle Earth, Westeros or Wakanda. But magical thinking can be dangerous too. And escapism isn't always innocent. So where do you draw the line between fantasy and reality?

Original Air Date: September 17, 2022

Interviews In This Hour:

Why not escape into fantasy? A tale of Disney adults — The magical thinkers, the dreamers, and the hucksters of America's fantasyland — Neil Gaiman on where dreams — and nightmares — come from

Guests:

Sarah Rachul, Marianne Eloise, Kurt Andersen, Neil Gaiman

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In the first episode of "Luminous," our series about the philosophy and the future of psychedelics, how can psilocybin ease our fears about dying? And how can psychedelics change the way we approach the end of life?

Original Air Date: April 08, 2023

Interviews In This Hour:

How a pioneering psychedelic researcher 'leaned in' to his terminal cancer diagnosis — Dying without fear: How psychedelics can ease the anxiety of terminal illness — The terror and the ecstasy of psychedelics

Guests:

Roland Griffiths, Lou Lukas, Anthony Bossis

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Categories: LuminousPod,

2019 was an important year throughout the African diaspora — the 400th year since enslaved Africans first arrived in the United States. In Ghana — once the center of the European slave trade — 2019 was declared "the year of return" and the start of a campaign to encourage descendants of enslaved Africans to re-connect with the land of their ancestors. Thousands of African-Americans made the trip to Ghana — and many have decided to stay. They're fed up with police brutality and systemic racism in the US, ready to build new lives in Africa — and their number is growing.

Original Air Date: September 03, 2022

Interviews In This Hour:

‘This is where I should be’: 1,500 Black Americans make Ghana their new home — The land of your ancestors — Should Africans move to America? — A Black friendship

Guests:

Robert Hanserd, Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman, Prince Marfo, Ato Quayson, Emmanuel Kofi Apraku Bempong

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You're not even out of bed and you're already worrying. So let's talk about it: How anxious we are, how we got that way, and what to do about it.

Original Air Date: March 25, 2023

Interviews In This Hour:

Patricia Pearson on A History of Anxiety — To Waste Time Is To Deepen Life — Treating Anxiety With Horror Films — Natalie Merchant on 'Leave Your Sleep' — Robert Rand on Healing Through Zydeco

Guests:

Patricia Pearson, Richard Polt, Eliza Smith, Natalie Merchant, Robert Rand

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Do you ever feel like there’s something missing in your life? You don’t know exactly what it is. And there’s never enough time to really think about it. You might get a glimpse of it if you slow down, or look deeply at something (or someone), or remember some childhood joy. What if that thing you’re missing is a sense of wonder?

Original Air Date: March 18, 2023

Interviews In This Hour:

A sense of wonder through the eyes — and ears — of a child — What goosebumps, tears and grief can teach us about being awestruck — Finding sacred meaning through poetry

Guests:

Lulu Miller, Dacher Keltner, Jennifer Michael Hecht

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