To The Best Of Our Knowledge
Wisconsin Public Radio
”To the Best of Our Knowledge” is a Peabody award-winning national public radio show that explores big ideas and beautiful questions. Deep interviews with philosophers, writers, artists, scientists, historians, and others help listeners find new sources of meaning, purpose, and wonder in daily life. Whether it’s about bees, poetry, skin, or psychedelics, every episode is an intimate, sound-rich journey into open-minded, open-hearted conversations. Warm and engaging, TTBOOK helps listeners feel less alone and more connected – to our common humanity and to the world we share.For more from the TTBOOK team, visit us at ttbook.org.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Jul 16, 2017 • 52min
The Art of Reinventing Yourself
Do you ever wish you could reinvent yourself? This hour, we hear from four noted artists who experienced pivotal turns in their own lives: artist Rashid Johnson, writer/photographer Teju Cole, singer Nikka Costa, and musician Michael Nesmith. Artist Rashid Johnson Explores Race, Yearning and Escape; How Temporary Blindness Taught Teju Cole To See; Why Not Abolish Literary Genres?; From Child Pop Star to Jazz Singer; From the Monkees to Country Rock.
Jul 9, 2017 • 52min
When Is A Road Trip Something More?
We take road trips and endless highways for granted, but there are other countries where people can pay a heavy price just for getting behind a wheel. Put It In Boogie Gear On the Backslide; Driving While Female; What If We Forget How to Get Lost?; A Guidebook to the 'Blackest Road Trip Ever'; Traveling Between Worlds Apart.
Jul 9, 2017 • 53min
Do Protests Still Matter?
When you don't have a voice, when you feel like lawmakers just won't listen to you, protest is one way of capturing the world's attention. From Selma to Ferguson, Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park, political demonstrations have made history. But have they worked? This hour we explore the effectiveness of political protest. Why Protest Is Broken; Barney Frank On Why Protests Don't Work; Taking It To the Streets; A Lifelong Activist; The Craft Of Protesting; Overcoming Fear Through Protest.
Jul 2, 2017 • 52min
Time Travel
We explore our obsession with time travel and what it can teach us about ourselves. Why Are We So Obsessed with Time Travel?; Going Back in Time to Prevent a Tragedy; Reliving Groundhog Day; A Radical New View of Time ; A Novel Based on a Real-Life Time Capsule.
Jul 2, 2017 • 53min
The Real Ways That "Fake News" Shapes What We Believe
You can tell the difference. Or can you? A Reporter's Journey to the Epicenter of Liberal Fake News; Who Shares A Fake Story? Fake Users; When Is It Prudent To Be Paranoid?; Poison in the Soda Pop, and Other Conspiracies That Spring From A Grain of Truth; Radioactive Clocks And The Women Poisoned By Them.
Jun 25, 2017 • 53min
Being Broke and White
There’s a powerful new voting bloc in America. They’re white, working class, and they live in places that have been left behind. We'll talk with "Hillbilly Elegy" author J.D. Vance, and country music star Brandy Clark joins us in the studio to play some music and talk about her hometown. Hillbilly Elegy; Big Day in a Small Town; In the Century of Rust; Smart Decline; The Future of Whiteness.
Jun 25, 2017 • 52min
Locked Up
Most of us will never know what really happens behind bars. Prisons are generally off limits to the public and press, but a national prisoner strike on the 45th anniversary of the Attica Prison riot is drawing new attention to the conditions in many of our nation's jails. This hour, what should a prison be? How The Attica Prison Riot Fueled Mass Incarceration in America; Working Undercover As A Private Prison Guard; In Defense of Flogging; Norway's Unusual Approach to Imprisonment; How To Reduce Mass Incarceration; Exploring the Emotional Roots of Justice.
Jun 18, 2017 • 52min
Peak Performance
Scaling El Cap, where Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell stunned the world with their dazzling climbs. The Audacity of the World's Most Daring Climber; Hanging Out On Top of Cliffs Is My Happy Place ; Alex Honnold’s Most Dangerous Adventure; The Science of Peak Performance; The Myth of the “Dumb Jock”; The Ultimate Long-Distance Race.
Jun 18, 2017 • 52min
The Whole Truth
Three journalists join us to talk about an assignment in which they tried to tell the story of someone who was, in some crucial way, unknowable. Getting to Know Your Father As a Woman; Getting Inside the Mind of Patty Hearst; Rodney Ascher Recommends "Patty Hearst"; Did Joe Gould Really Write "The Oral History of Our Time"?.
Jun 11, 2017 • 52min
Gateway Moments: Live from St. Louis
We’ve all had them—the big, significant, transformations that take your life in a new direction. And even though those gateway moments present new and exciting opportunities, they are almost always by definition uncomfortable. This hour, in partnership with St. Louis Public Radio, To The Best Of Our Knowledge explores various examples of crossing over, to racial understanding, to recovery and to greater unity and love. A City of Gates That Do Not Swing Wide; Adventures on the Woke Spectrum; Shadowball; The Last Game I Make Before I Die; Beatboxing With My Dad; Black At Home, White At Work.
