Stuart Kelter interviews Jennifer Michael Hecht, a poet and historian, teacher and public speaker, the author of several intellectually provocative books, translated into many languages. Her bestseller, Doubt: A History, explores religious and philosophical doubt throughout the world and over the centuries. Her book, entitled Stay, focuses on the history of suicide and a secular argument against it. The End of the Soul: Scientific Modernity, Atheism, and Anthropology won Phi Beta Kappa’s 2004 Ralph Waldo Emerson Award. The Happiness Myth brings a historical eye to modern wisdom about how to lead a good life. She has published in peer-reviewed journals, written articles for major newspapers and magazines, and appeared in numerous television and radio interviews. Her books of poetry – which include The Next Ancient World, Funny, and Who Said – have won accolades and major awards. Her most recent book, The Wonder Paradox: Embracing the Weirdness of Existence and the Poetry of Our Lives, published in March 2023, is the subject of today’s interview.
Stuart Kelter interviews Dov Waxman, a political science professor and chair of Israel studies at UCLA, whose research focuses on the conflict over Israel-Palestine, Israeli politics and foreign policy, U.S.-Israel relations, American Jewry’s relationship with Israel, Jewish politics, and anti-Semitism. He is the author of dozens of scholarly articles and four books: The Pursuit of Peace and The Crisis of Israeli Identity: Defending/Defining the Nation, published in 2006, Israel’s Palestinians: The Conflict Within, published in, 2011, Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict over Israel, published in 2016, and most recently, The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know, published in 2019. He has also been widely published in mainstream news media and has been a frequent commentator on television and radio. Today’s interview will focus primarily on the subtleties of antisemitism in the United States, such as how to tell if and when anti-Zionism crosses the line into antisemitism. He also shares his recommendations for educational initiatives to combat antisemitism, which places less emphasis on the teaching about the Holocaust.
Stuart Kelter interviews Seth David Radwell, an internationally known business executive and thought leader in consumer marketing with a keen interest in democratic values and American public policy. Past leadership roles include President of eScholastic, the digital arm of the global children’s publishing and education conglomerate; President of Bookspan/ Bertelsmann, which includes Book of the Month Club, Doubleday Book Club, and Literary Guild; and many other leadership roles in the world of corporate marketing. His book, American Schism: How the Two Enlightenments Hold the Secret to Healing our Nation, written during the Covid-19 pandemic and published in 2021, won the 2022 International Book Award for best general non-fiction.
Stuart Kelter interviews Pamela Pereyra, the founder and CEO of Media Savvy Citizens and the New Mexico Chapter Chair of Media Literacy Now. She conducts media literacy trainings with teachers throughout New Mexico, facilitates workshops in digital literacy skill-building with families, and leads networking meetings for NM educators statewide and nationally. Her works involves multiple audiences: students and families, educators and administrators, organizations and businesses, civic leaders and legislators. In 2021 she received the Media Literacy Community Award by the National Association for Media Literacy Education and in 2019 the Media Literacy Champion Award by Media Literacy Now.
Stuart Kelter interviews Faith Rogow, a media literacy leader, innovator, and author, who for twenty years has been one of the few people in the United States advocating for and creating media literacy education for young children. She is the founder of Insighters Educational Consulting, the founding president of the National Association for Media Literacy Education or NAMLE, a founding editorial board member of the Journal for Media Literacy Education, a founding advisor to Project Look Sharp at Ithica College, and co-author of NAMLE’s “Core Principles of Media Literacy Education in the U.S.,”published in 2007. She is the author of widely circulated teachers’ materials on the subject, including her book, Media Literacy for Young Children: Teaching Beyond the Screen Time Debates, published in 2022.
Stuart Kelter interviews Katja Hoyer, a German British historian and journalist who was born in East Germany and moved to the UK as a young adult.. A visiting research fellow at King’s College London and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, she is a columnist for the Washington Post and host of the podcast The New Germany. Hoyer has published two books about the history of Germany. Her first book, Blood and Iron was about the German Empire from 1871 to 1918. Her second book, Beyond the Wall, about the history of East Germany from 1949 to 1990, is the subject of today’s interview.
Stuart Kelter interviews Carl Safina, a world-renowned ecologist and conservationist, award-winning writer and professor, political activist and visionary. He has won numerous awards for his work, including the MacArthur Genus Prize and National Science Foundation Fellowships. Audubon magazine named Carl Safina among its “100 Notable Conservationists of the 20th Century” and Utne Reader listed him among “25 Visionaries Changing the World." His lyrically inspirational writing has appeared in major newspapers and magazines and his many books include the NY Times best-seller, Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel. He hosted the PBS series Saving the Ocean and is founding president of the not-for-profit Safina Center. His most recent TED Talk received a million views in its first month. His latest book, Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe is the subject of today’s interview.
Stuart Kelter interviews Kevin Mitchell, a professor of genetics and neuroscience at Trinity College, Dublin. His research focuses on the genetic program for the wiring of the brain, as it affects psychiatric and neurological diseases, as well as perceptual conditions, such as synaesthesia. He is editor of The Genetics of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, published in 2015, is the author of Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are, published in 2018 and of Wiring the Brain, a science blog for general audiences. The subject of today’s interview focuses on his most recent book, Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will, published in October of 2023. Mitchell discusses his robust and humanizing theory of the biological evolution of agency and identity, as well as the capacity for meaning and values. The upshot is a scientific explanation for what many scientists believe is only an illusion: free will.
Stuart Kelter interviews Audrey Kurth Cronin, one of the world’s leading experts on security and how conflicts end. A Professor of Security and Technology, she was the founding director of the Center for Security, Innovation, and New Technology at American University, the director of War and Statecraft at the US National War College, and a Specialist in Terrorism at the Congressional Research Service, advising Members of Congress in the aftermath of 9/11. She was the director of Studies for Oxford University’s Changing Character of War program, was Chair of the Global Agenda Council on Terrorism of the World Economic Forum, and has held a number of positions in the federal government’s executive branch, including in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy. Currently, she is the founding director of the Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Strategy and Technology. She is the author of four books on terrorism, including How Terrorism Ends, published in 2009 and Power to the People, published in 2019. Today’s interview will focus on the ideas contained in How Terrorism Ends, particularly as applied to the current conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Stuart Kelter interviews Paul Scharre, the Executive Vice President and Director of Studies at the Center for a New American Security, an independent, bipartisan, nonprofit organization that develops strong, pragmatic, and principled national security and defense policies. An expert in emerging weapons technologies, he led working groups at the U.S. Department of Defense to establish policies on autonomous weapon systems, as well as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance programs. His prior experiences in the military include multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, serving as a special operations reconnaissance team leader.
Scharre has published articles in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, among other prominent print media and has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NPR, and the BBC. He has testified before the House and Senate Armed Services Committees and has presented at the United Nations, NATO, the Pentagon, the CIA, and other national security venues. He holds a PhD in war studies from King’s College London and an MA in political economy and public policy and a BS in physics from Washington University in St. Louis. His first book, Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War, won the 2019 Colby Award, was named one of Bill Gates’ top five books of 2018, and by The Economist as one of the top five books to understand modern warfare. In 2023, TIME magazine named him as one of the “100 most influential people in AI.” His most recent book, entitled Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, is the subject of today’s interview. |
Shows
All
Music ShowsClick here to find archived episodes of many of our music programs on Mixcloud.
Archives
April 2024
|