On Being with Krista Tippett

Mohammed Fairouz is a composer whose opera and symphonies have been performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and The Kennedy Center. His 11 albums include “Native Informant,” “In The Shadow of No Towers,” “Poems and Prayers,” and, most recently, “Follow, Poet.” This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Mohammed Fairouz — The World in Counterpoi...

He’s been called a post-millennial Schubert. Mohammed Fairouz has composed four symphonies and an opera while still in his 20s. He invokes John F. Kennedy and Anwar Sadat, Seamus Heaney and Yehuda Amichai in his compositions. He sees “illustrious language” as a form of music — and as a way, just maybe, to shift the world on its axis. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com fo...

What would it take to make our national encounter with gay marriage redemptive rather than divisive? David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch came to the gay marriage debate from very different directions — but with a shared concern about the institution of marriage. Now, they’re pursuing a different way for all of us to grapple with the future of marriage, redefined. They model a fresh way forward as...

David Blankenhorn is founder and president of the Institute of American Values. He’s also co-director of The Marriage Opportunity Council. His books include “The Future of Marriage.” Jonathan Rauch is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-director of The Marriage Opportunity Council. He’s a contributing editor to The Atlantic and National Journal, and the author of “Gay Marriage: Why...

From the moment of his diagnosis with ALS, Bruce Kramer began writing — openly, deeply, and spiritually — about his struggle, as he puts it, to live while dying. He died on March 23, 2015, while we were in production on this show. His words hold abiding joy and beauty, and reveal an unexpected view opened by this disease. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for informatio...

Bruce Kramer was the creator of “The Dis Ease Diary” a blog about his life with ALS and “We Know How This Ends: Living While Dying.” He was the Dean of the College of Education, Leadership and Counseling at the University of St. Thomas, where he served on the faculty for over 19 years. He was a passionate music lover and was a choir conductor for most of his adult life. This interview is edited an...

Alzheimer’s disease has been described as “the great unlearning.” But what does it reveal about the nature of human identity? What remains when memory unravels? Alan Dienstag is a psychologist who has led support groups with early Alzheimer’s patients, as well as a writing group he co-designed with the novelist Don DeLillo. He’s experienced the early stages of Alzheimer’s as a time for giving memo...

Alan Dienstag is a clinical psychologist in private practice in New York City and Westchester County. This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Alan Dienstag — Alzheimer’s and the Spiritual Terrain of Memory.” Find more at onbeing.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of per...

Arthur Zajonc is president of the Mind and Life Institute. He is emeritus professor of physics at Amherst College, where he taught from 1978 to 2012. His books include “Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry: When Knowing Becomes Love” and “The Heart of Higher Education: A Call to Renewal.” Michael McCullough is professor of psychology at the University of Miami, where he directs the Evolution and Hu...

For several hundred years, much of scientific advance has been about exploring human beings, including their actions and choices, in terms of mechanism — our bodies, our brains, physical processes. Research psychologist Michael McCullough believes that understanding our minds as mechanistic creates moral possibility. He’s led groundbreaking studies on the evolution and cultivation of moral behavio...

Eve Ensler has helped women all over the world tell the stories of their lives through the stories of their bodies. Her play, “The Vagina Monologues,” has become a global force in the face of violence against women and girls. But she herself also had a violent childhood. And it turns out that she, like so many Western women, was obsessed by her body and yet not inhabiting it without even knowing s...

Eve Ensler is a Tony Award-winning playwright, performer, and activist. She is the author of “The Vagina Monologues” and “The Good Body.” Her memoir is “In the Body of the World.” This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Eve Ensler — The Body After Cancer.” Find more at onbeing.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com fo...

Wisdom for how we can move and heal our society in our time as the Civil Rights Movement galvanized its own. Lucas Johnson is bringing the art and practice of nonviolence into a new century, for new generations. Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons was an original Black Power feminist and a grassroots leader of the Mississippi Freedom Summer. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for...

Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons is assistant professor of religion at the University of Florida. She is also a member of the National Council of Elders. Her account of her work as an activist in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is featured in the book, “Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC.” Lucas Johnson is international coordinator of the International Fell...

Courage is borne out of vulnerability, not strength. This finding of Brené Brown’s research on shame and “wholeheartedness” shook the perfectionist ground beneath her own feet. And now it’s inspiring millions to reconsider the way they live, parent, and navigate relations with members of the opposite gender. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our co...

Brené Brown is Research Professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. Her books include: “The Gifts of Imperfection” and “Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.” This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Brené Brown — The Courage to Be Vulnerable.” Find more at...

In a probing and personal conversation, Reza Aslan opens a refreshing window on religion in the world and Islam in particular. It’s a longer view of history and humanity than news cycles invite — certainly when it comes to the Arab Spring, or to ISIS. His life is a kind of prism on the fluid story of religion in this century. But in a globalized world, we all have a personal stake in how this stor...

Reza Aslan is the founder of Aslan Media, a social media network for news and entertainment about the Middle East and the world. A scholar of religions, he is currently professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside. His books include “Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in the Age of Globalization,” “No God But God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future o...

Bernard Chazelle is Eugene Higgins Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University. He is a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and a member of the European Academy of Sciences. He’s authored an extensive collection of essays on music for A Tiny Revolution. This interview is edited and pr...

Computer scientist Bernard Chazelle has an original take on what music works in us — especially the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Just as mathematicians talk about discovering rather than inventing great equations, so, he says, Bach set out to “discover” the musical rules behind the universe. After hearing this conversation, you may never listen to any piece of music — whether Bach or Jay-Z — in...

She’s the tattooed, Lutheran pastor of the House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, a church where a chocolate fountain, a blessing of the bicycles, and serious liturgy come together. She’s a face of the Emerging Church — redefining what church is, with deep reverence for tradition. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of per...

Nadia Bolz-Weber is the pastor and founder of the Denver-based church the House for All Sinners and Saints. Her spiritual memoir is “Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and Saint.” This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Nadia Bolz-Weber — Seeing the Underside and Seeing God: Tattoos, Tradition, and Grace.” Find more at onbeing.org....

Scott Atran is director of research at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, visiting professor at the University of Michigan, senior fellow at Harris Manchester College of Oxford University and research professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York. He’s the author of “Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood and the (Un)Making of Terrori...

For over a decade, the French-American anthropologist Scott Atran has been listening to the hopes and dreams of young people from Indonesia to Egypt. He explores the human dynamics of what we analyze as “breeding grounds for terrorism” — why some young people become susceptible to them and others, in the same circumstances, do not. His work sheds helpful light on the question on so many of our min...

Michel Martin is a journalist with NPR. She previously reported for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and ABC’s “Nightline.” She was the creator and host of the NPR program Tell Me More, which ran from 2007-2014. This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Michel Martin — The Fabric of Our Identity.” Find more at onbeing.org. Hosted by S...