Ethnomusicologist Steven Feld shares soundscapes of the daily life of indigenous rain forest communities in New Guinea. He explains the importance of song as a mode of communication in the cultures he studied.
Etheridge Knight began writing poetry while serving a sentence for robbery. He talks with Fresh Air producer Danny Miller about how he draws inspiration from his past experiences as a former prisoner and drug addict.
W. D. (BIll) Ehrhart and Jan Barry are poets and publishers whose literary work centers on veterans of the Vietnam War. Ehrhart was recently featured on the PBS series Vietnam: A Television History. Both men read several of their poems on air.
The civil rights leader is running for president as a Democrat on a platform of supporting racial minorities and the economically disadvantaged. Despite the appeal of his positions, many in his party doubt whether he has the ability to defeat Ronald Reagan.
76ers general manager Pat Williams and sportswriter Bill Lyon have co-authored a book about the Philadelphia basketball team's history and recent success. Fresh Air listeners call in with their questions.
The married couple joins Fresh Air's Terry Gross to discuss their experiences a black actors, the need for strong African American writers for theater and television, and their work to promote new works by and about marginalized groups.
Author Jack Chambers has a new biography about the life of jazz legend Miles Davis. Chambers pays special attention to the trumpeter's early years playing, recording, and living with saxophonist Charlie Parker.
Goode will be the first African American mayor in the city's history. He was elected on a platform of job growth, crime reduction, and an improvement of government services. WHYY City Hall reporter Tia O'Brien asks him how he plans to achieve his goals. Fresh Air listeners call in with their questions.
Louis Armstrong grew up in poverty and was raised by a single mother. Despite his later success, he remained shy and modest until the end of his life. Biographer James Lincoln Collier looks at the jazz musician's personal and musical development in New Orleans and Chicago.
Esther Rolle played a maid in the television show Maude, a role which she hoped would subvert the racist tradition of mammy characters typically given to African American actresses. Rolle now works mostly in theater, and is featured in a production of Carson McCullers' The Member of the Wedding.
In conjunction with the Design Since 1945 exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, consumer rights activist Ralph Nader delivers a lecture about the political aspects of aesthetics.
After relocating to England and publishing a book documenting Chinese life, Eve Arnold returned to her home country to capture different facets of the American experience, including Native Americans, biker gangs, Jerry Falwell, and the Ku Klux Klan,
Historian Paul Fussel has observed nine distinct class categories in the United States. He says that, while belief in social mobility is strong in American culture, few people are able to move out of the class into which they were born.
In her new memoir, Deborah Spungen remembers her daughter, who was the girlfriend of the Sex Pistols' bass player Sid Vicious. Vicious confessed to murdering Nancy, but died of a drug overdose before his conviction.
Inspired by cultural shifts in the postwar era, choreographer Alwin Nikolais seeks to break down gender differences in contemporary dance. In order to cultivate a purely aesthetic style, he downplays the sexual tension and eroticism often associated with ballet and other dance traditions.
As the founder of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), which fought for civil rights using nonviolent tactics, Farmer organized 1961's Freedom Rides.
Mark Alan Stamaty's new anthology of his nationally-distributed cartoon, which follows the misadventures of the fictional congressman Bob Forehead, satirizes the world of policymakers, lobbyists and the White House.
The writer and Ms. Magazine founder has a new collection of her work, which collects two decades' worth of essays. She tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross about her writing evolved to become more politically-focused.
Fresh Air broadcasts a lecture by music critic and journalist Nat Hentoff. He worries that the accessibility of U.S. citizens' computerized data is leading to increased surveillance and a troubling, Orwellian practice of law enforcement.
The pop singer, who has recently returned to the stage after a decades-long hiatus, is joined by pianist Mike Abene to perform several classic American songs.
