This Is How an Empire Falls
The discomforting parallels between our current moment and the end of Rome
By Stephanie Bastek Friday, August 7, 2020
I Want to Believe
Hunting down America’s favorite fringe stories, cryptids, and alien encounters
By Stephanie Bastek Friday, July 31, 2020
The Oldest Living Music in the World
One man’s quest to uncover the mysteries of Europe’s most enduring folk songs
By Stephanie Bastek Friday, July 24, 2020
Twin Pandemics
A conversation about Covid-19 and racism with Philip Alcabes and Harriet Washington
By Stephanie Bastek Friday, July 17, 2020
Preaching the Floral Gospel
How the Plant Messiah saves species from the brink of extinction
By Stephanie Bastek Friday, July 10, 2020
Read Me A Poem, Won’t You?
Behind the scenes of our sister podcast
By Stephanie Bastek Friday, July 3, 2020
Whale Song
Unlocking the mysteries of the world’s largest mammals with old bones and new technology
By Stephanie Bastek Friday, June 26, 2020
Founding Falsehoods
Reconsidering how we’ve been telling stories about American history
By Stephanie Bastek Friday, June 19, 2020
The Antebellum Feminine Mystique
Contrary to fables, white female slave owners in the South were just as deeply invested in the institution as their male counterparts
By Stephanie Bastek Friday, June 12, 2020
Still Junk Science
How scientific inquiry has been complicit in, or explicitly aligned with, racism and white supremacy
By Stephanie Bastek Friday, June 5, 2020
The Snow Maiden
Our final episode of 2018 is a send-off to the solstice
By Stephanie Bastek Monday, December 30, 2024
Ho Ho Horror
Why not make this Christmas a little darker?
By Stephanie Bastek Friday, December 27, 2024
Kinship and Contradictions
Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz on the complexities of Native American identity
By Stephanie Bastek Friday, December 13, 2024
Overconsumed
Adam Minter on what happens to all the stuff we downsize, declutter, and discard
By Stephanie Bastek Friday, November 29, 2024
Fiction, Fakery, and Factory Farming
Spanish novelist Munir Hachemi talks about Living Things
By Stephanie Bastek Friday, November 15, 2024
American Horror Story
Jeremy Dauber on our obsession with fear
By Stephanie Bastek Thursday, October 31, 2024
The Writing on the Wall
Augustine Sedgewick on his discovery of Henry David Thoreau’s connection to slavery
By Stephanie Bastek Friday, October 18, 2024
This Woman’s Work
Susannah Gibson opens the parlor doors on 18th-century feminism
By Stephanie Bastek Friday, October 4, 2024
Queen of the Night
Leigh Ann Henion embraces the creatures that light up the dark
By Stephanie Bastek Friday, September 20, 2024
A Toothsome Tale
Bill Schutt chomps through millennia to share the story of our pearly whites
By Stephanie Bastek Friday, September 6, 2024
