With Good Reason

Linguist and filmmaker Mark Sicoli (University of Virginia) shares the whistling style of speech used in the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico. Saikou Diallo (Old Dominion University) talks about the 3D virtual recreation of an ancient settlement in Turkey. And we dig into coin collecting with Michael Mucedola (Longwood University, one of the nation's foremost experts on old dimes.

Tim Anderson (Old Dominion University) introduces a modern reworking of a Charlie Brown Holiday special classic. Jacqueline Secoy (Longwood University) remembers the tunes that she first played in an orchestra. Orchestra conductor Kevin Bartram (University of Mary Washington) explains what singers like Judy Garland and Tony Bennett bring to the classic songs of the season. Later in the show: Siste...

Michaela Meyer (Christopher Newport University) says the shows of Shonda Rhimes have changed the way we make and watch TV. Imelda O’Reilly's (James Madison University) film Eggs and Soldiers examines a single father and son struggling to adjust to life in New York after emigrating from Ireland. Nancy Schoenberger (William & Mary) explores the relationship between screen icon John Wayne and directo...

Sometimes, to tell a complex story, you need simple pictures. A conference at Norfolk State University has asked students to draw graphic novels that explore 1619 from African, Indigenous, and European perspectives. Tommy Bryant (Virginia Highlands Community College) explores the epic history of African Americans in comic books. Matthew Smith (Radford University) just co-curated a major museum exh...

From the 1830s to the Civil War, Americans could be found putting each other into trances in parlors, on stage, and in medical consulting rooms. Emily Ogden’s (University of Virginia) new book is “Credulity: A Cultural History of U.S. Mesmerism.” Jeff Dyche (James Madison University) says that when we mess with the 24 hour clock, there are all kinds of bad side effects. Daniel Hirshberg (Universit...

During the holiday season, it feels like more and more consumers are skipping the department stores and opting for handcrafted goods instead. Ben Brewer says this current “third wave” craft renaissance we’re experiencing is tied to politics. We visit mOb, an innovative design studio at Virginia Commonwealth University, where students help solve design problems in the city of Richmond. We stop in a...

In this political climate, do brands suffer or thrive when companies take sides? Also, self expression through purchasing power has gone through the roof for African Americans.

We open the show with part two of the new podcast, American Dissent--featuring a woman who chose to fight the Trump administration decision to rescind DACA, and the story of the high school students whose protest helped lead to school desegregation. Also, journalists and authors discuss the opioids crisis and the effects of economic decline on rural communities—and the vital role of local journali...

Across the nation, natural gas production has been ramping up. In many communities, this has meant new pipelines, new promises, and new protests. How do we balance environmental concerns and the public good? Environmental engineer Andres Clarens (University of Virginia)explains the science. Jaime Allison (Christopher Newport University) argues that we can better understand pipelines by looking bac...

Welcome flags, monogrammed door mats, bird feeders, and whirligigs. These are all things you might find on a front porch—or on a gravesite. We're more creative now in our cemeteries. Plus, millions of Americans have had near death experiences and there are startling consistencies in the accounts.

Love it or hate it (more likely a bit of both) Facebook is worth careful scholarly study--particularly in the field of politics. We hear from political scientists who argue that the sins of Facebook are built into the platform itself and congress needs to break up Facebook using antitrust laws.

More than 30,000 American women served in some form in Vietnam during the war. From the Red Cross volunteers who boosted morale to the nurses who treated injuries, women were a major part of soldiers’ experience of the war. The war also upended the lives of millions of wives, widows and girlfriends back home.

Women have been making headlines all over the country, running for office--and winning. We hear from some of those women about what it was like during their first week on the job. And scholars reflect on what it takes to get more women on the ballot.

Moonshiners are often portrayed as lawbreakers and profiteers. But these recorded interviews with former moonshiners and their children paint a portrait of close knit poor families in Appalachia helping each other keep food on the table.

This week we’re debuting a new podcast series called American Dissent, hosted by Kelley Libby. In Episode 1: Influenced by Colin Kaepernick’s protest of police brutality during the National Anthem, a high school volleyball player initiates her own protest, and not without consequences. And a historian tells the story of a religious minority who helped win the American Revolution and the fight for...

Do we fret too much that we're glued to our cell phones? Trevor Hoag says we should stop using the language of addiction liked ‘hooked on our iPhones” and embrace the positives. Plus, experts weigh in on the need to customize addiction treatments.

One of the great American beliefs is that a college education gives us a better shot at moving up in life. But some say that social mobility has stalled and we should expand access to those universities admitting the largest numbers of low income students.

In "Free the Beaches" Andrew Kahrl tells the story of activist Ned Coll and his campaign to open New England’s shoreline to African Americans, as northern white families fought to preserve their segregated beaches.

D you ever worry that the radiation coming from your cell phone might be harmful? Researching Deborah O’Dell recently finished a 5-year study that found cell phone radiation can cause changes to our brain cells.

100 pilgrims journey from Charlottesville to the national memorial to lynching in Montgomery, Alabama to pay homage to a black man who was lynched in 1898.

Beginning with the end of the Civil War, and well into the middle of the twentieth century, the extralegal and socially sanctioned practice of lynching claimed the lives of at least 3,959 African American men, women, and children. Hannah Ayers and Lance Warren are the directors of a recent documentary about lynching and its effects on families. The film is called An Outrage.

Can art heal? This week, the redemptive power of language and song. Hear how former inmates use writing to explore their paths to imprisonment and how jazz can tell stories of social justice, healing, self-reflection and redemption.

African Americans who fought for their country in Vietnam often experienced the racism their families endured back home. Plus: Native Americans fought in Vietnam in greater numbers relative to their population than any other group. We hear testimony of Native Americans who fought for the U.S. on foreign soil.

Summer reads from the With Good Reason universe! Inman Majors gives us some comedic escapism, Erin Jones is reading about mid-century women artists reclaiming the pin-up, and Sharon Jones shares why she, a black woman with a comfortable salary, is spending her summer reading about whiteness and poverty.

The 1987 pop song “Tom’s Diner” by Suzanne Vega is considered the “mother of the MP3.” It was the test track used by German scientists to perfect this new file format that would revolutionize the music industry. Ryan Maguire has been experimenting with the sounds that got stripped out of that first MP3.