KERA's Think

[2012-08-27 13:00:00] Who was John Brown and how did his actions at Harpers Ferry in October of 1859 change America forever? We’ll talk this hour with Pulitzer Prize-winner Tony Horwitz, whose book “Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War” (Picador, 2012) is now out in paperback.

[2012-08-27 12:00:00] What’s the value of the food we throw away? According to a new report form the Natural Resources Defense Council, Americans are wasting billions of dollars worth of food and the resources used to produce it every year. We’ll talk this hour with Dana Gunders, Food and Agriculture Project Scientist at the NRDC and author of “Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill.”

[2012-08-23 13:00:00] How did tuna go from being sold primarily as a fertilizer to almost everyone’s lunch box? We’ll talk this hour with Andrew F. Smith who teaches Food Studies at the New School University in New York. His new book is “American Tuna: The Rise and Fall of an Improbable Food” (University of California Press, 2012).

[2012-08-23 12:00:00] How did we come to know the shape of Earth’s landmasses and what was it like to explore and produce the first maps of the unknown regions of the world? We’ll talk this hour with Roger McCoy, professor emeritus at the University of Utah and author of the new book “On the Edge: Mapping North America’s Coasts” (Oxford University Press, 2012).

[2012-08-22 13:00:00] Just how much influence does William Shakespeare still wield some 400 years after he lived and wrote? We’ll find out this hour with writer Stephen Marche, whose book “How Shakespeare Changed Everything” (Harper Perennial, 2012) is now out in paperback.

[2012-08-22 12:00:00] Is sustainable growth still a possibility for the American economy and what role – if any – should government play in a turnaround? We’ll talk this hour with Brendan Miniter, senior editorial director of the George W. Bush Institute and editor of the Institute’s first publication “The 4% Solution: Unleashing the Economic Growth America Needs” (Crown Business, 2012).

[2012-08-21 13:00:00] What do most parents really know about their teen’s sex lives and what do they only think they know? We’ll examine the lives and stories of real families this hour with Sinikka Elliott, assistant professor of sociology at North Carolina State University and author of “Not My Kid: What Parents Believe about the Sex Lives of Their Teenagers” (NYU Press, 2012).

[2012-08-21 12:00:00] In just eleven weeks, the country will either elect a new president or re-elect our current one. How are the campaigns positioning their candidates leading up to the conventions and how is the electorate responding? We’ll spend this hour with William McKenzie, columnist for The Dallas Morning News, Rebecca Deen, associate professor and chair of the political science department at UT Arlington, and Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha, associate professor of political science at the University of North Texas.

[2012-08-20 13:00:00] What does a law school education cost in 2012 and is it worth the investment? This hour we’ll discuss the prospects for law school grads in one of the worst employment markets in decades with Brian Tamanaha, the William Gardiner Hammond Professor of Law at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. He examines the issues in his book, “Failing Law Schools” (University Of Chicago Press, 2012).

[2012-08-20 12:00:00] Can a creative approach help mend our country’s troubled economy and the financial and political divides that plague our society? We’ll talk this hour with Richard Florida, director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, and author of the book “The Rise of the Creative Class–Revisited: 10th Anniversary Edition–Revised and Expanded” (Basic Books, 2012).

[2012-08-16 13:00:00] Do boys need special attention in today’s society? What can parents do to help ensure that boys get off to a good start on a promising future? We’ll talk this hour with attorney, author, and advocate Lisa Bloom. Her new book is “Swagger: 10 Urgent Rules for Raising Boys in an Era of Failing Schools, Mass Joblessness, and Thug Culture” (Vantage Point, 2012).

[2012-08-16 12:00:00] How does Columbus’ famous 15th Century arrival in the New World continue to reverberate in our political and social disputes today? We’ll talk this hour with Charles C. Mann, whose book “1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created” (Vintage, 2012) has just been reissued in paperback.

[2012-08-15 13:00:00] Can a convicted murderer be redeemed in the eyes of society and the friends and families of their victims? We’ll talk this hour with Nancy Mullane, who produces and reports stories for PRI’s This American Life, National Public Radio, and KALW in San Francisco. She tells the stories of several convicted murderers and their struggles to redefine themselves in her new book “Life After Murder: Five Men in Search of Redemption” (PublicAffairs, 2012).

[2012-08-15 12:00:00] With devastating drought, ever-more destructive storms, and record-breaking temperatures, there is no doubt that something is happening to our weather. But how does the weather reflect on-going climate-change and what should we expect in the future? We’ll talk this hour with Michael Lemonick, co-author of “Global Weirdness: Severe Storms, Deadly Heat Waves, Relentless Drought, Rising Seas and the Weather of the Future” (Pantheon, 2012). The book is a collective production of Climate Central, a non-profit, non-partisan science and journalism organization.

[2012-08-14 13:00:00] How many great and forgotten stories are hidden inside a strand of human DNA? We’ll find out this hour with science writer Sam Kean whose new book is “The Violinist’s Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code” (Little, Brown and Company, 2012).