The Commonweal Podcast

The past year or so hasn’t been the best one for higher education. Debates over affirmative action, free speech, and affordability, combined with recent cuts to the humanities, have led many to wonder what the future holds.  Here to speak about all of this is Nicholas Dirks, former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, and author of City of Intellect: The Uses and Abuses of the Uni...

Recent weeks have seen an intensification of the Republican campaign against Catholic groups that offer assistance to migrants and refugees along the southern border.   Last month, Texas state attorney general Ken Paxton announced a lawsuit against Annunciation House, a network of houses of hospitality run by Catholic volunteers in El Paso, Texas. On this special episode, activist Ruben Garcia, di...

For many religious people, the pandemic accelerated a decline in institutional allegiance and trust that was already well underway. Many Catholics stopped attending Mass and still haven’t returned. One figure who thinks deeply about the contemporary decline in religious practice and affiliation is Irish poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama, host of the weekly podcast Poetry Unbound and author of th...

For the first time, a majority of Americans now live in the suburbs—places that have been transformed over the past several decades by boom-and-bust construction cycles and rapid demographic shifts. On this episode, associate editor Regina Munch speaks with journalist Benjamin Herold about his new book Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America’s Suburbs, which profiles five famili...

For decades, Fr. Columba Stewart, a Benedictine Monk of St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, has traveled the world in an effort to preserve manuscripts belonging to endangered communities.  On this episode, Fr. Stewart joins Commonweal editor Dominic Preziosi to discuss how he first got involved in this work, the care and attention it requires, and why digitizing ancient manuscripts remai...

Last month, Commonweal hosted a book launch in New York City with poet Christian Wiman. The topic was his new book Zero at the Bone: 50 Entries Against Despair, a mixture of poetry, essays, quotations, and close readings.  The former editor of Poetry magazine and now a professor at Yale Divinity School, Wiman has long been an admirer of Commonweal. As he told the audience, he dutifully reads every...

On this special year-end episode, we’re revisiting four of our favorite conversations from the past year.  Sociologist Matthew Desmond explains how the United States can choose to abolish poverty. Sr. Helen Prejean and singer Ryan McKinney discuss the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Dead Man Walking. Poet-scholar and slam champion Joshua Bennett talks about the history of spoken word. And philo...

American workers have fared poorly in recent decades, suffering the loss not just of purchasing power, but of political power, too.  On this episode, Commonweal senior editor Matt Boudway speaks with journalist Sohrab Ahmari, a conservative political commentator and editor whose new book Tyranny, Inc critiques corporate power in a way that will resonate with left wing progressives.  It’s time for...

Last month’s Synod on Synodality in Rome is perhaps one of the most important ecclesial gatherings to take place since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. But what exactly happened remains unclear.  On this episode, Commonweal editor Dominic Preziosi is joined by two experts on Vatican affairs to help explain and contextualize the synod’s work.  Paul Elie is a senior fellow at Georgetown Univ...

Today, the political and social philosophy known as liberalism—which champions democracy, individual rights, and free enterprise—is on the defensive.  Conservatives often charge it with eroding community, while some progressives view it as a justification for economic exploitation. On this episode, Yale political theorist Samuel Moyn, author of the new book Liberalism against Itself, joins feature...

Dead Man Walking, based on the acclaimed memoir by Sr. Helen Prejean, may be the world’s most popular contemporary opera. But it had never before been performed on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City—until now.  On this special episode, in anticipation of the Met Opera’s Live-in-HD broadcast in cinemas on October 21, host Dominic Preziosi is joined by bass-baritone Ryan McKi...

With its frequent earthquakes, mudslides, wildfires, and other maladies, California is no stranger to environmental disaster. But in the long run, even these highly visible effects of climate change pale in comparison to the looming threat of sea-level rise.  On this episode, Commonweal’s Claudia Avila Cosnahan, a resident of southern California, speaks with Rosanna Xia, an environmental reporter...

The fact that nearly 40 million Americans live in poverty is a national embarrassment. But it’s also a choice. If poverty exists, it’s because we “wish and will it to.” That’s the thesis of Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond, who joins Commonweal editor Dominic Preziosi to discuss Desmond’s recent book Poverty, By America.  We don’t need to capitulate to the ultra-wealthy or the corporations ho...

The 2016 presidential election brought “fake news” to the center of national debates over media bias, election interference, free speech, and content moderation. But the phenomenon isn’t exactly new. Misleading stories, sensationalism, and outright lies, explains Andie Tucher, have been part of American journalism from the very beginning.  A professor at Columbia Journalism School, Tucher is also...

John McPhee is widely regarded as America’s most prolific nonfiction author. Over a career spanning seven decades, McPhee has written more than thirty books, elucidating everything from shipping and boatbuilding to geology, engineering, and aviation.  On this episode, McPhee joins contributing writer Tony Domestico to discuss his latest book, Tabula Rasa, Vol. I, a series of short vignettes about...

Religious life stands in radical opposition to much of modern culture. But what is it, exactly?  On this episode, philosopher Zena Hitz speaks with senior editor Matt Boudway about her new book on religious life—a crucial part of the Catholic Church, and one that remains poorly understood.  Religious life is not primarily about what you give up, Hitz explains. Rather, it’s a way of orienting your...

The border is a place, but it is also a metaphor: for our complicated personal identities and political allegiances, and for the moral claims made on us by those born on the other side.  On this episode, interpreter and activist Alejandra Oliva, author of Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration, shares insights from her work with asylum seekers along the U.S.-Mexico border.  Plus...

Though you’ve probably never heard of him, book editor Eugene Exman (1900–1975) exerted tremendous influence on the shape of American religion in the twentieth century.  On this episode, special projects editor Miles Doyle speaks with Stephen Prothero, author of the new Exman biography God the Bestseller: How One Editor Transformed American Religion One Book at a Time. Prothero explains how Exman’...

What should philosophy do? Despite record numbers of practitioners, today the discipline is in crisis, awash in abstraction and increasingly isolated—even within the academy. But there’s a way out, argues veteran philosopher Philip Kitcher. It starts with attending to the ordinary concerns of human life, then illuminating them with clear, rigorous thought.  On this episode, Kitcher speaks with Com...

At first glance, John West’s Lessons and Carols: A Meditation on Recovery is an unconventional memoir about addiction and the healing power of community.  But it also addresses the challenges of belief today, when almost everything—the nation, religious institutions, the environment—appears on the verge of collapse. On this episode, West speaks with associate editor Griffin Oleynick about the para...

Is single-payer health care really feasible in America? For one Texas physician, the answer is an unqualified ‘yes.’ On this episode, Commonweal associate editor Regina Munch speaks with Ricardo Nuila, an internist at Houston’s Ben Taub hospital and author of the new book The People’s Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine.  Then, as Commonweal approaches its centennial in 2024, we’re featu...

Would the world actually be better without us? For most of human history, the question was inconceivable.  But now, anxious over climate change and elated at technological breakthroughs, a growing chorus of thinkers is heralding the end of humanity’s reign on Earth.  On this episode, poet and critic Adam Kirsch, author of The Revolt Against Humanity: Imagining a Future Without Us, analyzes these i...

As National Poetry Month draws to a close, Commonweal’s Claudia Avila Cosnahan is joined by poet, scholar, and professor Joshua Bennett to talk about his new book, Spoken Word: A Cultural History. A prominent slam champion himself, Bennett explains how spoken word poetry has shaped his life and how the art form contributes to the ongoing work of community-building and liberation.  And be sure to s...

In honor of Earth Week, we’re releasing a special bonus episode featuring our friend Dorothy Fortenberry in conversation with Commonweal editor Dominic Preziosi.  Fortenberry, who has written and commented widely on climate change, is also the co-writer and executive producer of Extrapolations, a new show on Apple TV+ that imagines what life on Earth might look like in the near future.  Instead of...

The billionaire founders of Big Tech firms are constantly touting “revolutionary” new products like cryptocurrency, AI, and the metaverse. They claim these exist “for the good of humanity,” but we should be extremely wary of their altruistic professions. On this episode, Commonweal features editor Alexander Stern speaks with media critic Douglas Rushkoff, author of more than twenty books. His most...