Why? Radio Podcast Archive

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  Why Did Homo Sapiens Evolve Into Artists?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Valerius Geist

  Many people regard art as a luxury. They think of it as fancy paintings, abstract installations, or the fashion that changes every few months. What few of us ever attend to is that fact that art is as old as humanity itself. It started with homo sapiens and developed alongside every other human ability. This episode of Why? Radio looks at art from an evolutionary perspective and ask what necessary purpose it served.

  Host Jack Russell Weinstein says, “I learned so much from this episode, but more than that it surprised me…because everything Val said simply made sense. Philosophy rarely gives us clearcut answers. Evolution, however, is a very understandable science.”

  Valerius Geist is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science, Faculty of Environmental Design at the University of Calgary. He is the author of more than a dozen books, a specialist on the biology, behavior, and social dynamics of North American large mammals. He is also a champion of ethical hunting and a wildlife artist.

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  What Makes a Building Beautiful?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Sarah Williams Goldhagen

  We are surrounded by buildings and live in rooms. We build spaces that we want to be pleasing as well as functional. In the process, we engage, not only our senses, but our brain. Architecture has massive neurological consequences, effects that are not as well known but should be. How do we balance these aesthetic, functional, and neurological needs? Architecture is art, but it also influences and even directs our behavior. Does it limit our free will? How much can design control its inhabitants and inspire a specific outcome?

  These are the questions at the core of this wide ranging discussion before a live studio audience at the Cornell University, School of Architecture, Art and Planning, in downtown Manhattan. Listen until the end, when we are joined Mark Ginsberg, an award winning architect and partner at Curtis and Ginsberg Architects LLP, and Richard Roberts, Director of Business Development at Red Stone Equity Partners and a former Commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

  Host Jack Russell Weinstein says, “Doing Why? Radio in front of a live audience is always spectacularly fun. But doing it with someone like Sarah who makes me rethink everything I thought I knew about architecture and design–well, that’s a dream come true. The sound quality of this episode is poor and I’m really disappointed by that. But if you are willing to listen a little harder than you usually do, you will be rewarded with a unique, challenging, and inspirational discussion.”

  Sarah Williams Goldhagen taught at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design for ten years and was the New Republic’s architecture critic until recently. Currently a contributing editor at Art in America and Architectural Record, she is an award-winning writer who has written about buildings, cities, and landscapes for many national and international publications, including the New York Times, the American Prospect, and Harvard Design Magazine. She lives in New York City.

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  What Animals Can Teach Us About Free Will

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Helen Steward

  For millennia, human beings have believed that we have free will-that we are agents who can choose our own paths. But what does this mean in the age of antidepressants and identity politics? Perhaps more intriguing, does this imply that people are unique, that we are the only animals that are undetermined? Our guest on this episode says “no,” asking not what it means to be a free person, but what it means to be a free animal. This conversation combines a classical philosophical debate with new insights in cognitive science to rethink what it means to choose an action.

  Host Jack Russell Weinstein says, “Free will is the kind of topic that sounds so abstract that one wonders if it matters. A good conversation like the one Helen offers us shows quite the opposite, that the debate is not only relevant, but that it has a special urgency all of its own.”

  Helen Steward is the Professor of Philosophy of Mind and Action at the University of Leeds in England. Her research interests lie mainly in the philosophy of action and free will, the philosophy of mind, and the metaphysical and ontological issues which bear on these areas. She is the author of The Ontology of Mind and A Metaphysics for Freedom.

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  What a Food Magazine Tells Us About the World

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Kerry Diamond

  Food is more than just sustenance. It is a culture unto itself. It is our identity and our aspirations, pleasure and a tool. Members of the food industry know this and make money bringing us both the food we want and the food they want us to want. On this episode we examine it all through the perspective of a food magazine, Cherry Bombe. We’ll look at how the restaurant industry change when it magnifies the voices of women and what happens to culture when we embrace trends alongside the classics.

  Host Jack Russell Weinstein says, “Kerry is an old and dear friend and this gave us latitude to both disagree and just follow the conversation where it leads. This means that we cover lots of ground culturally and philosophically, but we manage to do it was a naturalness that will pull even the most skeptical listeners at ease.”

  Kerry Diamond is co-founder and Directing Editor of Cherry Bombe magazine. She is co-owner of three Brooklyn restaurants: Nightingale Nine, Smith Canteen, and Wilma Jean. She has been the former editor at Yahoo Food, Kerry was the Beauty Director at Harper’s Bazaar and Beauty Editor at Women’s Wear Daily. She was the head of Public Relations at Lancome’s and Coach’s United States Division.

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  Can Ordinary People Understand Advanced Logic?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Otávio Bueno

  Formal logic is complicated, abstract and daunting. Its precise language makes it virtually impossible to read without significant training. But logic is also tremendously important. At its best, it provides a focused framework for understanding the most human of abilities: rational thought.

  We at Why? Radio wanted to ask whether logic is really out of reach for the general public? Is it actually too hard to understand? It turns out, the answer is “no, it is not.” On this episode, we explore what logic is, how it works, and investigate how it holds the key to good and bad thinking.

  Host Jack Russell Weinstein says, “I was really nervous about this episode. The task we set for ourselves–talking about such an abstract and technical subject–was really difficult. But Otávio and I made it work; he was the perfect guest to guide us past the philosophical land mines. The episode is funny, compelling, challenging, and most of all, accessible to everyone. It is everything I had hoped for.”

  Otávio Bueno is Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Miami. He is the author of two books and almost 180 papers on the philosophy of science, mathematics, logic, metaphysics and epistemology. He is also editor in chief of he journal Synthese. His personal webpage can be found here.

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  Can We Know Things Better?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Ernest Sosa

  We live in the days of “alternative facts,” what does this say about human knowledge? People think that climate change is a myth, even though most scientists claim the evidence for it is overwhelming. What does this tell us about our ability to know what we know? To answer these questions, Why? Radio looks past the facts and the disagreements to examine the human faculty of knowledge itself. In today’s episode we introduce and explore epistemology–the philosophical investigation into the nature and limits of knowledge

  Ernest Sosa is the Board of Governors professor of philosophy at Rutgers University. He is the author of several books, including A Virtue Epistemology, and Judgment and Agency.

  Ernie is a past president of the American Philosophical Association and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He edits the philosophical journals Noûs and Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. He was also the 2010 recipient of the Nicholas Rescher Prize for contributions to systematic philosophy.

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  Feminism as Philosophy, Politics, and Friendship

  Jack Russell Weinstein, Gloria Steinem, and Suzanne Braun Levine

  It is Why? Radio’s 100th episode; a powerful milestone for a monthly show. To help us celebrate, we are joined by writers, activists, and feminist icons Gloria Steinem and Suzanne Braun Levine. As the founder and the first editor of Ms. Magazine, Gloria and Suzanne left an indelible mark on the American consciousness, but they weren’t with stopping there. They have spent almost a half century fighting for political, social, and even philosophical equality, and did so as friends with a joint mission.

  Gloria Steinem is a writer, lecturer, political activist, and feminist organizer. She is a frequent media spokeswoman on issues of equality, In 1972, she co-founded Ms. magazine, and remained one of its editors for fifteen years. Her books include the bestsellers My Life on the Road, Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, Moving Beyond Words, and Marilyn: Norma Jean, on the life of Marilyn Monroe, and in India, As If Women Matter. Her writing also appears in many anthologies and textbooks, and she was an editor of Houghton Mifflin’s The Reader’s Companion to U.S. Women’s History.

  Suzanne Braun Levine is a writer, editor and nationally recognized authority on women, families, and changing gender roles. She was the first editor of Ms. magazine and the first woman to edit the Columbia Journalism Review. In her recent work Levine has celebrated a new stage of life – Second Adulthood – and she reports on the ongoing changes in women’s lives in her books, in media interviews (including Oprah! Charlie Rose and NPR) and lectures, and in frequent blogs for AARP, Encore.org, Huff/Post50, and Next/Avenue.

  Our second set of guests for this episode: eleven-year old Faith and Adina (pictured from left to right).

  They are the founders and the current leadership of the Young Feminists of Grand Forks, a weekly discussion group foscused on education, activism, and introducing people to the feminist cause. They started the group as a response to the most recent presidential election. It represents their intent to change the minds of those who were resistant to the idea of a woman president, as well as their own desires to learn more about the history of women and activism. They also see it as a tool to help their peers understand that feminism is important and something to be proud of. YFGF is open to all kids with an interest in (or who are curious about) feminist topics.

  Faith and Adina’s interview with Gloria and Suzanne is feautured in the last fifteen minutes of the episode. We thank them for their bravery and for joining us on Why? Radio.

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  Thinking Philosophically About the Black Church

  Jack Russell Weinstein and J. Kameron Carter

  People have been thinking a lot about race lately and we’ve also been thinking about the role of religion in elections. What we haven’t been doing is examining what happens when the two intersect. On the next episode of Why? we are going to do just this, examining specifically the role of the church in the lives, politics, and self-image of the African-American community (and everyone else).

  J. Kameron Carter is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Black Church Studies at Duke University. He works in black studies (African American and African Diaspora studies), using theological and religious studies concepts, critical theory, and increasingly poetry in doing so. His Race: A Theological Account appeared in 2008 (New York: Oxford UP). He is the editor of Religion and the Future of Blackness (a special issue of South Atlantic Quarterly, 2013).

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  Philosophy and Disability

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Anita Silvers

  In 2003 there was a fire at a Russian boarding school, 28 deaf children were killed. In a published analysis, two philosophers claimed that it was their deafness that caused their death. They had to be woken up individually and they couldn’t hear instructions to run. The rest was inevitable. Anita Silvers not only takes issue with this interpretation, but describes this analysis as emblematic of everything wrong about our thinking on disability. On this episode of Why? we talk with her about the philosophical errors in our discussions about the disabled and how to learn from these mistakes.

  Anita Silvers is professor and chair of the philosophy department at San Francisco State University. She has authored, coauthored, and edited many books and articles. Her professional website is here . She is a nationally recognized advocate for disability rights with a scholarly emphasis on medical ethics, bioethics, social and political philosophy, and feminism.

  The text of this episode’s monologue can be found here at our blog, PQED.

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  An Argument for Moral Relativism

  Jack Russell Weinstein and David B. Wong

  Nothing could be more common than people asserting that their own ethical beliefs are right while others are wrong. From abortion, to vegetarianism, to pacifism, to democracy, people and cultures are convinced that their way of life is morally superior. But what happens when we consider the possibility that there is more than one way to live ethically? What happens when we are charitable about others’ way of life? On this episode we are going to do just that.

  David Wong is the Susan Fox Beischer and George D. Beischer Professor of Philosophy at Duke University. Before he moved to Duke, he was the Harry Austryn Wolfson Professor of Philosophy at Brandeis University and the John M. Findlay Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Boston University. His books include Moral Relativity (University of California Press, 1984) and Natural Moralities (Oxford University Press, 2006). A book of critical essays on Natural Moralities is Moral Relativism and Chinese Philosophy: David Wong and his Critics, ed. by Yang Xiao and Yong Huang, SUNY Press, 2014), with responses by Wong to the essays. Wong has co-edited with Kwong-loi Shun Confucian Ethics: a Comparative Study of Self, Autonomy and Community (Cambridge University Press, 2004).

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  Women and Men: Talking, Arguing, Loving, and Politicking

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Deborah Tannen

  Sixteen years ago, Deborah Tannen published the bestselling You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, a book that ushered in a very public face to a prolific scholarly career. Her work on gender and communication has expanded to focus on romantic and work life, relations between mothers and daughters, siblings, and the role of argument in talking, all through the lens of gender. On this episode of Why? we look at her work over the last couple of decades and explore what it can tell us about our lives, our relationships, and our politics.

  Deborah Tannen is University Professor and Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University and author of many books and articles about how the language of everyday conversation affects relationships. She is best known as the author of You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, which was on the New York Times best seller list for nearly four years, including eight months as No. 1, and has been translated into 31 languages. Her most recent book, You Were Always Mom’s Favorite!: Sisters in Conversation Throughout Their Lives, also a New York Times best seller, received a Books for a Better Life Award and was featured on 20/20 and NPR’s Morning Edition.

  Among her other books, You’re Wearing THAT?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation spent ten weeks on the New York Times best seller list; Talking from 9 to 5: Women and Men at Work was a New York Times Business best seller; The Argument Culture: Stopping America’s War of Words received the Common Ground Book Award; and I Only Say This Because I Love You: Talking to Your Parents, Partner, Sibs, and Kids When You’re All Adults received a Books for a Better Life Award.

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  Should Prostitution be Legal?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Peter De Marneffe

  We can all agree that forced prostitution is morally repugnant, but does it become more acceptable when it is voluntary? Many countries have legalized prostitution and many people think that the freedom to do what one wants with one’s own body should include the freedom to sell sex. But many others don’t, suggesting that no one can consent to sell their body, no matter how it might seem. Join Why? Radio for this controversial and interesting discussion.

  Peter de Marneffe is a Professor of Philosophy at Arizona State University. He writes about liberty and liberalism, individual rights, and government paternalism. He is the author of Liberalism and Prostitution (Oxford University Press, 2010) and The Legalization of Drugs with Doug Husak (Cambridge University Press, 2005). He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Harvard University in 1989, and wrote his dissertation, “Liberalism and Education,” under the direction of John Rawls and Thomas Scanlon. He has been a visiting fellow at the Princeton University Center for Human Values, the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University, and a visiting assistant professor at Stanford University.

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  How to Think Philosophy About Black Identity

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Tommie Shelby

  In the face of the tremendous violence of the last few days, in an election season like the current one, and with movements like Black Lives Matters, America and the world are focused on issues related to the African-American experience. But what happens when ask about the deeper foundations of what it means to be black? On this episode of Why? We are going to focus on these questions and Africana philosophy, the new branch of philosophy that explores the experiences and concerns people of African descent.

  This episode begins with a discussion about where Black thought fits into philosophy and then expands into a general discussion of Black identity. Tommie Shelby is the Caldwell Titcomb Professor of African and African American Studies and of Philosophy at Harvard University. He is the author of We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity and the forthcoming book, Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent and Reform. His website can be found at www.tommieshelby.com.

  The text of this episode’s monologue can be found here at our blog, PQED.

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  Is Religious Commitment Important

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Robert Audi

  Religious debate in the United States focuses on fanaticism and politics. But, do we really know what religion is and the difference between a good reason for believing something and a bad one? And what about religious commitment? What justifies it and what takes it over the top? On today’s episode of Why? Radio we are going to look at religion and ask the hard questions: Is it a good in itself? Should it remain private and what is its relationship to reason and rationality?

  Robert Audi is the John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of 16 books and hundreds of articles on ethics, political philosophy, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of religion.

  The text of this episode’s monologue can be found here at our blog, PQED.

  Robert mentioned a list of important feature any religion is likely to have. The list is as follows:

  I. Belief in one or more supernatural beings.
  2. A distinction between sacred and profane objects.
  3. Ritual acts focused on those objects.
  4. A moral code believed to be sanctioned by the god(s). 5. Religious feelings (awe, mystery, etc.) that tend to be aroused by the sacred objects and during rituals.
  6. Prayer and other communicative forms of conduct concerning the god(s).
  7. A world view according adherents a significant place in the universe.
  8. A more or less comprehensive organization of one’s life based on the world view.
  9. A social organization bound together by (1)-(8).

  The list of from his book Religious Commitment and Secular Reason, p. 35.

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  Do We Still Need The Eighteenth Century?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Ryan Patrick Hanley

  The 18th century was a time of great change, both philosophically and politically. Yet many people reject its ideals, calling out the hypocrisy of Thomas Jefferson and the oppression that comes from being committed to Truth rather than the downtrodden. On this episode of Why?, we take another look at this exciting period of time and ask whether the enlightenment and its philosophers still have a place in today’s intellectual and political debate.

  Ryan Patrick Hanley is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Marquette University. His research in the history of political philosophy focuses on the Scottish Enlightenment. He is the author of Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue (Cambridge University Press, 2009), and co-editor, with Darrin M. McMahon, of The Enlightenment: Critical Concepts in History, 5 vols. (Routledge, 2010). In addition, Professor Hanley is the editor of the Penguin Classics edition of Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (Penguin, 2010), the editor of the forthcoming Adam Smith: A Princeton Guide (Princeton University Press), and current President of the International Adam Smith Society. His recent articles have appeared or are forthcoming in American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Political Theory, European Journal of Political Theory, Review of Politics, History of Political Thought and Journal of the History of Philosophy, among others. He is also the recipient of Fellowships from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Arête Initiative, and is currently at work on a study of love and wisdom in Enlightenment moral and political philosophy.

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  How to Think Philosophically About Aging

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Sharona Hoffman

  Everyone gets older, but not everyone plans for it. Even fewer people think about that planning philosophically. On the next episode of Why?, we are going to look closely at one author’s practical guidebook for elder care and consider it, not as practical exercise, but as a philosophical inquiry into getting older.

  Sharona Hoffman is the Edgar A. Hahn Professor of Law, a Professor of Bioethics and the Co-Director of the Law-Medicine Center at Case Western Reserve University. In 2013, Sharona was selected by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for a scholar-in-residence fellowship in public health law. She has also twice spent a sabbatical semester as a Visiting Scholar at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2007 and 2014) and was a Visiting Scholar at Emory University in 2014 as well. She has published over sixty articles and book chapters on health law and civil rights issues. She is also the author of the book Aging with a Plan: How a Little Thought Today Can Vastly Improve Your Tomorrow (Praeger 2015).

  This is the second time Sharona has been on Why? Her first episode “The Morality (and Legality) of Universal Healthcare” can be found here.

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  Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

  2500 years ago, Plato wrote the central texts of the discipline we call philosophy. He asked the questions that people still ask today and set the tone for a conversation that has continued, unabated, for two and a half millennia. On this episode we look at Plato’s work and ask why, despite all the threats, violence, censorship, and even the marginalization, philosophy still exists, why Plato is still at the center of it all, and what it would look like if he were still here, walking among us.Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is a novelist and philosopher. She received her Ph.D. from Princeton University. She is the author of ten books, including both novels and non-fiction, including the critically acclaimed The Mind-Body Problem and Thirty-Six Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction. The latter was named 2010’s best fiction book of the year by The Christian Science Monitor and among the top eleven best by The Washington Post. Her latest book is Plato at The Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away.

  In 1996, Rebecca became a MacArthur Fellow, receiving the “Genius Award.” In 2005, she was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2006, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Radcliffe Fellowship. In 2008, she was designated a Humanist Laureate by the International Academy of Humanism. In 2015, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama in a ceremony at the White House.

  Rebecca has been on Why? before, discussing the relationship between Philosophy and Fiction. You can hear that episode here. Her personal webpage is here

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  Are Sports Destroying American Universities?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Murray A. Sperber

  When we think of college, we think of sports: of the big 10, of the NCAA, of the draft. We identify schools by their colors and mascots. Yet, the more money college sports earns and the more professionalized it becomes, the more horrified many are by the impact they have on universities. On the next episode of Why? Radio we’re going to examine this head on, asking about the impact of sports on academics, looking at how they have complete changed student culture.Murray Sperber is a Visiting Professor in the Cultural Studies of Sport in Education program At the University of California, Berkeley; he taught for many years at Indiana University, Bloomington, and is now a Professor Emeritus of English and American Studies. Sperber has authored seven books, including Beer & Circus: How Big-Time College Sports is Crippling Undergraduate Education, which Sports Illustrated placed on its list of “100 Best Sports Books of All-time.” His book Shake Down the Thunder: The Creation of Notre Dame Football, was named by Sports Illustrated as the second best sports history book.

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  What Does Buddhism Offer an African-American Woman?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Janice Dean Willis

  Jan Willis was raised in the Jim Crow south and had crosses burnt on her lawn when she received a scholarship for Cornell University. But her life didn’t just take her through the civil rights movement and the Ivy League, it also took her to India which led her to become a professor of Buddhism and a practicing Buddhist. How did her new religion fit with her Baptist upbringing? How does being a religious scholar relate to being a practitioner? Should we think of Buddhism as an “Eastern” religion with little to do with Western philosophy? On this next episode of Why?, we’ll ask these and other related questions, as we talk memoir, belief, and religious experience with a foremost scholar of Tibetan Buddhism.Janice D. Willis is Emerita Professor of Religion and East Asian Studies at Wesleyan University. One of the earliest American scholar-practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism, Willis has published numerous essays and articles on Buddhist meditation, hagiography, women and Buddhism, and Buddhism and race. She has studied with Tibetan Buddhists in India, Nepal, Switzerland and the U.S. for four decades, and has taught courses in Buddhism for 32 years. In December 2000, “Time” magazine named Willis one of six “spiritual innovators for the new millennium.” In 2003, she was a recipient of Wesleyan University’s Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching, and she was profiled in a 2005 “Newsweek” article about “Spirituality in America.”The text of this episode’s monologue can be found here at our blog, PQED.

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  Metaphors We Live By: A Classic Revisited

  Jack Russell Weinstein, George Lakoff, and Mark Johnson

  We use metaphors all the time, from describing friends as two peas in a pod, to old age as a chapter in someone’s life. We think of argument as war and move forward into the future. Would our understanding of friendship, argument and the future change if we used different metaphors? Could we even talk about them if we didn’t use metaphors at all? On this episode, we ask these questions and consider how deeply metaphors influence our understanding.

  George Lakoff is the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California, Berkley and Mark Johnson is the Philip H. Knight Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Oregon. They are the authors together and separately of more than a dozen books.

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  What is Courage?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Ryan K. Balot

  We describe people as brave all the time, but what do we really mean? Does the bravery of a firefighter have anything in common with the courage of reading books that challenge our deepest beliefs? Is there a specific kind of courage that comes from living in a democracy? What do we learn from looking at the Greek roots of the word and how is their experience relevant to ours? On this episode of Why? we’re going to look at the classical roots of courage and examine its meaning in modern democracies.Ryan Balot Ryan Balot is Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto. He is the author of many books and articles, including Courage in the Democratic Polis: Ideology and Critique in Classical Athens and A Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought.

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  Text as Image, Image as Text: How One Artist Uses Language to Combine Art and Literature

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Alexandria Grant

  What happens when you combine abstract art with texts for poems and books? What can a painter do in collaboration with authors, people who work in an entirely different medium and whose writing may have no connection to the visual arts at all? On this s episode of Why? we talk with Alexandra Grant about her use of text in her paintings and her explorations with writers of all stripes.

  Alexandra Grant is a text-based artist who uses language and networks of words as the basis for her work in painting, drawing and sculpture. She has been the subject of shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), the Contemporary Museum (Baltimore), and galleries in the US and abroad. Grant has explored ideas of translation, identity, and dis/location not only in drawings, painting and sculpture, but also in conversation with other artists and writers, such as her long-term collaborator, hypertext author Michael Joyce, the actor Keanu Reeves, artist Channing Hansen, and the philosopher Hélène Cixous. Grant maps language in different media: from intricate wire filigree sculptures to large scale drawing/paintings on paper. She investigates translation not only from language to language, but also from text to image, spoken language to written word, and representations in two dimensions to three dimensional objects. Some of the basic queries that fuel her work are: How do we “read” and “write” images? How does language place us? What is the role of the hand in a world dominated by electronic communication?

  See Alexandra’s work at her website: www.alexandragrant.com

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  Are we Morally Obligated to Live in a Racially-Integrated Society?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Elizabeth Anderson

  Are we living in a post-racial America? How important is integration to democracy and why do we tend to live in such segregated enclaves? Do we have a moral obligation to integrate our society, even if it means some people might not want to live next to the neighbors they end up with?
  Elizabeth Anderson is the John Dewey Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies and the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is the author The Imperative of Integration and Value in Ethics and Economics, and numerous scholarly articles. She is currently working on a history of egalitarianism, with a special focus on the social epistemology of moral learning, taking the history of abolitionism as a central case study.

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  Are we Morally Obligated to Live in a Racially-Integrated Society?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Elizabeth Anderson

  Are we living in a post-racial America? How important is integration to democracy and why do we tend to live in such segregated enclaves? Do we have a moral obligation to integrate our society, even if it means some people might not want to live next to the neighbors they end up with?
  Elizabeth Anderson is the John Dewey Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies and the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is the author The Imperative of Integration and Value in Ethics and Economics, and numerous scholarly articles. She is currently working on a history of egalitarianism, with a special focus on the social epistemology of moral learning, taking the history of abolitionism as a central case study.

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  Why Don't People Believe Science?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Dan M. Kahan

  Every day, people reject evolution and climate change, arguing instead for their personal beliefs over evidence. Despite years of education and more access to information than any time in history, people are rejecting vaccinations and forsaking personal savings for the lottery. On this episode of Why? Radio we look at the science of science communication and the patterns behind why people reject science.

  Dan Kahan is the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law and Professor of Psychology at Yale Law School. In addition to risk perception, his areas of research include criminal law and evidence. Prior to coming to Yale in 1999, Professor Kahan was on the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School. He also served as a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court (1990-91) and to Judge Harry Edwards of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1989-90). He received his B.A. from Middlebury College and his J.D. from Harvard University.

  Dan is a lead researcher for The Cultural Cognition Project, a group of scholars interested in studying how cultural values shape public risk perceptions and related policy beliefs. Visit that webpage here: http://www.culturalcognition.net/