Smarty Pants

The most unusual brains are not the largest, nor the ones that can remember the most digits of the number pi. What fascinates Helen Thomson—a neuroscientist by training, a journalist by trade—are the brains that see auras, feel another’s pain, or play music around the clock. In her new book, Unthinkable, she travels the globe to find out what life is like for these people who perceive a completely different world than she does. How does a man who believes he’s a tiger live in a human community? How can a father who believes that he’s dead go to dinner with his kids? What’s it like to be lost in your own living room? The answers can teach you something about your own noggin.Go beyond the episode:Helen Thomson’s UnthinkableRead her interview with a dead man—or at least, a man who thinks he’s deadScientific American lists 10 of the biggest ideas in neuroscience of the 21st centuryMeet the scientists who discovered the brain’s internal GPSThink you might be a synesthete? Take neuroscientist David Eagleman’s “Synesthesia Battery” questionnaire to measure your perceptionTune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1956, John Okada wrote the first Japanese-American novel, No-No Boy, a story about a Nisei draft-resister who returns home to Seattle after years in prison. It should have been a sensation: American literature had seen nothing like it before. But the book went of print, Okada never published again, and the writer died in obscurity in 1971. That would have been the end of the story, were it not for a band of Asian-American writers in 1970s California who stumbled upon the landmark novel in a used bookshop. Frank Abe, one of the co-editors of a new book about Okada—and a friend to the “CARP boys” who discovered him—joins us to talk about the era in which No-No Boy was written and what the novel can teach us about our own moment in history.Go beyond the episode:John Okada: The Life and Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No BoyNo-No Boy by John OkadaWatch Frank Abe’s film about the Japanese-American draft resisters, Conscience and the Constitution An incomplete list of the best literature about the hyphenated American experience:Americanah by Chimamamda Ngozi AdichieThe Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael ChabonThe House on Mango Street by Sandra CisnerosBreath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge DanticatMiddlesex by Jeffrey EugenidesThe Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin HamidThe Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong KingstonThe Comfort Women by Nora Okja KellerLucy by Jamaica KincaidInterpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa LahiriNative Speaker by Chang-Rae LeeThe Sympathizer by Viet Thanh NguyenThe Joy Luck Club by Amy TanDo Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien (close enough!)Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In case you missed it, the grassy courts of Wimbledon are open once again for the annual championship—the oldest tennis tournament in the world. Seven-time Wimbledon champion Serena Williams is back in action, moving through the singles bracket and joining sister Venus in the doubles, and Roger Federer is looking for his ninth win. To commemorate the most famous fortnight in sports, we’re revisiting our interview with Elizabeth Wilson, an English tennis fan and cultural historian. Among her surprising insights, given the pay gap between genders in modern tournaments: the game’s Victorian reboot found men and women on the same playing field.Go beyond the episode:Elizabeth Wilson’s Love Game: A History of Tennis from Victorian Pastime to Global PhenomenonYour place for live scores and other updates from the BBC“At Wimbledon, Married Women Are Still ‘Mrs.’” “Roger Federer, $731,000; Serena Williams, $495,000: The Pay Gap in Tennis”And Claudia Rankine’s superb profile, “The Meaning of Serena Williams”Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s hard to believe that one of the biggest and oldest creatures of the planet is also the most mysterious. But whales have been around for 50 million years, and in all that time, we still haven’t figured out how many species of whales have existed—let alone how many exist today. How did these creatures of the deep get to be so big, and how did they make it back into the sea after walking on land? Most importantly, what will happen to them as humanity and its detritus increasingly encroach on their existence? The Smithsonian’s star paleontologist, Nick Pyenson, joins us to answer some of our questions about the largest mysteries on Earth, and how they fit into the story of the world's largest ecosystem: the ocean.Go beyond the episode:Nick Pyenson’s Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth’s Most Awesome CreaturesTake a 3D tour of the Cerro Ballena site, where dozens of intact whale fossils were found by the side of the road in ChileCheck out Phoenix’s website at the Smithsonian, where you can learn all about this right whale (to search for sightings of her, follow this link to the North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog and enter “Whale Name: Phoenix” on the “Search for Individual Whales” page)Explore the hidden lives of minke whales, who live in rapidly warming Antarctic watersTag along on marine biologist Ari Friedlaender’s trips to tag whales in the ocean(“extreme field science in action!”)Listen to an incredible story about one woman and a baby whale on the “This Is Love” podcastThere are some amazing, tear-jerking whale videos on YouTube that we stumbled upon in our research for this episode. To get you started, here’s the story of how a whale saved biologist Nan Hauser's lifeThe inimitable David Attenborough mingles his voice with the dulcet tones of humpback whale song in this clip from the BBC's Animal AttractionAnd listen to our interview with Marcus Eriksen, who sailed the Pacific on a “junk raft” to raise awareness about aquatic plastic pollution—one of the leading causes of death in marine creaturesWe used whale songs in this episode that were recorded by the Cornell Ornithology Lab. Check out their archive the “Sea of Sound” here.Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For more than 100 years now, we’ve been blessed with National Parks, beginning with Yellowstone in 1872; Pinnacles, created in 2013, is the 59th and most recent National Park to join the list. Other kinds of natural national treasures exist, though—protected monuments and seashores and recreation areas, plus an abundance of state parks and lands. This week, we’re revisiting our interview with Terry Tempest Williams, who marked the centennial of the National Park Service with The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks. From the Grand Tetons to the Gulf Islands, Alcatraz to the Arctic, each place is imbued, in Williams’s telling, with the depth of history, a sense of longing, and her indelible, close observation of the peaks and twigs around her.Go beyond the episode:Episode pageTerry Tempest Williams’s The Hour of LandGo find a park at the National Park Service website’s interactive map.Check out Ansel Adams’s historic black and white portraits of our National ParksRead “How an Obscure Photographer Saved Yosemite,” a profile of Carleton Watkins (whose photograph of El Capitan adorns Williams’s book) in Smithsonian magazineRead our Summer 2016 cover story by David Gessner about learning to love the crowds at America’s National Parks, “The Taming of the Wild”Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So many tropical storms and hurricanes hit Louisiana’s Isle de Jean Charles that native residents talk about them as if they’re family members: “Who broke that window—Rita? Gustav? It wasn’t Katrina or Ike.” Rising sea levels and increasingly volatile storms bring other, no less harmful consequences, too: groundwater salinization, disappearing wetlands, decimated wildlife and fishing. The choice for people and animals in these places is stark: retreat or die. In her new book, Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore, environmental reporter Elizabeth Rush tells the stories of the life-altering changes happening right now in our own back yards.Go beyond the episode:Elizabeth Rush’s new book, Rising: Dispatches from the New American ShoreEpisode page, with a slideshow of Elizabeth Rush's photographs from the book“The Marsh at the End of the World,” an excerpt from the book, published in GuernicaRead an excerpt from Rush’s previous work, Still Lives from a Vanishing City, on disappearing homes in Yangon, Myanmar, in GrantaTune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There’s a dark chapter in American history that gets left out of the history books: the American Plan, which detained tens, and possibly hundreds of thousands of women from the 1910s through the 1950s. Conceived in WWI to protect soldiers from “promiscuous” women and the diseases they possibly carried, women were surveilled, picked off the street, detained without due process, imprisoned sometimes for years, and forcefully injected with unproven mercury treatments for sexually transmitted infections they were merely suspected of having. The American Plan laid the groundwork—and sometimes, the literal foundations—for the women’s prisons and mass incarcerations of today. Progressive luminaries like Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Sanger, and Earl Warren endorsed the plan, so its victims, more often than not women of color, were often forced to fight back on their own. Historian Scott W. Stern joins us to tell the story of Nina McCall, one of the women who defied a system that locked her up even though she was a virgin, experimented on her, and then tried to silence her.Go beyond the episode:Episode page, featuring a slideshow of sexist government PSAs against STIs and images of American Plan institutionsScott W. Stern’s The Trials of Nina McCall, based on his master’s thesis in American Studies at YaleRead Stern’s opinion piece for The Washington Post on “Why hero worship is a mistake for the left”Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Imagine there’s a place where music exists as it was first created, thousands and thousands of years ago, a place where song and dance still glued communities together across generations. That place exists: Epirus, a little pocket of northwestern Greece on the border with Albania. There, in scattered mountain villages, people still practice a musical tradition that predates Homer. In his new book, Lament from Epirus, the obsessive record collector—and Grammy-winning producer and musicologist—Christopher King goes on an odyssey to uncover Europe's oldest surviving folk music, and spins us some rare 78s.Go beyond the episode:Episode page, with R. Crumb’s original illustrationsChristopher King’s Lament from EpirusBuy LPs, CDs, or MP3s of Chris’s Epirotic collections, from Five Days Married and Other Laments to Why the Mountains Are BlackRead Christopher King’s Paris Review essay, “Talk About Beauties,” about the lost recordings of Alexis ZoumbasListen to A Lament for Epirus (1926–1928) by Alexis Zoumbas on SpotifyTune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Other music in this episode graciously provided by Christopher King. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Were you a geek? A nerd? Did you play Magic: The Gathering, paint Warhammer miniatures, learn to speak Klingon or Elvish, or memorize whole scenes from Star Trek? If so, then good news: it might have taken a few broken eyeglasses and shoves in high school, but geek culture has finally triumphed. Dragons are cool, Star Wars has never had more fans, and everyone is geeking out over the latest sci-fi release on Netflix. How did this happen? And how have the changing demographics of geekdom affected it, for better or worse? Lifelong nerd and critic A. D. Jameson, whose geek cred is stronger than the Force itself, joins us to figure it out.Go beyond the episode:A. D. Jameson’s I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing: Star Wars and the Triumph of Geek CultureRead A. D. Jameson and Justin Roman’s article on sexism in gaming, “If Magic: The Gathering Cares About Women, Why Can’t They Hire Any?”For more on how franchises have changed Hollywood’s structure, check out Stephen Metcalf’s article, “How Superheroes Made Movies Expendable”If you’re looking for an escape this holiday weekend, please binge watch Marvel’s Jessica Jones  (reading a book would be fine, too)Listen to the queer history of comics in our second podcast episode, “Superheroes Are So Gay!”Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rachel May's new book, An American Quilt, has an innocuous enough title, invoking an innocent American pastime. But sometimes ugly secrets can be hidden in the stitchwork—or even, as in the case of the quilt at the heart of May’s book, behind it. The paper-pieced quilt was stitched together from fabric basted onto hexagon-shaped paper templates. These scraps, which turned out to be letters and documents dating all the way back to 1798, tie together one family from the abolitionist North and one from the slave-owning South. This paper trail led May to stitch together the stories of the women behind the quilt, enslaved and free. In the process, she shows how dependent the “free” North was on the enslaved labor of its southern neighbor.Go beyond the episode:Rachel May’s An American Quilt: Unfolding a Story of Family and SlaveryFor a peek at the global history of the stuff quilts are made of, read an excerpt from Sven Beckert’s Empire of CottonPeruse the National Museum of American History’s extensive National Quilt CollectionThe National Park Service offers a brief visual history of quilting in America, with a special focus on quilting in the WestThe Library of Congress has oral recordings with Appalachian quiltmakers, who discuss the social history of quiltingThe Whitney Museum’s 1971 exhibition of “Abstract Design in American Quilts” ignited our contemporary quilting renaissance. To view these, and hundreds of others, you can peruse the online collection of the International Quilt Study Center and MuseumTune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.