AUDIO LIBRARY

Farming in America
Ronald Jager—Professor Emeritus, Yale University
Jeannie Whayne—Associate Professor of History, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
Romantic notions of working the land have influenced American ideas of citizenship and morality. And despite the rise of agribusiness and high-tech industries, farm life continues to pique the imagination. What explains America's attachment to the farm?
Philosopher Ronald Jager and Jeannie Whayne join host Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Yager is author of The Fate of Family Farming: Variations on an American Idea. Whayne is author of A New Plantation South: Land, Labor, and Federal Favor in Twentieth-Century Arkansas.

The Home Front
Catherine Lutz—Professor of Anthropology, Brown University
Laura McEnaney—Chair and Associate Professor, History Department, Whittier College
Whether civilians are asked to send care packages to soldiers, rally around the flag, or remove their shoes at airports, what citizens do at home can shape the course of war. How do we create the home front? Anthropologist Catherine Lutz and historian Laura McEnaney join host Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Lutz is author of Homefront: A Military City and the American Twentieth Century. McEnaney is author of Civil Defense Begins at Home: Militarization Meets Everyday Life in the Fifties.

The Zoo
Rory Browne—Associate Dean of Freshman Students, Harvard University
Nigel Rothfels—Adjunct Associate Professor of History, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Since the 19th century, zoos have been drawing crowds in America. But zoos have a complicated identity: they straddle the line between science on one hand and exploitation on the other. How do zoos define our relationships to animals? Historians Rory Browne and Nigel Rothfels join host Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Browne is getting ready to release the book, Zootimes: A Social History of Zoos. Rothfels is author of Savages and Beasts: The Birth of the Modern Zoo.

Film Forum: The Disaster Film
James Berger—Associate Professor, Hofstra University
Jonathan Miller—Film Studies Teacher, Illinois Institute of Technology
Movies are particularly good at generating images of disaster. Some are man-made catastrophes like the burning skyscrapers of The Towering Inferno, while some disasters just fall from the sky, as in Armegeddon. What is the thrill of disaster? Literary scholar James Berger and Film critic Jonathan Miller join host Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Berger is the author of the book After the End: Representations of Post-Apocalypse. Miller is a film critic for Chicago Public Radio.

Acquiring New Rights
Andrew Koppelman—Associate Professor of Law, Northwestern University School of Law
Cass Sunstein—Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence, University of Chicago Law School
The continuing battle over gay marriage raises questions about how new rights are defined and established. When did marriage become a right? And what does it take to get new rights?
Legal scholars Andrew Koppelman and Cass Sunstein join host Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Koppelman is author of The Gay Rights Question in Contemporary American Law. Sunstein is author of Why Societies Need Law.
Originally broadcast December 19, 2003

The Economic Lives of Young Adults
Beth Bailey—Associate Professor of American Studies, University of New Mexico
Steven Mintz—Director, American Cultures Program, University of Houston
Young adults have become the trendsetters among consumers. Yet there are also signs that young Americans are facing economic troubles—fewer jobs and lower wages. What do young adults tell us about the economy?
Historians Beth Bailey and Steven Mintz join host Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Bailey is author of From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America, and she's co-editing the book, The Seventies. Mintz is national co-chair of the Council on Contemporary Families. He's finishing the book, Huck's Raft: A History of American Childhood.

Rethinking American Global Security
John Mearsheimer—Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago
Stephen Van Evera—Professor of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Since the Cold War, the U.S. has had a large military presence in Europe and East Asia. But it's redeploying many of those forces partly because of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Do these changes reflect a major shift in U.S. security strategy?
Political scientists Stephen Van Evera and John Mearsheimer join host Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Van Evera has written extensively on U.S. defense policy. Mearsheimer is author of The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.

Medicine and the Body
Stefani Engelstein—Professor, Department of German and Russian Studies; University of Missouri, Columbia
Martin Pernick—Associate Director, Program in Society and Medicine; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Many physiological changes once thought to be normal are now considered diseases or syndromes. How has medicine come to this view of the body?
Literary scholar Stefani Engelstein and historian of medicine Martin Pernick join host Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Engelstein is working on the book, Anxious Anatomy: The Conception of the Human Form in Literary and Naturalist Discourse. Pernick is author of The Black Stork: Eugenics and the Death of “Defective” Babies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures Since 1915. He's working on the book, When Are You Dead?, which explores the history of uncertainty about the definition of death.

The Midwest
Susan Gray—Historian, Arizona State University
Andrew Cayton—Historian, Miami University
The Midwest has a reputation of being flat, rural, and boring. But during presidential elections, it becomes a political battleground, with a number of crucial swing states up for grabs. What does the Midwest mean to the nation? Historians Susan Gray and Andrew Cayton join host Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Gray is author of the book The Yankee West: Community Life on the Michigan Frontier. Cayton is author of the book Ohio: The History of a People. Gray and Cayton are co-editors of the book The American Midwest: Essays on Regional History.
Originally broadcast Febrary 9, 2004.

The South
David Goldfield—Historian, University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Tara McPherson—Media Studies Scholar, University of Southern California
On issues of race, religion, and politics, the South has often been at odds with the rest of our country, lending it an identity all its own. But does this image of the South reflect reality? Is the South as much an idea as a place?
Originally broadcast July 16, 2003

Imagining the American West
William Handley—Professor of English, University of Southern California
Richard Slotkin—Professor of English, Wesleyan University
The American West has long captured the popular imagination, but its ideals of progress and destiny have sometimes masked stories of racial violence and greed. What has the West contributed to America's sense of itself?
Literary scholars William Handley and Richard Slotkin join host Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Handley is author of Marriage, Violence, and the Nation in the American Literary West. Slotkin is author of Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America.

New England and American Culture
T.H. Breen—Professor of History, Northwestern University
John Wood Sweet—Professor of History, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
From religious freedom to self-reliance to Yankee thrift, New England has produced many of the ideals Americans hold dear. How central is New England to the formation of our national identity? Historians John Wood Sweet and T.H. Breen join host Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Sweet is author of Bodies Politic: Negotiating Race in the American North, 1730-1830. Breen is author of The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence.

The Changing Connotations of Gambling
Ann Fabian—Professor of History and American Studies, Rutgers University, New Brunswick
Jeffrey Franklin—Professor of English, University of Colorado, Denver
From Vegas to Powerball to online casinos, gambling has everyone feeling lucky! Once a back alley vice seen as a threat to middle class morality, gambling is now mainstream entertainment. What explains our shifting attitudes toward gambling?
Historian Ann Fabian and literary scholar Jeffrey Franklin join host Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Fabian is author of Card Sharps and Bucket Shops: Gambling in Nineteenth-Century America. Franklin is author of Serious Play: The Cultural Form of the Nineteenth-Century Realist Novel.

Film Forum: Going Native
Elizabeth Ann Kaplan—Founding Director, The Humanities Institute; State University of New York, Stony Brook
Kirsten Ostherr—Assistant Professor of English, Rice University
From westerns to romantic comedies, films about Americans in foreign cultures are a Hollywood tradition. What do these stories say about American identity and cultural boundaries?
Film scholars Elizabeth Ann Kaplan and Kirsten Ostherr join host Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Kaplan is author of Looking for the Other: Feminism, Film, and the Imperial Gaze and co-editor of Trauma and Cinema: Cross-Cultural Explorations. Ostherr is author of Cinematic Prophylaxis: Globalization and Contagion in the Discourse of World Health.
Originally broadcast February 20, 2004

The Contested Legacy of Ronald Reagan
Michael Schaller — Historian, University of Arizona
John Sloan — Political Scientist, University of Houston
Conservatives still feel an intense attachment to Ronald Reagan and his presidency. And some people argue that the dispute over Reagan's legacy represents an even larger struggle, one to define the values of American political culture.
Host Gretchen Helfrich examines this topic with Michael Schaller, co-author of The Republican Ascendancy: American Politics, 1968-2001, and John Sloan, author of The Reagan Effect: Economics and Presidential Leadership.
Originally broadcast November 13, 2003

The Occult
Alan Clinton — Professor of English, Georgia Institute of Technology
Alex Owen — Professor of History, Northwestern University
In the past, interest in the occult has extended beyond popular culture into science and religion. But the popularity of Harry Potter suggests that our rational culture is still fascinated with the occult. What does that reveal about modern life?
Literary scholar Alan Clinton and historian Alex Owen join host Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Clinton is finishing the book, Mechanical Occult: Automatism, Modernism, and the Specter of Politics. Owen is author of The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern.

The Bible as Book
Paul Gutjahr — Professor, Departments of English, American Studies, and Religion; Indiana University, Bloomington
David Lyle Jeffrey — Professor of English, Baylor University
We tend to think about the Bible as a sacred, religious object. But it's also a book, so it's been translated, edited, redesigned, and repackaged. How does this diversity affect the way its contents are received?
Literary scholars Paul Gutjahr and David Lyle Jeffrey join host Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Gutjahr is author of An American Bible: A History of the Good Book in the United States 1777-1880. Jeffrey is author of Houses of the Interpreter: Reading Scripture, Reading Culture.

The Social Meanings of Cancer
Stewart Justman — Professor of English, University of Montana, Missoula
Barron Lerner — Professor of Internal Medicine, Columbia University
Even for those without the disease, cancer shapes how we think about health, illness, even mortality. How far into our lives does the influence of cancer go?
Literary scholar Stewart Justman and historian of medicine Barron Lerner join host Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Justman is author of Seeds of Mortality: The Public and Private Worlds of Cancer. Lerner is author of The Breast Cancer Wars: Hope, Fear, and the Pursuit of a Cure in Twentieth Century America.

Living Gay
Eric Clarke — Associate Professor of English, University of Pittsburgh
Kevin Kopelson — Professor of English, University of Iowa
We are surrounded by different and conflicting images of what it means to be gay. These varied images raise complicated questions about the links between sexual orientation, lifestyle, and gay identity. What does it mean to “live” gay?
Literary scholars Kevin Kopelson and Eric Clarke join host Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Kopelson is the author of The Writing of Modern Homoerotics. Clarke is author of Virtuous Vice: Homoeroticism and the Public Sphere.

Depression and Culture
Melissa Harris-Lacewell — Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago
Jonathan Metzl - Director, Program in Culture, Health and Medicine; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Depression is now considered by the medical community to be primarily biological in origin. But representations of those suffering from depression still carry social biases.
Psychiatrist Jonathan Metzl and political scientist Melissa Harris-Lacewell join host Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion.
Metzl is the director of the program in culture, health and medicine at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and author of the book, Prozac on the Couch: Prescribing Gender in the Era of Wonder Drugs. Harris-Lacewell is author of the book, Barbershops, Bibles and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought, and is currently at work on a project exploring black women's mental health and African-American politics.

The Constitution and the Courts
Larry Kramer — Associate Dean for Research and Academics and Professor of Law, New York University School of Law
William Treanor — Dean and Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law
When it comes to interpreting the Constitution, the U.S. Supreme Court has the final word. But is the preeminence of the judiciary in our system of checks and balances out of step with the framers' original intent?
Legal scholars William Treanor and Larry Kramer join host Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Treanor has written extensively on Constitutional history and the original understanding of the Constitution. Kramer is author of The People Themselves: Popular Constitutionalism and Judicial Review.

The Contemporary Audience
Richard Dienst — Associate Professor of English, Rutgers University, New Brunswick
John Plotz — Associate Professor of English and American Literature, Brandeis University
American Idol's unruly viewers stand in marked contrast to our stereotypes about audiences as passive, easily manipulated observers. How well do we know the audience?
Literary scholars Richard Dienst and John Plotz join host Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Dienst is author of Still Life in Real Time: Theory after Television. Plotz is author of The Crowd: British Literature and Public Politics.