The Culture Show Podcast

National Book Award-winning historian Nathaniel Philbrick joins us to discuss The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World , his new book tracing how the Gold Rush reshaped the country and helped propel it toward Civil War. Philbrick appears tonight at 7 p.m. at First Parish Church in Cambridge for an event presented by Harvard Book Store. Bridget Lancaster and Juli...

Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart previews the Pops’ fall and holiday lineup, including the third annual Día de Muertos concert and Holiday Pops beginning December 3, plus Disney’s The Muppet Christmas Carol in concert. ABC News chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz discusses her new book, The Hero Next Door: Stories of Patriotism and Purpose , revisiting the post-9/11 generation sh...

Nikki Stewart, Executive Director of Old North Illuminated, and Michael Maler, founder of Crescendo Productions, preview The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: A Musical Reading , coming to Old North Church on Oct. 9 with an original score and optional crypt tours. Grammy-winning soprano Jane Eaglen, faculty member at New England Conservatory and President of the Boston Wagner Society, joins “AI: Actual Int...

The Culture Show broadcasts live from Salem as the city marks its 400th anniversary, with an hour exploring its history, culture and the people shaping it today. Peabody Essex Museum leaders Kurt Steinberg and Petra Slinkard discuss Salem at 400, the museum’s Witch Trials collection and the city’s history beyond 1692. Kurt T. Steinberg, Ed. D., is Acting Executive Director and CEO of the Peabody E...

Former NASA astronaut Cady Coleman joins us to talk about Astronauts for America, a group of more than 100 former astronauts working to defend the Constitution, strengthen democracy and rebuild public trust. Coleman will represent the group at a free public event at Greenfield Community College on October 26. Learn more at Astronauts for America. Artist Banu Cennetoğlu explores the promise of univ...

For this month’s Wednesday Watch Party, Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley and Joyce Kulhawik revisit Bridesmaids , the 2011 comedy that turns a wedding into a collision of friendship, rivalry and spectacularly bad behavior. Fifteen years later, they consider whether its most outrageous moments still deliver, how the film changed the rules for women in comedy, and whether beneath the bridal warfare, air...

David Hockney embraced reproduction as a way to discover art and share his own work with the world. Bing McGilvray, Hockney’s longtime friend, joins us to discuss Hockney Reproduction(s) , an exhibition of more than 90 posters and other works at the Manship Artists Residency in Gloucester through Oct. 18. From the American Revolution to Bruce Springsteen, musicians have used songs to protest, orga...

Artist Suzanne Jackson joins us as the MFA presents Suzanne Jackson: What Is Love , the first retrospective spanning her six-decade career — from her early paintings inspired by people and the natural world to recent works made from layers of acrylic paint that hang without canvas. The exhibition is on view through January 18. Suzanne Jackson: What Is Love at the MFA Brookline native Eli “Paperboy...

On this edition of The Culture Show, Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley, and Culture Show contributor Lisa Simmons, go over the week’s top arts and culture headlines, which include: Dolly Parton’s estate is battling her nephew Bryan Seaver, her former head of security, over allegations of threats, demands for money and attempts to damage the Parton brand. Seaver denies the claims; the estate is seeking...

Jill Lepore discusses her new book, The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State , tracing the growing power of data, algorithms and private technology companies over public life. Her previous book, We the People , won the 2026 Massachusetts Book Award for nonfiction. Lepore appears at a Porter Square Books event Tuesday, Sept. 29 at First Parish in Cambridge. John Wilson , creator of HBO’s How To wi...

Chef Nicholas Dixon joins us to talk about Dalia , the South Boston restaurant recently named one of The New York Times’ 50 favorite restaurants in America — and how he pushes Spanish cooking in unexpected directions. Nicholas Dixon is Dalia’s executive chef and culinary director for Broadway Restaurant Group. Elisa Smith explores “feminine power” on her new album, Perfume . She joins us to talk a...

Altın Gün — The Amsterdam-based band draws on generations of Turkish folk songs, reshaping them through rock, disco and psychedelia. Members of the group join us ahead of their Boston performance at Big Night Live. Uli Lorimer — As New England faces hotter temperatures, heavier rain, drought and habitat loss, the Native Plant Trust horticulture director explains a new effort to collect, grow and p...

Imari Paris Jeffries, President and CEO of Embrace Boston and co-chair of Everyone250 , returns for AI: Actual Intelligence , our recurring series tapping local thinkers for original, algorithm-free observations on the issues shaping culture and civic life. Learn more about Embrace Boston and Everyone250 . Hank Azaria, Emmy Award-winning actor, comedian and voice artist , has spent decades creatin...

Jared Bowen is joined by Culture Show Contributors Maurice Emmanuel Parent and Joyce Kulhawik. Maurice Parent is an  award-winning actor, Professor of the Practice, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies  at Tufts University, and Producing Artistic Director at Front Porch Arts Collective.  Joyce Kulhawik is an Emmy-award winning arts and entertainment reporter and President of the Boston Theatre...

More than two decades after “The Reason” turned Hoobastank into a mainstream phenomenon, frontman Doug Robb looks back at the song’s enormous success, the backlash that came with it and eventually finding his way back to it. The band also has its first new music in eight years and plays the Xfinity Center in Mansfield September 18 with Staind, Seether and Hinder .  MassArt President Mary Grant joi...

Poet, essayist and Mellon Foundation President Elizabeth Alexander joins us to talk about her new book, Signals Across Vast Distances: Essays and Tales , which moves through poetry, art, history, family and public life. Alexander appears tonight with former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith at the Brattle Theatre in an event presented by Harvard Book Store . At Goodnow Farms Chocolate in Sudbury,...

Joyce Kulhawik: The Emmys have been handed out; now comes the verdict. Emmy Award-winning arts and entertainment critic Joyce Kulhawik joins us to sort through the winners, surprises, snubs and moments worth remembering — including a Massachusetts victory for Boston Casting’s Angela Peri and Lisa Lobel. Actor Will Poulter and director Adam Meeks: In Union County , Will Poulter plays a young man na...

Boston Architectural College President Mahesh Daas looks at two architectural experiments in how much change a place can absorb: centuries-old Japanese timber buildings being dismantled and rebuilt an ocean away, including here in Massachusetts, and a new skyscraper redrawing Paris’ famously restrained skyline. Before Dreamgirls reached Broadway, Boston audiences encountered Jennifer Holliday as s...

On this week’s Culture Show , Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley and Joyce Kulhawik mark the 25th anniversary of September 11. They look at how artists responded to the attacks and to the years that followed, from 25th Hour and United 93 to The Reluctant Fundamentalist . They also consider which works have endured, how public remembrance has changed, and what 25 years of distance now allows us to see ab...

Boston-based a cappella group Ball in the House joins Jared Bowen for an in-studio performance ahead of its September 11 show at Off Cabot in Beverly . The five-member group — Dylan Melville, Oscar Hall, Tyler Nordin, Wallace Thomas and Jon Ryan — performs R&B, soul and pop and has shared stages with artists including The Beach Boys, Blondie and Lionel Richie. Learn more about Ball in the Hous...

Poet Steve Biondolillo, author of Macaroni and Cheese Manifesto: A Spiritual Memoir in Verse and founder of the National Baseball Poetry Festival, joins Jared ahead of the 25th anniversary of September 11th. He discusses and performs “480 B.C.,” his poem linking the Battle of Thermopylae with the sacrifice of first responders and service members in 2001. Learn more about Steve Biondolillo Scottish...

Emmy-nominated Puerto Rican cuatrista, composer and singer Fabiola Méndez joins Jared Bowen ahead of Berklee’s inaugural Homecoming Block Party , September 19 near Fenway. The Berklee alum, who has brought the cuatro from her own compositions to stages alongside Bad Bunny, is part of a lineup that also includes Susan Tedeschi, Tiwa Savage, Dogs in a Pile and Dreion. Boston Ballet Artistic Director...

Patti Smith, National Book Award–winning author of “Just Kids,” joins The Culture Show to discuss her latest memoir, “Bread of Angels.” The book traces her imaginative postwar childhood, her life with Fred “Sonic” Smith, and the years of loss and renewal that shaped her return to writing and performance.  Daniel Mendelsohn—Charles Ranlett Flint Professor of Humanities at Bard College, and frequent...

Callie Crossley is joined by Lisa Simmons, Artistic and Executive Director of the Roxbury International Film Festival and program manager at Mass Cultural Council, and Maurice Emmanuel Parent, award-winning actor, Professor of the Practice, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies  at Tufts University, and Producing Artistic Director at Front Porch Arts Collective. They go over some of the week’s b...

Tracy K. Smith,  former U.S. Poet Laureate discusses her book “Fear Less: Poetry in Perilous Times” — an invitation to listen, reflect, and let poetry guide us through uncertainty.  Don Gillis and Ray Flynn join The Culture Show to discuss Gillis’ new book “ The Battle for Boston: How Mayor Ray Flynn and Community Organizers Fought Racism and Downtown Power Brokers .” On June 5th at 6:00 Don Gilli...