Season Four
The Intricate Riddle of Life
In this season of In These Times, we talk to scholars, musicians and poets, and members of creative communities, to explore the link between making art and making meaning, and how creativity shines a light on the way out of adversity in tough times, past and present.
The Art of Healing
Season 4, Episode 1
In this episode, we explore the transformative power of the arts and humanities in the context of healing.
Joy and Plague
Season 4, Episode 2
In this episode, we hear from a specialist in medieval literature about the bubonic plague that devastated Europe in the 14th century, and how artists like Boccaccio and Chaucer documented the horror of the Black Death but also the joy found in art and creation.
Tangled up in Nature
Season 4, Episode 3
In this episode, we discuss Shakespeare, gardens, and how writers from the past have found meaning in, and read meaning into, the natural world.
The Many Mediums for Confronting Trauma
Season 4, Episode 4
In this episode we talk to a Ph.D. student in history about a patchwork quilt and a family’s journey from enslavement to educational access in the Ivy league and an anthropologist about using film, dance, and photography to empower victims.
Finding a Way with Words
Season 4, Episode 5
In this episode we speak with a poet and an author about how art touches us and can help us cope and connect.
Music and Meaning
Season 4, Episode 6
In this episode we speak with a professor of music about the power of song and dance during the apartheid era in South Africa, and a College alum about his process composing music for the screen, and our very own OMNIA podcast.
The Restorative Power of Art
Season 4, Episode 7
In this episode, we speak with researchers at the Positive Psychology Center, who examined how art museum visitation and museum program participation impact flourishing-related outcomes.
Season Three
Fear and Loathing and Science
Facts vs. Feelings
Season 3, Episode 1
In this episode, we’ll hear from a particle cosmologist, along with a scholar of religion and science, on what makes people feel the way they do about scientific information and why it’s so hard to communicate about science.
Talking the Talk
Season 3, Episode 2
In this episode, we talk to a linguist about why some people resist changes to the way people speak (hint: it has nothing to do with being correct).
There's Something About Darwin
Season 3, Episode 3
In this episode, we’ll hear from a philosopher of science and an evolutionary biologist on what it is about Darwinian evolution that has made it a poster child for science denial, and why it’s important to understand the facts.
Your Brain on Drugs
Season 3, Episode 4
In this episode, we’ll hear from a psychology professor about the search for better brains and its ethical, legal, and societal implications, and what science fiction can tell us about the future.
Better Living ... Through Chemistry?
Season 3, Episode 5
In this episode, a chemist explains chemistry’s public relations problem, and why we need to put our faith in chemistry now, maybe more than ever.
The Large Hadron Collider and the End of the World
Season 3, Episode 6
In this episode, a physicist looks back at the concerns that swirled around the launch of high-energy particle collision experiments like the Large Hadron Collider.
Climate Change and the Problem With Time
Season 3, Episode 7
In this episode, we talk to an oceanographer, a geophysicist, and a historian about the challenges to understanding the Earth’s 4.6 billion year history, and how our actions in the present impact a future we can only imagine.
Season Two
Black Lives and the Call for Justice
In season two, we explore the nation’s complex history with race and pose challenging questions: Who controls the narrative about the U.S.? Have we moved beyond our history of enslavement and Jim Crow? Are we at a moment of reckoning?
The Largest Movement in History
Season 2, Episode 1
In this episode, two students and three of our faculty share thoughts on two defining events of the past year: last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests and the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
Embedded in History
Season 2, Episode 2
In this episode, we take a look at the laws and policies that legislated Black lives, movement, and security, and consider the lasting impacts of systems including slavery and colonialism.
Institutionalizing Racism
Season 2, Episode 3
In this episode we hear from three professors on topics ranging from urban inequality, racial residential segregation, policing procedures, juvenile detention, incarceration, and issues like implicit bias.
National Myths and Monuments
Season 2, Episode 4
In this episode, three of our faculty share their thoughts on the movement to reexamine monuments and the history and myths they symbolize, and how we should think about the artworks in our public squares.
Environmental Justice and Race
Season 2, Episode 5
A professor of English, a College senior, and a sociologist share their perspectives on what it means to live under a system of environmental racism, and how to move forward toward environmental justice.
Repair, Part I
Season 2, Episode 6
What comes next? In this episode, we talk to an undergrad and grad student about their research, how institutions have perpetuated racial hierarchies, and the work that remains.
Repair, Part II
Season 2, Episode 7
In this episode, we take a look at how the past reverberates through the present, and consider what justice looks like.
Atlanta and the History of Anti-Asian Violence
Season 2, Special Episode
In the wake of the shooting in Atlanta, we discuss the history of anti-Asian racism in U.S. politics and culture, and the formation of the Asian American identity as an explicitly political act.
Season One
In These Times
A six-episode podcast series that explores the forces that have shaped events in 2020. In these times, knowledge is more important than ever.
Dimensions of the COVID-19 Crisis
Season 1, Episode 1
The COVID-19 pandemic is more than a respiratory illness. In this episode, we talk to experts about contagion, inequality, and science denial.
In Other Times
Season 1, Episode 2
We’ve been here before. In this episode, we talk to experts about past epidemics, how societies fought them, and how they changed life.
Crisis Upon Crisis
Season 1, Episode 3
The coronavirus pandemic does not exist in a vacuum. We look at other urgent issues of our time, and examine how they affect and are affected by COVID-19.
Exacerbating the Health Care Divide
Season 1, Episode 4
With rates of diagnoses and death disproportionately affecting racial minorities and low-income workers, experts in this episode address how COVID-19 has further exposed already dire health outcome inequalities.
Racial Justice and Repair
Season 1, Episode 5
In the midst of the pandemic, an estimated 20 million people participated in protests for racial justice. In this episode, we talk about philosophy, justice, and what it might look like the repair a broken system.
Beyond the COVID-19 Crisis
Season 1, Episode 6
In March 2020, the UN Secretary General described COVID-19 as the most challenging crisis the world has seen since WWII. As the year draws to a close and the pandemic lingers on, we explore what life beyond crisis might look like.
Bonus Episode
Attack on the Capitol
Season 1, Bonus Episode
Winner of a CASE Circle of Excellence Award
About the podcast
In the fourth season of In These Times, we talk to scholars, musicians and poets, and members of creative communities, to explore the link between making art and making meaning, and how creativity shines a light on the way out of adversity in tough times, past and present.
We launched the podcast in 2020 with a series on COVID-19 and its far-reaching impacts. For our second season, we explored the nation’s complex history with race and posed challenging questions about who controls the narrative about the U.S., our history of enslavement and Jim Crow, and the possibility for change. In the third season, we turned our attention to the vastness of science.
In these times, knowledge is more important than ever.