Air Dates: Often, politics can feel like a thankless and often futile undertaking.  But White House chief speechwriter Cody Keenan tells his readers that occasionally, through long and sustained effort, the world moves. Keenan began his political career as an intern and legislative aide to senator Edward M. Kennedy.  He earned a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he studied speechwriting … Read More

Air Dates: January 24-30, 2022 Rebroadcast Dates: September 26-October 2, 2022 The rise of instant updates from today’s online news sources have left many to regard the local newspaper as a thing of the past.  But Art Cullen describes how he and his family have kept Iowa’s Storm Lake Times newspaper alive and prosperous in the digital age. Cullen is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and editor of The Storm Lake … Read More

Air Dates: September 19-25, 2022 For most mothers, pregnancy is a time of hope, expectation, and even fear.  Dr. Ade Osinubi focuses the lens—literally—on the maternal health challenges facing black women in the United States—the legacy of racism, staggering numbers of maternal mortality, postpartum depression, and difficulties accessing care. Adeiyewunmi (Ade) Osinubi is a documentary filmmaker, photographer, and an Emergency Medicine Resident Physician.  Her work focuses on sharing the stories … Read More

Air Dates: September 12-18, 2022 For most of the last 20 years, the conversation about American national security has been focused on the threats posed by extremists.  With the death of al Qaeda Leader Ayman al Zawahiri, Russia’s war in Ukraine, and rising tensions with China, Javed Ali argues that conversation has swung back to great-power competition. Ali is an associate professor of practice at the Gerald R. Ford School … Read More

Air Dates: September 5-11, 2022 People come from all over the world to access cutting-edge care in American hospitals.  But Linda Villarosa describes a different experience for Black Americans, who she says “live sicker, and die quicker” than their white compatriots. Villarosa is a journalist, author, editor, novelist and educator.  A contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, where she covers race, inequality and health.  Her 2018 cover story, … Read More

Air Dates: August 29-September 4, 2022 Indigenous artists often straddle a space created by white anthropologists between art and craft. Cannupa Hanska Luger grapples with that dichotomy. Creating art from tradition that, in its time, was purely practical. And seeing his own contemporary activism viewed as art when it was, in fact, protest. Luger is a multidisciplinary artist and an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold—Mandan, … Read More

Air Dates: August 22-28, 2022 The social determinants of health—how living conditions, family life, poverty, homelessness and other factors affect human health—have emerged as key factors in understanding health outcomes.  Dr. Maria Raven shines a critical light on the complexity of cases she sees every day in one major city’s emergency room. Dr. Maria Raven is a practicing emergency medicine physician and health services researcher and is the Chief of … Read More

Air Dates: August 15-21, 2022 When Russian forces invaded Ukraine earlier this year, Dr. Michael Fine was outraged—like a lot of Americans.  So he traveled to see first-hand the human cost of this war. Dr. Michael Fine serves as the Chief Health Strategist for the city of Central Falls, R.I. and as a family physician with a practice in Rhode Island.  He is the author of several books, including “Health … Read More

Air Dates: August 8-14, 2022 Of all the hashtag social movements, #MeToo has proven among the most enduring—for its truth, for the power imbalance it revealed, and because so many women had the courage to speak out.  Winnie M Li told her story in her first novel.  Now, in her second novel, she tells another about appearance, reality, and the facades that dominate public life, whether in the film industry … Read More

Air Dates: August 1-7, 2022 We grow up being educated on the power of science to explain the physical world.  But Dr. Elena Conis offers a more complex view of the role of science in public life—and the stories and understanding it offers all of us as we grapple with everything from pesticides, to vaccines, and climate change. Conis is a writer and historian of medicine, public health and the … Read More