To The Best Of Our Knowledge
Wisconsin Public Radio
To The Best Of Our Knowledge is a nationally-syndicated, Peabody award-winning public radio show that dives headlong into the deeper end of ideas. We have conversations with novelists and poets, scientists and software engineers, journalists and historians, filmmakers and philosophers, artists and activists — people with big ideas and a passion to share them.
For more from the TTBOOK team, visit us at ttbook.org.
To The Best Of Our Knowledge is a nationally-syndicated, Peabody award-winning public radio show that dives headlong into the deeper end of ideas. We have conversations with novelists and poets, scientists and software engineers, journalists and historians, filmmakers and philosophers, artists and activists — people with big ideas and a passion to share them.
For more from the TTBOOK team, visit us at ttbook.org.
Location:
Madison, WI
Description:
To The Best Of Our Knowledge is a nationally-syndicated, Peabody award-winning public radio show that dives headlong into the deeper end of ideas. We have conversations with novelists and poets, scientists and software engineers, journalists and historians, filmmakers and philosophers, artists and activists — people with big ideas and a passion to share them. For more from the TTBOOK team, visit us at ttbook.org.
Twitter:
@TTBOOK
Language:
English
Contact:
6082625263
Website:
https://www.ttbook.org/
Email:
jim.fleming@wpr.org
Episodes
Finding Meaning in Desperate Times
5/23/2020
We’ve all been changed by the experience of living through a pandemic. We figured out how to sanitize groceries, mute ourselves on Zoom and keep from killing our roommates. But we’re also tackling bigger, existential questions — how can we, individually and collectively, find meaning in the experience of this pandemic?
*Original Air Date: * May 23, 2020
**Guests: **
David Kessler — Tyrone Muhammad — Nikki Giovanni — John Kaag — Alice Kaplan
**Interviews In This Hour: **
Grief Is A...
Duration:00:53:26
Our Virtual Reality
5/16/2020
Not everyone has a nice, big yard to stretch out in while sheltering in place from COVID-19. But maybe you don't need one. People are using virtual spaces to live out the real experiences they miss — like coffee shops, road trips, even building your own house on a deserted island, or Walden Pond. In a world where we're mostly confined to our homes and Zoom screens, does the line between virtual and real-life space mean much anymore?
Original Air Date: * *May 16, 2020
*Guests: *
Mark...
Duration:00:52:54
Solace of Nature
5/9/2020
Rustling of leaves, sploshing of water, birds calling, bees buzzing. Wherever you live — city or country, East coast, West coast, or in between — we share common, contemplative experiences on our walks outside. In this hour, we assemble a sonic guide to finding solace in nature.
Original Air Date: * *May 09, 2020
*Guests: *
William Helmreich — David Rothenberg — Laura Dassow Walls — Robert Moor — Nate Staniforth — Andreas Weber
*Interviews In This Hour: *
The Great Urban Nature Explorer...
Duration:00:52:58
The Weird, Wild World of Mushrooms
5/2/2020
We owe our past and future existence on Earth to fungi. Some can heal you, some can kill you, and some can change you forever. And the people who love them are convinced that mushrooms explain the world.
Original Air Date: * *June 08, 2019
*Guests: *
Lawrence Millman — Paul Stamets — Eugenia Bone — Michael Pollan — Dennis McKenna — Robin Carhart-Harris
*Interviews In This Hour: *
Humanity? It All Started With The Raven and Fungus Man — The Soil-Cleaning, Insect-Warding, Smallpox-Curing...
Duration:00:52:40
Deep Tracks: Live In Studio
4/25/2020
In times of crisis, we need music. We look at how far people will go — even under quarantine, during a pandemic — to find ways to make music together.
Original Air Date: * *April 25, 2020
*Guests: *
Lisa Bielawa — Varttina — Bobby McFerrin — Moken — Vijay Iyer — Brandy Clark — Nicole Paris — Edward Cage
*Interviews In This Hour: *
Putting The Mood Of COVID-19 To Music — The Haunting Finnish Acapella of Värttinä — The 50 Voices of Bobby McFerrin — A Bold and Beautiful Voice from...
Duration:00:52:22
Living In Skin
4/18/2020
We all miss touching things — groceries, door knobs, hands, faces. And most of all, skin. The living tissue that simultaneously protects us from the world, and lets us feel it. In this episode, the politics, biology, and inner life of your skin.
Original Air Date: April 18, 2020
**Guests: **
Angelo Bautista — Tiffany Field — Alissa Waters — Nina Jablonski
**Interviews In This Hour: **
My Problem With Skincare — Even During Quarantine, You Need A 'Daily Dose Of Touch' — Reclaiming Scars...
Duration:00:53:39
Writing Truth and Lies
4/11/2020
We all tell stories about our lives: funny stories, happy stories, sad stories. But are they true stories? In an
age of “alternative facts” and “fake news,” we’re all thinking harder about why truth matters – not just in politics, but in our personal lives. A biographer, a poet, a memoirist and a filmmaker describe the moral struggle and personal cost involved in telling not just the truth, but the whole truth.
Original Air Date: November 10, 2018
*Guests: *
Caroline Fraser — Terese...
Duration:00:53:07
Poetry in a Troubled Time
4/4/2020
Why do people turn to poetry during troubled times? We saw it after 9/11 and we're seeing it now as the coronavirus travels around the world. When the world seems broken, poetry is often the one kind of language that helps.
Original Air Date: * *April 04, 2020
*Guests: *
Kitty O'Meara — Jericho Brown — Edward Hirsch — Alice Walker — Ken Nordine — Li-Young Lee — Jimmy Santiago Baca
*Interviews In This Hour: *
A Viral Poem For A Virus Time — Can A Poem Be A Prayer? — Poetry In A Time Of...
Duration:00:52:56
Doctors Give Us Hope
3/28/2020
This week, To the Best of Our Knowledge comes to you from our kitchens and homes. We’re safe, but we’ve all been thinking about the people on the front lines of the pandemic — doctors, nurses and hospital staffs. We’ve been seeing them on social media — the nurses in NYC wearing garbage bags because there aren’t enough
sterile gowns. Doctors figuring out those weird new face masks. Those incredibly brave doctors and nurses in Italy, Spain, France, the U.S. This hour we tell some remarkable...
Duration:00:53:08
Music Beyond Genre
3/21/2020
Even with all the music available today, most of us still listen primarily to just a few comfy genres. But there’s so much more out there — and so much of it defies neat, algorithm-friendly categorization.
Original Air Date: * *June 01, 2019
*Guests: *
Kevin Gift — Wendel Patrick — Philip Glass — Robert Glasper — Toni Blackman — Clarice Jensen — Evelyn Glennie — Nikka Costa
*Interviews In This Hour: *
How One Man Became Two Musicians — Philip Glass Asks 'Where Does Music Come From?' —...
Duration:00:52:34
Traveling By Book
3/14/2020
Before the time of commercial flights and road trips, we traveled to far off places without taking a single step.
All you had to do was open a book. From Africa to England, to a kamikaze cockpit, and to realms of fantasy. Books aren’t just books. They’re passports to anywhere. This hour, we’re traveling by book.
Original Air Date: * *March 14, 2020
*Guests: *
Philip Pullman — Ruth Ozeki — Robert Macfarlane — Petina Gappah
*Interviews In This Hour: *
Philip Pullman on 'The Pocket Atlas...
Duration:00:52:13
Up All Night
3/7/2020
How well do you sleep? Every night, millions of us turn out the lights hoping and praying for a good night’s sleep. And every night, millions of us lie awake in the dark. We explore what keeps us up, and what happens when we embrace the times when we just can't seem to rest.
Original Air Date: March 07, 2020
Guests:
Steve Paulson — Guy Leschziner — Daniel Pink — Marina Benjamin — Ada Calhoun
Interviews In This Hour:
A Shadow Self Emerges from the Darkness — Tales From The Wee Hours —...
Duration:00:52:07
Why Do We Meet?
2/29/2020
We're always online but still have an innate need to meet in person. How can we make gatherings, from dinner parties to work meetings, more meaningful?
*Original Air Date: * June 22, 2019
**Guests: **
Priya Parker — Mamie Kanfer Stewart — Angelo Bautista — James Ogude
**Interviews In This Hour: **
When We Gather, We Need Rituals — That Completely Pointless Meeting Is Entirely Preventable — Watching RuPaul's Drag Race In The Best Way Possible — In A Gay Bar — 'I Am Because We Are': The...
Duration:00:52:02
Taking Comfort in the Sound of Silence
2/22/2020
Restaurants, bars, coffee shops — is there any public place left that doesn’t play background music? Loudly? In
this show, we’re making the case for more silence. Because perhaps some need the drone of TVs, traffic and Muzak, to drown out the pesky sound of thinking, but others go to great lengths to find respite from a blaringly loud world.
Original Air Date: December 09, 2017
Guests:
Erling Kagge — Gordon Hempton — George Michelsen Foy — Kyle Gann — Shawn Wen — Jennifer...
Duration:00:52:37
Out Of The Mental Illness Box
2/15/2020
Are there new ways to treat depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder? We explore some unconventional treatments for mental illness, including exercise, psychedelics and even horror films.
Need to talk? Contact the National Alliance for Mental Illness at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264). If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (En Español: 1-888-628-9454; Deaf and Hard of Hearing: 1-800-799-4889) or the Crisis Text Line...
Duration:00:52:25
Eye-To-Eye Animal Encounters
2/8/2020
Exchanging glances with the natural world happens more often than you’d think. It can be so profound, there’s a
name for it: eye-to-eye epiphany.
Original Air Date: February 08, 2020
*Guests: *
Gavin Van Horn — Jenny Kendler — Ivan Schwab — Jane Goodall — Alan Lightman
*Interviews In This Hour: *
In The Eye Of The Osprey: A Physicist's Wild Epiphany — 100 Bird Eyes Are Watching You — The Look That Changed Primatology — Watching the Fierce Green Fire Die: Animal Gazes That Shaped...
Duration:00:52:23
Hope: Are We Really Doomed?
2/1/2020
Hope means believing there’s a future. But can hope co-exist with cataclysmic realities like climate change, or disruptive technological advances like artificial intelligence?
Original Air Date: May 04, 2019
*Guests: *
Roy Scranton — Anne Lamott — Amy Webb — Victor LaValle — Robert Zubrin
*Interviews In This Hour: *
Can We Have Hope If The World Is 'Doomed'? — Hope Is Faith In Life Itself — 'Our Best Futures Never Come Fully Formed, Or Automatically' — Tales of Dragons That Fight...
Duration:00:53:09
Hope: How Do You Make It?
1/25/2020
This hour we talk with people who’ve turned that around and made hope real, whether it’s
through political activism, faith, music, or reading a life-changing novel.
Original Air Date: April 27, 2019
*Guests: *
DeRay Mckesson — Lydia Hester — Serene Jones — Megan Stielstra — Common
*Interviews In This Hour: *
To Make Big Social Change, Start With The PB&J Sandwiches — Teens Don't Want Hope. They Want Action. — Hope, Where Faith Becomes Action — Megan Stielstra On 'The Chronology of...
Duration:00:53:36
Hope: Where Does It Come From?
1/18/2020
Original Air Date: April 20, 2019
Is hope something we’re innately born with, or something we can choose to have? We talk with
people who tell us where they think hope lives in ourselves and our communities.
*Guests: *
Andre Willis — Steven Pinker — Tali Sharot — Alice Walker — Chigozie Obioma — Claire Peaslee
*Interviews In This Hour: *
Defining A New Grammar Of Hope — The Science Of Looking On The Bright Side — A Naturalist's Hopeful Pilgrimage — Everything Is Actually Awesome — Why...
Duration:00:53:36
Why Go To War?
1/11/2020
What drives us toward armed conflict? And what does it take for peace activists to face down tyrants and military leaders?
**Guests: **
Scott Anderson — Samantha Power — Benjamin Ginsberg — David Shields — Leymah Gbowee
**Interviews In This Hour: **
In The Case Of Iran, Who Decides What Constitutes 'War'? — An Idealist Wrestles With The Ethics of Military Intervention — The Worth of War — War is Beautiful? — Is War Inevitable?
Duration:00:52:10