On Being with Krista Tippett

Something of a celebrity in Quaker circles, Carrie Newcomer is best known for her story-songs that get at the raw and redemptive edges of human reality. This week, a musical conversation with the Indiana-based and born folk singer-songwriter who’s been called a “prairie mystic.” She writes and sings about the grittiness of hope and the ease of cynicism. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. Se...

Paul Muldoon holds the Howard G.B. Clark chair in the Humanities at Princeton University. He has served as the poetry editor at the The New Yorker since 2007. He is the author of 12 major collections of poetry, including “Horse Latitudes,” “Hay,” and “One Thousand Things Worth Knowing.” This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Paul Muldoon — A Co...

The Irish poet and “New Yorker” poetry editor Paul Muldoon has won the Pulitzer Prize, written for other media from radio to song, and plays in a rock band. He visited us for a magical day at the On Being studios on Loring Park in Minneapolis, including a dinner salon and reading from his work. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and u...

A transformation of medicine is underway, a transition from a science of treating disease to a science of health. Mark Hyman is a family physician and a pioneer in the new discipline of functional medicine. James Gordon is an expert in using mind-body medicine to heal depression, anxiety, and psychological trauma. Penny George became a philanthropist of integrative medicine after she experienced c...

Mark Hyman is the director of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine. He is also the founder and medical director of the UltraWellness Center. He’s a practicing family physician and a best-selling author. James Gordon is the founder and executive director of the Center for Mind-Body Medicine and a clinical professor in the departments of Psychiatry and Family Medicine at Georgetown Me...

Ann Hamilton is a visual artist and self-described maker. She is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Art at Ohio State University. This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Ann Hamilton — Making, and the Spaces We Share.” Find more at onbeing.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information abo...

The philosopher Simone Weil defined prayer as “absolutely unmixed attention.” The artist Ann Hamilton embodies this notion in her sweeping works of art that bring all the senses together. She uses her hands to create installations that are both visually astounding and surprisingly intimate, and meet a longing many of us share, as she puts it, to be “alone together.” Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWiz...

The organizational psychologist Adam Grant, who many know from his New York Times columns, describes three orientations of which we are all capable: the givers, the takers, and the matchers. These influence whether organizations are joyful or toxic for human beings. His studies are dispelling a conventional wisdom that selfish takers are the most likely to succeed professionally. And he is wise ab...

Adam Grant is a professor of psychology at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is the youngest tenured and highest rated professor. He is a regular contributor to The New York Times. He has consulted for numerous organizations, including Google, the United Nations, and the U.S. Army. He became known to many through his popular book, “Give and Take: A Revoluti...

When we talk about the relationship between colleges and the world, we tend to focus on economics. But what is the place of institutions of higher education in the communities they inhabit? How can and should they nurture students as citizens and leaders for the emerging 21st century world? Two visionary college presidents of two very different institutions take up these questions with Krista at t...

Nancy Cantor is a social psychologist and the chancellor of Rutgers University–Newark, one of the most diverse institutions in the U.S. She is widely recognized for helping forge a new understanding of the role of universities in society that re-emphasizes their public mission. Christopher Howard is the first African-American president of Hampden–Sydney College in Virginia, an historically white a...

Louis Newman is an Associate Dean of Carleton College and John M. and Elizabeth W. Musser Professor of Religious Studies. He is the author of several books on Jewish ethics and theology, including “Repentance: The Meaning and Practice of Teshuvah.” This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Louis Newman — The Refreshing Practice of Repentance.” Fin...

The High Holy Days create an annual ritual of repentance, both individual and collective. Louis Newman, who has explored repentance as an ethicist and a person in recovery, opens this up as a refreshing practice for every life, even beyond the lifetime of those to whom we would make amends. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use o...

Grace Lee Boggs was a philosopher and a civil rights leader and a founder of the James and Grace Lee Boggs Center. She authored the book “Living for Change: An Autobiography.” This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Grace Lee Boggs — A Century in the World.” Find more at onbeing.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com...

Chinese-American philosopher and civil rights legend Grace Lee Boggs turned 100 this summer. She has been at the heart and soul of a largely hidden story inside Detroit’s evolution from economic collapse to rebirth. We traveled in 2011 to meet her and her community of joyful, passionate people reimagining work, food, and the very meaning of humanity. They have lessons for us all. Hosted by Simplec...

Rex Jung is an Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. He’s a Distinguished Senior Advisor to the Positive Neuroscience Project, based at the University of Pennsylvania. This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Rex Jung — Creativity and the Everyday Brain.” Find more at onbeing.org. Hosted by Simplecast...

Few features of humanity are more fascinating than creativity; and few fields are more dynamic now than neuroscience. Rex Jung is a neuropsychologist who puts the two together. He’s working on a cutting edge of science, exploring the differences and interplay between intelligence and creativity. He and his colleagues unsettle long-held beliefs about who is creative and who is not. And they’re seei...

Elizabeth Alexander is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and the inaugural Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry at Yale University. She’s the author of a new memoir, “The Light of the World.” She’s also the author of several books of essays and poetry including “Crave Radiance.” This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Elizabeth Alexa...

Poetry is something many of us seem to be hungry for these days. We’re hungry for fresh ways to tell hard truths and redemptive stories, for language that would elevate and embolden rather than demean and alienate. Elizabeth Alexander shares her sense of what poetry works in us — and in our children — and why it may become more relevant, not less so, in hard and complicated times. Hosted by Simple...

Rami Nashashibi uses graffiti, calligraphy, and hip-hop in his work as a healing force on the South Side of Chicago. A Palestinian-American, he started his activism with at-risk urban Muslim families, especially youth, while he was still a college student. Now he’s the leader of a globally-emulated project converging religious virtues, the arts, and social action. And he is a fascinating face of a...

Rami Nashashibi is founder and executive director of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN). He is a visiting assistant professor of Sociology of Religion and Muslim Studies at Chicago Theological Seminary. This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Rami Nashashibi — A New Coming Together.” Find more at onbeing.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an Ad...

Sr. Simone Campbell is the executive director of NETWORK. She is the author of “A Nun on the Bus: How All of Us Can Create Hope, Change, and Community.” This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Simone Campbell — How to Be Spiritually Bold.” Find more at onbeing.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information abo...

She became a national figure as the face of the “Nuns on the Bus.” Sr. Simone Campbell is a lawyer, lobbyist, poet, and Zen contemplative working on issues such as “mending the wealth gap,” “enacting a living wage,” and “crafting a faithful budget that benefits the 100%.” She is a helpful voice for longings so many of us share, across differences, about how to engage with the well-being of our nei...

Jane Gross is the creator of “The New Old Age” blog at The New York Times and author of “A Bittersweet Season: Caring for Our Aging Parents — and Ourselves.” This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Jane Gross — The Far Shore of Aging.” Find more at onbeing.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about o...

It is a story of our time — the new landscape of living longer, and of dying more slowly too. Jane Gross has explored this as a daughter and as a journalist, and as creator of the New York Times’ “New Old Age” blog. She has grounded advice and practical wisdom about caring for our loved ones and ourselves on the far shore of aging. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for...