Society & Culture

Wes Anderson co-wrote and produced the new film The Royal Tenenbaums, about a family of geniuses, who despite their talents are ill-suited to deal with everyday problems. The family comes together for an unexpected reunion. The film stars Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Billy Murray, Wyneth Paltrow and Ben Stiller. Anderson also co-wrote and directed Bottle Rocket and Rushmore.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. He's the author of a number of books including a memoir about his boyhood, An Hour Before Daylight His latest is a memoir, Christmas in Plains (Simon & Schuster). Carter and his family has spent the last 48 Christmases in Plains, through out his Navy career, his stint as Governor and his tenure as President. The only exception was 1979 when American hostages were being held in Iran.

His new book, Hitler: 1936-1945 Nemesis is the second volume of his biography of Hitler. It has been nominated for the Whitbread Prize. The first volume, Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris was an editors choice of the New York Times and is now available in paperback. Kershaw is a professor of modern history at the University of Sheffield.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg on the terms "highbrow," "middlebrow," and "Lowbrow."

Linguist Geoff Nunberg considers the efforts to make talking robots.

LeRoy is the author of The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, a collection of autobiographical stories, and Sarah, a novel about a 12-year-old hustler. LeRoy writes for NY Press, Shout and The Face.

Dalton Conley is the author of the memoir, Honky (Vintage books) about growing up white in a predominately African American and Latino neighborhood on the Lower East Side of New York. Conley is Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Advanced Social Science Research at New York University.

Ruth Kluger is the author of the new memoir, Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered (The Feminist Press). Kluger was ten years old when she and her mother were deported to the Jewish "ghetto" Theresienstadt. From there they were sent to Auschwitz and the young Kluger survived to go to the work camp Christianstadt by lying about her age. Her memoir, Still Alive, was published in Germany in 1992 and has just been published in the U.S. Kluger became a distinguished professor of German and is professor emerita at the University of California, Irvine.

Writer Ken Kesey died Saturday 11/10/01 at the age of 66. Kesey was a leading figure of 60s counterculture. As the organizer of the Merry Pranksters, Kesey did as much as anyone to popularize the use of LSD and other hallucinogens. Kesey also wrote two of the most popular books of the era, Sometimes a Great Notion and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. He also the author of Demon Box, Caverns and other books.

Language commentator Geoff Nunberg considers the puzzle of the anonymous anthrax letters.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg reflects on "The Star Spangled Banner" and possible alternative anthems that would be less militaristic and easier for everyone to sing.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg on the language of religious fundamentalists.

Author Jonathan Franzen joins Fresh Air to discuss his latest novel, The Corrections. The story revolves around the lives of three children who live far away from their aging parents. The parents' health problems have made it difficult for them to take care of themselves. The children then have to decide how willing they are to change their own lives to care for their parents.

Mary Karr reads:
“There Was Earth Inside Them” (1963) by Paul Celan
“”On Prayer” (1974) by Czeslaw Milosz

Film critic John Powers reviews L.I.E., an independent film about a troubled teenage boy and the older man who steps into his life. L.I.E. stands for Long Island Expressway, where the boy's mother died in an auto crash.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg on the history of the term "terrorism."

Linguist Geoff Nunberg on the practice of giving names to military operations, like the misconceived Operation Infinite Justice that was pulled from use.

Imam Sayed Hassan Qazwini is the religious leader of the Islamic Center of America in Detroit, the biggest such center in the United States. It includes a Mosque in which he preaches.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg considers the words we use to denote a down-turn in the economy.

Cartoonist Daniel Clowes. Drawn in 1950s pop culture style, his comics are darkly humorous satires of middle class America. His graphic novel Ghost World (first published in 1993) is the basis of the new film of the same name. His first comic book series was Lloyd Llewellyn, followed by Eightball (both published by Fantagraphics Books). Clowes was the first cartoonist to contribute a comic story to Esquire annual fiction issue.