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Lawrence Wu
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Lawrence Wu

Thursday

Editing Reality
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Editing Reality

We live in divided times, when the answer to the question 'what is reality?' depends on who you ask. Almost all the information we take in is to some extent edited and curated, and the line between entertainment and reality has become increasingly blurred. Nowhere is that more obvious than the world of reality television. The genre feeds off our most potent feelings – love, hope, anxiety, loneliness – and turns them into profit... and presidents. So in this episode, we're going to filter three themes of our modern world through the lens of reality TV: dating, the American dream, and the rage machine.

Editing Reality

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Thursday

Getting to Sesame Street

'Sesame Street' hosts Matt Robinson (Gordon), Will Lee (Mr. Hooper) Loretta Long (Susan) and Bob McGrath (Bob) stand with Big Bird on set, circa 1969. Hulton Archive/Children's Television Workshop/Getty Images hide caption

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Hulton Archive/Children's Television Workshop/Getty Images

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Getting to Sesame Street

In American history, schools have not just been places to learn the ABCs – they're places where socialization happens and cultural norms are developed. Arguments over how and what those norms are and how they're communicated tend to flare up during moments of cultural anxiety. Sesame Street was part of a larger movement in the late 1960s to reach lower income, less privileged and more "urban" audiences. It was part of LBJ's Great Society agenda. But Sesame Street is a TV show - not a classroom. And it was funded in part by taxpayer dollars. This story is about how a television show made to represent New York City neighborhoods – like Harlem and the Bronx – has sustained its mark in educating children in a divided country.

Getting to Sesame Street

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Thursday

How Korean Culture Went Global

Kwak Sin-ae, Bong Joon-ho, cast and crew of Parasite at the 92nd Oscars in February, 2020. Eric McCandless/Eric McCandless via Getty Images hide caption

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Eric McCandless/Eric McCandless via Getty Images

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How Korean Culture Went Global

From BTS to Squid Game to high-end beauty standards, South Korea reigns as a global exporter of pop culture and entertainment. How does a country go from a war-decimated state just 70 years ago, to a major driver of global soft power? Through war, occupation, economic crisis, and national strategy, comes a global phenomenon - the Korean wave.

How Korean Culture Went Global

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Thursday

American Socialist (2020)
Library of Congress

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American Socialist (2020)

It's been over a century since a self-described socialist was a viable candidate for president of the United States. And that first socialist candidate, Eugene V. Debs, didn't just capture significant votes, he created a new and enduring populist politics deep in the American grain. This week, the story of Eugene V. Debs and the creation of American socialism.

American Socialist (2020)

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Thursday

Drone Wars (2021)
Hokyoung Kim

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Drone Wars (2021)

Unseen, they stalk their targets from thousands of feet in the air. Operators are piloting them from military bases halfway across the world. At any moment, they could launch a strike that comes without warning. The attack drone was supposed to be a symbol of the era of precision warfare — a way to wage wars with fewer casualties on both sides. It's a technology that's been honed since it was first dreamed up during World War 1. But are drones actually precise enough? Do drones desensitize us to the casualties of civilians caught between us and our enemies? In this episode, we will explore the past, present and future of drone warfare.

Drone Wars (2021)

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Thursday

Afghanistan: The Rise of the Taliban (2021)
Isabel Seliger

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Afghanistan: The Rise of the Taliban (2021)

How did a small group of Islamic students go from local vigilantes to one of the most infamous and enigmatic forces in the world? The Taliban is a name that has haunted the American imagination since 2001. The scenes of the group's brutality repeatedly played in the Western media, while true, perhaps obscure our ability to see the complex origins of the Taliban and how they impact the lives of Afghans. It's a shadow that reaches across the vast ancient Afghan homeland, the reputation of the modern state, and throughout global politics. At the end of the US war in Afghanistan we go back to the end of the Soviet Occupation and the start of the Afghan civil war to look at the rise of the Taliban.

Afghanistan: The Rise of the Taliban (2021)

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Thursday

Afghanistan: The Center of the World (2021)

Isabel Seliger for NPR Isabel Seliger/Isabel Seliger for NPR hide caption

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Isabel Seliger/Isabel Seliger for NPR

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Afghanistan: The Center of the World (2021)

Afghanistan has, for centuries, been at the center of the world. Long before the U.S. invasion — before the U.S. was even a nation — countless civilizations intersected there, weaving together a colorful tapestry of foods, languages, ethnicities and visions of what Afghanistan was and could be. The story of Afghanistan is too often told from the perspective of outsiders who tried to invade it (and always failed) earning it the nickname "Graveyard of Empires." In this episode, we're shifting the perspective. We'll journey through the centuries alongside Afghan mystical poets. We'll turn the radio dial to hear songs of love and liberation. We'll meet the queen who built the first primary school for girls in the country. And we'll take a closer look at Afghanistan's centuries-long experiment to create a unified nation.

Afghanistan: The Center of the World (2021)

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Thursday

The Mystery of Inflation
Francesco Carta fotografo/Getty Images

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The Mystery of Inflation

Gas. Meat. Flights. Houses. The price of things have gone up by as much as nine percent since last year. The same amount of money gets you less stuff. It's inflation: a concept that's easy to feel but hard to understand. Its causes are complex, but it isn't some kind of naturally-occurring phenomenon — and neither are the ways in which governments try to fight it.

The Mystery of Inflation

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Thursday

Nikole Hannah-Jones and the Country We Have (2021)

A painting by artist Sidney King depicting a Dutch ship with 20 enslaved African people arriving at Point Comfort, VA in 1619, marking the beginning of slavery in America. ASSOCIATED PRESS hide caption

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Nikole Hannah-Jones and the Country We Have (2021)

Is history always political? Who gets to decide? What happens when you challenge common narratives? In this episode, Throughline's Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei explore these questions with Nikole Hannah-Jones, an investigative journalist at the New York Times and the creator of the 1619 Project.

Nikole Hannah-Jones and the Country We Have (2021)

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Thursday

Student Loans: The Fund-Eating Dragon

From 2011, at an Occupy DC protest in Washington. A man holds a sign and a ball and chain, representing his college loan debt. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) Jacquelyn Martin/ASSOCIATED PRESS hide caption

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Student Loans: The Fund-Eating Dragon

At the start of the 20th century, only the most privileged could afford to go to college. Today, millions of students pursue higher ed — and owe $1.7 trillion in debt.

Student Loans: The Fund-Eating Dragon

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Thursday

The Long Hot Summer (2020)

The Kerner Commission in session, in Washington DC, 1967. Underwood Archives/Getty Images hide caption

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The Long Hot Summer (2020)

Things in the U.S. feel tense right now. Two years after a police officer killed George Floyd outside a Minneapolis corner store, videos of police violence still appear regularly – and protests follow. Maybe the closest parallel to what's happening today is the so-called "long hot summer" of 1967, when more than 150 cities across the country experienced civil unrest.

The Long Hot Summer (2020)

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Thursday

The story of 'Monopoly' and American capitalism

The Monopoly Ultimate Banking Game from Hasbro is displayed at Toy Fair in New York, in 2016. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File) Mark Lennihan/AP hide caption

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The story of 'Monopoly' and American capitalism

There's more to Monopoly than you might think. It's one of the best-selling board games in history — despite huge economic instability, sales actually went up during the pandemic — and it's been an iconic part of American life at other pivotal moments: a cheap pastime during the Great Depression; a reminder of home for soldiers during WWII; and an American export during its rise as a global superpower. It endured even as it reflected some of the ongoing inequities in American society, from segregation and redlining to capitalism run rampant. That's because Monopoly is also built on powerful American lore – the idea that anyone, with just a little bit of cash, can rise from rags to riches. Writer Mary Pilon, the author of The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World's Favorite Board Game, describes Monopoly as "the Great American Dream in a board game – or, nightmare."

The story of 'Monopoly' and American capitalism

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Thursday

The Evangelical Vote (2019)
Angela Hsieh

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The Evangelical Vote (2019)

When Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, the door opened on one of those rare opportunities to tip the balance of the highest court in the U.S. It was the opportunity that one particular voting bloc had been waiting for: evangelical Christians. Now, we await a ruling in a case that has the potential to overturn Roe v. Wade – an outcome evangelical Christians have spent decades voting and lobbying for. So how did this religious group become such a powerful force in U.S. politics? In this episode, we examine how white evangelicalism in particular became linked to conservative political issues...beginning with a roaming Irish pastor in the 1800s.

The Evangelical Vote (2019)

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Thursday

After Roe: A New Battlefield

Opponents of abortion rights parade past the U.S. Supreme Court in 1992. Marcy Nighswander/AP hide caption

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After Roe: A New Battlefield

The Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade transformed the landscape of abortion rights overnight. For the doctors, lawyers, feminists, and others who had fought for nationwide legalization, Roe was the end of a long battle. But for the growing movement against abortion rights, it was the beginning of a new battle: to protect the fetus, challenge abortion providers, and ultimately overturn Roe. This is the story of how opponents of abortion rights banded together, built power, and launched one of the most successful grassroots campaigns of the past century.

After Roe: A New Battlefield

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Thursday

By Accident of Birth

Painted portrait of Wong Kim Ark in the Asian American Community Heroes Mural, located in San Francisco's Chinatown. Julie Caine/Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco hide caption

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Julie Caine/Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco

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By Accident of Birth

In August of 1895, a ship called the SS Coptic approached the coast of Northern California. On that boat was a passenger from San Francisco, a young man named Wong Kim Ark who was returning home after visiting his wife and child in China. He'd taken trips like this before, and expected to come back to the city he was born in, to his life and friends. But when the ship docked, officials told him he couldn't get off. The customs agent barred him according to the Chinese Exclusion Act, which denied citizenship to Chinese immigrants. Though Wong Kim Ark had been born in the U.S. and lived his whole life there, the agent said he was not a citizen.

By Accident of Birth

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