The New Yorker Radio Hour
Episodes
Aimee Mann Live, with Atul Gawande
06 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Aimee Mann, the celebrated Los Angeles singer and songwriter, recently released an album called “Queens of the Summer Hotel.” It was inspired in p...
Dave Grohl’s Tales of Life and Music
02 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
At The New Yorker Festival, Dave Grohl talked with Kelefa Sanneh about Grohl’s recent book, “The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music.” Grohl, w...
A New Civil War in America?
30 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Since the F.B.I. raid on former President Donald Trump’s home, Mar-A-Lago, the phrases “civil war” and “lock and load” have trended on right...
The Actor Jenifer Lewis: Mother, Activist, Hurricane
26 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jenifer Lewis is known as the “Mother of Black Hollywood” for good reason; her screen progeny have included Whitney Houston, Angela Bassett, and T...
What’s Driving Black Candidates to the Republican Party?
23 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Republican Party has recently attracted an almost unprecedented number of Black candidates to its fold—more than at any time since the Reconstru...
Neil Gaiman on the Power of Fantasy in our Lives
19 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Neil Gaiman, one of the great fantasy writers of our time, first started writing his comic series “The Sandman” in the nineteen-eightiess. Decades...
Designing a Soundscape for the Cars of the Future
16 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Electric cars, compared to cars with internal-combustion engines, are nearly silent, which can present a danger to cyclists and pedestrians. So car co...
Elizabeth Kolbert on a Historic Climate Bill, Plus a Lesson from Kansas
12 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Inflation Reduction Act now before Congress is being celebrated as the most important piece of climate legislation in the history of this country—...
A Trip to the Boundary Waters
09 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Alex Kotlowitz is known as a chronicler of the city of Chicago, and of lives marred by urban poverty and violence. His books set in Chicago include “...
Jane Mayer on Ohio’s Lurch to the Right
06 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Last month, the story of a 10-year-old rape victim captured national headlines. The young girl was forced to travel out of state because of Ohio’s d...
Notes from a Warming World
02 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Much of the globe has seen record-breaking temperatures in recent heat waves that seem increasingly routine. Dhruv Khullar, a contributor and a practi...
Jamie Raskin on the Facts of January 6th, and the Danger Ahead
29 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, serves on Congress’s Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the Capitol. He spoke with ...
Jason Isbell on Songwriting While Sober
26 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jason Isbell got into the music business early; he had a publishing deal when he was twenty-one. But he really came into his own as a songwriter aroun...
New Mexico Is a “Safe Haven” for Abortion Between Texas and Arizona
22 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In New Mexico, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has declared the state a “reproductive safe haven” between Arizona to the west, and Texas to the ea...
The Nerdwriter Conquers the Internet, Plus Kelefa Sanneh on Country Radio
19 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Evan Puschak, known on YouTube as the Nerdwriter, posts videos dissecting topics from Shakespeare and Tarkovsky to Superman; from Martin Luther King, ...
The Writer Dmitry Bykov on Putin’s Russia, the Land of the “Most Free Slaves”
15 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Until very recently, Dmitry Bykov was a huge presence on the Russian literary scene. He is a novelist, a poet, a biographer, and a critic. He was a fr...
The Comedian Hannah Gadsby Renounces Comedy, and Patricia Marx Tries to Relax
12 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The comedian Hannah Gadsby has been touring this summer with a show called “Body of Work.” She came to wide attention in 2018, with the Netflix sp...
What Precedents Would Clarence Thomas Overturn Next?
08 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Justice Clarence Thomas once was an outlier for his legal views. But Thomas is now the heart of the Court’s conservative bloc, and his concurring op...
Astrid Holleeder’s Crime Family
05 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
All her life, Astrid Holleeder knew that her older brother Willem was involved in crime. But she was stunned when, in 1983, Willem and his best friend...
Jia Tolentino and Stephania Taladrid on the End of Roe v. Wade
01 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dobbs case was not a surprise; given the draft opinion that was leaked in May, its decision to overturn Roe v. Wad...
Why Do Conservatives Love Hungary’s Viktor Orbán?
27 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When the New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz first heard that the Conservative Political Action Conference, the flagship event of the American cons...
Alan Alda, Podcaster
24 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Alan Alda spent his early years in the burlesque theatres where his father, the actor Robert Alda, would perform. Those early years opened his eyes in...
Forget Dating Apps—the “Marriage Pact” Goes for the Long Haul
21 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A survey that started as a student project at Stanford University has become a popular dating and relationship tool on campuses across the country. It...
Dexter Filkins on the Rise of Ron DeSantis
17 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has shown himself uniquely skilled at attracting attention beyond the borders of his home state. Just this month, DeSa...
Michael R. Jackson on “A Strange Loop,” His Black, Queer Coming-of-Age Musical
15 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Michael R. Jackson’s Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical “A Strange Loop” features a Black queer writer named Usher, who works as an usher, ...
The Adrenaline Rush of Racing Drones
14 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ian Frazier, who has chronicled American life for The New Yorker for more than forty years, travelled to a house in Fort Collins, Colorado, where thre...
Regina Spektor on Her New Album, “Home, Before and After”
10 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Twenty years ago, Regina Spektor was yet another aspiring musician in New York, lugging around a backpack full of self-produced CDs, and playing at li...
Masha Gessen on the Quiet in Kyiv
07 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Masha Gessen is reporting for The New Yorker on the war in Ukraine, which is now in its fourth month. They checked in with David Remnick from Kyiv, wh...
“The Book of Queer,” and “Bob’s Burgers” Hits the Big Screen
03 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
While working on his Ph.D., the historian Eric Cervini (whose book “The Deviant’s War” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize) noticed the lack o...
Remembering Roger Angell, and Fishing with Karen Chee
31 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Roger Angell, who died last week, at the age of 101, was inducted in 2014 into the Baseball Hall of Fame in recognition of his extraordinary accomplis...
What Makes a Mass Shooter?
27 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In America, unthinkable violence has become routine. In the wake of the Buffalo and Uvalde mass shootings, David Remnick speaks with the researchers...
Florence and the Machine, Live at The New Yorker Festival
24 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Across five studio albums, Florence and the Machine has explored genres from pop to punk and soul; the band’s most recent record, “Dance Fever,”...
The Attack on Gender-Affirming Medical Care
20 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Across the United States, conservative politicians are leading a backlash against L.G.B.T.Q. identity, framing legal restrictions as protection of chi...
The Comedian Megan Stalter on Finding Inspiration in American Absurdity
17 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Before the pandemic, Megan Stalter was an unknown comedian, trying to catch a lucky break at clubs in New York City. But with the arrival of COVID-19,...
The Battle After Roe v. Wade
13 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Assuming that Justice Samuel Alito’s final opinion in the Mississippi abortion case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization gets majority sup...
Stephanie Hsu on “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
10 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“Everything Everywhere All At Once” is in a genre all its own—you could call it sci-fi-martial-arts-family-drama. Stephanie Hsu plays both Joy...
The Last Abortion Clinic in Mississippi; and a Look at White Empathy
06 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Last week, a draft opinion was leaked which suggests that a majority of Supreme Court Justices are ready to overturn the precedents of Roe v. Wade and...
Rickie Lee Jones’s Life on the Road
03 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Rickie Lee Jones emerged into the pop world fully formed; her début album was nominated for five Grammys, in 1980, and she won for Best New Artist. O...
A Ukrainian Diplomat on the Future of Russian Aggression
29 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As the Russian invasion of Ukraine enters a third month, prospects of ending the conflict are still nowhere in sight, and there seems to be no end to ...
Viola Davis on Playing Michelle Obama, and Finding Her Voice as an Actor
25 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Oscar-winning actor Viola Davis traces her career in Hollywood back to a single moment of inspiration from her childhood: watching Cicely Tyson st...
Ronan Farrow on the Threat of Modern Spyware
22 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ronan Farrow has published an investigation into a software called Pegasus and its maker, NSO Group. Pegasus is one of the most invasive spywares know...
“We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” and a Short History of Movies about the Internet
19 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Internet can be a scary place in real life, and far more so in Jane Schoenbrun’s film “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair,” which premi...
Jennifer Egan on the Literary Pleasures of the Concept Album
12 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jennifer Egan’s new novel, “The Candy House,” one of the most anticipated books of the year, has just been published. It is related—not a sequ...
Anita Hill and Jane Mayer on Ketanji Brown Jackson, and the State of the Supreme Court
08 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ketanji Brown Jackson has been voted in as a Supreme Court Justice—the first Black woman to serve in that role. But, to reach this milestone, Jackso...
The Missing Boater
05 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dick Conant spent years of his life crisscrossing America by canoe, like a Mark Twain character. On land, he worked a variety of jobs and was often ho...
Investigating January 6th
01 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
With a judge declaring that Donald Trump “more likely than not” committed a felony in his attempt to overturn the Presidential election, the congr...
Connor Ratliff Talks with Sarah Larson, Plus Chef Bryant Terry
29 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An aspiring actor named Connor Ratliff thought he had it made when he got a small part on the 2001 miniseries “Band of Brothers,” in an episode di...
Jill Lepore on Parents’ Rights and the Culture War
25 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A wave of book bannings sweeping the country, along with conservative fury over titles like “Antiracist Baby,” seems like a backlash against the h...
Returning to the Office . . . While Black
22 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“Coming back to work is partially about surveillance and micromanagement,” Keisha, a podcasting executive, says. “Everybody feels it, but people...
Radio Ukraine
18 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Kraina FM is a radio station that broadcasts in Kyiv and more than twenty other cities, playing Ukrainian-language rock and pop. When Russia invaded U...
Jane Campion on “The Power of the Dog”
15 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog” opens like a classic Western: cattle are herded across the sweeping plains of Montana, with imposing mount...
Stephen Kotkin: Don’t Blame the West for Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine
11 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It’s impossible to understand the destruction and death that Vladimir Putin is unleashing in Ukraine without understanding his most basic conviction...
Pauline Kael on “The Godfather”
08 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As The New Yorker’s film critic from 1968 to around 1991, the influential Pauline Kael gave voice to her visceral reactions: she wrote as a moviegoe...
Masha Gessen and Joshua Yaffa on the Escalation of Violence in Ukraine
04 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Joshua Yaffa is a Moscow correspondent for The New Yorker, but he has been travelling throughout the war zone in Ukraine for weeks, reporting on the...
Sheryl Lee Ralph on Confronting Hollywood
01 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sheryl Lee Ralph has been a staple of Black entertainment for decades. She played Deena Jones in the original Broadway production of “Dreamgirls,”...
How Black Creators Are Changing Hollywood
25 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the past few years, it seems a floodgate has opened, releasing a deluge of tremendously successful media that centers the Black experience. “Get ...
How Should President Biden Respond to Putin’s War on Ukraine?
24 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Since last summer, Russian troops have been amassing on the Ukrainian border, and, in recent weeks, President Vladimir Putin warned that he intended a...
Peter Dinklage on “Cyrano”
22 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Joe Wright’s film “Cyrano,” nominated for an Academy Award for Best Costume Design, was based on Erica Schmidt’s 2018 stage musical of the sam...
Nicholas Britell on the Art of the Film Score
18 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Nicholas Britell has emerged as one of the most in-demand film composers working today, creating original music for projects that hew to no style or m...
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the Path Forward for the Left
14 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of the most prominent progressives in Washington. Her political ascent began with her shocking 2018 defeat of a longti...
On Cancel Culture and the State of Free Speech
11 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Every few weeks, it seems, another example of so-called cancel culture is dominating the headlines and trending on social-media platforms. The refrain...
David Remnick Talks with Lee Child, the Creator of Jack Reacher
08 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Lee Child didn’t start writing novels until he lost a prestigious job producing TV in England during a shakeup that he attributes to Rupert Murdoch....
Black Thought Takes the Stage
04 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Tariq Trotter, best known in music as Black Thought, the emcee of the Roots, is regarded by many hip-hop fans as one of the best freestyle rappers eve...
Guillermo del Toro and Bradley Cooper on the Enduring Appeal of Noir
01 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Guillermo del Toro has been called the leading fantasy filmmaker of this century. His movies include “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “Hellboy,” and “Th...
Russia’s Intentions in Ukraine—and America
28 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“They push buttons,” says Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale. “What button of ours are they pushing here? What are they trying to ge...
The Trials of a Whistle-blower
25 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As a nurse at the Irwin County Detention Center—a Georgia facility run by LaSalle Corrections, a private company operating an immigration-detention ...
The Olympic Games Return to China, in a Changed World
21 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Much has changed since China last hosted the Olympics, during the 2008 Summer Games. Those Games were widely seen as greatly improving China’s inter...
Hilton Als and Emma Cline on the Late Joan Didion
18 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Joan Didion tried and failed, she said, “to think”; that is, to write about abstractions and symbols, and make grand arguments in the manner of th...
The Biden Presidency, Year One
14 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
President Biden took the oath of office in a moment of deep crisis—the pandemic in full swing and just weeks after an unprecedented attempt to overt...
Nnedi Okorafor on Sci-Fi Through an African Lens
11 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Nnedi Okorafor, a recipient of the prestigious Hugo Award, is a prolific writer of science-fiction and fantasy novels for adults and young adults. She...
A New Civil War in America?
07 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When rioters, encouraged by the President, stormed the Capitol, one year ago, to overturn the results of the election, the idea that such a thing coul...
The Power of Police Unions
04 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The repeal of Section 50-A of the New York State Civil Rights Law was no technical change. Passed in the wake of the George Floyd protests, it was a b...
Amanda Gorman on Life After Inauguration
31 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
One year ago, Amanda Gorman delivered the inaugural poem on the day that Joe Biden became President. Gorman was just twenty-two years old, and it was ...
For a French Burglar, Stealing Masterpieces Is Easier Than Selling Them
28 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Vjeran Tomic has been stealing since he was a small child, when he used a ladder to break into a library in his home town, in Bosnia. After moving to ...
Rhiannon Giddens, Americana’s Queen, Goes Global
24 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
By the standards of any musician, Rhiannon Giddens has taken a twisting and complex path. Trained as an operatic soprano at the prestigious Oberlin Co...
When Snow Came to San Juan
21 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For several years in the early nineteen-fifties, Puerto Rico received snow, right around Christmas. Children in San Juan rode a sled and had a giant s...
Is the Gift of Tuition Enough?
17 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Élite schools are trying hard to recruit students of color and students who are less well-off financially; Yale University, as one example, now cover...
Millennial Writers Reflect on a Generation’s Despair
14 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The eldest millennials turned forty this year, and the producer Ngofeen Mputubwele comments on a sense of despair he finds in his generation, having...
Paul Thomas Anderson, Poet Laureate of the San Fernando Valley
10 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Paul Thomas Anderson first made a splash in Hollywood with his film “Boogie Nights,” a portrait of the porn industry that burgeoned in the San Fer...
Life After Prison
07 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As a kid, Jonathan was good at soccer and making friends. But by the age of eighteen, he was a drug dealer facing his first serious conviction. For hi...
Mass Incarceration, Then and Now
03 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The United States has the largest prison population in the world. But, until the publication of Michelle Alexander’s book “The New Jim Crow,” in...
Aimee Mann Live, with Atul Gawande
30 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Aimee Mann, the celebrated Los Angeles singer and songwriter, recently released an album called “Queens of the Summer Hotel.” The album was inspir...
Dave Grohl’s Tales of Life and Music
26 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
At The New Yorker Festival, Dave Grohl talked with Kelefa Sanneh about Grohl’s new book, “The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music.” Grohl, who ...
Mexican Abortion Activists Mobilize to Aid Texans
23 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Mexico is a deeply Catholic nation where abortion was, for a long time, criminalized in many states; just a few years ago Coahuilla, near the U.S. bor...
If Roe v. Wade Goes, What Next?
19 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Supreme Court, with a six-to-three majority of conservative justices, is hearing critical cases on abortion rights. If it approves restrictive sta...
The Essential Workers of the Climate Crisis
16 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
After storms and other climate disasters, legions of workers appear overnight to cover blown-out buildings with construction tarps, rip out ruined wal...
Anna Deavere Smith Retells Rodney King’s Story in Theatre
12 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
“Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992” premièred nearly thirty years ago, but it’s one of the most current and important plays on Broadway right now. An...
Rachel Held Evans and Her Legacy
09 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Growing up, Rachel Held Evans was a fiercely enthusiastic evangelizer for her faith, the kind of kid who relished the chance to sit next to an atheist...
Will the Office Survive the Pandemic?
05 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Cal Newport, the author of “A World without Email” and other books, has been writing about how the shutdown has affected businesses and the cultur...
Wole Soyinka on His New Satire of Corruption and Fundamentalism
02 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Wole Soyinka is a giant of world literature. A Nobel laureate, he’s written more than two dozen plays, a vast amount of poetry, several memoirs, and...
The Nobel Prize Winner Maria Ressa on the Turmoil at Facebook
29 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The roughly ten thousand company documents that make up the Facebook Papers show a company in turmoil—and one that prioritizes its economic interest...
Jane Goodall Talks with Andy Borowitz
26 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jane Goodall is as revered a figure as modern science has to offer, though she prefers to call herself a naturalist rather than a scientist. Goodall l...
How a Girls’ School Fled Afghanistan as the Taliban Took Over
22 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the summer, Shabana Basij-Rasikh came on the Radio Hour to speak with Sue Halpern about founding the School of Leadership Afghanistan—known as SO...
Jon Stewart: “That’s Not Cancel Culture”
19 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
“The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” defined an era. For more than sixteen years, Stewart and his many correspondents skewered American politics. At ...
Daniel Craig Takes Off the Tux
15 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel Craig made his career as an actor in the theatre and in British indie films. When he showed up in Hollywood, it was usually in smaller roles, o...
Kara Walker Talks with Thelma Golden
13 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kara Walker is one of our most influential living artists. Walker won a MacArthur Fellowship (the “genius” grant) before she turned thirty, and be...
An Interview with Merrick Garland, and Susan Orlean on Animals
08 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
At The New Yorker Festival, the renowned investigative journalist Jane Mayer asked Attorney General Merrick Garland about the prosecution of January 6...
Broadway’s Unusual Reopening, and Amanda Petrusich Picks Three
05 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Broadway theatres are welcoming audiences to a new season, mounting original works and restaging shows that closed in March, 2020. In this unusual sea...
Jonathan Franzen Talks with David Remnick About “Crossroads”
01 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Franzen’s sixth novel, “Crossroads,” is set in 1971, and the title is firmly on the nose: the Hildebrand family is at a crossroads itse...
Should the Climate Movement Embrace Sabotage?
28 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Andreas Malm, a climate activist and senior lecturer at Lund University, in Sweden, studies the relationship between climate change and capitalism. Wi...