Society & Culture

Heather McGhee, author of 2021's The Sum of Us, discusses the economic cost of racism, the importance of community organizing and the "zero-sum lie" that progress for some means loss for others.

Critic-at-large John Powers gives his due to the movies, TV and books he wasn't able to cover earlier in the year, including La Grazia, Andor, Mississippi Blue 42 and the documentary Mr. Scorsese.

Arnett co-wrote his new film, in which he plays a man going through a divorce who finds himself onstage doing stand-up. He also has an extensive voiceover career, and co-hosts the SmartLess podcast.

Patrick Markee spent two decades walking through New York City's tunnels, armories and intake centers. His book asks: what if homelessness isn't a personal failing, but the result of policy choices?

The mother daughter duo have always shared a profession. But when Ladd was diagnosed with lung disease, the two started sharing so much more. Ladd died Nov. 3. Originally broadcast June 26, 2023.

In 2015, Copeland made history as the first Black woman to become a principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre. Copeland took her final bow with American Ballet Theatre in October, after spending years away from performance.

Yousafzai chronicled her childhood in the 2013 memoir, I Am Malala. In the new memoir, Finding My Way, she writes about her life at Oxford and beyond. It's the story of a college student who, like many others before her, tries marijuana, fails exams and falls in love for the first time. But it also reveals Yousafzai's efforts to deal with the trauma of the attack she had survived years earlier.

Alysia Abbott was raised by a single father at the dawn of the gay liberation era. Sofia Coppola recently adapted Abbott's memoir, Fairyland, to film. Originally broadcast in 2013.

Julian's new book, We Survived the Night, is part memoir, part indigenous history and part "coyote stories. For Julian, telling his story in the memoir and film is part of a broader mission: "As a Native person who's living in the wake of a cultural genocide that nearly wiped our way of life ... off the face of this Earth, how you choose to live your life becomes a somewhat existential question," he says.

Goodall, who died Oct. 1, became one of the most famous scientists of the 20th century for her work observing chimpanzees in the wild in East Africa. Originally broadcast in 1993 and 1999.

Law's Netflix series with Jason Bateman follows two brothers in New York City, one a successful restaurateur, the other on the run and in debt. Law's also an executive producer of the series.

When Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Trymaine Lee was 38, he suffered a sudden heart attack that nearly killed him. The incident made him reconsider the years he had spent reporting on the lives cut short by gun violence — and the stress it had put on his body.

Bluegrass singer-songwriter Billy Strings talks with Fresh Air producer Sam Briger. Though he never took formal lessons, Strings learned to play the guitar by hanging around with his dad and listening to him play Doc Watson. Strings' newest album is a collaboration with bluegrass guitarist Bryan Sutton called Live at the Legion.

Emmy Award-winning Law & Order: Special Victims Unit actor Mariska Hargitay was just 3 years old in 1967 when her movie star mother, Jayne Mansfield, died in a tragic car crash. Hargitay's new documentary, My Mom Jayne, is an attempt to reconcile the public and private versions of Mansfield.

Bergman died July 17 at the age of 99. For more than 60 years he collaborated on award-winning songs with his wife and co-writer Marilyn Bergman. The couple spoke with Terry Gross in 2007.

After pressuring elite universities, the Trump administration is now focusing on George Mason. Education reporter Katherine Mangan discusses why GMU's president says it's a backlash to DEI efforts.

As a member of the Aquinnah Wampanoag, Joseph Lee takes readers beyond the celebrity summer scene of Martha's Vineyard and into the heart of Noepe, the name his people have called the island for centuries. His book is Nothing More of This Land: Community, Power, and the Search for Indigenous Identity.

In a new book, Grynbaum explores how Condé Nast publications were the arbiters of taste for decades in the U.S. Grynbaum's new book is called Empire of the Elite: Inside Condé Nast, the Media Dynasty That Reshaped America.

Leila Mottley's latest novel, The Girls Who Grew Big, follows three women, ages 16, 18 and 20, as they navigate pregnancy and motherhood in a small town in the Florida panhandle. With the state's abortion laws in flux, Mottley says she had to keep adjusting her characters' experiences to fit the new reality.

Author Ricky Riccardi says Armstrong's innovations as a trumpeter and vocalist helped set the soundtrack of the 20th century. His book is Stomp Off, Let's Go. Originally broadcast Jan. 30, 2025.