To The Best Of Our Knowledge
96 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 782 ratingsTo The Best Of Our Knowledge is a nationally-syndicated, Peabody award-winning public radio show that dives headlong into the deeper end of ideas. We have conversations with novelists and poets, scientists and software engineers, journalists and historians, filmmakers and philosophers, artists and activists — people with big ideas and a passion to share them.
For more from the TTBOOK team, visit us at ttbook.org.
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Episodes
Poetry in a Troubled Time
November 21, 2020 12:00 - 71 MBWhy do people turn to poetry during troubled times? We saw it after 9/11 and we're seeing it now as the coronavirus travels around the world. When the world seems broken, poetry is often the one kind of language that helps. Original Air Date: April 04, 2020 Guests: Kitty O'Meara — Jericho Brown — Edward Hirsch — Alice Walker — Ken Nordine — Li-Young Lee — Jimmy Santiago Baca Interviews In This Hour: A Viral Poem For A Virus Time — Can A Poem Be A Prayer? — Poetry In A Time Of G...
The Personal Politics of Sports
November 07, 2020 12:00 - 71.1 MBWhat do you do when the headlines are freaking you out and the news is making you tense? A lot of people find sports takes their mind off things. It’s like this one worry-free, politics-free zone. Until it isn’t. Original Air Date: November 07, 2020 Guests: Kurt Streeter — David Shields — Melissa Joulwan — Michael Powell Interviews In This Hour: A Year Of Reckoning And Loss In The World Of Sports — The Power of Silence: How Marshawn Lynch Subverted the NFL's Rules — How One Wom...
Rituals of Fear
October 31, 2020 11:00 - 71.6 MBBe still. Prepare the altar. Gather around in a circle. Light the fire. And join us for rituals that will put fear in your heart. Because what if experiencing your fears — the dread, the horror of it all — is good for you? Original Air Date: October 26, 2019 Guests: Amy Stewart — Kathryn Harkup — Gemma Files — Dan Chaon — Blanche Barton Interviews In This Hour: A Garden of Deadly Delights — How To Get Away With Murder According to Agatha Christie — Listener Ghost Story: 'Reset'...
Democracy on the Ballot
October 17, 2020 11:00 - 71.1 MBAmericans are getting ready to vote. But this election is different from other years. What's really on the ballot? Original Air Date: October 17, 2020 Guests: Kim Wehle — Carol Anderson — Jeremi Suri — Eric Liu Interviews In This Hour: A Choice Between 'We The People' And 'Something Darker' — Just 48 Years Of Free and Fair Elections — Where Are We On The Roller Coaster Of History? — How To Make Elections Fun Again
Books We Can't Forget
September 12, 2020 11:00 - 70.8 MBIs there a book you can’t forget? A book that left a mark on you? On Bookmarks, our micropodcast, we share tiny stories from writers, about the books they love most. This week, we’ll preview Season One and celebrate books and reading with an eclectic cast of writers from around the country. Original Air Date: November 16, 2019 Guests: Chloe Benjamin — Anne Lamott — Rebecca Traister — Natalia Sylvester — Tommy Orange — Pamela Paul — Shannon Henry Kleiber — Jericho Brown — Susan Or...
September 12, 2020
September 12, 2020 11:00 - 70.8 MBIs there a book you can’t forget? A book that left a mark on you? On Bookmarks, our micropodcast, we share tiny stories from writers, about the books they love most. This week, we’ll preview Season One and celebrate books and reading with an eclectic cast of writers from around the country. Original Air Date: November 16, 2019 Guests: Chloe Benjamin — Anne Lamott — Rebecca Traister — Natalia Sylvester — Tommy Orange — Pamela Paul — Shannon Henry Kleiber — Jericho Brown — Susan Or...
Up All Night
August 29, 2020 10:59 - 70.9 MBHow well do you sleep? Every night, millions of us turn out the lights hoping and praying for a good night’s sleep. And every night, millions of us lie awake in the dark. We explore what keeps us up, and what happens when we embrace the times when we just can't seem to rest. Original Air Date: March 07, 2020 Guests: Steve Paulson — Guy Leschziner — Daniel Pink — Marina Benjamin — Ada Calhoun Interviews In This Hour: A Shadow Self Emerges from the Darkness — Tales From The Wee H...
Out Of The Mental Illness Box
August 15, 2020 14:04 - 70.7 MBWhen treating mental illness, you know the drill. Take your meds. Call me in the morning. Let's check in on how you feel in a few months. Repeat. But maybe there’s something else you can add to that toolkit. We talk with a psychiatrist who prescribes exercise as medicine, a woman who treats her anxiety with horror films, and the scientists examining how depression can be treated with psychedelics. Need to talk? Contact the National Alliance for Mental Illness at 1-800-950-NAMI (6...
Loving Bees
August 01, 2020 11:00 - 71.6 MBBees stir each one of our senses — the zen-like hum, the sweet honey, the waxy smell of wildflowers mixed with hard work, the vibrant orange and black bodies attached to window-paned wings. If they land on us, and we are calm, say beekeepers, it will be a gentle touch; they will sting only to save their lives. Bees are endangered, but all over the world, people are stepping up to save them — in backyards, science labs, and the abandoned lots of urban Detroit. We explore the art ...
Music on Your Mind
June 26, 2020 19:24 - 71 MBMillions of people are caring for someone with severe memory loss, trying to find ways to connect. One of the best ways anyone has found is music. We examine the unexpected power of song to supercharge the human mind. Original Air Date: August 17, 2019 Guests: Shannon Henry Kleiber — Oliver Sacks — Francine Toder — Anne Basting Interviews In This Hour: The Power Of Music And Memory: 'Music Was Waking Up Something Within Each Of Them' — The Deep Connections Our Brains Make To Mu...
Breaking the Chains
June 20, 2020 11:03 - 70.9 MBAmerica is in the midst of what seems like a race revolution. Street protests are continuing across the country. Police departments are enacting changes. Confederate statues are coming down. What's next in the fight for Black equality? We take a hard look at how racism infects not only the police, but the entire criminal justice system. Original Air Date: June 20, 2020 Guests: Michelle Alexander — Bryan Stevenson — Ruth Wilson Gilmore — Malcolm Gladwell — Khalil Gibran Muhammad —...
More Than Just a Game
June 13, 2020 11:05 - 70.8 MBWe play them to pass the time at family functions, or to relax after a long day of work or school. But board games say so much more than we think — about our relationships, our politics, our histories. We learn the storied history of Mahjong, play a few classic games with some modern twists, and consider the mental brutality that is competitive chess. *Original Air Date: * November 30, 2019 **Guests: ** Angelo Bautista — Eric Thurm — Brin-Jonathan Butler — Annelise Heinz — Li...
Filtering Free Speech
June 06, 2020 11:05 - 71 MBThe line between free speech and hate speech isn't always clear. When college students shout down a campus speaker, when a woman yells racial slurs in a parking lot, or when HR calls with a reprimand — when does free speech violate safe space? When does sensitivity become censorship? This weekend’s program "Filtering Free Speech" examines the difficult subject of censorship and free expression. In our first interview, acclaimed writer Walter Mosley uses the "N-word" four times to d...
Writing Truth and Lies
April 11, 2020 11:05 - 71.6 MBWe all tell stories about our lives: funny stories, happy stories, sad stories. But are they true stories? In an age of “alternative facts” and “fake news,” we’re all thinking harder about why truth matters – not just in politics, but in our personal lives. A biographer, a poet, a memoirist and a filmmaker describe the moral struggle and personal cost involved in telling not just the truth, but the whole truth. Original Air Date: November 10, 2018 *Guests: * Caroline Fraser ...
Poetry in a Troubled Time
April 04, 2020 11:00 - 71.3 MBWhy do people turn to poetry during troubled times? We saw it after 9/11 and we're seeing it now as the coronavirus travels around the world. When the world seems broken, poetry is often the one kind of language that helps. Original Air Date: * *April 04, 2020 *Guests: * Kitty O'Meara — Jericho Brown — Edward Hirsch — Alice Walker — Ken Nordine — Li-Young Lee — Jimmy Santiago Baca *Interviews In This Hour: * A Viral Poem For A Virus Time — Can A Poem Be A Prayer? — Poetry ...
Doctors Give Us Hope
March 28, 2020 11:00 - 71.6 MBThis week, To the Best of Our Knowledge comes to you from our kitchens and homes. We’re safe, but we’ve all been thinking about the people on the front lines of the pandemic — doctors, nurses and hospital staffs. We’ve been seeing them on social media — the nurses in NYC wearing garbage bags because there aren’t enough sterile gowns. Doctors figuring out those weird new face masks. Those incredibly brave doctors and nurses in Italy, Spain, France, the U.S. This hour we tell some r...
Music Beyond Genre
March 21, 2020 11:00 - 70.8 MBEven with all the music available today, most of us still listen primarily to just a few comfy genres. But there’s so much more out there — and so much of it defies neat, algorithm-friendly categorization. Original Air Date: * *June 01, 2019 *Guests: * Kevin Gift — Wendel Patrick — Philip Glass — Robert Glasper — Toni Blackman — Clarice Jensen — Evelyn Glennie — Nikka Costa *Interviews In This Hour: * How One Man Became Two Musicians — Philip Glass Asks 'Where Does Music C...
Why Do We Meet?
February 29, 2020 12:00 - 70.8 MBWe're always online but still have an innate need to meet in person. How can we make gatherings, from dinner parties to work meetings, more meaningful? *Original Air Date: * June 22, 2019 **Guests: ** Priya Parker — Mamie Kanfer Stewart — Angelo Bautista — James Ogude **Interviews In This Hour: ** When We Gather, We Need Rituals — That Completely Pointless Meeting Is Entirely Preventable — Watching RuPaul's Drag Race In The Best Way Possible — In A Gay Bar — 'I Am Because We Ar...
Taking Comfort in the Sound of Silence
February 22, 2020 12:00 - 71.6 MBRestaurants, bars, coffee shops — is there any public place left that doesn’t play background music? Loudly? In this show, we’re making the case for more silence. Because perhaps some need the drone of TVs, traffic and Muzak, to drown out the pesky sound of thinking, but others go to great lengths to find respite from a blaringly loud world. Original Air Date: December 09, 2017 Guests: Erling Kagge — Gordon Hempton — George Michelsen Foy — Kyle Gann — Shawn Wen — Jennifer Egan ...
Hope: How Do You Make It?
January 25, 2020 12:00This hour we talk with people who’ve turned that around and made hope real, whether it’s through political activism, faith, music, or reading a life-changing novel. Original Air Date: April 27, 2019 *Guests: * DeRay Mckesson — Lydia Hester — Serene Jones — Megan Stielstra — Common *Interviews In This Hour: * To Make Big Social Change, Start With The PB&J Sandwiches — Teens Don't Want Hope. They Want Action. — Hope, Where Faith Becomes Action — Megan Stielstra On 'The Chrono...
Why Go To War?
January 11, 2020 12:00What drives us toward armed conflict? And what does it take for peace activists to face down tyrants and military leaders? **Guests: ** Scott Anderson — Samantha Power — Benjamin Ginsberg — David Shields — Leymah Gbowee **Interviews In This Hour: ** In The Case Of Iran, Who Decides What Constitutes 'War'? — An Idealist Wrestles With The Ethics of Military Intervention — The Worth of War — War is Beautiful? — Is War Inevitable?
In Search Of Real Food [Rebroadcast]
December 28, 2019 12:00What if the guiding principle we used in cooking, eating and growing food was love? From an Iranian-American kitchen to the chocolate forests of Ecuador, we explore new ways to express deep flavors and personal identity through food and cooking. *Guests: * Simran Sethi — Samin Nosrat — Michael Twitty — Josh Noel *Interviews In This Hour: * The Frightening Sameness Beneath Hundreds of Flavors — A Little Grammy, A Little Bubbe: A Writer Embodies Family History Through Food — Any...
Wintering In The Wild
December 21, 2019 12:00On this Winter Solstice, what can we learn from the natural world — from animals, from the water — about surviving and even celebrating the cold? Guests: Douglas Quin — Piers Vitebsky — T.C. Boyle — Bernd Heinrich — Lucy Jane Bledsoe — Lynne Cox Interviews In This Hour: How Animals Sound in Winter — Piers Vitebsky on 'The Reindeer People' — T.C. Boyle Recommends 'Winter World' — Ingenuity of Animals in Winter — Lucy Jane Bledsoe's Antarctic Novel — Swimming to Antarctica
Giving Is Complicated [Rebroadcast]
December 07, 2019 12:00Even the most welcome gift can spark guilt, resentment, obligation or vulnerability. This hour, unwrapping the tangled emotions behind giving — and getting. Guests: Megan Costello — Haddayr Copley-Woods — David Graeber — Anand Giridharadas — Elizabeth Dunn Interviews In This Hour: In A Medical Crisis, Small Gestures Are Life-Changing — The Problems With Help You Didn't Ask For — There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Gift — The Strings Attached To Big-Ticket Donations — Giving Happ...
More Than Just A Game
November 30, 2019 12:00The board games we play tell us so much more about ourselves than we think — our history, our politics and our inner psychology. Guests: Angelo Bautista — Eric Thurm — Brin-Jonathan Butler — Annelise Heinz — Linda Feinstein — Jeff Yang Interviews In This Hour: Picking Up The Pieces Of Mahjong — What You Learn In The 'Magic Circle' — Chess, A Perfect Game for Crushing Your Opponent’s Ego
Is Guilt A Wasted Emotion? [Rebroadcast]
November 23, 2019 12:00It creeps into everything: guilt that we're not good enough, fit enough, smart enough. As we peruse Instagram, all we see is the perfection of others reflecting our own failures back at us. Why do we spend so much time feeling guilty? Should we? Guests: Devorah Baum — Lucas Mann — Thomas Curran — Stephen Greenblatt — Susan Bandes Interviews In This Hour: Why Do We Still Feel Guilty? — Reality TV And Other Things We Secretly Love — Perfectionism Is Making Young People Miserable....
The Secret Language of Trees [Rebroadcast]
November 09, 2019 12:00Trees talk to each other, and even form alliances with other trees or other species. Some are incredibly old — the root mass of aspens might live 100,000 years. In this hour, we explore the science and history of trees. Guests: Mark Hirsch, Richard Powers, Suzanne Simard, Amos Clifford, Daegan Miller
If Your Clothes Could Talk [Rebroadcast]
October 19, 2019 11:00Whether you know it or not, your closets are filled with personal information. Do you think about what are you saying with your clothes? Guests: Angelo Bautista, Avery Trufelman, Carolyn Smith, agnès b., Jo Paoletti
The Power Of Pleasure and Joy
October 12, 2019 11:00What if the most unselfish thing you could do was to pursue pleasure and joy? We make the case for the transformative power of joy, pleasure and delight. Guests: Ross Gay, Kathryn Bond Stockton, Laurie Santos, Lynne Segal
Your Miraculous And Mysterious Body [Rebroadcast]
October 05, 2019 11:00Sometimes, we take our body for granted. But even the everyday things it can do – keep our heart beating, fight off illness – are pretty extraordinary. Do you know what your body can do? Guests: Josh Mezrich, Missy Makinia, Porochista Khakpour, Gavin Francis
What Sparks Creativity? [Rebroadcast]
September 21, 2019 11:00Where does creativity come from? And what exactly is going on in your brain when the Muse descends? Guests: Heather Berlin, Siri Hustvedt, Jim Holt, Mary Sharrat, Nathaniel Mary Quinn
New Voices In Native American Writing [Rebroadcast]
September 07, 2019 11:00Every so often, a new literary movement coalesces. A new generation of writers finds a voice. This time they’re young, gifted, and Native American. Guests: Jennifer Foerster, Tommy Orange, Terese Marie Mailhot, David Treuer, Kevin Goodan, Tall Paul
What's Wrong With Work? [Rebroadcast]
August 31, 2019 11:00It's not easy in America today to find work that matters, that’s meaningful, and that pays enough to live on. Which is the one thing we don’t talk about. What’s wrong with work — and how do we fix it? Guests: Alissa Quart, David Graeber, James Livingston, Niki Okuk, Studs Terkel
Should You Delete Your Facebook Account? [Rebroadcast]
August 24, 2019 11:00You're thinking about hitting “delete” on all of it — Facebook, Twitter. But is that the answer, or should we resolve to stick around and make things better? Guests: Jaron Lanier, Ethan Zuckerman, Whitney Phillips, DeRay Mckesson, Yuval Noah Harari
Why We Fight
August 10, 2019 11:00What makes someone want to walk into a ring and hit someone? Choose to take a punch? Why men — and women — fight. And why so many of us like to watch. *Guests: * Kate Sekules, Jonathan Gottschall, Ronda Rousey, Thomas Page McBee, Charles Monroe-Kane, Steve Paulson
Is Anger Useful? [Rebroadcast]
August 03, 2019 11:00We’ve been taught to ignore, stifle, or just get over anger for many years — but what if we embraced it? Guests: Rebecca Traister, Cristen Conger, Caroline Ervin, Richard Davidson, Alice Walker
Finding Your Voice
July 27, 2019 11:00Your voice is unique. It's how your friends and family know you. But how comfortable are you with your voice? And how freely do you use it? Guests: David Thorpe, Keith Powell, Susan Stamberg, Ann Friedman, Veronica Rueckert, Bernie Krause
Writing Truth and Lies [Rebroadcast]
July 20, 2019 11:00It's a long walk from the truth to the whole truth. A biographer, a poet, a memoirist and a filmmaker describe the moral struggle and personal cost involved. Guests: Caroline Fraser, Terese Marie Mailhot, Karl Ove Knausgård, Errol Morris
Difficult Summer Reading
July 13, 2019 11:00Summer reading lists are full of so-called "beach books." But if you’ve got enough time to lounge by a pool or swing in a hammock, why not tackle something more substantial? Guests: Colleen Leahy, Makini Allwood, Jorge Luis Borges, Orhan Pamuk, Maryanne Wolf, Codex Seraphinianus, Emily Parker, Junot Diaz, Ricardo Pitts-Wiley, Charles Miers
Religion Without Doctrine [Rebroadcast]
July 06, 2019 11:00What's the essence of religion? God? Scripture? Moral codes? Or is it really about something more unexplainable — primal spiritual experiences? Guests: Elizabeth Krohn, Jeff Kripal, Elaine Pagels, Jericho Brown
Pick Your Poison [Rebroadcast]
June 29, 2019 11:00Covert spies painting nerve agents on doorknobs? It's not the only way to poison someone. We hear stories of radioactive paint, formaldehyde-spiked baby formula, and a beautiful garden full of plants that could kill you. Guests: Deborah Blum, Kathryn Harkup, Amy Stewart, Kate Moore
The Ways We Are Born — Again and Again [Rebroadcast]
June 16, 2019 01:00The first birth is when you arrive here, as a wet, wiggling newborn. But there may be other transitions in your life that feel just as difficult and profound. Some people actually call those passages re-birth. Guests: Arlene Stein, Wendy Kline, Benn Marine, Greg Cootsona
How To Be An Ethical Traveler
May 24, 2019 22:30Over-tourism is ruining some of our favorite places on earth. Maybe it’s time to think more carefully about where and why we go places. This show was produced in partnership with AFAR Magazine, whose May/June 2019 issue on ethical traveling inspired this episode. Guests: Elizabeth Becker, Dave Eggers, Kathryn Kellogg, Anu Taranath, Barry Lopez
Loving Bees [Rebroadcast]
May 18, 2019 11:00Bees are endangered, but all over the world, people are stepping up to save them — in backyards, science labs, and the abandoned lots of urban Detroit. Guests: Heather Swan, Nicole Lindsey, Timothy Paule, Thor Hanson, Christof Koch, Tania Munz, Stephanie Elkins, Peter Sobol, Anne Strainchamps
Listening to the City [Rebroadcast]
May 11, 2019 11:00Cities can be cacophonous and loud, a chaos of sonic discord. If, that is, you don't really focus your listening. People who’ve trained their ears to hear urban soundscapes in new ways hear something different. That’s what David Rothenberg is doing. He’s a composer and an environmental philosopher who’s made a career of listening to and performing music in the wild, with birds, animals and insects. Lately he’s been giving himself a crash course in the art — and science — of urban l...
Making Waves: Live in Milwaukee [Rebroadcast]
April 13, 2019 11:00Milwaukee is a city on water, right on the shore of Lake Michigan, split by the historic Milwaukee River. How did all that water shape the city's history, politics, culture, and people? We went on a roadtrip (and boat trip) looking for answers. Then we did a live show at Milwaukee's historic Turner Hall, talking with journalists, brewmasters, historians, comedians, spiritual leaders and one awesome DJ to get at some big underlying questions. If you're a model freshwater city, how d...