PBS
Author Jia Tolentino On American Culture Through The Prism Of The Internet
The January pick for our “Now Read This” book club was a book of essays
exploring many aspects of American culture through the prism of the
internet and social media. At age 32, author Jia Tolentino has gained
acclaim as one of its most...
PBS
A feast of African-American culinary contributions, baked into the South's DNA
In chef and culinary historian Michael Twitty's new book, ancestry -- both his own and that of Southern food -- is a central theme. With "The Cooking Gene: A Journey through African-American Culinary History in the Old South," Twitty...
Crash Course
Moonlight: Crash Course Film Criticism
Moonlight is a hard-edged yet beautifully made story about a black American dealing with his sexuality in a sometimes unforgiving and violent world. Its director, Barry Jenkins, uses every trick in the filmmaking book to put us in the...
Crash Course
What is Human Geography? Crash Course Geography
For the next half of this series, we will be discussing Human Geography — so we’ll still be looking at the Earth, but specifically, how human activity affects and is influenced by the Earth. Naturally, we thought the best place to start...
Crash Course
Personhood: Crash Course Philosophy
Now that we’ve started talking about identity, today Hank tackles the question of personhood. Philosophers have tried to assess what constitutes personhood with a variety of different criteria, including genetic, cognitive, social,...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Are the Illuminati real? | Chip Berlet
The year was 1776. In Bavaria, new ideals of rationalism, religious freedom and universal human rights competed with the Catholic church's heavy influence over public affairs. Adam Weishaupt, a law professor frustrated with the Church's...
Crash Course
World Cinema - Part 2: Crash Course Film History
Africa, the Middle East, and South America have their own vibrant film communities and filmmakers. From social and political commentary to experimental films, these regions have made some very important pieces of cinema over the last...
Crash Course
Batman & Identity: Crash Course Philosophy
Hank explores different ways of understanding identity – including the Indiscernibility of Identicals, and essential and accidental properties. In what ways does affect identity? In what ways does it not? What does it mean for a thing to...
TED Talks
TED: Everyday objects, tragic histories | Ziyah Gafić
Ziyah Gafić photographs everyday objects—watches, shoes, glasses. But these images are deceptively simple; the items in them have been exhumed from the mass graves of the Bosnian War. Gafić, a TED Fellow and Sarajevo native, is...
TED Talks
Karissa Sanbonmatsu: The biology of gender, from DNA to the brain
How exactly does gender work? It's not just about our chromosomes, says biologist Karissa Sanbonmatsu. In a visionary talk, she shares new discoveries from epigenetics, the emerging study of how DNA activity can permanently change based...
TED Talks
TED: Filming democracy in Ghana | Jarreth Merz
Jarreth Merz, a Swiss-Ghanaian filmmaker, came to Ghana in 2008 to film the national elections. What he saw there taught him new lessons about democracy -- and about himself.
TED Talks
Tara Houska: The Standing Rock resistance and our fight for indigenous rights
Still invisible and often an afterthought, indigenous peoples are uniting to protect the world's water, lands and history -- while trying to heal from genocide and ongoing inequality. Tribal attorney and Couchiching First Nation citizen...
TED Talks
TED: The mission to safeguard Black history in the US | Julieanna L. Richardson
Black history in the US is rich, profound -- and at risk of being lost forever, if not for the monumental efforts of Julieanna L. Richardson. As the founder of The HistoryMakers -- the largest national archive of African American...
TED Talks
Ariana Curtis: Museums should honor the everyday, not just the extraordinary
Who deserves to be in a museum? For too long, the answer has been "the extraordinary" -- those aspirational historymakers who inspire us with their successes. But those stories are limiting, says museum curator Ariana Curtis. In a...
TED Talks
TED: The power of diversity within yourself | Rebeca Hwang
Rebeca Hwang has spent a lifetime juggling identities -- Korean heritage, Argentinian upbringing, education in the United States -- and for a long time she had difficulty finding a place in the world to call home. Yet along with these...
TED Talks
TED: What we can do to die well | Timothy Ihrig
The healthcare industry in America is so focused on pathology, surgery and pharmacology -- on what doctors "do" to patients -- that it often overlooks the values of the human beings it's supposed to care for. Palliative care physician...
TED Talks
TED: Your words may predict your future mental health | Mariano Sigman
Can the way you speak and write today predict your future mental state, even the onset of psychosis? In this fascinating talk, neuroscientist Mariano Sigman reflects on ancient Greece and the origins of introspection to investigate how...
TED Talks
TED: The politics of fiction | Elif Shafak
Listening to stories widens the imagination; telling them lets us leap over cultural walls, embrace different experiences, feel what others feel. Elif Shafak builds on this simple idea to argue that fiction can overcome identity politics.
TED Talks
TED: How to have a healthier, positive relationship to sex | Tiffany Kagure Mugo and Siphumeze Khundayi
* Viewer discretion advised. This video includes discussion of mature topics and may be inappropriate for some audiences. From our fear of women's bodies to our sheepishness around the word "nipple," our ideas about sex need an upgrade,...
TED Talks
TED: America's forgotten working class | J.D. Vance
J.D. Vance grew up in a small, poor city in the Rust Belt of southern Ohio, where he had a front-row seat to many of the social ills plaguing America: a heroin epidemic, failing schools, families torn apart by divorce and sometimes...
TED Talks
TED: There's no such thing as not voting | eric Liu
Many people like to talk about how important voting is, how it's your civic duty and responsibility as an adult. eric Liu agrees with all that, but he also thinks it's time to bring joy back to the ballot box. The former political...
TED Talks
TED: The magic of Khmer classical dance | Prumsodun Ok
For more than 1,000 years, Khmer dancers in Cambodia have been seen as living bridges between heaven and earth. In this graceful dance-talk hybrid, artist Prumsodun Ok -- founder of Cambodia's first all-male and gay-identified dance...
TED Talks
TED: Political common ground in a polarized united States | Gretchen Carlson, David Brooks
How can we bridge the gap between left and right to have a wiser, more connected political conversation? Journalist Gretchen Carlson and op-ed columnist David Brooks share insights on the tensions at the heart of American politics today...
TED Talks
Amanda Williams: Why I turned Chicago's abandoned homes into art
Amanda Williams shares her lifelong fascination with the complexity of color: from her experiences with race and redlining to her discovery of color theory to her work as a visual artist. Journey with Williams to Chicago's South Side and...