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Two years ago, on the heels of mass protests, Chileans overwhelmingly agreed: they needed to draft a new constitution. This September, faced with an up-or-down referendum on one of the most progressive governing charters in world history, they balked. What went wrong? Political theorist Camila Vergara breaks down the breakdown in her country’s efforts to scrap a political framework dating back to...

Throughout his life, Thomas Jefferson argued that knowledge was power. Many, however, have faced challenges in receiving an education in this country since its founding. For the holiday season, this podcast episode focuses on a few stories about individuals who strove to access and share with others the gift of education.

This year, the average price of a single family home in Virginia crossed the $400 thousand dollar mark. Virginia’s urban populations are expanding without the housing supply to keep up. Staring down skyrocketing prices, many people are forced to accept that homeownership won’t be in their future. Confronting this goes beyond building more housing... that’s only one arrow in a quiver full of polici...

🗣 🎙 Welcome to “First Person Cville” — the podcast. Here’s Episode 1 which features writer and librarian Katrina Spencer. “Public Violence, Our Trusty Companion" was written following the May 2022 Uvalde shooting at Robb Elementary in Texas. The audio prepared to complement this written piece was recorded preceding the November 2022 shooting at the University of Virginia. Figuring out how to deal...

Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry were returning from a field trip with their classmates when their lives were cut short. The gunman who killed them has been identified as another student on the trip. Our hosts and producers sit down together to mourn and make sense of yet another tragedy too close to home. And they ask: Where do we go from here — as a school, as a town, as a societ...

🗣 🎙 Welcome to “First Person Cville” — the podcast. Here’s the promo for Episode 1 which features writer and librarian Katrina Spencer. “Public Violence, Our Trusty Companion" was written following the May 2022 Uvalde shooting at Robb Elementary in Texas. The audio prepared to complement this written piece was recorded preceding the November 2022 shooting at the University of Virginia. Figuring ou...

Monticello guide Danna Kelley introduces us to Margaret Bayard Smith — writer, biographer, Washington socialite, political influencer, and friend of Thomas Jefferson. Smith's life closely aligned with the idea of Republican Motherhood, with its expanded opportunities for women's education, while also still placing limitations on how women could behave. She nevertheless fought against these limitat...

For the holiday season, Monticello guide Kyle Chattleton dispels a myth involving Benjamin Franklin and dives into the more complicated history surrounding it.

Trained at the President's House in Washington, D.C., enslaved chef Edith Fossett cooked for Jefferson for over two decades and oversaw the creation of the food for which Monticello became famous. She and her husband, enslaved blacksmith Joseph Fossett, were born at Monticello, raised their own children there, and, after many years, were able to unite most of their family in freedom. Guides Kyle C...

The United States hasn’t overhauled immigration policy since the 1990s, even though most Americans agree the system is failing. And for thousands fleeing violence in Latin America, the consequences of inaction in Washington are treacherous. Will and our colleague Debbie Kang speak this time with a scholar fighting for asylum cases to get a fair shake, especially for women and LGBTQ applicants faci...

Very familiar - even if you don't know it by name.

UVA Law Professor Leslie Kendrick is a podcasting pro. She’s spent many hours behind the mic with Dean Risa Goluboff exploring how law shapes society in their podcast, Common Law. In this episode, she talks about the ways in which her years studying English literature led her to become a free speech expert, her upbringing in Kentucky and her time serving as Vice-Dean of the UVA School of Law. http...

From the school board meetings in Loudoun County to pushes to ban "racially divisive" books in schools, conservatives have been relying on one concept in particular: “parents' rights.” Glenn Youngkin latched onto parents’ rights during his campaign and rode it to victory over Terry McAuliffe. Other Republican candidates across the country have taken note. During the midterms, many GOP candidates h...

One of the most iconic and famous songwriters in American history.

A consummate G-man, J. Edgar Hoover led the FBI for close to 40 years, becoming one of the most influential figures of the 20th century. Demanding rigor, loyalty and stealth from his subordinates, he worked closely with presidents of both parties, but his own views were steeped in conservative ideas on religion, race and anticommunism. Historian Beverly Gage considers Hoover’s legacy and helps us...

Monticello guides Kyle Chattleton and Laura-Michal Balderson discuss the social expectations and realities women of the gentry class faced in 18th-century Virginia and how they both aligned and diverged for Jefferson's eldest daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph.

In 1773 Thomas Jefferson purchased an enslaved family of three - George, Ursula, and their young son George, Jr. - and brought them to work at Monticello. The Grangers, their children, and their grandchildren would go on to include community leaders, skilled tradesmen, cooks, blacksmiths, tinsmiths, farmers, and cider-makers as well as caring spouses, parents, children, and siblings.

On Friday morning October 28th, local classical guitar aficionado Don Melcher joined host Michael Pillow for an edition of their series focused on music for the classical guitar. The show features the ebullient music of Italian guitarist and composer Matteo Carcassi.

Here at Bold Dominion, we typically focus on the machinations of power, money, and lawmaking in Richmond. But Virginia also sends 11 lawmakers to the U.S. House of Representatives. And all of them are on the ballot on Tuesday, November 8th. That means Election Day is less than two weeks away. If you're a Bold Dominion fan, you probably already know that. Maybe you even voted early. But if not, mak...

Sneak Previews - Christine Madrid French Interview - Oct 25 2022 by wtju

Pollsters in Brazil had Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the comeback candidate, leading by as many as 14 percentage points in the presidential election. But neither top nominee won a majority this month, sending citizens back to the polls for a historic runoff. And democracy itself is on the line. Incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro has waged war on reality, sowed division on social media and attacked t...

Musical depiction of Midsummer mayhem.

Here at Bold Dominion, we pubish a new episode every two weeks. We have seventy something episodes under our belt, and still so much more to talk about. Keeping up with politics is a year-round job. But for Virginia legislators, it’s not actually year-round. Not really. In odd numbered years, lawmakers are in Richmond for 60 days, and in even years, just a month. That’s often extended by a few mor...

The U.S. Constitution is an 18th-century straitjacket. It’s almost impossible to amend, it gives outsize power to small states, and its meaning is subject to the whims of unelected and increasingly intransigent judges. So what’s new? Well, you might be intrigued to learn on this episode just how America might wrench itself out of that morass, short of trashing the Constitution altogether. With the...

French violinist and Romantic era composer.