Scene on Radio
PRX
Scene on Radio is a two-time Peabody-nominated podcast that dares to ask big, hard questions about who we are—really—and how we got this way. Our latest is Season 7, Scene on Radio: Capitalism. Previous series include Seeing White (Season 2), looking at the roots and meaning of white supremacy; MEN (Season 3), on patriarchy and its history; The Land That Never Has Been Yet (Season 4), exploring democracy in the U.S. and why we don’t have more of it; The Repair (Season 5), on the cultural roots of the climate crisis; and Season 6, Echoes of a Coup, the story of the only successful coup d'etat in U.S. history, in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1898. Produced and hosted by John Biewen, with collaborators, Scene on Radio comes from the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University.
The show is distributed by PRX.
Location:
United States
Networks:
PRX
Description:
Scene on Radio is a two-time Peabody-nominated podcast that dares to ask big, hard questions about who we are—really—and how we got this way. Our latest is Season 7, Scene on Radio: Capitalism. Previous series include Seeing White (Season 2), looking at the roots and meaning of white supremacy; MEN (Season 3), on patriarchy and its history; The Land That Never Has Been Yet (Season 4), exploring democracy in the U.S. and why we don’t have more of it; The Repair (Season 5), on the cultural roots of the climate crisis; and Season 6, Echoes of a Coup, the story of the only successful coup d'etat in U.S. history, in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1898. Produced and hosted by John Biewen, with collaborators, Scene on Radio comes from the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. The show is distributed by PRX.
Language:
English
Episodes
Proxy: Nicole Can't Stop Being Aggro
1/14/2026
A guest episode from the podcast Proxy: Nicole is an organizer who's good at channeling her anger. The trouble is she can't always downshift -- or even allow herself to feel sad about the problems she's fighting against. That doesn't seem healthy. Maybe it'll help if Nicole can talk with someone who's been there -- years before, in a movement Nicole idolizes. With Proxy host Yowei Shaw.
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Duration:00:50:52
Historical Maturity and Cowardice: Keeping ScOR #15
10/22/2025
Host John Biewen reads an essay from his newsletter, Keeping ScOR. After a visit to his hometown, Mankato, Minnesota -- the subject of the Scene on Radio episode, "Little War on the Prairie" -- John reflects on the changes there and America's latest assault on history.
Music by goodnight, Lucas.
To read see the Keeping ScOR newsletter archive or subscribe to receive it, go here: https://buttondown.com/KeepingScOR#subscribe-form
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Duration:00:14:30
Revisionist History: The Alabama Murders
10/9/2025
We're sharing an episode from another podcast that asks big questions about who we are and how we got here: The Alabama Murders, a new series by bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History podcast. Entangled in an affair with a parishioner, a Northwest Alabama minister made a devastating choice. Eventually, the consequences led to the center of a hot national debate about who should be allowed to live, who should die, and how the state should kill them. Malcolm asks: why, in our efforts to alleviate suffering, do we so often make it worse?
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Duration:00:34:13
Voices of Hiroshima
8/6/2025
A rebroadcast of a Scene on Radio episode, eighty years after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
The word “Hiroshima” may bring to mind a black-and-white image of a mushroom cloud. It’s easy to forget that it’s an actual city with a million people and a popular baseball team. What did the cataclysm of 1945 mean in the place where it happened, to the people who lived through it? John Biewen went to Hiroshima and interviewed A-bomb survivors in 1995.
“Voices of Hiroshima” is a production of Minnesota Public Radio, from American Public Media.
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Duration:00:33:37
Lever Time: Trump, Colbert, And The War On Truth
7/23/2025
A bonus episode from the Lever Time podcast: Their latest, exploring the decision by CBS to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and the wider context for that move -- Donald Trump's effort to crush dissent through lawsuits and other attacks on media corporations. With host David Sirota and his guest, New York Times journalist David Enrich.
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Duration:00:39:10
Favorite Things: Happy Forgetting
5/21/2025
The fifth and final installment in our between-seasons miniseries, "a few of my favorite things," chosen by host John Biewen -- selections from outstanding podcast series. This project, led by host and senior producer Ruxandra Guidi and editor Rekha Murthy, is called Happy Forgetting. The episode we're sharing, "Finding the Wisdom," by producer Adreanna Rodriguez, explores themes of care, healing -- and history -- among Indigenous and Mexican women in California and Mexico.
Find the rest of the Happy Forgetting series here: https://happyforgetting.com/
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Duration:00:36:57
Making Ignorance Sacred Again: Keeping ScOR #7
5/14/2025
Host John Biewen reads an essay from his newsletter, Keeping ScOR. Reflections on the Trump Administration's attempt to wrangle control of the national story and how it's told. Will this attack on factual history succeed?
Music by goodnight, Lucas.
To read see the Keeping ScOR newsletter archive or subscribe to receive it, go here: https://buttondown.com/KeepingScOR#subscribe-form
The video of David Joy referred to in the episode is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0g_6uidwcE
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Duration:00:15:33
Favorite things: The Outlaw Ocean
5/7/2025
The fourth installment in our between-seasons miniseries, "a few of my favorite things," chosen by host John Biewen -- selections from exceptional podcast series. From CBC Podcasts and the L.A. Times, this is Season 1, Episode 5 of The Outlaw Ocean, reported by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ian Urbina. The episode, titled "Waves of Extraction," uncovers brutal exploitation of sea life -- and of people. It's a powerful complement to Scene on Radio's Capitalism season.
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Duration:00:52:43
Favorite Things: Shocking, Heartbreaking, Transformative
4/23/2025
The third installment in our between-seasons miniseries, "a few of my favorite things," chosen by host John Biewen -- selections from exceptional podcast series. From producer Jess Shane and Radiotopia Presents, this is Episode 1 of "Shocking, Heartbreaking, Transformative," an innovative exploration of the process and the ethics of narrative documentary storytelling.
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Duration:00:39:00
Favorite Things: The Copernic Affair
4/9/2025
The second in a between-seasons miniseries, "a few of my favorite things," chosen by host John Biewen: Episode 1 of The Copernic Affair, from the Canadaland network. The series tells the story of a sociology professor living near Ottawa who finds himself accused of a decades-old bombing attack against a synagogue in Paris. Did Hassan Diab do it? By reporters Dana Ballout and Alex Atack.
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Duration:00:28:23
Favorite Things: Slow Burn: Becoming Justice Thomas
3/26/2025
Favorite Things: Slow Burn: Becoming Justice Thomas Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Duration:00:52:07
The New Old Racism: Keeping ScOR#4
3/18/2025
Host John Biewen teases Season 8 and reads an installment from his new newsletter, Keeping ScOR. Eight years after our "Seeing White" series, whiteness is still a helluva drug -- and a powerful tool for Trump 2.0.
Music by goodnight, Lucas
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Duration:00:18:27
Bonus: Michael Kliën and the Body Politic
1/22/2025
Michael Kliën wants to help bring about profound change in the world, but not through the usual means. An Austrian-born Dance professor at Duke University, Kliën is a leading social choreographer. He sets up experiments involving people moving amongst each other -- wordlessly -- in pursuit of new ways of being and the "soul democratic."
By Scene on Radio host and producer John Biewen. Music by goodnight, Lucas and Blue Dot Sessions.
Scene on Radio is a production of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University.
Links:
Michael Klien’s website
Video of Kliën works:
Parliament
Constitution
The Utopians
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Duration:00:34:10
S7 E13: CAPITALISM Bonus, Live at Motorco
12/11/2024
With our Capitalism season and the election behind us, now what? Can we find hope and a way forward? In a live show taped December 5, 2024, at Motorco Music Hall in Durham, North Carolina, Season 7 co-hosts John Biewen and Ellen McGirt are joined by journalism professor, podcast maker, and two-time Scene on Radio co-host Chenjerai Kumanyika. They discuss how to move toward a more democratic economy and society – with the live audience, and with Camryn Smith and Courtney Smith of Durham’s Communities in Partnership.
Episode art: Photo by Summer Steenberg. Music by Michelle Osis and Lilli Haydn. Music consulting by Joe Augustine of Narrative Music. "Capitalism” is a production of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University, in partnership with Imperative 21.
Duration:01:11:59
Post-election '24 All-Star Special
11/21/2024
Host John Biewen is joined by Celeste Headlee, Chenjerai Kumanyika, Ellen McGirt, and Amy Westervelt, co-hosts of Scene on Radio's full-length seasons -- Seeing White, MEN, The Land That Never Has Been Yet, The Repair, and Capitalism -- for a free-wheeling conversation about the 2024 U.S. election of Donald J. Trump and what it all means.
Scene on Radio comes from the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University.
Duration:01:20:23
Introducing Reclaimed: The Lifeblood of Navajo Nation
11/13/2024
Sharing an episode of the podcast Reclaimed. It centers on a group of Americans – the Navajo people – who’ve been denied a basic human right: water. More than one-third of households in the Navajo Nation do not have access to clean water. Right now, there’s a landmark bill in front of Congress that could change this — but it took more than 150 years to get here. “Reclaimed” takes you back to the very beginning when the Navajo reservation was first created. And it reveals the history of oppression and exclusion that led the Navajo to this point — and why their future is still uncertain. You can listen to more episodes of Reclaimed at https://abcaudio.com/podcasts/reclaimed-navajo-nation/
Duration:00:46:35
S7 E12: Reimagined Economies
9/18/2024
In our season finale, we visit with people on two continents who are turning core structures of capitalism on their heads – or, at least, sideways.
By John Biewen with co-host Ellen McGirt. Interviews with John Fullerton, Ander Etxeberria, Deseree Fontenot, Corrina Gould, Regan Pritzker, Dana Kawaoka-Chen, Mateo Nube, and Marjorie Kelly. Story editor: Loretta Williams. Music by Michelle Osis; Lilli Haydn; Chris Westlake; Alex Symcox; and goodnight, Lucas. Music consulting by Joe Augustine of Narrative Music. Episode art by Harper Biewen. "Capitalism” is a production of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University, in partnership with Imperative 21.
Duration:01:03:11
Bonus: Introducing Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD
9/12/2024
The police tell us they are here to protect us. But what if their original purpose was something else altogether? Peabody Award-winning host Chenjerai Kumanyika takes listeners on a journey to uncover the hidden history of the largest police force in the world – from its roots in slavery, to rival police gangs battling across the city, to everyday people who resisted every step of the way. As our society debates where policing is going, Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD explores where the police came from.
From Wondery, Crooked Media and PushBlack.
Duration:00:45:31
S7 E11: Better Capitalism?
9/4/2024
In the first of two episodes looking at responses to capitalism’s failings, we explore reforms aimed at making the current economic system more humane, fair, effective, and sustainable.
By John Biewen with co-host Ellen McGirt. Interviews with Lutz Schwenke, Jordi Llatje i Espinal, Marjorie Kelly, Oren Cass, Jayati Ghosh, John Fullerton, and Rick Alexander. Story editor: Loretta Williams. Music by Michelle Osis, Lilli Haydn, Chris Westlake, Alex Symcox, and Goodnight, Lucas. Music consulting by Joe Augustine of Narrative Music.
"Capitalism” is a production of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University, in partnership with Imperative 21.
Duration:00:50:53
S7 E10: The Extracted
8/21/2024
A visit to West Africa and Western Europe to look at the cocoa trade. Did the colonial side of early capitalism – Western countries getting rich at the expense of poorer nations – ever change, or does it continue today?
Reported by Ugochi Anyaka-Oluigbo and written by Ugochi and Loretta Williams, with co-hosts John Biewen and Ellen McGirt. Story editor: Loretta Williams. Mixed by John Biewen. Interviews with Achike Chude, Chernoh Bah, Bart Van Besien, and others. Music by Michelle Osis, Lilli Haydn, Chris Westlake, Alex Symcox, and Goodnight, Lucas. Music consulting by Joe Augustine of Narrative Music. "Capitalism” is a production of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University, in partnership with Imperative 21.
Duration:00:55:09