The Gray Area with Sean Illing

What's your status?

04 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Sean Illing talks with writer Will Storr about his new book The Status Game, and its central idea: all human beings are constantly competing for statu...

Is there a hack for enlightenment?

30 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Sigal Samuel talks with scholars and authors Wesley Wildman and Kate Stockly about their book, Spirit Tech: The Brave New World of Consciousness...

Fighting a world on fire with fire

27 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Sean Illing talks with climate scholar Andreas Malm about his book How to Blow Up A Pipeline. They discuss the failure of decades of protests and appe...

Revolutionary Love

23 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Jamil Smith talks with author, activist, and filmmaker Valarie Kaur about her memoir See No Stranger and the Revolutionary Love Project. They di...

How to make meaning out of suffering

20 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox’s Sean Illing talks with David Wolpe, senior rabbi of the Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, about the role and nature of God, how religion and spirit...

Ken Burns's latest on The Greatest

16 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Jamil Smith talks with acclaimed documentary filmmakers Ken and Sarah Burns. The father-daughter team discuss their latest documentary about The...

The road from 9/11 to Donald Trump

13 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Sean Illing talks with national security reporter Spencer Ackerman, author of the new book Reign of Terror. They discuss the staggering changes to our...

Rep. Pramila Jayapal on immigrants and America after 9/11

09 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Aarti Shahani, host of the WBEZ Chicago podcast Art of Power and author of the memoir Here We Are, talks with Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) about how 9/...

Why America's obsession with rights is wrong

02 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Zack Beauchamp talks with Columbia law professor Jamal Greene about his book How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession With Rights Is Tearing Ame...

The news is by — and for — rich, white liberals

30 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox’s Sean Illing talks with professor and media researcher Nikki Usher about her new book News for the Rich, White, and Blue, which documents syst...

Clint Smith III on confronting the legacy of slavery

26 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Jamil Smith talks with author Clint Smith III about his book How the Word Is Passed, which documents the writer's personal journey visiting site...

Was the cruelty the point?

23 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Sean Illing talks with Adam Serwer, whose new book The Cruelty Is the Point documents the role of cruelty in American politics, the way it was w...

How seashells shaped the world — and predict our future

19 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Benji Jones talks with author and environmental journalist Cynthia Barnett about seashells and her new book, The Sound of the Sea. They discuss ...

Bill Maher on free speech, comedy, and his haters

16 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Sean Illing talks with comedian Bill Maher about the risks and challenges of political comedy today, free speech, and whether ideology undermine...

Robert Reich wants you to take on the system

12 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Jamil Smith talks with former labor secretary, author, and social media gadfly Robert Reich about how our elected officials have fallen victim t...

Marty Baron on the future of news

09 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Sean Illing talks with former Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron about the state of journalism. They discuss Baron's post-retirement r...

The death of cool

05 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox culture contributor Anne Helen Petersen talks with writer Safy-Hallan Farah about the concept of 'cool.' They discuss different generations' appro...

We need to talk about UFOs. Seriously.

02 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Sean Illing talks with international politics professor and amateur ufologist Alex Wendt about why it's time to start thinking more seriously ab...

Philadelphia's progressive prosecutor

29 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Jamil Smith talks with Larry Krasner, the former civil rights attorney who's been district attorney of Philadelphia since 2018. They talk about ...

Fareed Zakaria on the fate of democracy

26 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Sean Illing talks with CNN's Fareed Zakaria about the global trend in democratic decline, and whether we should worry about America. They discus...

Jane Goodall on the power of hope

22 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Sigal Samuel talks with world-renowned primatologist Jane Goodall about what six decades of studying chimpanzees has taught her about humans. Th...

Why we love drugs

19 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Sean Illing talks with author Michael Pollan about his new book This Is Your Mind on Plants, why some societies condemn drugs that other societi...

The rugged majesty of revision

15 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Jamil Smith speaks with novelist and author Kiese Laymon in a far-ranging conversation about Laymon's reacquiring the rights to his own books, t...

How to forgive

12 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Sean Illing talks with Elizabeth Bruenig about how hard it is to forgive, how to balance our desire for justice with our humanity, and about how...

What makes a great conversation?

08 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Here's a look ahead at what's to come for Vox Conversations. Vox's Sean Illing welcomes colleague Jamil Smith to the podcast as an additional regular ...

Introducing: Now & Then

01 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Now & Then is a new podcast from CAFE hosted by award-winning historians Heather Cox Richardson and Joanne Freeman. Every Tuesday, Heather and Joanne ...

The science of dating

24 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Relationships journalist and podcast host Andrea Silenzi talks with Logan Ury, behavioral scientist-turned-dating coach, and author of How to Not Die ...

Honoring Juneteenth with Ibram X. Kendi

17 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In this special edition of Vox Conversations in honor of the Juneteenth holiday, Vox race reporter Fabiola Cineas spoke with author and podcast host I...

Digital dictatorship

10 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The internet was first conceived as a tool to promote free expression, to foster and enliven debate, and to strengthen democratic ideals. But it didn’...

The man who proposed reparations in the 1860s

03 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox’s Dylan Matthews talks with historian Bruce Levine about his book Thaddeus Stevens: Civil War Revolutionary and Fighter for Racial Justice. They...

What pandemic recovery should look like

27 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Emily Stewart talks with Janelle Jones, chief economist at the Labor Department, about what's actually going on with the US economy — and who ...

The gift of getting old

20 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox’s Sean Illing talks with Max Linsky, host of the new podcast 70 Over 70, which features intimate conversations with people over 70 years old. Th...

Freedom, and what it means to have a body

13 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Anna North talks with author Olivia Laing about her book Everybody: A Book About Freedom. Through the surprisingly connected lives of artists, a...

Why are we so worried about Satan?

06 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Sean Illing talks with Sarah Marshall, co-host of the You're Wrong About podcast, about the Satanic Panic of the early 1980s. They discuss Ameri...

How to be wrong less often

29 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Dylan Matthews talks with Julia Galef, host of the podcast Rationally Speaking, and author of The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clea...

The complicated history of wildlife conservation

22 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox environmental reporter Benji Jones talks with journalist and author Michelle Nijhuis about her book Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of...

How to replace everything in the industrialized world

15 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Climate writer and Vox contributor David Roberts talks with Jessika Trancik, Associate Professor at the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society at M....

Patricia Lockwood's big, beautiful internet brain

08 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Writer and Vox contributor Anne Helen Petersen talks with poet and novelist Patricia Lockwood about the experience of being extremely online. They dis...

Who is the real George Soros?

01 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Worldly host Zack Beauchamp talks with author and New Statesman editor Emily Tamkin about the life and legacy of George Soros. How did a Hungari...

Introducing Unexplainable

27 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Unexplainable is a new podcast from Vox about everything we don’t know. Each week, the team look at the most fascinating unanswered questions in sci...

The border, explained by someone who knows it intimately

25 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Aarti Shahani, NPR journalist and host of WBEZ podcast Art of Power, talks with investigative journalist and author Alfredo Corchado about the US-Mexi...

"Wintering," wisdom, and weathering life's darkest times

18 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Sigal Samuel talks with the author of Wintering, Katherine May, about the lessons we can learn during life's darkest seasons. They talk about ou...

Reframing America's race problem

11 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Sean Illing talks with the author of The Sum of Us, Heather McGhee, about the costs of racism in America — for everyone. They discuss what we ...

Who owns the Western?

04 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox book critic Constance Grady talks with Vox gender identities reporter and novelist Anna North about Anna's new book Outlawed. They discuss creatin...

A Watchmen writer on race, TV, and tech giants

25 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Undefeated's culture critic Soraya Nadia McDonald talks with Emmy Award-winning television writer and producer Cord Jefferson. They discuss the tr...

Uncovering the history of psychedelics in Christianity

18 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Sean Illing talks about the the little-known history of psychedelics and spirituality in the Western world with Brian Muraresku, author of The I...

Biden's immigration architect on racism, reform, and the Obama legacy

11 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

NPR journalist, memoirist, and host of the upcoming WBEZ podcast The Art of Power Aarti Shahani talks with Cecilia Muñoz, a former aide to Obama and ...

The Capitol Siege and American Revolution

04 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Dylan Matthews talks with author and Revolutions podcaster Mike Duncan about what history can tell us about the insurrection at the US Capitol. ...

Why fascism in Post-Trump America isn't going away

28 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox's Sean Illing talks to Yale professor and author Jason Stanley about why American democracy provides such fertile soil for fascism, how Donald Tru...

The Joe Biden experience

25 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Ezra Klein is joined by Evan Osnos, a staff writer at the New Yorker and the author of Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now to discuss o...

What it means to be a "good" rich person

21 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vox columnist Anne Helen Petersen talks with sociologist Rachel Sherman about her research into the anxieties of wealthy people and their desire to be...

Peter Kafka and Kevin Roose on big tech's power and responsibility

18 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Recode’s Peter Kafka speaks with New York Times’s Tech columnist Kevin Roose about big tech’s power and responsibility - and whether it is going...

Sam Sanders and Olivia Nuzzi on President Trump’s last days

14 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

New York magazine's Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi spent the past four years covering the Trump White House. In this inaugural episode of Vox C...

Best of: We don’t just feel emotions. We make them.

07 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How do you feel right now? Excited to listen to your favorite podcast? Anxious about the state of American politics? Annoyed by my use of rhetorical q...

Best of: Ending the age of animal cruelty, with Bruce Friedrich

04 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

You often hear that eating animals is natural. And it is. But not the way we do it. The industrial animal agriculture system is a technological marvel...

Best of: The moral philosophy of The Good Place

31 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

After creating and running Parks and Recreation and writing for The Office, Michael Schur decided he wanted to create a sitcom about one of the most f...

Best of: Michael Lewis reads my mind

28 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Michael Lewis needs little introduction. He’s the author of Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, The Big Short, The Blind Side, The Fifth Risk. He’s the hos...

Best of: Tracy K. Smith changed how I read poetry

24 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It’s the rare podcast conversation where, as it’s happening, I’m making notes to go back and listen again so I can fully absorb what I heard. Bu...

What I’ve learned, and what comes next.

21 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

As strange as it is to write, this is my last podcast here at Vox. In January, I'll be starting at the New York Times as a columnist on the opinion ...

Best of: An inspiring conversation about democracy with Danielle Allen

17 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This conversation with Harvard political theorist Danielle Allen in fall 2019 is one of my all-time favorites.    Allen directs Harvard’s Edmond J...

Michael Pollan on the psychedelic society

14 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

On November 3, as the country fixated on the incoming presidential election results, voters in Oregon approved a seemingly innocuous ballot measure wi...

Best of: Robert Sapolsky on the toxic intersection of poverty and stress

10 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Robert Sapolsky is a Stanford neuroscientist and primatologist. He’s the author of a slew of important books on human biology and behavior, includin...

Joe Biden and "the new progressivism"

07 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It’s often said that Joe Biden has an instinct for finding the political center — that of his party, and that of the country. To understand how Bi...

Best of: Frances Lee on why bipartisanship is irrational

03 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

There are few conversations I’ve had on this show that are quite as relevant to our current political moment as this one with Princeton political sc...

The most important book I've read this year

30 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

If I could get policymakers, and citizens, everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Futur...

Best of: Alison Gopnik changed how I think about love

26 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Happy Thanksgiving! We will be back next week with brand new episodes, but on a day when so many of us are thinking about love and relationships I wan...

Best of: Vivek Murthy on America’s loneliness epidemic

23 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

At the holidays, I wanted to share some of my favorite episodes of the show with you (we’ll be back next week with brand new episodes). My conversat...

What Democrats got wrong about Hispanic voters

19 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Donald Trump has built his presidency on top of racial dog whistles, xenophobic rhetoric, and anti-immigrant policies. A core belief among liberals wa...

Antitrust, censorship, misinformation, and the 2020 election

16 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I’ve been fascinated by the sharp change in how the tech platforms — particularly the big social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, and to so...

The crisis isn’t Trump. It’s the Republican Party.

12 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

If the past week — and past four years — have proven anything, it’s that we are not as different as we believed. No longer is the question, "Can...

The Joe Biden experience

07 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Joe Biden will be the 46th president of the United States. And — counting the votes of people, not just land — it won’t be close. If current tre...

Chris Hayes and I process this wild election

05 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This is not the post-election breakdown I expected to have today, but it's definitely the one that I needed. Chris Hayes is the host of the MSNBC prim...

Stacey Abrams on minority rule, voting rights, and the future of democracy

02 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

We’re one day away from the election, though who-knows-how-many days from finding out who won it. But there’s more at stake than whether Donald Tr...

Nate Silver on why 2020 isn't 2016

29 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

As you may have heard, there's a pretty important election coming up. That means it's time to bring back the one and only Nate Silver.  Silver, the ...

Sarah Kliff grades Biden and Trump's health care plans

26 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

There are few issues on which the stakes in this election are quite as stark as on health care. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden plans to pas...

Trumpism never existed. It was always just Trump.

22 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In 2016, Julius Krein was one of Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters. In Trump’s critiques of the existing Republican and Democratic establishme...

What should Democrats do about the Supreme Court?

19 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

If Democrats win back power this November, they will be faced with a choice: Leave the existing Supreme Court intact, and watch their legislative agen...

Marilynne Robinson on writing, metaphysics, and the Donald Trump dilemma

15 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Marilynne Robinson is one of the greatest American novelists alive today. She’s the author of the Pulitzer-prize winning Gilead — one of my favori...

The case for Trump’s foreign policy

12 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

As we approach the 2020 election, I want to make sure the conversation on this show reflects the actual choice the country is facing. So we are going ...

Fareed Zakaria on how Biden and Trump see the world

08 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Fareed Zakaria is the host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, a columnist for the Washington Post, and one of the most astute foreign policy thinkers of o...

How a climate bill becomes a reality

05 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Helluva week in politics, huh? And yet, in the background, the world is still warming, the fires still burning, the future still dimming. There will b...

The meat we eat affects us all

02 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In this special episode of the Future Perfect podcast, neuroscientist Lori Marino helps us understand how arbitrarily we draw the lines between animal...

A dark, dangerous debate

30 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In a special, post-debate episode, I'm joined by Matt Yglesias to discuss the most unnerving presidential debate I've ever seen. Hosts: Matthew Ygles...

A radical — or obvious? — plan to save American democracy

28 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

We talk a lot on this show about the problems with American political institutions. But what if all those problems are actually just one problem: the ...

RBG, minority rule, and our looming legitimacy crisis

24 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, just weeks before a presidential election, leaves us in dangerous waters. It’s easy to imagine a scenario in which...

David French and I debate polarization, secession, and the filibuster

21 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

David French is a senior editor at the Dispatch, a columnist at Time, and one of the conservative commentators I read most closely. French and I have ...

The Matt Yglesias Show

17 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Matt Yglesias is a co-founder and senior correspondent at Vox, my co-host on The Weeds podcast, and my oldest friend in journalism. Matt’s college b...

Race, policing, and the universal yearning for safety

14 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Our conversation over race and policing — like our conversations over virtually everything in America — is shot through with a crude individualism...

How to think about coronavirus risk in your life

10 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Coronavirus has turned life into an endless series of risk calculations. Can I take my child to see his grandparents, even if it means getting on a pl...

Black Republicans, Donald Trump, and America's "George Floyd moment"

07 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Republican Party began losing the Black vote around 1936. Since then, Republicans have commissioned reports, hired consultants, and spent huge sum...

Andrew Yang on UBI, coronavirus, and his next job in politics

03 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The last time Andrew Yang was on the podcast, he was just beginning his long shot campaign for the presidency. Now, he’s fresh off a speaking slot a...

Why the hell did America invade Iraq?

31 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In 2003, America invaded Iraq. The war cost trillions of dollars, thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and destabilized ...

How to decarbonize America — and create 25 million jobs

27 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Saul Griffith knows the US energy system better than just about anyone on this planet. He’s an inventor, a MacArthur genius fellow, and the founder ...

Isabel Wilkerson wants to change how we understand race in America

24 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Isabel Wilkerson is an intimidating guest. She’s a former New York Times reporter, Pulitzer Prize recipient, Guggenheim fellow, and hands-down one o...

What it would take to end child poverty in America

20 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In 2019, about one in six children in America — 12 million kids nationwide — lived in poverty. That’s a rate about two or three times higher tha...

Hannah Gadsby on comedy, free speech, and living with autism

17 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby became a global star with her Netflix special Nanette. It’s a remarkable piece of work, and it does what great art...

What would Keynes do?

13 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The novel coronavirus — and America’s disastrously inept response — has shuttered the economy, leaving factories quiet, businesses closed, worke...

A devastating indictment of the Republican Party

10 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

For 30 years, Stuart Stevens was one of the most influential operatives in Republican politics. He was Mitt Romney’s top strategist in 2012, served ...

How inequality and white identity politics feed each other

06 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Conservative parties operating in modern democracies face a dilemma: How does a party that represents the interests of moneyed elites win mass support...

Best of: Jia Tolentino on what happens when life is an endless performance

03 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The introduction to Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, hit me hard. In her investigation of how American politics and cultu...