Delving In with Stuart Kelter

Jessy Randall  is curator of special collections at Colorado College and the author of several poetry collections, including:  Suicide Hotline Hold Music , (which includes her own accompanying comics),  There Was an Old Woman ,  Injecting Dreams into Cows,  and  A Day in Boyland,  which was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. She has also written a young...

Kelly Clancy is a neuroscientist who has held research positions at M.I.T., Berkeley, the University College London, and the A.I. company, DeepMind, focusing on biological information processing and agency. In 2014 she was awarded the Regeneron Prize for creative innovation in biomedicine. Her writing has appeared in several major publications, including the  Wall Str...

Jaz Brisack is a experienced union organizer, starting with the United Autoworkers campaign at the Nissan factory in Canton, MS and volunteering as a Pinkhouse Defender at the state’s last abortion clinic. After spending one year at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, they got a job as a barista at the Elmwood Starbucks in Buffalo, NY, becoming a founding member of Starbucks Workers United and helping to...

James Danckert is a cognitive scientist at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, focusing on the neuroscience of attention and the consequences of strokes. He has written numerous journal articles on the psychology of boredom and is the co-author, with John Eastwood, of  Out of My Skull: The Psychology of Boredom , published in 2020, which is the subject of today’s interview. Recorde...

Jeff Hobbs  is the author of five books, including a novel,  The Tourists,  and four books that apply a novelist writing style to the struggles of individuals striving to overcome racial, class, and social disadvantages. These include  The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man who Left Newark for the Ivy League , which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize...

Samina Ali  teaches fiction writing at Stanford University and is an award-winning author, whose debut novel,  Madras on Rainy Days , published in  2004, won several literary awards, including  Poets & Writers Magazine ’s Top Debut of the Year. She has been a columnist for the  New York Times Book Review  and other publications and has been interviewed by national...

Charles Piller is an award-winning investigative journalist for  Science  magazine, reporting on such topics as public health, biological warfare, and infectious disease outbreaks. In addition to articles in major newspapers, he is the co-author, with Keith Yamamoto, of  Gene Wars: Military Control over the New Genetic Technologies , published in 1988, which examines the U.S. milita...

Omar Mohammed  was the previously anonymous blogger who courageously reported on the atrocities he witnessed that were perpetrated by the Islamic State, also called ISIS, when in 2014 it took over Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city. Currently, he teaches Middle East History, Cultural Heritage Diplomacy, and Counter Terrorism at the Paris Institute of Political Studies and is also the head...

Jonathan Tarleton is a writer, urban planner, and oral historian. He previously served as the chief researcher for  Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas, as editor in chief of the online magazine  Urban Omnibus, and as a real estate project manager with  Urban Edge, a Boston-based community development corporation. Currently, he teaches writing and argumentation at MICA (Maryla...

Gerald Easter  and  Mara Vorhees are co-authors of two books,  The Tsarina's Lost Treasure: Catherine the Great, a Golden Age Masterpiece, and a Legendary Shipwreck,  published in 2020 and  The Last Stand of the Raven Clan: A Story of Imperial Ambition, Native Resistance, and How the Tlingit-Russian War Shaped a Continent,  which was just published a few months ago an...

Erik Baker is a historian, writer, and teacher based in Boston, a lecturer in the History of Science department at Harvard University and associate editor of  The Drift , a magazine about culture and politics. In addition to articles about labor, politics, and American history, he recently published his first book,  Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America...

Derek W. Black  is a  Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina , where he directs the  Constitutional Law Center. He is o ne of the nation’s foremost experts in education law and policy, on such topics as school funding and ensuring equal opportunities for disadvantaged students. His research is often cited in court opinions and briefs, including in t...

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is a political science professor at New York University and past president of the International Studies Association, who has served as an adviser to the U.S. government on national security and to numerous corporations on business negotiations. In addition to many articles in the professional literature and major newspapers, he is the author of 23 books. Perhaps his best kn...

Patrick Parr is an historian and biographer of writers and civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., James Baldwin, Kurt Vonnegut, Ralph Ellison, and Kato Shidzue. Teaching in Japan since 2018, he currently writes a history column for  Japan Today , about historical figures or businesses coming to Japan for the first time. His new book,  Malcolm Before X , provides an...

Jonas Olofsson is a professor at Stockholm University in Sweden, where he directs the Sensory Cognitive Interaction Lab, with a particular focus on the sense of smell, as well as its loss, as it interacts with memory, emotion, language, and information processing. He is the author of the recent book,  The Forgotten Sense: The New Science of Smell and the Extraordinary Power of the Nose ,...

Farhad Khosrokhavar is a retired professor and former Director of Studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris, whose work focuses on the social movements in Iran after the Islamic Revolution, the uprisings during the Arab Spring of 2010-12, the Jihadist movements in France and the rest of Europe, and the philosophical foundations&nb...

Sadri Hassani  is a professor emeritus of Physics at Illinois State University, who continues to teach courses in thermal and quantum physics as the University of Illinois. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics from Princeton University, has authored several books on mathematical physics for undergraduate and graduate students, and in addition has a strong, ongoing interest in raising th...

For seven years Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz was a policy advisor in the Obama Administration, focusing on homelessness and Native policy. In addition to an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she holds a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard University and was a Fulbright Scholar in Denmark. She currently teaches public policy at the University of Iowa, and is also the...

Jeffrey Zax is an economics professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, whose research focuses on labor economics, public economics, and urban economics. He has served as a consultant for various public entities, including the Attorneys General of several states. He has also been a Fulbright Lecturer and has taught at the University of Ghana. This interview focuses on the economic cause...

Tom Russell is a retired Child Protective Services investigator and foster care worker, who was employed by the state of Michigan. Although this honest and thoughtful interview does not go into graphic detail about child abuse, it may nevertheless be upsetting to some. Listener discretion is advised. Recorded 9/10/20.

Author and environmental activist,  Richard Munson , has served as senior director of the Environmental Defense Fund, and senior vice president at Recycled Energy Development. He has been a coordinator for the Northeast-Midwest Institute and Congressional and Senate Coalitions and several other environmental organizations, including bipartisan caucuses that conduct policy resea...

Matthew Taylor is a senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies in Baltimore, where he specializes in American Christianity, American Islam, Christian extremism, and religious politics. He also serves as an associate fellow at the Center for Peace Diplomacy in New Orleans, where he works on preventing religion-related violence surrounding U.S. elections. We’ll be tal...

Award-winning novelist, poet, and non-fiction writer, Elizabeth Rosner , talks about themes from Survivor Café: the Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory, published in 2017, and her latest book, Third Ear: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening. The daughter of Holocaust survivors, Rosner became attuned not only to words and sounds, but to different kinds of silences, as well....

David Noll is the former associate dean for faculty research and a professor of law at Rutgers University Law School. His scholarly work encompasses a broad set of interlocking aspects of the law, including complex litigation, governmental legislation, regulation, and administration, and the framework of constitutional law in which all of these are grounded. He has written both for major scholarly...

Hahrie Han is a Political Science Professor at Johns Hopkins University, whose research focuses on grass-roots political activism, particularly against systemic racism. She has partnered with a wide range of civic and political organizations and movements around the world, including those in the United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Korea, helping develo...