Smarty Pants

With protests now in every state over the murder of George Floyd and ongoing police brutality, we're revisiting an episode from last year with the science journalist Angela Saini, whose work explains how scientific inquiry has been complicit in, or explicitly aligned with, racism and white supremacy. Despite the myths we tell ourselves about science existing in an apolitical vacuum, pseudoscientific and pseudointellectual justifications for racism are on the rise—and troublingly mainstream. Race is a relatively recent concept, but dress it up in a white lab coat and it becomes an incredibly toxic justification for a whole range of policies, from health to immigration. It is tempting to dismiss white-supremacist cranks who chug milk to show their superior lactose tolerance, but it’s harder to do so when those in positions of power—like senior White House policy adviser Stephen Miller or pseudointellectual Jordan Peterson—spout the same rhetoric. The consequences can be more insidious, too: consider how we discuss the health outcomes for different groups of people as biological inevitabilities, not the results of social inequality. Drawing on archives and interviews with dozens of prominent scientists, Saini shows how race science never really left us—and that in 2020, scientists are as obsessed as ever with the vanishingly small biological differences between us. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When we look back to what we imagine to have been the golden age of reading—say, before the invention of the smart phone—could it be that we’re really misreading book history? That’s what literary critic and Rutgers professor Leah Price argues in What We Talk About When We Talk About Books, using material history and social history to explore both how people read in the past and how most of us read today. Gutenberg printed more papal indulgences than Bibles, and until the past century or so, most reading was done aloud—in fact, too much reading was discouraged because of the deleterious effect it supposedly had on one’s character! Price joins us this week to discuss how, just maybe, social media and books aren’t enemies after all, but merely different forms of the same literary tradition.Go beyond the episode:Leah Price’s What We Talk About When We Talk About BooksHow does your Zoom background stack up against those on Bookshelf Credibility?For those of us who always check out a new friend’s bookshelf first, look no further: https://bookshelfporn.com/The Book of Kells is sadly offline right now, but you can learn about the hundreds of hours that went into digitizing itYou could page through the British Library’s digital copies of Gutenberg’s Bible … or gasp at the papal indulgences he printed to pay for itThe Library of Congress has an entire digital reading room for rare books and special collections, including some wild medieval medical booksNeed dinner ideas? Check out Martha Brotherton’s 1833 recommendations from Vegetable cookery, with an introduction, recommending abstinence from animal food and intoxicating liquorsTune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sure, you’ve gotten really into sourdough during quarantine—but have you ever thatched your own roof with grasses that you grew in your own back yard? Or spent hours researching the secret behind making the perfect haystack? Alexander Langlands has. The archaeologist and medieval historian has been on BBC shows like Edwardian Farm and Tudor Farm, recreating the life of yore, and his book, Cræft, takes DIY to a whole new level. Part how-to, part memoir, the book gets at not only what it means to make things with your own hands, but how this experience connects us to people and places across time. Also, how everyone should set fire to their leaf blowers.Go beyond the episode:Alexander Langlands’s Cræft: An Inquiry into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional CraftsOld meets new in this Pinterest board of traditional tools to complement the bookWatch Alexander Langlands re-create early 20th-century life on the BBC’s Edwardian Farm, preceded by Victorian FarmOr there’s Wartime Farm, which returns an English estate to its condition during the Second World WarCan’t get enough of the BBC? There’s also  Tudor Monastery Farm, featuring one of our past guests, Ronald HuttonTune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our guest this week is New York Times best-selling novelist Matthew Quirk, who went from being a reporter at The Atlantic to writing thrillers about government fixers and special agents. His latest book is Hour of the Assassin, about an ex-Secret Service agent who tests the security protecting public officials for weaknesses that might allow killers to break through. That is, until his latest assignment ends in … a setup! Quirk’s previous books have dealt with every manner of agent, from the FBI and special ops to con men and consultants. He joins us to talk about his approach to writing thrillers, how he avoids getting scooped by the news, and what fiction of all kinds has to offer us in dark times.Go beyond the episode:Matthew Quirk’s Hour of the AssassinRead Quirk’s essay for Vox on how the Trump era keeps spoiling his booksWe love John le Carré too: read senior editor Bruce Falconer’s review of the master’s memoir, The Pigeon TunnelFor an escape of a different kind, check out our editors’ favorite British detective showsTune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, almost 90 percent of the world’s population is hooked on coffee or its most addictive component, caffeine. But 500 years ago, hardly anyone drank it, and the story of how coffee came to grace so many breakfast tables, office kitchens, and factory breakrooms speaks volumes about the very unequal world we live in. Our guest this week is Augustine Sedgewick, whose new book, Coffeeland: One Man's Dark Empire and the Making of Our Favorite Drug, uses the global history of the Hill family, a coffee dynasty in El Salvador, to unravel how societies, rural and urban alike, were recast in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. Ultimately, that restructuring led to many of the inequalities we still see today between the global North that drinks coffee and the global South that farms it.Go beyond the episode:Augustine Sedgewick’s Coffeeland: One Man's Dark Empire and the Making of Our Favorite DrugRead his recent essay in The Wall Street Journal, “How Coffee Became a Modern Necessity”Check out the recent documentary Black Gold, about the trading practices of multinational coffee companiesCommonplace Book, Celebrity Coffee Fan Edition:“Without my morning coffee, I’m just like a dried-up piece of goat”—J. S. Bach“I never laugh until I’ve had my coffee”—Clark Gable“I would rather suffer with coffee than be senseless.”—Napoleon Bonaparte“Coffee: the favorite drink of the civilized world”—Thomas Jefferson“As soon as coffee is in your stomach, there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move ... similes arise, the paper is covered. Coffee is your ally and writing ceases to be a struggle.”—Honoré de Balzac“Among the numerous luxuries of the table ... coffee may be considered as one of the most valuable. It excites cheerfulness without intoxication; and the pleasing flow of spirits which it occasions ... is never followed by sadness, languor or debility.”—Benjamin Franklin“Coffee, according to the women of Denmark, is to the body what the Word of the Lord is to the soul.”—Isak Dinesen“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?”—Albert CamusTune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sometimes, historical truth is so strange that it demands to be turned into fiction. Such is the story of William Sydney Porter, better known as the American short-story writer O. Henry. Before he made it big with tales about Magi gifts and the Cisco Kid, he embezzled some money in Texas and fled for Honduras, which at the turn of the 20th century had no extradition treaty with the United States. There, Porter observed the machinations of American robber barons that inspired him to coin the term "banana republic"—which also happens to be the title of a new novel by Eric Sean Rawson, a professor of creative writing at the University of Southern California and our guest this week. Inspired by the true life and crimes of O. Henry, Rawson's novel vividly depicts the banana republics of the 20th century, and the troubled U.S. interventions therein, through the ironical, often drunken eyes of a fictionalized William Sydney Porter.Go beyond the episode:Eric Sean Rawson's Banana RepublicFor more on real-life banana republics and the men who made them, Rawson recommends The Incredible Yanqui by Hermann Deutsch and The Fish that Ate the Whale by Rich CohenExplore the classic stories of O. Henry hereTune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You may not know her name, but Odetta was one of the most influential singers of the 20th century: called “the voice of the civil rights movement” by The New York Times and anointed “queen of American folk music” by Martin Luther King Jr., himself. Our guest this week is music journalist Ian Zack, author of the first in-depth biography of Odetta, whose incredible voice rang out at some of the most pivotal moments in the struggle for African-American equality, including 1960s marches in Washington and Selma.Go beyond the episode:Ian Zack’s Odetta: A Life in Music and ProtestZack recommends that new listeners begin with of Odetta’s first two albums: Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues and Odetta at the Gate of Horn (or her lone rock album, Odetta Sings)Or to get a feel for the effect she had on audiences, listen to a live album like Odetta at Town Hall—or watch her 1964 concert on YouTubeTune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1536, a now obscure poet named Vincent Obsopoeus published a long verse called The Art of Drinking, or De Arte Bibendi, filled with shockingly modern advice. Moderation, not abstinence, is the key to lasting sobriety, he writes—and then turns around and teaches us how to win at drinking games and give a proper toast. Joining us this week is the man who brought this sound advice to modern English—Michael Fontaine, professor of classics at Cornell University, whose newly rebranded How to Drink: A Classical Guide to the Art of Imbibing is the first proper English translation of Obsopoeus’s ode to mild inebriation.Go beyond the episode:Michael Fontaine’s How to Drink: A Classical Guide to the Art of Imbibing (read an excerpt here)Read his series of posts on the Best American Poetry blog, run by friend of the magazine David Lehman: “We Have Sex Education. Should We Teach Drinking Education, Too?”, “What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger,” and moreReady to pour one? May we recommend the sazerac, per Wayne Curtis, which Fontaine also recommends in his list of “Quarantinis” for drinking at home?Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes!Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposes just how connected the world is, while, at the same time, circumscribing our individual worlds much more. How do we dress for these new circumstances, where our trips outside the house are limited to neighborhood walks and forays into the yard? Our guest today, Shahidha Bari, has been thinking deeply about how we interact with our clothes since long before the current pandemic. She’s a professor of Fashion Cultures and Histories at the London College of Fashion and a fellow of the Forum for European Philosophy at the London School of Economics. Her new book, Dressed, is what you get when you cross a philosopher with a fashion critic. She writes about the feeling you experience when your feet are mercifully dry in a pair of yellow rain boots, or what the subtle pull of a tie can do to your spine and your personality.Go beyond the episode: Read an excerpt for Shahidha Bari’s new book, Dressed: A Philosophy of ClothesFollow these historical clothing accounts on Instagram for a bite of fashion history: @defunctfashion, @katestrasdin, @coraginsburg, @lagrossetoile, @tatterbluelibrary, @georgian_diaspora, @fidmmuseum, @museumatfit, @metconstumeinstitute, @the_art_of_dressTune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Opera has a bad rap: it's stuffy, long, convoluted, expensive, weird … and at the end of the day, who really understands sung Italian anyway? The barriers aren’t just financial: there are hundreds of years of musical history at work, along with dozens of arcane terms that defy pronunciation. But opera has been loved by ardent fans for centuries, and the experience of seeing it—once you know what to listen for—can be sublime. So we asked Vivien Schweitzer, a former classical music and opera critic for The New York Times, to teach us how to listen to opera. This episode originally aired in November 2018.Go beyond the episode:Read Vivien Schweitzer’s A Mad Love: An Introduction to OperaCatch a free nightly stream of a Metropolitan Opera productionListen to the accompanying Spotify playlistReady? Find an opera performance near you by searching the National Opera Center of America’s database of upcoming offeringsListen to the Metropolitan Opera’s Saturday Matinee Broadcasts or catch it live in a movie theater near youAt The Guardian, Imogen Tilde explains “How to find cheap opera tickets”Songs sampled during the episode:“Possente spirito,” the first famous aria in opera, from Monteverdi’s Orfeo“Pur te miro,” the first important duet in opera, from Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea“Svegliatevi nel core,” an example of da capo aria and a rage aria, from Handel’s Giulio CesareThe Queen of the Night’s first-act aria, an example of very high soprano notes, from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte“O Isis und Osiris,” an example of very low bass notes from the same opera“Ah! mes amis, quel jour de fête!” an example of very high tenor notes, from Donizetti’s La fille du régiment“Casta diva,” an example of bel canto style of singing, from Bellini’s Norma“Bella figlia dell’amore,” an example of ensemble singing from Verdi’s RigolettoThe infamous Tristan chord from the prelude to Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde (and here is the resolution of the chord, hours later)For a taste of contemporary opera's eclecticism, here are three examples:Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern by Helmut Lachenmann, an example of an opera with no actual singingSatyagraha by Philip Glass, an example of minimalismSaint Francois D’Assise by Olivier Messiaen, a composer who imitated birdcalls in his musicTune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.