Scene on Radio

Economic change happens in a cultural context. We trace the tectonic shifts in the Western mind that made capitalism thinkable – in part through a look at two Enlightenment thinkers: Baruch Spinoza and Adam Smith. (The real Smith, not the one held up as the patron saint of unfettered capitalism.) By John Biewen, with co-host Ellen McGirt. Interviews with Kate Rigby, Glory Liu, Steven Nadler, and W...

From the voyages of Columbus and Vasco da Gama to colonial conquest and the Atlantic Slave Trade, to the privatization of land in western Europe: humanity’s turn toward the capitalist world we live in now. By John Biewen, with co-host Ellen McGirt. Interviews with Jayati Ghosh, Jason Hickel, Jessica Moody, Charisse Burden-Stelly, Silvia Federici, and Eleanor Janega. Story editor: Loretta Williams....

To fully grasp capitalism, it helps to understand the system it replaced – and the most meaningful differences between feudalism and capitalism. We visit the British Isles of the Middle Ages.   By John Biewen, with co-host Ellen McGirt. Interviews with Karen Dempsey, Ben Jervis, and Eleanor Janega. Story editor: Loretta Williams. Music by Michelle Osis, Lilli Haydn, Chris Westlake, Alex Symcox, an...

Introduction to our 7th season: Capitalism. The world’s dominant economic system is on trial as it hasn’t been for at least half a century. Millions, young people especially, now see capitalism as the problem, not the solution. Others fear throwing out the baby with the bathwater.  By John Biewen, with co-host Ellen McGirt. Interviews with John Fullerton, Cassandra Brooks and Charlene Brooks. Stor...

Welcome to Season 7: Capitalism. The world's dominant economic system is on trial as it hasn't been for at least half a century. This season tells the story of capitalism -- how people with power built and shaped it over time. We'll also explore what to do now that many people see capitalism as the problem, not the solution. Produced by host/producer John Biewen with co-host Ellen McGirt and story...

As we get ready to launch our Season 7, a bonus episode from another podcast we think our listeners will want to hear: Long Shadow. Episode 1 of its newest season, In Guns We Trust, with host Garrett Graff. Mass shootings have plagued the U.S. for generations. But in 1999, when shots rang out in a suburban Denver school, it was different. What changed? Everything. Learn about your ad choices: dove...

What would it take, and what would it even mean, to heal from a wound like the Wilmington massacre and coup of 1898 — or from centuries of white supremacist violence, disenfranchisement, and theft? An exploration of that question with community members in Wilmington, and experts on restorative justice and reparations. By Michael A. Betts, II and John Biewen. Interviews with Bertha Boykin Todd, Ced...

After the massacre and coup of November 10, 1898, white supremacists in North Carolina soon finished the job of disenfranchising Black citizens and instituting Jim Crow segregation. They also took control of the narrative. A new propaganda campaign, the one  after  the fact, succeeded for a century – even as several Black writers tried to tell the truth about 1898 and left breadcrumbs for future h...

On November 1898, North Carolina Democrats won a sweeping victory at the polls – confirming the success of their campaign based on white supremacy, intimidation, and fraud. But in Wilmington, the state’s largest city, white supremacist leaders were not satisfied. This episode tells what happened on November 10, 1898, in Wilmington: a massacre of Black men, and the only successful coup d'etat in U....

By 1898, two decades after the end of Reconstruction, white elites, backed by violent terror groups, have installed Jim Crow across most of the South. North Carolina, led by its largest city, Wilmington, is different. A Fusion coalition, made up of mostly-Black Republicans and mostly-White members of the Populist Party, controls the city and state governments. White supremacist Democrats are frust...

This series tells the story of the only successful coup d’etat in U.S. history, and the white supremacist massacre that went with it. It happened in Wilmington, North Carolina in November 1898. But before we get to that story, we explore the surprising world of Wilmington in the 19th century – the world that the massacre and coup violently destroyed. By Michael A. Betts, II, and John Biewen. Inter...

Introduction to Season 6, a series co-produced by Michael A. Betts II and Scene on Radio producer and host John Biewen, with story editor Loretta Williams. Music by Kevin MacLeod, Okaya, and Lucas Biewen. Echoes of a Coup is a project of America’s Hallowed Ground and Scene on Radio, from the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In the summer of 1787, fifty-five men got together in Philadelphia to write a new Constitution for the United States, replacing the new nation’s original blueprint, the Articles of Confederation. But why, exactly? What problems were the framers trying to solve? Was the Constitution designed to advance democracy, or to rein it in? And how can the answers to those questions inform our crises of demo...

When it comes to U.S. government programs and support designed to benefit particular racial groups, history is clear. White folks have received most of the handouts. Part of our summer mini-season of rebroadcasts. By John Biewen, with Deena Hayes-Greene of the Racial Equity Institute and Season 2 series collaborator Chenjerai Kumanyika. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The next in our summer mini-season of rebroadcasts: For Eddie Wise, owning a hog farm was a lifelong dream. In middle age, he and his wife, Dorothy, finally got a farm of their own. But they say that over the next twenty-five years, the U.S. government discriminated against them because they were Black, and finally drove them off the land. Their story, by John Biewen, was produced in collaboration...

In this bonus episode we share a recent installment from Hot Take, the climate podcast co-hosted by Amy Westervelt (co-host/reporter for our Season 5 series on climate, The Repair) and writer Mary Annaïse Heglar. They talk with their guest, author and New York Times writer David Wallace-Wells, about the lessons we can learn from Covid-19, the parallels between pandemic response and climate respons...

Several years after Janey was sexually assaulted by her former boyfriend, Mathew, she told some of her closest friends, and her mother, what Mathew had done. Janey was so troubled by her loved ones’ responses that she went back to them years later to record conversations about it all. In this episode: Janey’s story, and philosopher Kate Manne, who coined the term “himpathy” in her 2017 book, “Down...

A refugee from war in Eastern Europe. An NYC-born survivor who grew up poor, Black, Muslim, and gay. And how one, and her music, saved the other. By Aleks Basic, featuring Laila Nur. Part of our summer mini-season of rebroadcasts. Editing by Shea Shackelford and host John Biewen. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

How to grieve when the deaths come so quickly? How, as a Black mother in America, to protect your child’s innocence and hope? An audio essay by Stacia Brown. The first in a summer mini-season of rebroadcasts. Editing by Shea Shackelford and host John Biewen. Music by Prince, Eme Dm, One World One Nation, Blu & Exile, Otwin, and goodnight Lucas. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-...

In our Season 5 finale: What’s the  cultural  transformation we need to make — in the West, and the U.S. in particular — to live in good health with the rest of the natural world and with each other? Episode 11 of  The Repair , our series on the climate emergency. Researched and produced by John Biewen, with co-host Amy Westervelt. Script editor, Cheryl Devall. Interviews with Dirk Philipsen, Chri...

The first of two concluding episodes in Season 5, in which we focus on solutions. In Part 10 of  The Repair , we look at the actions and policies that people need to push for —now — to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. Reported by Amy Westervelt. Script editor, Cheryl Devall. Production and mix by John Biewen. Interviews with Kate Marvel, Ken Caldeira, Julian Brave Noisecat, K...

In several countries around the world, including Ecuador, New Zealand, and the U.S., some people are trying to protect the planet using a legal concept called “rights of nature” – infusing the law with Indigenous understandings of Mother Earth. Part 9 of  The Repair , our series on the climate emergency. Reported by Amy Westervelt and Polyglot Barbershop. Script editor, Cheryl Devall. Production a...

Among the wealthy, industrialized Western countries that created the climate crisis, Scotland is one of the leaders in pivoting away from fossil fuels – or promising to. Just how quickly will Scots be willing to cut off the flow – of oil, and money? Part 8 of  The Repair , our series on the climate emergency. Reported and written by Victoria McArthur, with additional writing and script editing by...

The climate crisis is not new to Bangladesh. For decades, global warming has exacerbated storms and flooding and turned many thousands of people into refugees in their own country. Yet, even though Bangladeshis did almost nothing to create the crisis, some are trying to be part of the solution. Reported by Tareq Ahmed, with recording and production help from Tareek Muhammad and Muhammad Rabbi. The...

Earth’s changing climate is already displacing millions of people, worsening tension and conflict, and sometimes violence – for example, between farmers and traditional nomadic herders in Nigeria. Part 6 of The Repair , our series on the climate emergency. Reported by Ugochi Anyaka-Oluigbo, with reporting and production assistance from Nchetachi Chukwuaja and Tim Cuttings Agber. The series story e...