Smarty Pants

Meet the experimental archaeologist and the master brewer who are resurrecting beverages of the past. Dr. Patrick McGovern, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, and Sam Calagione, the founder of Dogfish Head Brewery, discuss what it takes to turn millennia-old booze samples at the bottom of a jug into mead fit for a king; our editors give us a sneak peek at their favorite fictiona...

True tales of horse historians, mad bombers, and infinite jam jars Susanna Forrest takes us down the bridle path of our long relationship with horses; Michael Cannell tells the story of New York’s mad bomber and the invention of criminal profiling; and Eugenia Cheng shares her infinite enthusiasm for the link between mathematics and art. Go beyond the episode: • Susanna Forrest’s  The Age of the H...

Sarah Williams Goldhagen takes us on a tour of New York’s High Line—and the insides of our brains—and Judith Matloff talks about traveling 72,000 miles, across nearly a dozen mountain ranges, as she investigated why the world’s highlands harbor so much violence. Go beyond the episode: • Sarah Williams Goldhagen’s  Welcome to Your World: How the Built Environment Shapes Our Lives • Judith Matloff’s...

Lee Alan Dugatkin on the world’s cutest science experiment, which transformed wild foxes into cuddlebugs; Ellen Lagemann makes the case for college in prisons; and an underground poetry reading promoting this weekend’s March for Science. Go beyond the episode: • The Science Stanzas curated by Jane Hirshfield for the March for Science • Lee Alan Dugatkin and Lyudmila Trut’s  How to Tame a Fox • Ell...

Geoffrey R. Stone tells the epic story of how sex came to be legislated in America; Linda Heywood introduces us to an African queen cooler than Cleopatra; and John Dvorak gives us a lesson in the total eclipse of the heart. Er, sun. Mentioned in this episode: • Geoffrey R. Stone’s Sex and the Constitution • Linda M. Heywood’s Njinga of Angola • The upcoming solar eclipse on August 21st, with an in...

Pankaj Mishra goes back to the Enlightenment to explain our age of anger; Ronald Rael imagines how architecture might dismantle a wall rather than construct it; and our editors offer up their favorite tales from the Emerald Isle. Sláinte! Episode extras: • Our St. Patrick’s Day Reading list • Martha McPhee on Edna O’Brien Tune in every two weeks to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from l...

André Aciman gives us a primer on W. G. Sebald, who blurred the line between memory and fiction; Rowan Ricardo Phillips talks about the biomechanics of poetry; and Julian Gewirtz unveils the travel itinerary of the least likely visitor to communist China you’d expect: Milton Friedman. Mentioned in this episode: • André Aciman on W. G. Sebald and “The Life Unlived” • “ Halo ,” a poem by Rowan Ricar...

Julia Lichtblau takes us to an elite secondary school in Abidjan that’s changing the lives of African girls; Steve Early shows how Richmond, California, became a progressive beacon; and Phillip Lopate tells us what he thinks about confiding your darkest secrets. Mentioned in this episode: • Julia Lichtblau on the smart girls of Côte d’Ivoire• Phillip Lopate’s collection of essays for us on his blo...

Amanda Kolson Hurley gives us a tour of the Trump Hotel; our editorial assistant Noelani Kirschner introduces the Scholar’ s newest blog; and a chorus of voices tells us why they went to Washington for the Women’s March. Mentioned in this episode: • Amanda Kolson Hurley on Trump’s influence over public space in Washington, D.C. • Barry Goldstein’s portrait series of March attendees and of proteste...

Madeleine Thien talks about art and music under totalitarianism, along with her novel, Do Not Say We Have Nothing , shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize; Scholar managing editor Sudip Bose explains how Neville Marriner, conductor of the now-ubiquitous Academy-of-St.-Martin-in-the-Fields, used to be a rebel; and beloved former Scholar blogger Jessica Love catches us up on the radical changes she’s...

Keramet Reiter talks about what happens to prisoners who spend decades in solitary confinement; Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Dina Gilia-Whitaker offer some historical perspective on the crisis at Standing Rock; and Sandra Gilbert reflects on the importance of Adrienne Rich and reads her favorite poem. Mentioned in this episode: • Read an excerpt from Keramet Reiter’s new book , 23/7: Pelican Bay Priso...

Harriet Washington discusses how our current Zika crisis fits into the (tragic) pattern of ignoring tropical diseases until they hit our shores; Brian Doyle tries to justify watching 50 John Wayne movies in a row; and Ruth Scurr tells funny stories about John Aubrey, the most curious biographer of the Elizabethan age. Mentioned in this episode: • Harriet Washington’s cover story on neglected tropi...

Take a crash course in Indie Publishing 101 with the founders of Restless Books; hear Scholar senior editor Bruce Falconer explain how John le Carré burned the bridge between genre and literary fiction; and learn from Witold Rybczynski how an iconic modern chair was inspired by an ant. Mentioned in this episode: • Bruce Falconer’s review of The Pigeon Tunnel • Our list of 13 “Spooktacular” Books a...

Patrick Phillips recounts the ugly history of a southern county that brutally expelled its African-American residents and remained entirely white for most of the 20th century; Ross King reveals some of Claude Monet’s more unusual painting habits, including his obsession with a certain flower; and Paula Becker introduces the memoir of a beloved American children’s book author. Mentioned in this epi...

Meredith Tax explains how the Rojava Kurds—and their democratic, feminist, and environmentally conscious society—are fighting back against ISIS; Ed Yong takes us on a tour of the ecosystems lurking inside our bodies; and Amy Whitaker, alias “Agony Amy,” our resident agony aunt, gives advice about balancing a creative life. Mentioned in this episode: • View a slideshow of Joey Lawrence’s photograph...

Charles Johnson questions the stories we tell ourselves about black America, eight years after President Obama’s election; Barry Goldstein gives us the inside story on covering the 2016 Republican and Democratic national conventions; and David Lehman explains what crowdsourcing and poetry have in common. Mentioned in this episode: • Charles Johnson’s original 2008 essay, “The End of the Black Amer...

Terry Tempest Williams talks America’s national parks and her new book, “The Hour of Land;” James Conaway explains how to survive a California wildfire while downing petit syrah; and Ted Levin sticks up for the beleaguered timber rattlesnake. Mentioned in this episode: • Our Summer 2016 cover story about America’s national parks, “The Taming of the Wild” • James Conaways’s essay about the Valley F...

How do you run a literature course for convicts, and what do a headless chicken and Pinochet have in common? Mikita Brottman discusses her new book, The Maximum Security Book Club ; Idra Novey reads a short story; and we venture underground to check out what's happening to the abandoned streetcar tunnels under Washington, D.C. Mentioned in this episode: • Idra Novey’s short story, “Under the Lid”...

What do the X-Men have to do with feminism, and how did the Fantastic Four get caught up in the radical politics of the New Left? Learn about the queer history of superhero comics with Ramzi Fawaz, and check in on reporter Karen Coates's documentary project on world hunger, "Bellyache." Tune in every two weeks to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, histo...

Hear about weird military science from Mary Roach, learn bizarre Elizabethan recipes, and catch an excerpt from a new book about Shakespeare's strange appeal. Tune in every two weeks to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books....

A podcast from The American Scholar magazine. Tune in every two weeks to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.