Deep Background with Noah Feldman

Dr. David Rabin, neuroscientist, PhD psychiatrist and Medical Director of the Apollo Clinic, explains the ongoing research in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, including the mechanisms and risks associated with psychedelic-assisted mental health treatments. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Writer Mark Oppenheimer spent the last few years documenting the recovery of Pittsburg's Squirrel Hill neighborhood, a historic Jewish neighborhood and site of the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue mass shooting. Oppenheimer discusses the history of Squirrel Hill, the lasting impacts of the attack, and what it means for American Jewish life today.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartp...

The process of approving booster shots for the COVID-19 vaccines in the US has been particularly fraught. Last week, two well-respected medical journals published contradictory conclusions regarding the use of vaccine boosters. Dr. Genevieve Kanter joins Deep Background to make sense of the existing research and weigh in on the booster approval process. Dr. Kanter is an economist and Research Assi...

As we start a new school year, Tamar Gendler, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Yale, explains her vision for distributing power at Yale and the questionable future of America’s university system. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Matthew Barzun, a political fundraiser and diplomat who served as US Ambassador to the United Kingdom, explains his collectivist method of generating power, even on deeply divided issues. Barzun’s latest book is “The Power of Giving Away Power: How the Best Leaders Learn to Let Go.” Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy inf...

Dr. Susan Philip, Health Officer for the City and County of San Francisco and the Acting Director of the Population Health Division of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, weighs in on vaccine mandates, mask mandates, and what the new normal is starting to look like in San Francisco.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for...

Emile Simpson, a military expert and veteran of the war in Afghanistan, discusses the end of the war in Afghanistan and the Taliban’s recent takeover. Simpson outlines the strategic failures that contributed to the current situation and comments on the United States’s responsibility to evacuate allied Afghans.  Simpson is a former British Army officer who completed three tours in southern Afghanis...

Nikole Hannah-Jones is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, a staff writer for the New York Times, a MacArthur Genius, and the creator of The 1619 Project. In this conversation, Noah and Hannah-Jones dive deep into the myth of journalistic and historical objectivity. They also discuss the intense political and social criticism of The 1619 Project.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.i...

Chris Jackson, publisher and editor-in-chief of Random House’s One World imprint, discusses the new literary movement he’s building with writers like Bryan Stevenson, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ibram X. Kendi. Jackson explains the power and perils of challenging the dominant narrative.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/liste...

Introducing our new, subscriber-exclusive bonus content, “Noah Riffs.” Every other week, we’re releasing bonus episodes where Noah dives deep into a topic from the news. This summer on Noah Riffs, Noah analyzes Supreme Court rulings. In this first episode, Noah explains the implications of the SCOTUS case that could effectively overturn Roe v. Wade.  These episodes will be available via PushNik, o...

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of the blockchain Ethereum, argues that cryptocurrency’s scarcest resource is legitimacy. Ethereum is the second-largest blockchain ecosystem, making Buterin one of the most influential individuals in the cryptocurrency world. Buterin and Noah delve deep into the nature of legitimacy, social contracts, and what they mean for the reliability of cryptocurrency and the blo...

We’re excited to share with you the new season of Revisionist History, Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast that re-examines something from the past and asks whether we got it right the first time. We’ve got to warn you, the new season is completely unbound. Malcolm Gladwell is finally out of the house, and taking you into the streets, and even under the sea. All in the name of continuing his journey throug...

Randi Weingarten, President of the the American Federation of Teachers, the second largest teachers union in the country, weighs in on the power of teachers’ unions in the complicated decisions of school reopening and teaching critical race theory. Weingarten also explains the decline of public and private union power and why teachers’ unions are exceptions. Learn more about your ad-choices at htt...

On this Deep Background mini-series about global power, Francis Fukuyama weighs in on the decay of liberal democracy and the rise of China as a global superpower.  Fukayama is a renowned political scientist, political economist and author of many books, including The End of History and the Last Man and Political Order and Political Decay. He is currently a Senior Fellow at Stanford's Freeman Spogl...

On this Deep Background mini-series about global power, Fareed Zakaria explains the foreign policy challenges facing the Biden administration and what it will mean for the US to decline in foreign policy influence. Fareed also weighs in the future of China’s role in global power and if we’re headed for a bipolar world order.  Fareed is the host of CNN's “Fareed Zakaria GPS” and author of a weekly...

Small groups of people make massive decisions about the future of our world. They’re global leaders, corporations, large NGOs, and the mega-rich. In this first episode in a mini-series on international power players, Anne-Marie Slaughter, political scientist, international lawyer, and former Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. State Department weighs in on the global power shifts of the last...

Palestinain Israeli human rights lawyer Rabea Eghbariah explains why violence erupted in Israel this month and what it might mean for the future of Palestinian Israelis.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. Heidi Larson, founding director of the Vaccine Confidence Project, discusses the complicated relationship between vaccine hesitancy, choice, and democracy. Dr. Larson is the author of the recent book, “Stuck: How Vaccine Rumors Start and Why They Don't Go Away.” Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. Marc Lipsitch explains why it’s unlikely the United States will hit the threshold for herd immunity, and what that might mean for the future of the pandemic. He also weighs in on the possibility of lab-grown COVID variants and the surging variants abroad. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Noah Feldman comments on the Facebook Oversight Board's decision about Trump's account. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

During the pandemic, we’ve been looking at our screens more than ever before. As the country starts reopening, what do we do about our kids’ extreme attachment to their devices? How should we think about it and do we need to do anything about it? Parenting expert Dr. Wendy Mogel joins us to discuss these deep questions about pandemic parenting. Dr. Mogel is the author of “The Blessing of a Skinned...

The Bomber Mafia is the new audiobook by Revisionist History host (and Pushkin co-founder) Malcolm Gladwell. It examines the rise of air power, which created one of the greatest moral challenges of the Second World War. In The Bomber Mafia , you’ll hear the voices of the generals, aircraft soaring, and bombs crashing. It is history brought to life through the power of audio. Buy the audiobook at ...

Noah Feldman has a lot of questions about cryptocurrency. Is it currency or is it an asset? How should governments regulate it? Is it sustainable?  Crypto pioneer Bobby Lee, co-founder and former CEO of China’s first bitcoin exchange and current CEO of Ballet, a startup that helps people securely store their crypto assets, weights in on the most pressing questions about crypto.  Learn more about y...

Dr. Jeannine Bell, law professor at Indiana University who has studied hate crimes for more than 20 years, discusses the complex process of defining and charging someone with a hate crime. She also explains the larger significance of hate crime legislation and how police departments can expand prosecution of hate crimes. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See...

A case currently before The Supreme Court presents the single largest legal battle the NCAA has ever faced. The case, which comes after years of player activism, argues that the current limits on athlete compensation constitute a violation of antitrust law. It’s a case that could challenge the entire college sports system.  Dr. Eddie Comeaux, professor at UC Riverside who studies the student athle...