The New Yorker Radio Hour
Episodes
Is America Ready to Make Reparations?
24 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Late in the Civil War, the Union general William T. Sherman confiscated four hundred thousand acres of land from Confederate planters and ordered it r...
Lucinda Williams Talks with Ariel Levy
21 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Despite winning a Grammy for her song “Passionate Kisses,” which was performed by Mary Chapin Carpenter, Lucinda Williams spent many years overloo...
James Taylor Will Teach you Guitar
17 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
James Taylor’s songs are so familiar that they seem to have always existed. Onstage at the New Yorker Festival, in 2010, Taylor peeled back some of ...
What the Constitution Means to the Playwright Heidi Schreck
14 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Few Americans dispute the centrality of the Constitution as a statement of our country’s goals; it is as though holy. But what the Constitution actu...
Bill McKibben and Elizabeth Kolbert: Is It Too Late to Save the World?
10 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
After years of languishing far down the list of voters’ priorities, climate change has moved to the top of many voters’ concerns, according to a n...
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and Comedian Pete Holmes
03 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand been fierce on the issue of sexual assault and harassment, especially in the military and government; as a champion of the ...
Rhiannon Giddens, Americana’s Queen, Goes Global
03 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
By the standards of any musician, Rhiannon Giddens has a twisting and complex path. Trained as an operatic soprano at the prestigious Oberlin Conserva...
A New Approach to Dementia Care
30 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the field of memory care, there is a fierce debate around the question of honesty. Lying can, under certain circumstances, alleviate or avert distr...
Julián Castro Is Not Afraid
26 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In a crowded Democratic field, the candidate Julián Castro is eager to stand out. One way he’s tried to do that is by taking on the issue of immigr...
The Green New Deal, and an Unusual Night at the Orchestra
23 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The Green New Deal is coming to the table during the one of the most divisive periods Washington has ever seen. Two advocates of the environmental pla...
The N.R.A.’s Financial Mess
19 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Last March, Wayne LaPierre sent a fund-raising letter to his members—an urgent plea for money. LaPierre described an attack on the Second Amendment ...
The actor Christine Baranski on “The Good Fight,” and Kurt Vile on Songwriting
16 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Christine Baranski was a successful theatre actor who would never stoop to do television in the old days. But when she got the pilot script for “Cyb...
Masha Gessen and Keith Gessen Debate Russian and American Politics
12 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Masha Gessen and Keith Gessen have, taken together, written more than a dozen books and a thousand articles. Keith Gessen is a founder of n+1, an infl...
The Neurology of Bias, and a Visit with Thundercat
09 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Most of us have biases and prejudices we don’t acknowledge—or aren’t even aware of. Admitting those biases is a baseline of political “wokenes...
The Presidential Candidate Pete Buttigieg on Coming Out: “I Realized I Couldn’t Go On Like That Forever”
05 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
During an exit interview with President Barack Obama in November, 2016, just weeks after the election, David Remnick asked who would be the leaders of...
How OxyContin Was Sold to the Masses
02 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Patrick Radden Keefe has reported on the Sackler family and their control of Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin. Among the sources for his article ...
Has the Mueller Report Changed Anything?
29 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The Mueller investigation has been a two-year obsession for nearly everyone who cares about politics in America. For one side, the special counsel was...
U.K. Edges Closer to the Cliff of a No-Deal Brexit
26 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Since the minute that British citizens voted, in a 2016 referendum, to leave the European Union, confusion and disorganization has consumed the U.K. T...
Emilia Clarke on a Near-Death Experience Scarier than “Game of Thrones”
22 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Emilia Clarke was an unknown young actor when she landed the part of Daenerys, of the House of Targaryen, on a show called “Game of Thrones.” Afte...
The Hot Fashion Trends in Silicon Valley, and the Top Chef Niki Nakayama
19 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Silicon Valley has a reputation for being a place where young geniuses are too busy disrupting the world to buy clothes; jeans and a hoodie generally ...
Getting Detained by ICE—on Purpose
15 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 2012, two young activists from the National Immigrant Youth Alliance went on an undercover mission to infiltrate the Broward Transitional Center, a...
American Exiles in East Africa (Part 2)
12 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Pete O’Neal was a street hustler and small-time pimp who gave up crime to fight oppression, founding the Kansas City chapter of the Black Panther P...
American Exiles in East Africa
08 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Pete O’Neal was a street hustler and small-time pimp who gave up crime to struggle against oppression, founding the Kansas City chapter of the Black...
Jane Mayer on the Revolving Door Between Fox News and the White House
05 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump has made no secret of his great admiration for Fox News -- which he praises by tweet nearly constantly -- and his disdain for other, “f...
A Moderate Republican Wants to Primary Donald Trump in 2020
01 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld is launching what looks like a political suicide mission. He recently announced an exploratory committee t...
A Writer Solves a Mystery, and Ruth E. Carter Steps into the Spotlight
22 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Committed during a period filled with bombings, killings, and disappearances, the murder of Jean McConville remains one of the most infamous unsolved ...
What Are We Talking About When We Talk about Socialism?
19 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
With the election to the House of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, following up on the surprising Presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders, ...
Teju Cole on Blackface and Valeria Luiselli on the Border Crisis
15 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When depictions of Virginia politicians in blackface surfaced this month, the New Yorker contributor Teju Cole was unsurprised. “A white man of a ce...
To Stop the Shooting, Lupe Cruz Gets Between the People with the Guns
12 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Conversations about gun reform are often galvanized by catastrophic mass shootings. But gun violence mostly unfolds as a matter of awful routine: dome...
Is the Tide Turning on Gun Reform?
08 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This week, the House held hearings on gun violence, the first in eight years. In the 2018 elections, gun-reform groups outspent the N.R.A.—which app...
Marlon James Builds His Own Damn Universe
05 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When the cast of the film “The Hobbit” was first announced, Marlon James was dismayed—though hardly surprised—by how white it was. A long-stan...
The Mueller Investigation: What We Know So Far
01 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Washington is abuzz with rumors that the Mueller report is coming soon, and both sides are trying to strategize their next move. The reporter Adam Dav...
John Thompson vs. American Justice
29 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When police showed up to question John Thompson, he was worried that it was because he had sold drugs to an undercover cop. When he realized they we...
Jason Rezaian on Imprisonment in Iran
25 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Jason Rezaian was born in California to an Iranian father and an American mother. After a failed effort to enter the Persian rug trade, he moved to T...
The Fall of a Chinese Pop Star, and Calvin Trillin’s Happy Marriage
22 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For some years, Denise Ho was one of the most popular singers in Asia. A Hong Kong native, she performed the style known as Cantopop in mainland China...
The Producer dream hampton Talks with Jelani Cobb about “Surviving R. Kelly”
18 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, it’s been an open secret that R. Kelly has allegedly kept young women trapped in abusive relationships through psychological manipulati...
For a French Burglar, Stealing Masterpieces Is Easier Than Selling Them
15 Jan 2019
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 ...
How “The Apprentice” Made Donald Trump, and a Boondoggle in Wisconsin
11 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The staff writer Patrick Radden Keefe has reported on “The Apprentice” and its impact on Donald Trump—on how America saw Trump, and how Trump sa...
The Director Boots Riley on “Sorry to Bother You”
08 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Boots Riley’s directorial début, “Sorry to Bother You,” blends a dark strain of comedy with a sci-fi vision of capitalism run amok. The film’...
Live: Janet Mock and Chris Hayes
04 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Janet Mock first heard the word “māhū,” a Native Hawaiian word for people who exist outside the male-female binary, when she was twelve. She had...
Philip Roth’s American Portraits and American Prophecy
28 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The novelist and short-story writer Philip Roth died in May at the age of eighty-five. In novels like “Portnoy’s Complaint,” “The Human Stain,...
Christmas Music Reimagined with Kirk Douglas, the Guitarist for the Roots
23 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Kirk Douglas, the guitarist for the Roots, plays anything and everything as part of the “Tonight Show” band, so David Remnick put him to the test ...
2018 in Pop Culture
21 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The New Yorker staff writers Jia Tolentino, Doreen St. Félix, and Alexandra Schwartz all cover the culture beat from different angles. They talk with...
Kelly Slater’s Perfect Wave Brings Surfing to a Crossroads
18 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In December of 2015, a video appeared on the Internet that stunned surfers worldwide. Titled “Kelly’s Wave,” it showed Kelly Slater—arguably t...
Aaron Sorkin Rewrites “To Kill a Mockingbird”
14 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
As he set about adapting “To Kill a Mockingbird” for the stage—the play opened this week on Broadway—Aaron Sorkin first wrote a version that h...
Robyn Talks with David Remnick
07 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
For the past twenty-five years, since she was a young teen-ager, the singer Robyn has been on the cutting edge of pop music. Her sound is sparse and c...
Helen Rosner Ferments at Home, Plus Dexter Filkins on Saudi Arabia
04 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
One of the hot trends in the food world is one of the oldest: fermentation. No longer just for beer and sauerkraut, fermentation—which Helen Rosner...
Voter Suppression in the Twenty-First Century
30 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the November midterm elections, Stacey Abrams, a gubernatorial candidate in Georgia, arrived at her polling place to cast a vote for herself, only ...
Bridget Everett Talks with Michael Schulman
27 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Appearing at the New Yorker Festival, in conversation with Michael Schulman , Bridget Everett brought her dog onstage. It was unconventional, but no m...
Jim Carrey Doesn’t Exist (According to Jim Carrey)
23 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
As a young boy, Jim Carrey got in trouble for staring in the mirror. He didn’t do it because he was vain; he was practicing the comic skills that ma...
The Star Witnesses Against El Chapo
20 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Last year, the Mexican government finally agreed to extradite the notorious drug kingpin El Chapo to the U.S. Born Joaquín Guzmán Loera, he was once...
The Countdown to Brexit, Plus Adam Gopnik’s Turkey Zen
16 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
More than two years after British voters approved a measure to withdraw their nation from the European Union—a gigantic undertaking with no roadmap ...
After the 2008 Financial Crisis, the Economy Was Fracked Up
13 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act injected almost nine hundred billion dollars into the U.S. economy to help the nation recover from the 2008...
The Financial Crash and the Climate Crisis
09 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Ten years after the financial crash of 2008, the economy is humming along, with steady growth and rising employment. Yet that crisis continues to shap...
Derek Smalls—Harry Shearer’s Character in “Spinal Tap”—Returns with His Solo Début
06 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Harry Shearer is known for doing many characters, including Mr. Burns and others from “The Simpsons,” but the most famous is Derek Smalls, the sat...
From Mexico, the Reality of the Migrant Caravan
02 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Blitzer spent a week in Mexico with the so-called caravan—a group of about five thousand migrants, most of them from Honduras, who are maki...
Janelle Monáe, from the Future to the Present
30 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Janelle Monáe is an unlikely pop star. Her music is rooted in soul and R. & B., but also in pop, punk, and New Wave; her early releases were science-...
Daniel Radcliffe Gets His Facts Straight, and Pennsylvania’s Pipeline Politics
26 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The actor Daniel Radcliffe is on Broadway in a new play called “The Lifespan of a Fact”—perhaps the first-ever work of theatre in which a fact c...
Kelela Reinvents R. & B., and Sally Yates Gets Fired
23 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
When the acting Attorney General Sally Yates wouldn’t defend the so-called Muslim travel ban, she was promptly sacked—“before it was fashionable...
In the Midterms, White Supremacy Is Running for Office
19 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
While the big story going into the midterm elections has been the possibility of a “blue wave”—an upsurge of Democratic progressives, including ...
Joan Baez Is Still Protesting
16 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
“You know, I think as I get older,” Joan Baez tells David Remnick, “someone will show me a photograph”—of the March on Washington, for examp...
Is Voting Safe?
12 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
For democracy to function, we have to trust and accept the results of elections. But that trust is increasingly difficult to maintain in a world where...
The Long-Distance Con, Part 2
09 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
This is part two of a two-part series. Part one can be heard here. On the day that Maggie Robinson Katz learned that her father had only a few days...
Rebecca Traister Is Happy to Be Mad
05 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
After the election of Donald Trump, the feminist journalist Rebecca Traister began channeling her anger into a book. The result, “Good and Mad: The ...
Joan Jett’s Reputation
02 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Joan Jett cut a massive figure in rock and roll, starting in the nineteen-seventies and continuing with a string of hits including “I Love Rock and ...
The Long-Distance Con, Part 1
28 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
On the day that Maggie Robinson Katz learned that her father had only a few days to live, she also found out that her wealthy family couldn’t pay hi...
Into the Woods with Scott Carrier
25 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
After a thirty-year lobbying effort, Congress designated the Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail in 2009. Unlike the well-known Appalachian Trail ...
Lisa Brennan-Jobs on the Shadow of Steve Jobs, and Jill Lepore on the Long Sweep of American History
21 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Lisa Brennan-Jobs’s memoir, “Small Fry,” shares a common theme with many memoirs: the absent parent and the mark left by that absence in the adu...
Rachel Carson Dreams of the Sea
18 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Before she published “Silent Spring,” one of the most influential books of the last century, Rachel Carson was a young aspiring poet and then a do...
Illeana Douglas Steps Forward
14 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The day after The New Yorker published Ronan Farrow’s exposé about Harvey Weinstein, Farrow got a phone call from the actress and screenwriter Ille...
Kwame Anthony Appiah on the Complications of Identity
11 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Kwame Anthony Appiah is one of leading thinkers on identity. A professor of philosophy and law at New York University, Appiah also writes the New York...
Parenting While Deported
07 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Idalia and Arnold came to this country nearly two decades ago, from Honduras. They settled in a small city in New England and found the working-class ...
Rev. Franklin Graham Offers an Evangelist’s View of Donald Trump
04 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Like his father, Rev. Billy Graham, before him, Rev. Franklin Graham is one of the nation’s most prominent preachers, influential in the evangelical...
For a Palestinian Candidate, a Contested Election in Jerusalem
31 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Ramadan Dabash is a civil engineer and a mukhtar—an Arab community leader—in his neighborhood of East Jerusalem. His run for a seat on the city c...
David Simon’s “The Deuce” Charts the Rise of Pornography
28 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
David Simon is sympathetic to the sex workers he depicts in “The Deuce,” which will return to HBO for its second season in September. He is even s...
An N.Y.P.D. Sergeant Blows the Whistle on Quotas
24 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sergeant Edwin Raymond is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by a group of New York City police officers who have become famous as “the N.Y.P.D.-...
Three Actors Explain What It Means to be “Presidential”
21 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
During the lead-up to the 2016 election, three actors who have played fictional Presidents of the United States discussed what it means to be “Presi...
Seth Meyers Talks with Ariel Levy
17 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Seth Meyers—a veteran of “Saturday Night Live” and the host of NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers”—sat down at the 2017 New Yorker Festi...
David Remnick on Aretha Franklin
14 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Aretha Franklin brought Barack Obama to tears when she performed “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” at the Kennedy Center Honors tribute t...
Weeding with Parker Posey
14 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Parker Posey has been a vivid presence in American film, especially indie film, for twenty-five years. She got her start in “Dazed and Confused,” ...
Lee Child, “Moby-Dick,” and Other Summer Reads
10 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
We delve into the escapist joys of a great summer read. David Remnick talks with Lee Child, whose thrillers about Jack Reacher—twenty-three books an...
William Finnegan Surfing, and Kristen Roupenian Among the Pilgrims
07 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
William Finnegan’s memoir, “Barbarian Days,” from 2015, holds the distinction of being the one book about surfing to win a Pulitzer Prize. On a ...
Astrid Holleeder’s Crime Family
03 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
All her life, Astrid Holleeder knew that her older brother Willem was involved in crime; in their tough Amsterdam neighborhood, and as children of an ...
Tommy Orange and the Urban Native Experience
31 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Tommy Orange had never read a book about what it means to be a Native American in a big city. In a conversation with The New Yorker’s fiction editor...
Helsinki Fallout
27 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
At the recent summit in Helsinki, Vladimir Putin proposed that, in exchange for letting Robert Mueller interrogate some G.R.U. agents who are linked t...
Thomas McGuane and Callan Wink Go Fishing
24 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas McGuane, the acclaimed author of “The Sporting Club,” thinks fiction set in the American West could stand to lose some of its ranching clic...
Philip Roth’s American Portraits and American Prophecy
20 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The novelist and short-story writer Philip Roth died in May at the age of eighty-five. In novels like “Portnoy’s Complaint,” “The Human Stain,...
The Rezneck Riders
17 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The Navajo Nation covers over twenty-seven thousand square miles in Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico; it’s an area roughly the size of West Virginia. V...
Brazil, Bruce Lee, and Black Lives in the Music of Kamasi Washington, and the Uncertain Future of the Democratic Party
13 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Benjamin Wallace-Wells provides a survey of some key midterm races and considers what they tell us about the direction of the Democratic Party. And Da...
Love, War, and the Magical Lamb-Brain Sandwiches of Aleppo, Syria
10 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
When Adam Davidson was a reporter in Baghdad during the Iraq War, he started dating a fellow-reporter, Jen Banbury, of Salon. On a holiday break, they...
Tina Brown on Vanity Fair, the Eighties, and Harvey Weinstein
06 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Tina Brown is a legend in New York publishing. She was barely thirty years old when she was recruited from London to take over a foundering Vanity Fa...
Naomi Klein Interviewed by Jia Tolentino
03 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The author of “No Logo” and “The Shock Doctrine,” Naomi Klein has become what Noam Chomsky was to an earlier generation of leftists. Her theor...
Hasan Minhaj Interviewed by Vinson Cunningham
29 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
On a high-school speech-and-debate team, Hasan Minhaj learned the value of a joke: “If I made the judges laugh, I automatically saw an increase in t...
Molly Ringwald, Judd Apatow, and #MeToo
26 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The John Hughes films that made Molly Ringwald famous—“Sixteen Candles,” “Pretty in Pink,” and “The Breakfast Club”—look very differen...
The Government Took Her Son. Will It Give Him Back?
22 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Border Patrol, which has forcibly separated families in border detention, has put some immigrant children in the care of a separate agency, the Office...
The Comedian Hannah Gadsby Goes Big Time, and Renounces Comedy
19 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Hannah Gadsby is a headlining comedian in Australia, a regular at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and is about to become a very big deal in America wit...
James Wood Is Done “Prosecuting Wars”
15 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Jane Mayer explains why Charles and David Koch are willing to spend as much as thirty million dollars on advertising that opposes Donald Trump’s cam...
In the Civil Service, Loyalty Now Comes Before Expertise
12 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump came into office promising to make so many cuts to the government that “your head will spin.” Evan Osnos has been reporting from Wa...
Another Fiasco for American Soccer, and Praying for Tangier
09 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The 2018 World Cup begins this week in Russia, and America is taking a powder. The men’s team failed to qualify for the tournament after a stunning ...
Anthony Bourdain’s Interview with David Remnick
08 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Anthony Bourdain—the chef turned author, food anthropologist, and television star—died this week, at sixty-one. Bourdain made his début in The N...