To The Best Of Our Knowledge

We all need a good fantasy world to retreat to sometimes – whether it's Hogwarts or Middle Earth, Westeros or Wakanda. But magical thinking can be dangerous too. And escapism isn't always innocent. So where do you draw the line between fantasy and reality? Original Air Date: September 17, 2022 Guests:  Sarah Rachul — Marianne Eloise — Kurt Andersen — Neil Gaiman Interviews In This Hour:  Why not escape into fantasy? A tale of Disney adults — The magical thinkers, the dreamers, and the hucksters of America's fantasyland — Neil Gaiman on where dreams — and nightmares — come from Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

How do you tell the story of your life? Do you focus on meaning, accomplishment and hope — or on failure and loss? Psychologists say telling a good life story can make you happier. But do we also create an inauthentic version of ourselves if we turn everything into a narrative? We explore the idea of life stories, and hear why poet and singer Patti Smith chose to "write about nothing" when writing about her own life. Original Air Date: October 23, 2016 Guests: Timothy Wilson — Charles Monroe-Kane — Galen Strawson — Alissa Quart — Patti Smith Interviews In This Hour: How to Edit Your Life Story — The Terminal Bar: A Tale of Smuggling Money to Post-Communist Prague — The Problem with Life Stories — Alissa Quart On 'Days of Abandonment' and 'Sleepless Nights' — Patti Smith's Mind Train Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

2019 was an important year throughout the African diaspora — the 400th year since enslaved Africans first arrived in the United States. In Ghana — once the center of the European slave trade — 2019 was declared "the year of return" and the start of a campaign to encourage descendants of enslaved Africans to re-connect with the land of their ancestors. Thousands of African-Americans made the trip to Ghana — and many have decided to stay. They're fed up with police brutality and systemic racism in the US, ready to build new lives in Africa — and their number is growing. Original Air Date: September 03, 2022 Guests: Robert Hanserd — Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman — Prince Marfo — Ato Quayson — Emmanuel Kofi Apraku Bempong Interviews In This Hour: Three Americans share how Ghana became their new home — The land of your ancestors — Should Africans move to America? — A Black friendship Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Using a complex network of chemical signals, trees talk to each other and form alliances with fellow trees, even other species. In fact, whole forests exist as a kind of superorganism. And some trees are incredibly old. Did you know a single bristlecone pine can live up to 6,000 years? And the root mass of aspens might live 100,000 years? We explore the science and history of trees and talk with Richard Powers about his epic novel "The Overstory." Original Air Date: April 28, 2018 Guests:  Mark Hirsch — Richard Powers — Suzanne Simard — Amos Clifford — Daegan Miller Interviews In This Hour:  A Year In The Life Of A Tree — Listening to the Mother Trees — Richard Powers on Writing the Inner Life of Trees — Bathing in the Beauty of the Trees — General Sherman, Karl Marx, and Other Aliases of Earth's Largest Tree Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

There's a certain a kind of visual encounter that can be life changing: A cross-species gaze. The experience of looking directly into the eyes of an animal in the wild, and seeing it look back. It happens more often than you’d think and it can be so profound, there’s a name for it: eye-to-eye epiphany. So what happens when someone with feathers or fur and claws looks back? How does it change people, and what can it teach us? Human identity cannot be separated from our nonhuman kin. From forest ecology to the human microbiome, emerging research suggests that being human is a complicated journey made possible only by the good graces of our many companions. In partnership with the Center for Humans and Nature and with support from the Kalliopeia Foundation, To The Best Of Our Knowledge is exploring this theme of "kinship" in a special radio series. To learn more about the Kinship series, head to ttbook.org/kinship. Original Air Date: February 08, 2020 Guests:  Gavin Van Horn — Jenny Kendler — Ivan Schwab — Jane Goodall — Alan Lightman Interviews In This Hour:  In The Eye Of The Osprey: A Physicist's Wild Epiphany — 100 Bird Eyes Are Watching You — The Look That Changed Primatology — Watching the Fierce Green Fire Die: Animal Gazes That Shaped Conservation Movements — The 600 Million Year History Of The Eye — 'We Are The Feast' — A Feminist Philosopher's Life-Changing Encounter With A Crocodile — How Do You Practice Kinship? A Brief Meditation — Sharing Eye-To-Eye Epiphanies With The Animal World  Further Reading: "The Disruptive Eye" by Gavin Van Horn—"6 a.m. on LaSalle Street" by Katherine Cummings—"Salmon Speak ~ Why Not Earth?" by Bron Taylor—"The Eyes of an Owl" by Greg Ripley—"From Bestiary" by Elise Paschen Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Around the world, authoritarian leaders are on the rise – from Russia and Hungary to the U.S. They're working from a common playbook: They use violent rhetoric. They attack the media. They see their political rivals as existential enemies to the nation. We examine the return of the Strongman — and how to save democracy. The conversation with Daniel Ziblatt in this episode was recorded at the La Follette Forum on American Power, Prosperity and Democracy, held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison by the La Follette School of Public Affairs. Original Air Date: August 13, 2022 Guests:  Edgar Feuchtwanger — Iliaria Maria Sala — Daniel Ziblatt — Arno Michaelis — Pardeep Singh Kaleka Interviews In This Hour:  The Nazi Next Door — Facing History and Hate Through Museums — Killing democracy? There's a playbook for that. — Understanding The Man Who Hated You Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Sharing of personal pronouns has become standard practice on resumes, business cards, email signatures and more. And that’s just one sign of an increasingly widespread shift in how we think about gender. So what’s next? And what would it take to actually celebrate gender freedom? To have trans joy? Original Air Date: January 15, 2022 Guests:  Jules Gill-Peterson — Big Freedia — Torrey Peters — Akwaeke Emezi Interviews In This Hour:  Historian Jules Gill Peterson shares stories of trans experiences from the 1920s and 1930s — A Diva's Oasis? Bounce Music — 'Detransition, Baby' author Torrey Peters on life, love, gender and parenthood — Many Identities, One Spirit Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

We all know we should walk more. The evidence just keeps accumulating – walking makes us healthier, happier, smarter, more relaxed, more resilient – not to mention longer-lived. But even with the best of intentions, sometimes we all need a little push to get out the door. Original Air Date: July 30, 2022 Guests:  Annabel Abbs — Jeremy DeSilva — John Francis Interviews In This Hour:  Walking the footsteps of trailblazing women — Human feet are terrible, evolutionarily speaking — Walk the earth Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Remember when reading still felt magical? When a book could sweep you off your feet into another world? It might be that the best way to find your way back the magic is through a kid’s book. We talk to authors about Wonderland, magic wands, unicorns and other children's stories that inspire. Original Air Date: May 01, 2021 Guests:  Katherine Rundell — Quan Barry — Enrique Salmon — Ebony Thomas — LL McKinney — Lulu Miller Interviews In This Hour:  Why A Pandemic Is The Perfect Time To Read Children's Literature — Quan Barry on 'White Fang' — Enrique Salmon on 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' — Is Hermione Black? The Answer Depends On How Old You Are — Alice The Doomslayer Rises In L.L. McKinney's Reimagining of 'Alice In Wonderland' — Lulu Miller on 'The Search for Delicious' Further Reading: Bookmarks Hub  Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Ever want to quit your job, leave the rat race behind, and head back to the land? Buy an old farmhouse or build a solar-powered home and live self-sufficiently on a few acres of your very own? Generations before you have shared that dream. The reality is more complicated. Even owning your own land is an ethical minefield.  Original Air Date: December 18, 2021 Guests:  Makenna Goodman — Simon Winchester — Hayden King Interviews In This Hour:  Can you live off the land and still live ethically? — What does 'owning' land actually mean? — How the Land Back movement is reclaiming land stolen from Indigenous people Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.