637. What It’s Like to Be Middle-Aged (in the...

A series of academic studies suggest that the wealthy are, to put it bluntly, selfish jerks. It’s an easy narrative to embrace — but is it true? As part of GiveDirectly’s “Pods Fight Poverty” campaign, we revisit a 2017 episode. SOURCES:Jim Andreoni, professor of economics at the ...  Show more

All sorts of people have put their mark on Messiah, and it has been a hit for nearly 300 years. How can a single piece of music thrive in so many settings? You could say it’s because Handel really knew how to write a banger. (Part three of “Making Messiah.”) SOURCES:Charles King, ...  Show more

From John Cheever’s 1964 short story “The Swimmer” to Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-selling 2006 memoir, “<stro ...

Send us a textJoin Professors Jeffrey Sachs and an expert on religious conflict, Richard E. Rubenstein as they discuss Rubenstein’s book, Aristotle's Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages. Rubenstein skillfully gui ...  Show more

Medieval art memes! Human-faced animals! Drunk monks! And a preponderance of snails. Middle Ages manuscript expert, art history communicator, and Medieval Codicologist Evan Pridmore covers: what those golden illuminated Middle Ages manuscripts were made of, who drew them, why ...

Both Frederick II and King John were excommunicated from the all-powerful church, but why?

Dr. Eleanor Janega and Dr. Felicity Hill explore the complex phenomenon of excommunication in the medieval period, from the politics and propaganda behind this spiritual sancti ...