Shows
Open Source with Christopher LydonFrom Social to Spiritual Media
We’re reading our way out of a ruined time with the model reader, Patricia Lockwood. She’s the poet laureate of the internet, for starters. She’s a big-league literary critic, master of social media and the Twitter joke, but also of the mysticism of St. Teresa. She’s on a field-trip to Harvard this week from her home base in Savannah, Georgia, and we’re meeting for the first time, in Cambridge.
Patricia Lockwood and Chris Lydon.
In this almost archaic culture of books, her mindset is very 2025. This side of Harold Bloom, I’ve never...
2025-03-2743 minAired Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonFrom Social to Spiritual Media
We’re reading our way out of a ruined time with the model reader, Patricia Lockwood. She’s the poet laureate of the internet, for starters. She’s a big-league literary critic, master of social media and the Twitter joke, but also of the mysticism of St. Teresa. She’s on a field-trip to Harvard this week from her home base in Savannah, Georgia, and we’re meeting for the first time, in Cambridge.
Patricia Lockwood and Chris Lydon.
In this almost archaic culture of books, her mindset is very 2025. This side of Harold Bloom, I’ve never...
2025-03-2743 minThis Week Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonFrom Social to Spiritual Media
We’re reading our way out of a ruined time with the model reader, Patricia Lockwood. She’s the poet laureate of the internet, for starters. She’s a big-league literary critic, master of social media and the Twitter joke, but also of the mysticism of St. Teresa. She’s on a field-trip to Harvard this week from her home base in Savannah, Georgia, and we’re meeting for the first time, in Cambridge.
Patricia Lockwood and Chris Lydon.
In this almost archaic culture of books, her mindset is very 2025. This side of Harold Bloom, I’ve never...
2025-03-2743 minPodcast Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonFrom Social to Spiritual Media
We’re reading our way out of a ruined time with the model reader, Patricia Lockwood. She’s the poet laureate of the internet, for starters. She’s a big-league literary critic, master of social media and the Twitter joke, but also of the mysticism of St. Teresa. She’s on a field-trip to Harvard this week from her home base in Savannah, Georgia, and we’re meeting for the first time, in Cambridge.
Patricia Lockwood and Chris Lydon.
In this almost archaic culture of books, her mindset is very 2025. This side of Harold Bloom, I’ve never...
2025-03-2743 minShows Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonFrom Social to Spiritual Media
We’re reading our way out of a ruined time with the model reader, Patricia Lockwood. She’s the poet laureate of the internet, for starters. She’s a big-league literary critic, master of social media and the Twitter joke, but also of the mysticism of St. Teresa. She’s on a field-trip to Harvard this week from her home base in Savannah, Georgia, and we’re meeting for the first time, in Cambridge.
Patricia Lockwood and Chris Lydon.
In this almost archaic culture of books, her mindset is very 2025. This side of Harold Bloom, I’ve never...
2025-03-2743 minThis Week Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonUnited States of Fear
Fintan O’Toole has made a brilliant career watching Ireland (his home country) transform itself—its Catholic culture, its vanishing population, its frail economy—into something very modern and profoundly different. And he’s covered our country so well this year. Does he see something of a transformation that’s comparable in the United States?
The post United States of Fear appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon.
2024-11-0724 minPodcast Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonUnited States of Fear
Fintan O’Toole has made a brilliant career watching Ireland (his home country) transform itself—its Catholic culture, its vanishing population, its frail economy—into something very modern and profoundly different. And he’s covered our country so well this year. Does he see something of a transformation that’s comparable in the United States?
The post United States of Fear appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon.
2024-11-0724 minShows Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonUnited States of Fear
Fintan O’Toole has made a brilliant career watching Ireland (his home country) transform itself—its Catholic culture, its vanishing population, its frail economy—into something very modern and profoundly different. And he’s covered our country so well this year. Does he see something of a transformation that’s comparable in the United States?
The post United States of Fear appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon.
2024-11-0724 minShows Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonAmber’s America: Love and Outrage
In the long weekend of solemn suspense before our presidential election in 2024, our guest is Amber. I met Amber on a call-in radio show almost 30 years ago, and we’ve been talking ever since. I call Amber my oracle from underground, the voice of the unknown America, undocumented since she arrived in the United States as a child and an orphan. And she’s been without papers, as she says, ever since, despite our best efforts. When Donald Trump talks about sweeping deportations, if he gets reelected, the face I see is Amber’s.
The post A...
2024-11-0231 minPodcast Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonAmber’s America: Love and Outrage
In the long weekend of solemn suspense before our presidential election in 2024, our guest is Amber. I met Amber on a call-in radio show almost 30 years ago, and we’ve been talking ever since. I call Amber my oracle from underground, the voice of the unknown America, undocumented since she arrived in the United States as a child and an orphan. And she’s been without papers, as she says, ever since, despite our best efforts. When Donald Trump talks about sweeping deportations, if he gets reelected, the face I see is Amber’s.
The post A...
2024-11-0231 minThis Week Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonAmber’s America: Love and Outrage
In the long weekend of solemn suspense before our presidential election in 2024, our guest is Amber. I met Amber on a call-in radio show almost 30 years ago, and we’ve been talking ever since. I call Amber my oracle from underground, the voice of the unknown America, undocumented since she arrived in the United States as a child and an orphan. And she’s been without papers, as she says, ever since, despite our best efforts. When Donald Trump talks about sweeping deportations, if he gets reelected, the face I see is Amber’s.
The post A...
2024-11-0231 minAired Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonAmber’s America: Love and Outrage
In the long weekend of solemn suspense before our presidential election in 2024, our guest is Amber. I met Amber on a call-in radio show almost 30 years ago, and we’ve been talking ever since. I call Amber my oracle from underground, the voice of the unknown America, undocumented since she arrived in the United States as a child and an orphan. And she’s been without papers, as she says, ever since, despite our best efforts. When Donald Trump talks about sweeping deportations, if he gets reelected, the face I see is Amber’s.
The post A...
2024-11-0231 minOpen Source with Christopher LydonAmber’s America: Love and Outrage
In the long weekend of solemn suspense before our presidential election in 2024, our guest is Amber. I met Amber on a call-in radio show almost 30 years ago, and we’ve been talking ever since. I call Amber my oracle from underground, the voice of the unknown America, undocumented since she arrived in the United States as a child and an orphan. And she’s been without papers, as she says, ever since, despite our best efforts. When Donald Trump talks about sweeping deportations, if he gets reelected, the face I see is Amber’s.
The post A...
2024-11-0231 minOpen Source with Christopher LydonPlayground
Richard Powers may just be the bravest big novelist out there. His new book is titled Playground, in which AI plays with the natural world. The question is whether and how the digital transformation might undo the power of death, as in the death of long ago people, the death of species today, even the death of a planet.
Richard Powers.
This is our third trip through a new book of his, aiming his imagination and hard science at the scariest maladies of modern life. First it was Orfeo, about atonal music, then The Overstory...
2024-10-2442 minPodcast Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonPlayground
Richard Powers may just be the bravest big novelist out there. His new book is titled Playground, in which AI plays with the natural world. The question is whether and how the digital transformation might undo the power of death, as in the death of long ago people, the death of species today, even the death of a planet.
Richard Powers.
This is our third trip through a new book of his, aiming his imagination and hard science at the scariest maladies of modern life. First it was Orfeo, about atonal music, then The Overstory...
2024-10-2442 minAired Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonPlayground
Richard Powers may just be the bravest big novelist out there. His new book is titled Playground, in which AI plays with the natural world. The question is whether and how the digital transformation might undo the power of death, as in the death of long ago people, the death of species today, even the death of a planet.
Richard Powers.
This is our third trip through a new book of his, aiming his imagination and hard science at the scariest maladies of modern life. First it was Orfeo, about atonal music, then The Overstory...
2024-10-2442 minThis Week Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonPlayground
Richard Powers may just be the bravest big novelist out there. His new book is titled Playground, in which AI plays with the natural world. The question is whether and how the digital transformation might undo the power of death, as in the death of long ago people, the death of species today, even the death of a planet.
Richard Powers.
This is our third trip through a new book of his, aiming his imagination and hard science at the scariest maladies of modern life. First it was Orfeo, about atonal music, then The Overstory...
2024-10-2442 minShows Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonPlayground
Richard Powers may just be the bravest big novelist out there. His new book is titled Playground, in which AI plays with the natural world. The question is whether and how the digital transformation might undo the power of death, as in the death of long ago people, the death of species today, even the death of a planet.
Richard Powers.
This is our third trip through a new book of his, aiming his imagination and hard science at the scariest maladies of modern life. First it was Orfeo, about atonal music, then The Overstory...
2024-10-2442 minAired Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonThe Climate Story’s Breaking Point
We’re in Climate Week 2024, with the indispensable, independent activist and authority Bill McKibben.
We catch him packing, in Vermont, for what’s far from his first climate rodeo in New York.
The post The Climate Story’s Breaking Point appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon.
2024-09-2641 minThis Week Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonThe Climate Story’s Breaking Point
We’re in Climate Week 2024, with the indispensable, independent activist and authority Bill McKibben.
We catch him packing, in Vermont, for what’s far from his first climate rodeo in New York.
The post The Climate Story’s Breaking Point appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon.
2024-09-2641 minPodcast Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonThe Climate Story’s Breaking Point
We’re in Climate Week 2024, with the indispensable, independent activist and authority Bill McKibben.
We catch him packing, in Vermont, for what’s far from his first climate rodeo in New York.
The post The Climate Story’s Breaking Point appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon.
2024-09-2641 minShows Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonThe Climate Story’s Breaking Point
We’re in Climate Week 2024, with the indispensable, independent activist and authority Bill McKibben.
We catch him packing, in Vermont, for what’s far from his first climate rodeo in New York.
The post The Climate Story’s Breaking Point appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon.
2024-09-2641 minOpen Source with Christopher LydonThe Climate Story’s Breaking Point
We’re in Climate Week 2024, with the indispensable, independent activist and authority Bill McKibben.
We catch him packing, in Vermont, for what’s far from his first climate rodeo in New York.
The post The Climate Story’s Breaking Point appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon.
2024-09-2641 minThis Week Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonBear-Baiting Debating
We’re in our very own post-debate spin room, taking the measure of Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, and of ourselves, as the voters they were pitching. Did we get what we expected? Did we get what we wanted?
Fintan O’Toole, on the line from Ireland, is our guest and guide. He’s much admired now for his tart reporting on American life in the New York Review of Books. Fintan O’Toole built his reputation as a theatre critic in Dublin and to this day in New York. We’re asking him to review our presid...
2024-09-1242 minOpen Source with Christopher LydonBear-Baiting Debating
We’re in our very own post-debate spin room, taking the measure of Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, and of ourselves, as the voters they were pitching. Did we get what we expected? Did we get what we wanted?
Fintan O’Toole, on the line from Ireland, is our guest and guide. He’s much admired now for his tart reporting on American life in the New York Review of Books. Fintan O’Toole built his reputation as a theatre critic in Dublin and to this day in New York. We’re asking him to review our presid...
2024-09-1242 minShows Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonBear-Baiting Debating
We’re in our very own post-debate spin room, taking the measure of Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, and of ourselves, as the voters they were pitching. Did we get what we expected? Did we get what we wanted?
Fintan O’Toole, on the line from Ireland, is our guest and guide. He’s much admired now for his tart reporting on American life in the New York Review of Books. Fintan O’Toole built his reputation as a theatre critic in Dublin and to this day in New York. We’re asking him to review our presid...
2024-09-1242 minPodcast Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonBear-Baiting Debating
We’re in our very own post-debate spin room, taking the measure of Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, and of ourselves, as the voters they were pitching. Did we get what we expected? Did we get what we wanted?
Fintan O’Toole, on the line from Ireland, is our guest and guide. He’s much admired now for his tart reporting on American life in the New York Review of Books. Fintan O’Toole built his reputation as a theatre critic in Dublin and to this day in New York. We’re asking him to review our presid...
2024-09-1242 minAired Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonBear-Baiting Debating
We’re in our very own post-debate spin room, taking the measure of Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, and of ourselves, as the voters they were pitching. Did we get what we expected? Did we get what we wanted?
Fintan O’Toole, on the line from Ireland, is our guest and guide. He’s much admired now for his tart reporting on American life in the New York Review of Books. Fintan O’Toole built his reputation as a theatre critic in Dublin and to this day in New York. We’re asking him to review our presid...
2024-09-1242 minAired Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonThe Harris Machine
There’s a puzzle in this podcast, and it comes with our prize sociologist, Tressie McMillan Cottom. It’s roughly this: How does Kamala Harris, after the Democratic convention in Chicago and for the rest of this campaign, come to look and sound presidential, even though no other president has ever looked like her?
Tressie McMillan Cottom.
Tressie McMillan Cottom has put it this way: that all Kamala Harris has to prove is that a woman can lead, that a black woman can be qualified, that a South Asian woman can come to feel familiar, that...
2024-08-2935 minThis Week Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonThe Harris Machine
There’s a puzzle in this podcast, and it comes with our prize sociologist, Tressie McMillan Cottom. It’s roughly this: How does Kamala Harris, after the Democratic convention in Chicago and for the rest of this campaign, come to look and sound presidential, even though no other president has ever looked like her?
Tressie McMillan Cottom.
Tressie McMillan Cottom has put it this way: that all Kamala Harris has to prove is that a woman can lead, that a black woman can be qualified, that a South Asian woman can come to feel familiar, that...
2024-08-2935 minPodcast Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonThe Harris Machine
There’s a puzzle in this podcast, and it comes with our prize sociologist, Tressie McMillan Cottom. It’s roughly this: How does Kamala Harris, after the Democratic convention in Chicago and for the rest of this campaign, come to look and sound presidential, even though no other president has ever looked like her?
Tressie McMillan Cottom.
Tressie McMillan Cottom has put it this way: that all Kamala Harris has to prove is that a woman can lead, that a black woman can be qualified, that a South Asian woman can come to feel familiar, that...
2024-08-2935 minShows Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonThe Harris Machine
There’s a puzzle in this podcast, and it comes with our prize sociologist, Tressie McMillan Cottom. It’s roughly this: How does Kamala Harris, after the Democratic convention in Chicago and for the rest of this campaign, come to look and sound presidential, even though no other president has ever looked like her?
Tressie McMillan Cottom.
Tressie McMillan Cottom has put it this way: that all Kamala Harris has to prove is that a woman can lead, that a black woman can be qualified, that a South Asian woman can come to feel familiar, that...
2024-08-2935 minOpen Source with Christopher LydonThe Harris Machine
There’s a puzzle in this podcast, and it comes with our prize sociologist, Tressie McMillan Cottom. It’s roughly this: How does Kamala Harris, after the Democratic convention in Chicago and for the rest of this campaign, come to look and sound presidential, even though no other president has ever looked like her?
Tressie McMillan Cottom.
Tressie McMillan Cottom has put it this way: that all Kamala Harris has to prove is that a woman can lead, that a black woman can be qualified, that a South Asian woman can come to feel familiar, that...
2024-08-2935 minShows Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonIn It to the Finish
Cornel West is our guest, the preacher-teacher in a tradition of black prophetic fire, as he puts it, the line of holy anger in American history, and this time on the presidential ballot in a variety of states.
Cornel West.
His will be the first book I want to read on this 2024 campaign, because he will be recounting a moral inquiry into the American condition at least as much as the ups and downs of his own candidacy.
The post In It to the Finish appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon.
2024-08-1539 minOpen Source with Christopher LydonIn It to the Finish
Cornel West is our guest, the preacher-teacher in a tradition of black prophetic fire, as he puts it, the line of holy anger in American history, and this time on the presidential ballot in a variety of states.
Cornel West.
His will be the first book I want to read on this 2024 campaign, because he will be recounting a moral inquiry into the American condition at least as much as the ups and downs of his own candidacy.
The post In It to the Finish appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon.
2024-08-1539 minPodcast Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonIn It to the Finish
Cornel West is our guest, the preacher-teacher in a tradition of black prophetic fire, as he puts it, the line of holy anger in American history, and this time on the presidential ballot in a variety of states.
Cornel West.
His will be the first book I want to read on this 2024 campaign, because he will be recounting a moral inquiry into the American condition at least as much as the ups and downs of his own candidacy.
The post In It to the Finish appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon.
2024-08-1539 minThis Week Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonIn It to the Finish
Cornel West is our guest, the preacher-teacher in a tradition of black prophetic fire, as he puts it, the line of holy anger in American history, and this time on the presidential ballot in a variety of states.
Cornel West.
His will be the first book I want to read on this 2024 campaign, because he will be recounting a moral inquiry into the American condition at least as much as the ups and downs of his own candidacy.
The post In It to the Finish appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon.
2024-08-1539 minAired Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonIn It to the Finish
Cornel West is our guest, the preacher-teacher in a tradition of black prophetic fire, as he puts it, the line of holy anger in American history, and this time on the presidential ballot in a variety of states.
Cornel West.
His will be the first book I want to read on this 2024 campaign, because he will be recounting a moral inquiry into the American condition at least as much as the ups and downs of his own candidacy.
The post In It to the Finish appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon.
2024-08-1539 minOpen Source with Christopher LydonAmerican Believer
The novelist Marilynne Robinson has a nearly constitutional role in our heads, our culture by now. She’s the artist we trust to observe the damaged heart of America, and to tell us what we’re going through. I’ve been re-reading her early fiction, particularly Housekeeping and Gilead from 20 years ago, and remembering her conversations with Barack Obama over the years, with tables turned from the start. It was never the usual writer profiling a president or a candidate. He was the inquiring politician asking her about Iowa and the country, about the image of God in other people...
2024-08-0238 minAired Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonAmerican Believer
The novelist Marilynne Robinson has a nearly constitutional role in our heads, our culture by now. She’s the artist we trust to observe the damaged heart of America, and to tell us what we’re going through. I’ve been re-reading her early fiction, particularly Housekeeping and Gilead from 20 years ago, and remembering her conversations with Barack Obama over the years, with tables turned from the start. It was never the usual writer profiling a president or a candidate. He was the inquiring politician asking her about Iowa and the country, about the image of God in other people...
2024-08-0238 minThis Week Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonAmerican Believer
The novelist Marilynne Robinson has a nearly constitutional role in our heads, our culture by now. She’s the artist we trust to observe the damaged heart of America, and to tell us what we’re going through. I’ve been re-reading her early fiction, particularly Housekeeping and Gilead from 20 years ago, and remembering her conversations with Barack Obama over the years, with tables turned from the start. It was never the usual writer profiling a president or a candidate. He was the inquiring politician asking her about Iowa and the country, about the image of God in other people...
2024-08-0238 minPodcast Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonAmerican Believer
The novelist Marilynne Robinson has a nearly constitutional role in our heads, our culture by now. She’s the artist we trust to observe the damaged heart of America, and to tell us what we’re going through. I’ve been re-reading her early fiction, particularly Housekeeping and Gilead from 20 years ago, and remembering her conversations with Barack Obama over the years, with tables turned from the start. It was never the usual writer profiling a president or a candidate. He was the inquiring politician asking her about Iowa and the country, about the image of God in other people...
2024-08-0238 minShows Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonAmerican Believer
The novelist Marilynne Robinson has a nearly constitutional role in our heads, our culture by now. She’s the artist we trust to observe the damaged heart of America, and to tell us what we’re going through. I’ve been re-reading her early fiction, particularly Housekeeping and Gilead from 20 years ago, and remembering her conversations with Barack Obama over the years, with tables turned from the start. It was never the usual writer profiling a president or a candidate. He was the inquiring politician asking her about Iowa and the country, about the image of God in other people...
2024-08-0238 minOpen Source with Christopher LydonPolitical Football
In the strangeness of mid-summer 2024, the cosmopolitan novelist Joseph O’Neill is our bridge between the Republican convention in Milwaukee and the Summer Olympics in Paris. He knows both sides of that gap: politics and global celebrity sports.
Joseph O’Neill.
He’s famous as an amateur cricket player in New York, of all places, and as a writer about cricket and the many meanings of sports in general. His new novel, Godwin, is deep into soccer/football in a wild intercontinental search for the next superstar, the next Lionel Messi or Kylian Mbappé.
The p...
2024-07-1850 minAired Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonPolitical Football
In the strangeness of mid-summer 2024, the cosmopolitan novelist Joseph O’Neill is our bridge between the Republican convention in Milwaukee and the Summer Olympics in Paris. He knows both sides of that gap: politics and global celebrity sports.
Joseph O’Neill.
He’s famous as an amateur cricket player in New York, of all places, and as a writer about cricket and the many meanings of sports in general. His new novel, Godwin, is deep into soccer/football in a wild intercontinental search for the next superstar, the next Lionel Messi or Kylian Mbappé.
The p...
2024-07-1850 minThis Week Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonPolitical Football
In the strangeness of mid-summer 2024, the cosmopolitan novelist Joseph O’Neill is our bridge between the Republican convention in Milwaukee and the Summer Olympics in Paris. He knows both sides of that gap: politics and global celebrity sports.
Joseph O’Neill.
He’s famous as an amateur cricket player in New York, of all places, and as a writer about cricket and the many meanings of sports in general. His new novel, Godwin, is deep into soccer/football in a wild intercontinental search for the next superstar, the next Lionel Messi or Kylian Mbappé.
The p...
2024-07-1850 minPodcast Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonPolitical Football
In the strangeness of mid-summer 2024, the cosmopolitan novelist Joseph O’Neill is our bridge between the Republican convention in Milwaukee and the Summer Olympics in Paris. He knows both sides of that gap: politics and global celebrity sports.
Joseph O’Neill.
He’s famous as an amateur cricket player in New York, of all places, and as a writer about cricket and the many meanings of sports in general. His new novel, Godwin, is deep into soccer/football in a wild intercontinental search for the next superstar, the next Lionel Messi or Kylian Mbappé.
The p...
2024-07-1850 minShows Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonPolitical Football
In the strangeness of mid-summer 2024, the cosmopolitan novelist Joseph O’Neill is our bridge between the Republican convention in Milwaukee and the Summer Olympics in Paris. He knows both sides of that gap: politics and global celebrity sports.
Joseph O’Neill.
He’s famous as an amateur cricket player in New York, of all places, and as a writer about cricket and the many meanings of sports in general. His new novel, Godwin, is deep into soccer/football in a wild intercontinental search for the next superstar, the next Lionel Messi or Kylian Mbappé.
The p...
2024-07-1850 minOpen Source with Christopher LydonAmerican Bloods
In a forlorn Fourth of July week, in the pit of an unpresidential, anti-presidential campaign year, 2024, we welcome back John Kaag, who writes history with a philosophical flair, never more colorful than in his new account of American Bloods: The Untamed Dynasty that Shaped a Nation. It’s a family saga in three centuries of frontier settlers and folk characters with the same name: Blood.
John Kaag.
They’ve got two other strong links among them: generation after generation, these Bloods embody in life some of the wilderness, that wild streak in our history, and they...
2024-07-0435 minThis Week Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonAmerican Bloods
In a forlorn Fourth of July week, in the pit of an unpresidential, anti-presidential campaign year, 2024, we welcome back John Kaag, who writes history with a philosophical flair, never more colorful than in his new account of American Bloods: The Untamed Dynasty that Shaped a Nation. It’s a family saga in three centuries of frontier settlers and folk characters with the same name: Blood.
John Kaag.
They’ve got two other strong links among them: generation after generation, these Bloods embody in life some of the wilderness, that wild streak in our history, and they...
2024-07-0435 minPodcast Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonAmerican Bloods
In a forlorn Fourth of July week, in the pit of an unpresidential, anti-presidential campaign year, 2024, we welcome back John Kaag, who writes history with a philosophical flair, never more colorful than in his new account of American Bloods: The Untamed Dynasty that Shaped a Nation. It’s a family saga in three centuries of frontier settlers and folk characters with the same name: Blood.
John Kaag.
They’ve got two other strong links among them: generation after generation, these Bloods embody in life some of the wilderness, that wild streak in our history, and they...
2024-07-0435 minShows Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonAmerican Bloods
In a forlorn Fourth of July week, in the pit of an unpresidential, anti-presidential campaign year, 2024, we welcome back John Kaag, who writes history with a philosophical flair, never more colorful than in his new account of American Bloods: The Untamed Dynasty that Shaped a Nation. It’s a family saga in three centuries of frontier settlers and folk characters with the same name: Blood.
John Kaag.
They’ve got two other strong links among them: generation after generation, these Bloods embody in life some of the wilderness, that wild streak in our history, and they...
2024-07-0435 minAired Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonAmerican Bloods
In a forlorn Fourth of July week, in the pit of an unpresidential, anti-presidential campaign year, 2024, we welcome back John Kaag, who writes history with a philosophical flair, never more colorful than in his new account of American Bloods: The Untamed Dynasty that Shaped a Nation. It’s a family saga in three centuries of frontier settlers and folk characters with the same name: Blood.
John Kaag.
They’ve got two other strong links among them: generation after generation, these Bloods embody in life some of the wilderness, that wild streak in our history, and they...
2024-07-0435 minOpen Source with Christopher LydonThe Zionism Riddle
Zionism has been the question that keeps changing. Once it was: “How to build a safe home for the Jews of the world?” Today it’s more nearly: “How to build a safe neighborhood around the mighty militarized state of Israel?” Yuval Noah Harari, the Israeli philosopher-historian, put the question bluntly in the Washington Post this spring: “Will Zionism survive the Gaza War?” There’s the riddle.
Hussein Ibish, Mishy Harman, and Shaul Magid.
Depending on who’s speaking and who’s listening, Zionism can stand for refuge, or for settler statehood, or for religious ethno-nationalism. E...
2024-06-2000 minThis Week Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonThe Zionism Riddle
Zionism has been the question that keeps changing. Once it was: “How to build a safe home for the Jews of the world?” Today it’s more nearly: “How to build a safe neighborhood around the mighty militarized state of Israel?” Yuval Noah Harari, the Israeli philosopher-historian, put the question bluntly in the Washington Post this spring: “Will Zionism survive the Gaza War?” There’s the riddle.
Hussein Ibish, Mishy Harman, and Shaul Magid.
Depending on who’s speaking and who’s listening, Zionism can stand for refuge, or for settler statehood, or for religious ethno-nationalism. E...
2024-06-2000 minShows Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonThe Zionism Riddle
Zionism has been the question that keeps changing. Once it was: “How to build a safe home for the Jews of the world?” Today it’s more nearly: “How to build a safe neighborhood around the mighty militarized state of Israel?” Yuval Noah Harari, the Israeli philosopher-historian, put the question bluntly in the Washington Post this spring: “Will Zionism survive the Gaza War?” There’s the riddle.
Hussein Ibish, Mishy Harman, and Shaul Magid.
Depending on who’s speaking and who’s listening, Zionism can stand for refuge, or for settler statehood, or for religious ethno-nationalism. E...
2024-06-2000 minAired Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonThe Zionism Riddle
Zionism has been the question that keeps changing. Once it was: “How to build a safe home for the Jews of the world?” Today it’s more nearly: “How to build a safe neighborhood around the mighty militarized state of Israel?” Yuval Noah Harari, the Israeli philosopher-historian, put the question bluntly in the Washington Post this spring: “Will Zionism survive the Gaza War?” There’s the riddle.
Hussein Ibish, Mishy Harman, and Shaul Magid.
Depending on who’s speaking and who’s listening, Zionism can stand for refuge, or for settler statehood, or for religious ethno-nationalism. E...
2024-06-2000 minPodcast Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonThe Zionism Riddle
Zionism has been the question that keeps changing. Once it was: “How to build a safe home for the Jews of the world?” Today it’s more nearly: “How to build a safe neighborhood around the mighty militarized state of Israel?” Yuval Noah Harari, the Israeli philosopher-historian, put the question bluntly in the Washington Post this spring: “Will Zionism survive the Gaza War?” There’s the riddle.
Hussein Ibish, Mishy Harman, and Shaul Magid.
Depending on who’s speaking and who’s listening, Zionism can stand for refuge, or for settler statehood, or for religious ethno-nationalism. E...
2024-06-2000 minShows Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonChasing Beauty
We’re on a hometown spree along the famous Fenway in the heart of Boston. Fenway Park is where the Red Sox play, John Updike’s “lyric little bandbox of a ballpark.” Fenway Court, built around the same time just a few blocks away, is a jewel box, a treasure house of high art, an American palazzo and museum like none other, a matching monument to quirky Boston’s eccentricity and its beauty.
Courtyard, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. (Photo: Sean Dungan. www.gardnermuseum.org.)
We owe Natalie Dykstra for her new biography of Isabella Stewart Gardner—who designed...
2024-06-0600 minPodcast Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonChasing Beauty
We’re on a hometown spree along the famous Fenway in the heart of Boston. Fenway Park is where the Red Sox play, John Updike’s “lyric little bandbox of a ballpark.” Fenway Court, built around the same time just a few blocks away, is a jewel box, a treasure house of high art, an American palazzo and museum like none other, a matching monument to quirky Boston’s eccentricity and its beauty.
Courtyard, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. (Photo: Sean Dungan. www.gardnermuseum.org.)
We owe Natalie Dykstra for her new biography of Isabella Stewart Gardner—who designed...
2024-06-0600 minThis Week Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonChasing Beauty
We’re on a hometown spree along the famous Fenway in the heart of Boston. Fenway Park is where the Red Sox play, John Updike’s “lyric little bandbox of a ballpark.” Fenway Court, built around the same time just a few blocks away, is a jewel box, a treasure house of high art, an American palazzo and museum like none other, a matching monument to quirky Boston’s eccentricity and its beauty.
Courtyard, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. (Photo: Sean Dungan. www.gardnermuseum.org.)
We owe Natalie Dykstra for her new biography of Isabella Stewart Gardner—who designed...
2024-06-0600 minAired Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonChasing Beauty
We’re on a hometown spree along the famous Fenway in the heart of Boston. Fenway Park is where the Red Sox play, John Updike’s “lyric little bandbox of a ballpark.” Fenway Court, built around the same time just a few blocks away, is a jewel box, a treasure house of high art, an American palazzo and museum like none other, a matching monument to quirky Boston’s eccentricity and its beauty.
Courtyard, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. (Photo: Sean Dungan. www.gardnermuseum.org.)
We owe Natalie Dykstra for her new biography of Isabella Stewart Gardner—who designed...
2024-06-0600 minOpen Source with Christopher LydonChasing Beauty
We’re on a hometown spree along the famous Fenway in the heart of Boston. Fenway Park is where the Red Sox play, John Updike’s “lyric little bandbox of a ballpark.” Fenway Court, built around the same time just a few blocks away, is a jewel box, a treasure house of high art, an American palazzo and museum like none other, a matching monument to quirky Boston’s eccentricity and its beauty.
Courtyard, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. (Photo: Sean Dungan. www.gardnermuseum.org.)
We owe Natalie Dykstra for her new biography of Isabella Stewart Gardner—who designed...
2024-06-0600 minOpen Source with Christopher LydonNicholson Baker Finds a Likeness
We’re taking a drawing lesson with Nicholson Baker—yes, the multifarious writers’ writer Nick Baker; the COVID lab leak detective; the pacifist historian of World War II in his book Human Smoke; he’s also the cherubic pornographer in Vox, about phone sex; and he’s the podcaster and performer of his own protest songs.
He is a marvel, and his big new book is a life-changer, titled Finding a Likeness: How I Got Somewhat Better at Art. Listeners will hear him drawing and growing in the making of this book. And here at our site...
2024-05-2346 minAired Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonNicholson Baker Finds a Likeness
We’re taking a drawing lesson with Nicholson Baker—yes, the multifarious writers’ writer Nick Baker; the COVID lab leak detective; the pacifist historian of World War II in his book Human Smoke; he’s also the cherubic pornographer in Vox, about phone sex; and he’s the podcaster and performer of his own protest songs.
He is a marvel, and his big new book is a life-changer, titled Finding a Likeness: How I Got Somewhat Better at Art. Listeners will hear him drawing and growing in the making of this book. And here at our site...
2024-05-2346 minShows Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonNicholson Baker Finds a Likeness
We’re taking a drawing lesson with Nicholson Baker—yes, the multifarious writers’ writer Nick Baker; the COVID lab leak detective; the pacifist historian of World War II in his book Human Smoke; he’s also the cherubic pornographer in Vox, about phone sex; and he’s the podcaster and performer of his own protest songs.
He is a marvel, and his big new book is a life-changer, titled Finding a Likeness: How I Got Somewhat Better at Art. Listeners will hear him drawing and growing in the making of this book. And here at our site...
2024-05-2346 minThis Week Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonNicholson Baker Finds a Likeness
We’re taking a drawing lesson with Nicholson Baker—yes, the multifarious writers’ writer Nick Baker; the COVID lab leak detective; the pacifist historian of World War II in his book Human Smoke; he’s also the cherubic pornographer in Vox, about phone sex; and he’s the podcaster and performer of his own protest songs.
He is a marvel, and his big new book is a life-changer, titled Finding a Likeness: How I Got Somewhat Better at Art. Listeners will hear him drawing and growing in the making of this book. And here at our site...
2024-05-2346 minPodcast Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonNicholson Baker Finds a Likeness
We’re taking a drawing lesson with Nicholson Baker—yes, the multifarious writers’ writer Nick Baker; the COVID lab leak detective; the pacifist historian of World War II in his book Human Smoke; he’s also the cherubic pornographer in Vox, about phone sex; and he’s the podcaster and performer of his own protest songs.
He is a marvel, and his big new book is a life-changer, titled Finding a Likeness: How I Got Somewhat Better at Art. Listeners will hear him drawing and growing in the making of this book. And here at our site...
2024-05-2346 minOpen Source with Christopher LydonCampus Uproar
We’re sampling the uproar rising from American campuses: it’s a full blown, leaderless movement by now, in an established American tradition, but still contested, still finding its way, looking for its pattern. Columbia and USC have cancelled graduation ceremonies. Many more schools are threatening suspensions or worse if students don’t remove their encampments. In our neighborhood, Harvard Yard is encamped, closed to people without Harvard ID. Harvard students are catch-as-catch-can.
Zachary Samalin and Sophia Azeb.
We are dropping in conversationally on faculty players we know on either side of the country: Sophia Azeb a...
2024-05-1055 minThis Week Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonCampus Uproar
We’re sampling the uproar rising from American campuses: it’s a full blown, leaderless movement by now, in an established American tradition, but still contested, still finding its way, looking for its pattern. Columbia and USC have cancelled graduation ceremonies. Many more schools are threatening suspensions or worse if students don’t remove their encampments. In our neighborhood, Harvard Yard is encamped, closed to people without Harvard ID. Harvard students are catch-as-catch-can.
Zachary Samalin and Sophia Azeb.
We are dropping in conversationally on faculty players we know on either side of the country: Sophia Azeb a...
2024-05-1055 minAired Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonCampus Uproar
We’re sampling the uproar rising from American campuses: it’s a full blown, leaderless movement by now, in an established American tradition, but still contested, still finding its way, looking for its pattern. Columbia and USC have cancelled graduation ceremonies. Many more schools are threatening suspensions or worse if students don’t remove their encampments. In our neighborhood, Harvard Yard is encamped, closed to people without Harvard ID. Harvard students are catch-as-catch-can.
Zachary Samalin and Sophia Azeb.
We are dropping in conversationally on faculty players we know on either side of the country: Sophia Azeb a...
2024-05-1055 minPodcast Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonCampus Uproar
We’re sampling the uproar rising from American campuses: it’s a full blown, leaderless movement by now, in an established American tradition, but still contested, still finding its way, looking for its pattern. Columbia and USC have cancelled graduation ceremonies. Many more schools are threatening suspensions or worse if students don’t remove their encampments. In our neighborhood, Harvard Yard is encamped, closed to people without Harvard ID. Harvard students are catch-as-catch-can.
Zachary Samalin and Sophia Azeb.
We are dropping in conversationally on faculty players we know on either side of the country: Sophia Azeb a...
2024-05-1055 minShows Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonCampus Uproar
We’re sampling the uproar rising from American campuses: it’s a full blown, leaderless movement by now, in an established American tradition, but still contested, still finding its way, looking for its pattern. Columbia and USC have cancelled graduation ceremonies. Many more schools are threatening suspensions or worse if students don’t remove their encampments. In our neighborhood, Harvard Yard is encamped, closed to people without Harvard ID. Harvard students are catch-as-catch-can.
Zachary Samalin and Sophia Azeb.
We are dropping in conversationally on faculty players we know on either side of the country: Sophia Azeb a...
2024-05-1055 minAired Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonAmerican Disorder
The key battle taking place in this American crisis year of 2024 is happening in our heads, according to the master historian Richard Slotkin. He’s here to tell us all that we’re in a 40-year culture war and an identity crisis by now. It’s all about drawing on legendary figures like Daniel Boone and Frederick Douglass, Betsy Ross and Rosa Parks, Robert E. Lee and G.I. Joe for a composite self-portrait of the country.
Richard Slotkin.
Richard Slotkin says we’re in a contest of origin stories, in search of a common national...
2024-04-2542 minShows Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonAmerican Disorder
The key battle taking place in this American crisis year of 2024 is happening in our heads, according to the master historian Richard Slotkin. He’s here to tell us all that we’re in a 40-year culture war and an identity crisis by now. It’s all about drawing on legendary figures like Daniel Boone and Frederick Douglass, Betsy Ross and Rosa Parks, Robert E. Lee and G.I. Joe for a composite self-portrait of the country.
Richard Slotkin.
Richard Slotkin says we’re in a contest of origin stories, in search of a common national...
2024-04-2542 minPodcast Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonAmerican Disorder
The key battle taking place in this American crisis year of 2024 is happening in our heads, according to the master historian Richard Slotkin. He’s here to tell us all that we’re in a 40-year culture war and an identity crisis by now. It’s all about drawing on legendary figures like Daniel Boone and Frederick Douglass, Betsy Ross and Rosa Parks, Robert E. Lee and G.I. Joe for a composite self-portrait of the country.
Richard Slotkin.
Richard Slotkin says we’re in a contest of origin stories, in search of a common national...
2024-04-2542 minThis Week Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonAmerican Disorder
The key battle taking place in this American crisis year of 2024 is happening in our heads, according to the master historian Richard Slotkin. He’s here to tell us all that we’re in a 40-year culture war and an identity crisis by now. It’s all about drawing on legendary figures like Daniel Boone and Frederick Douglass, Betsy Ross and Rosa Parks, Robert E. Lee and G.I. Joe for a composite self-portrait of the country.
Richard Slotkin.
Richard Slotkin says we’re in a contest of origin stories, in search of a common national...
2024-04-2542 minOpen Source with Christopher LydonAmerican Disorder
The key battle taking place in this American crisis year of 2024 is happening in our heads, according to the master historian Richard Slotkin. He’s here to tell us all that we’re in a 40-year culture war and an identity crisis by now. It’s all about drawing on legendary figures like Daniel Boone and Frederick Douglass, Betsy Ross and Rosa Parks, Robert E. Lee and G.I. Joe for a composite self-portrait of the country.
Richard Slotkin.
Richard Slotkin says we’re in a contest of origin stories, in search of a common national...
2024-04-2542 minOpen Source with Christopher LydonLessons from Hannah Arendt
We’re calling on Hannah Arendt for the twenty-first century—could she teach us how to think our way out of the authoritarian nightmare? Arendt wrote the book for all time on Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union. And then she famously covered the trial in Israel of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi minister of death. Her study of the origins of totalitarianism keeps her current fifty years after her death and, pointedly, in our own rancorous presidential campaign of 2024.
Hannah Arendt.
Lyndsey Stonebridge.
In this podcast, the surprise turns on finding a profou...
2024-04-1247 minAired Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonLessons from Hannah Arendt
We’re calling on Hannah Arendt for the twenty-first century—could she teach us how to think our way out of the authoritarian nightmare? Arendt wrote the book for all time on Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union. And then she famously covered the trial in Israel of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi minister of death. Her study of the origins of totalitarianism keeps her current fifty years after her death and, pointedly, in our own rancorous presidential campaign of 2024.
Hannah Arendt.
Lyndsey Stonebridge.
In this podcast, the surprise turns on finding a profou...
2024-04-1247 minThis Week Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonLessons from Hannah Arendt
We’re calling on Hannah Arendt for the twenty-first century—could she teach us how to think our way out of the authoritarian nightmare? Arendt wrote the book for all time on Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union. And then she famously covered the trial in Israel of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi minister of death. Her study of the origins of totalitarianism keeps her current fifty years after her death and, pointedly, in our own rancorous presidential campaign of 2024.
Hannah Arendt.
Lyndsey Stonebridge.
In this podcast, the surprise turns on finding a profou...
2024-04-1247 minPodcast Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonLessons from Hannah Arendt
We’re calling on Hannah Arendt for the twenty-first century—could she teach us how to think our way out of the authoritarian nightmare? Arendt wrote the book for all time on Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union. And then she famously covered the trial in Israel of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi minister of death. Her study of the origins of totalitarianism keeps her current fifty years after her death and, pointedly, in our own rancorous presidential campaign of 2024.
Hannah Arendt.
Lyndsey Stonebridge.
In this podcast, the surprise turns on finding a profou...
2024-04-1247 minShows Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonLessons from Hannah Arendt
We’re calling on Hannah Arendt for the twenty-first century—could she teach us how to think our way out of the authoritarian nightmare? Arendt wrote the book for all time on Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union. And then she famously covered the trial in Israel of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi minister of death. Her study of the origins of totalitarianism keeps her current fifty years after her death and, pointedly, in our own rancorous presidential campaign of 2024.
Hannah Arendt.
Lyndsey Stonebridge.
In this podcast, the surprise turns on finding a profou...
2024-04-1247 minPodcast Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonTaylor Swift’s Tortured Poets
We’re going to school on Taylor Swift, in the Harvard course. And all we know is, as her song says, we’re enchanted to meet her. Taylor Swift comes out of literature but she’s more than a poet, or a pop star. Maybe the word is “enchanter” for the artist who gets it all into a song, who knows the fusion power of sharp words with the right minimum of melody.
Stephanie Burt and M.J. Cunniff.
We’re anticipating Taylor Swift’s next album, her “Tortured Poets Department,” coming in April. Stephanie Burt and M.J. Cunn...
2024-03-2850 minShows Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonTaylor Swift’s Tortured Poets
We’re going to school on Taylor Swift, in the Harvard course. And all we know is, as her song says, we’re enchanted to meet her. Taylor Swift comes out of literature but she’s more than a poet, or a pop star. Maybe the word is “enchanter” for the artist who gets it all into a song, who knows the fusion power of sharp words with the right minimum of melody.
Stephanie Burt and M.J. Cunniff.
We’re anticipating Taylor Swift’s next album, her “Tortured Poets Department,” coming in April. Stephanie Burt and M.J. Cunn...
2024-03-2850 minThis Week Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonTaylor Swift’s Tortured Poets
We’re going to school on Taylor Swift, in the Harvard course. And all we know is, as her song says, we’re enchanted to meet her. Taylor Swift comes out of literature but she’s more than a poet, or a pop star. Maybe the word is “enchanter” for the artist who gets it all into a song, who knows the fusion power of sharp words with the right minimum of melody.
Stephanie Burt and M.J. Cunniff.
We’re anticipating Taylor Swift’s next album, her “Tortured Poets Department,” coming in April. Stephanie Burt and M.J. Cunn...
2024-03-2850 minAired Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonTaylor Swift’s Tortured Poets
We’re going to school on Taylor Swift, in the Harvard course. And all we know is, as her song says, we’re enchanted to meet her. Taylor Swift comes out of literature but she’s more than a poet, or a pop star. Maybe the word is “enchanter” for the artist who gets it all into a song, who knows the fusion power of sharp words with the right minimum of melody.
Stephanie Burt and M.J. Cunniff.
We’re anticipating Taylor Swift’s next album, her “Tortured Poets Department,” coming in April. Stephanie Burt and M.J. Cunn...
2024-03-2850 minOpen Source with Christopher LydonTaylor Swift’s Tortured Poets
We’re going to school on Taylor Swift, in the Harvard course. And all we know is, as her song says, we’re enchanted to meet her. Taylor Swift comes out of literature but she’s more than a poet, or a pop star. Maybe the word is “enchanter” for the artist who gets it all into a song, who knows the fusion power of sharp words with the right minimum of melody.
Stephanie Burt and M.J. Cunniff.
We’re anticipating Taylor Swift’s next album, her “Tortured Poets Department,” coming in April. Stephanie Burt and M.J. Cunn...
2024-03-2850 minOpen Source with Christopher LydonOf Melville and Marriage
We speak of the mystery of Herman Melville, or the misery of Melville, the American masterpiece man. For Moby-Dick alone, he is our Shakespeare, our Dante—though he fled the writing of prose for the last half of his life, and in death The New York Times misspelled his name.
Jennifer Habel and Chris Bachelder.
This podcast is a demonstration of another way, a better way to crack the riddle of Melville: read the book aloud with someone you love and jot down every question that comes to your mind. Before you know it, you’ll h...
2024-03-1436 minAired Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonOf Melville and Marriage
We speak of the mystery of Herman Melville, or the misery of Melville, the American masterpiece man. For Moby-Dick alone, he is our Shakespeare, our Dante—though he fled the writing of prose for the last half of his life, and in death The New York Times misspelled his name.
Jennifer Habel and Chris Bachelder.
This podcast is a demonstration of another way, a better way to crack the riddle of Melville: read the book aloud with someone you love and jot down every question that comes to your mind. Before you know it, you’ll h...
2024-03-1436 minThis Week Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonOf Melville and Marriage
We speak of the mystery of Herman Melville, or the misery of Melville, the American masterpiece man. For Moby-Dick alone, he is our Shakespeare, our Dante—though he fled the writing of prose for the last half of his life, and in death The New York Times misspelled his name.
Jennifer Habel and Chris Bachelder.
This podcast is a demonstration of another way, a better way to crack the riddle of Melville: read the book aloud with someone you love and jot down every question that comes to your mind. Before you know it, you’ll h...
2024-03-1436 minPodcast Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonOf Melville and Marriage
We speak of the mystery of Herman Melville, or the misery of Melville, the American masterpiece man. For Moby-Dick alone, he is our Shakespeare, our Dante—though he fled the writing of prose for the last half of his life, and in death The New York Times misspelled his name.
Jennifer Habel and Chris Bachelder.
This podcast is a demonstration of another way, a better way to crack the riddle of Melville: read the book aloud with someone you love and jot down every question that comes to your mind. Before you know it, you’ll h...
2024-03-1436 minShows Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonOf Melville and Marriage
We speak of the mystery of Herman Melville, or the misery of Melville, the American masterpiece man. For Moby-Dick alone, he is our Shakespeare, our Dante—though he fled the writing of prose for the last half of his life, and in death The New York Times misspelled his name.
Jennifer Habel and Chris Bachelder.
This podcast is a demonstration of another way, a better way to crack the riddle of Melville: read the book aloud with someone you love and jot down every question that comes to your mind. Before you know it, you’ll h...
2024-03-1436 minOpen Source with Christopher LydonAgainst Despair
The subject, in a word, is despair, both public and private. The poets and spiritual seekers Christian Wiman and his wife Danielle Chapman are back to goad us, each with a new book. Their project is staring into the abyss, in the Nietzsche formula, to see if the abyss stares back, or talks back. And I think it does.
Christian Wiman and Danielle Chapman.
Listeners, you be the judge. Christian Wiman’s new book is Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair. It’s more interesting because the woman who broke his life open in l...
2024-03-0156 minAired Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonAgainst Despair
The subject, in a word, is despair, both public and private. The poets and spiritual seekers Christian Wiman and his wife Danielle Chapman are back to goad us, each with a new book. Their project is staring into the abyss, in the Nietzsche formula, to see if the abyss stares back, or talks back. And I think it does.
Christian Wiman and Danielle Chapman.
Listeners, you be the judge. Christian Wiman’s new book is Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair. It’s more interesting because the woman who broke his life open in l...
2024-03-0156 minThis Week Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonAgainst Despair
The subject, in a word, is despair, both public and private. The poets and spiritual seekers Christian Wiman and his wife Danielle Chapman are back to goad us, each with a new book. Their project is staring into the abyss, in the Nietzsche formula, to see if the abyss stares back, or talks back. And I think it does.
Christian Wiman and Danielle Chapman.
Listeners, you be the judge. Christian Wiman’s new book is Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair. It’s more interesting because the woman who broke his life open in l...
2024-03-0156 minPodcast Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonAgainst Despair
The subject, in a word, is despair, both public and private. The poets and spiritual seekers Christian Wiman and his wife Danielle Chapman are back to goad us, each with a new book. Their project is staring into the abyss, in the Nietzsche formula, to see if the abyss stares back, or talks back. And I think it does.
Christian Wiman and Danielle Chapman.
Listeners, you be the judge. Christian Wiman’s new book is Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair. It’s more interesting because the woman who broke his life open in l...
2024-03-0156 minShows Archives - Open Source with Christopher LydonAgainst Despair
The subject, in a word, is despair, both public and private. The poets and spiritual seekers Christian Wiman and his wife Danielle Chapman are back to goad us, each with a new book. Their project is staring into the abyss, in the Nietzsche formula, to see if the abyss stares back, or talks back. And I think it does.
Christian Wiman and Danielle Chapman.
Listeners, you be the judge. Christian Wiman’s new book is Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair. It’s more interesting because the woman who broke his life open in l...
2024-03-0156 min
Citizen ReporterChristopher Lydon: The State of the World 2021
Mark Fonseca Rendeiro
Christopher Lydon
Once a year I have the great pleasure of spending a few days in Boston with my dear friend and audio legend Christopher Lydon. We listen to Duke Ellington, pour over audio for his next program, and find time to turn on the microphone and have our “state of the world” conversation. Having missed our standing appointment during the pandemic, this year I managed to cautiously get back to Boston, back to my happy place; sitting across from Chris and discussing life.
Today on the podcast, it’s the State of the World...
2021-12-0438 minEtcetera – Open Source with Christopher LydonIan Johnson and the Souls of ChinaIan Johnson won a Pulitzer Prize covering China for the Wall Street Journal–mostly economics–but then discovered what felt like a bigger story: a full-blown spiritual crisis inside a frenzied money culture. In Chinese villages and booming big cities alike, what he came to see unmistakably over 6 years on the road was a restoration taking place across the peculiar mix of Chinese religion: Buddhist meditation, Daoist exercises, Confucian moral discipline.
In his new book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, Johnson says the spiritual revival in modern China is centere...
2017-05-0324 min