Skip to main content

Segments by Date

Recent segments within the last 6 months are available to play only on NPR

Select Topics

Select Air Date

to

Select Segment Types

Segment Types

20,883 Segments

Sort:

Newest

46:09

General Colin Powell: The Fresh Air Interview.

Four-star General, and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell. He has a new autobiography My American Journey (Random House, written with Joseph E. Persico), and an anxious audience, waiting to see if he will declare his candidacy for President of the United States. Powell first came to the attention of the American public during the Gulf War, officiating at the televised gulf war briefings. Powell retired from the military in 1993, after 35 years in uniform.

Interview
04:25

Why Booker T. Washington is Still Controversial.

Commentator Gerald Early reflects on the legacy of Booker T. Washington, who among other things, founded the Tuskegee Institute. Today is the 100th anniversary of a speech given by Washington at the Atlanta Exposition, which celebrated a "new" industrialized, post-reconstruction South.

Commentary
05:02

Carl Stalling Taught Us How to Listen to Modern Music.

Jazz Critic Kevin Whitehead reviews a cd featuring Carl Stalling's cartoon music. From 1936 to 1958 Stalling composed music for Warner Brother's cartoons including: Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and the Road Runner. The title is "The Carl Stalling Project, Vol. 2, Warner Bros."

Review
20:43

Writing and Parenting with Bipolar Illness.

Novelist Kaye Gibbons. She's the author of several acclaimed novels: Ellen Foster and Charms for the Easy Life. One reviewer says "Gibbon's brilliance lies in examining with unsentimental tenderness a family poised on the brink of disaster." Gibbons has a new novel, Sights Unseen (Putnam) about a girl's life with her manic-depressive mother. Gibbons herself has the illness, and she'll talk with Terry about that.

Interview
31:41

Kay Redfield Jamison Discusses "Mood and Madness."

Psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison is an authority on manic-depression, and the author of the 1993 book Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, (Free Press/MacMillan). Recently Jamison disclosed her own 30-year battle with manic-depression in the new memoir, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness (Knopf). Jamison is Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

15:43

Comedienne, Actress, and Writer Ellen DeGeneres.

Stand up comic Ellen DeGeneres, the star of the sitcom "Ellen." The show airs on Wednesday nights on ABC. Last year DeGeneres co-hosted the 1994 Emmy awards and received a People's Choice Award for Favorite Female in a New Television series. She now has a new book, My Point. . . And I Do Have One. (Bantam News).

Interview
19:14

The Ramifications of the Mark Fuhrman Tapes.

Probation officer for Los Angeles County, Jim Galipeau. He works with gangs in Los Angeles Galipeau has been a probation officer for almost 30 years. He's a Vietnam vet, and when he was a teenager, he was a street fighter and drug addict. Terry also talked with Galipeau in 1993 when he discussed the truce he was working on with the gangs.

Interview
07:00

"The Voice of the Nation's Police Officers."

Newspaper publisher Cynthia Brown of American Police Beat. The newspaper's motto is to be "The Voice of the Nation's Police Officers." The tabloid-style paper is written for and by cops and caters to their concerns. (The paper's address is P.O. BOX 382702, Cambridge, MA 02238-2702; Tel: 617-491-8878; FAX: 617-354-6515)

Interview
21:57

Rogue Cops in Philadelphia.

Journalist Mark Bowden ("Bow" like "Cow") for The Philadelphia Inquirer. He's just concluded a three part series (September 10-12, 1995) of articles on police corruption in Philadelphia. Most of the corruption was centered at the 39th Police District, and involves potentially thousands of cases in which persons have been falsely arrested and imprisoned.

Interview
42:57

The Voice of the Convict.

Publisher and editor Richard Stratton of the magazine Prison Life. The magazine is written for and about prisoners, and includes such regular features as In Cell Cooking and Cellmate of the Month. It also includes legal advice, medical and health tips, and fiction, poetry, and art by prisoners and ex-prisoners. Stratton spent eight years in prison for pot smuggling. This year HBO began a series of documentaries on life behind bars with the Prison Life magazine.

Interview
16:08

Dancer and Choreographer Bill T. Jones.

Dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones. He founded the acclaimed Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company with his partner and lover, Arnie Zane. Their partnership lasted 17 years until Zane's death in 1988 from AIDS-related complications. Jones has been a recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" Award. His recent work, "Still/Here" is what he terms a "poem" about death. It's based on a series of "survival workshops" he conducted with people across the country who are dealing with illness and death.

Interview
21:57

Reports from the U. N. Women's Conference in Beijing.

Political scientist, specializing in women's studies, Amrita Basu. She teaches at Amherst College, and has just edited a collection of essays on women's movements worldwide, The Challenge Local Feminisms: Women's Movements in Global Perspective, (Westview Press).

Reporter Vicky Que is a reporter at WHYY in Philadelphia, and is attending the NGO Forum on Women, and the Conference on Women in Beijing.

05:34

Cui Jian Won't Stay Secret Long.

World Music critic Milo Miles on Chinese rock star Cui Jian. His latest album is "Balls Under the Red Flag" (Look for it in local Chinatown music stores).

Commentary
23:16

Independent Film Director Robert Rodriguez.

Independent film director Robert Rodriguez. At the age of 23 he made the Spanish-language action film, "El Mariachi" for $7,000. His techniques for keeping the budget down included, shooting before lunch so he wouldn't have to buy the actors lunch, and using a wheelchair that he'd borrowed from the local hospital for a dolly. Rodriguez's film won the Sundance Audience Award in 1993, and went on to be distributed nationally. He's just completed the sequel "Desperado" starring Antonio Banderas.

Interview

Did you know you can create a shareable playlist?

Advertisement

There are more than 22,000 Fresh Air segments.

Let us help you find exactly what you want to hear.
Just play me something
Your Queue

Would you like to make a playlist based on your queue?

Generate & Share View/Edit Your Queue