To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Not everyone has a nice, big yard to stretch out in while sheltering in place from COVID-19. But maybe you don't need one. People are using virtual spaces to live out the real experiences they miss — like coffee shops, road trips, even building your own house on a deserted island, or Walden Pond. In a world where we're mostly confined to our homes and Zoom screens, does the line between virtual and real-life space mean much anymore? Original Air Date: May 16, 2020 Guests:  Mark Riechers — Tracy Fullerton — Simon Parkin — Jane McGonigal — Donald D. Hoffman — Suzanne O’Sullivan Interviews In This Hour:  There's No Pandemic In Animal Crossing — I Went To The Woods To Level Up Deliberately — The Most Boring Video Game Ever Made — Want to be Happier? Turn Everyday Tasks Into a Game — How We Fool Ourselves With The Concept of 'Reality' Further Reading: NYAS: Reality Is Not As It Seems 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’re sharing a special preview of a podcast we’ve been enjoying, Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso, from Pushkin Industries. Talk Easy is a weekly interview podcast, where writer Sam Fragoso invites actors, writers, activists, and politicians to come to the table and speak from the heart in ways you probably haven't heard from them before. Driven by curiosity, he’s had revealing conversations with everyone from George Saunders and Cate Blanchett to Stacey Abrams and Gloria Steinem. In this preview, Sam talks with author Ocean Vuong about his autobiographical novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, remaining creative in the face of oppression, and wrestling with the grief of his mother’s passing. You can listen to Talk Easy at https://podcasts.pushkin.fm/teknowledge

Why do people turn to poetry during troubled times? We saw it after 9/11 and we're seeing it now as the coronavirus travels around the world. When the world seems broken, poetry is often the one kind of language that helps. Original Air Date: April 04, 2020 Guests: Kitty O'Meara — Jericho Brown — Edward Hirsch — Alice Walker — Ken Nordine — Li-Young Lee — Jimmy Santiago Baca Interviews In This Hour: A Viral Poem For A Virus Time — Can A Poem Be A Prayer? — Poetry In A Time Of Grief And Loss — Hope Rises. It Always Does. — Li-Young Lee's Love Poetry — Ken Nordine's 'Yellow' — Words Can Change Your Life 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.

Over the past decade, plant scientists have quietly transformed the way we think of trees, forests and plants. They discovered that trees communicate through vast underground networks, that plants learn and remember. If plants are intelligent beings, how should we relate to them? Do they have a place in our moral universe? Should they have rights? 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: December 19, 2020 Guests:  Robin Wall Kimmerer — Matt Hall — Monica Gagliano — Brooke Hecht Interviews In This Hour:  We've Forgotten How To Listen To Plants — We Share This World With Plants. What Do We Owe Them? — Guided by Plant Voices — The Botanical Medicine Cabinet 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.

In the 21st century, there are a lot of old crafts we think we don’t have much use for anymore. Blacksmithing. Wood turning. Spinning and basket-making. But here's the funny thing — as our world gets more and more virtual, traditional skills are starting to look better and better to a lot of people. Original Air Date: April 09, 2022 Guests: Sara Dahmen — Monroe Robinson — Nick Offerman Interviews In This Hour: Could you build your own pots and pans? Coppersmith Sara Dahmen revives a lost art — A craftsman alone in the Alaskan wIlderness — ‘He’s my Shakespeare’: Nick Offerman on the craft and wisdom of Wendell Berry 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.

One of the toughest things about trying to understand climate change – arguably the most important story of our time - is wrapping our minds around it. To even imagine something so enormous, so life-changing, we need a story. Some characters, a metaphor, and even some lessons learned. For that, we turn to the novelists and journalists telling the story of climate change – as we – and our children – live it. Original Air Date: August 14, 2021 Guests:  Alice Bell — Lydia Millet — Lidia Yuknavitch — John Lanchester Interviews In This Hour:  The Climate Change Stories We Need To Hear — The Climate Crisis Gets Biblical — Lidia Yuknavitch’s Dream World: How Dreams Shaped Her Dazzling Speculative Novel — A Climate Dystopia Of Cold, Concrete, Wind and a Wall 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.

Pop music is a gazillion-dollar industry that churns out hits and creates celebrities. It seems like the definition of ephemeral – today’s chart topper is gone tomorrow. But pop music is a powerful vehicle for bringing people together, and fans - from K-pop to the #FreeBritney movement — have something to teach us about community and hope. Original Air Date: March 26, 2022 Guests: Regina Kim — Kyla Nicole — Kelefa Sanneh — Samantha Stark Interviews In This Hour: When we're disconnected, can we reconnect through K-pop? — From pop to punk: Shaping our musical identities — How a fan movement freed a pop star from her gilded cage 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.

Once upon a time, science and magic were two sides of the same coin. Today, we learn science in school and save magic for children’s books. What if it were different? What would it be like to see the world as an alchemist? Original Air Date: September 19, 2020 Guests:  Sarah Durn — Pamela Smith — William Newman — Charles Monroe-Kane — Jason Pine Interviews In This Hour:  Transmutation Of The Spirit — The Historical Lessons Embedded in Alchemical Recipes — Was Sir Isaac Newton 'The Last of the Magicians'? — The Buried Secrets of Czech Alchemy — Drug Store Alchemy in the Ozarks Further Reading: Maier: Atalanta Fugiens 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.

If you look at a mountain, you might see a skiing destination, a climbing challenge, or even a source of timber to be logged or ore to be mined. But there was a time when mountains were sacred. In some places, they still are. What changes when you think of a mountain not as a giant accumulation of natural resources, but as a living being? 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. Original Air Date: July 24, 2021 Guests:  John Hausdoerffer — Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk — David Hinton — Lisa Maria Madera Interviews In This Hour:  What Do You Owe The Mountains Around You? — 'These Are Live, Active Places': A Ute Activist Fights To Save The Bears Ears National Monument — A Poet Finds Life Lessons on Hunger Mountain — 'I Was Born To Volcanoes' 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.

Ghosts from the past stalk Europe again today in the wake of Russian tanks and missiles. To find a path forward, we might need to look back. Original Air Date: March 05, 2022 Guests:  Catherine Grace Katz — Margaret MacMillan — Rebecca Solnit Interviews In This Hour:  The legacy of Yalta, through the eyes of the women who were there — Why humans wage war — Tending a war-time garden: What George Orwell’s fascination with roses tells us about the human need for beauty in the darkest hours 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.