Best Stuart Kelter Podcasts (2025)

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#151. The Successful Struggle to Organize the First Union at Starbucks 56:03

12d ago56:03

56:03

Jaz Brisack is a experienced union organizer, starting with the United Autoworkers campaign at the Nissan factory in Canton, MS and volunteering as a Pinkhouse Defender at the state’s last abortion clinic. After spending one year at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, they got a job as a barista at the Elmwood Starbucks in Buffalo, NY, becoming a founding …

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#150. Out of My Skull: The Psychology of Boredom 55:47

18d ago55:47

55:47

James Danckert is a cognitive scientist at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, focusing on the neuroscience of attention and the consequences of strokes. He has written numerous journal articles on the psychology of boredom and is the co-author, with John Eastwood, of Out of My Skull: The Psychology of Boredom, published in 2020, which i…

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#149. A Mother and Five Children, Upwardly Striving and Homeless 53:48

1M ago53:48

53:48

Jeff Hobbs is the author of five books, including a novel, The Tourists, and four books that apply a novelist writing style to the struggles of individuals striving to overcome racial, class, and social disadvantages. These include The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man who Left Newark for the Ivy League, which won the Los…

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#148. Nearly Dying While Giving Birth, Followed by Seven Years of Recovery 54:20

1M ago54:20

54:20

Samina Ali teaches fiction writing at Stanford University and is an award-winning author, whose debut novel, Madras on Rainy Days, published in 2004, won several literary awards, including Poets & Writers Magazine’s Top Debut of the Year. She has been a columnist for the New York Times Book Review and other publications and has been interviewed by …

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#147. Fraud in Alzheimer's Research that Underpins the Dominant Model of the Disease 59:43

2M ago59:43

59:43

Charles Piller is an award-winning investigative journalist for Science magazine, reporting on such topics as public health, biological warfare, and infectious disease outbreaks. In addition to articles in major newspapers, he is the co-author, with Keith Yamamoto, of Gene Wars: Military Control over the New Genetic Technologies, published in 1988,…

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#146. The History of Antisemitism in the Arab World 55:33

2M ago55:33

55:33

Omar Mohammed was the previously anonymous blogger who courageously reported on the atrocities he witnessed that were perpetrated by the Islamic State, also called ISIS, when in 2014 it took over Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city. Currently, he teaches Middle East History, Cultural Heritage Diplomacy, and Counter Terrorism at the Paris Institute of…

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#145. The Case for Government Supported Housing 52:33

2M ago52:33

52:33

Jonathan Tarleton is a writer, urban planner, and oral historian. He previously served as the chief researcher for Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas, as editor in chief of the online magazine Urban Omnibus, and as a real estate project manager with Urban Edge, a Boston-based community development corporation. Currently, he teaches writing a…

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#144. Native Alaskan Resistance to Russian Expansion into North America 51:21

3M ago51:21

51:21

Gerald Easter and Mara Vorhees are co-authors of two books, The Tsarina's Lost Treasure: Catherine the Great, a Golden Age Masterpiece, and a Legendary Shipwreck, published in 2020 and The Last Stand of the Raven Clan: A Story of Imperial Ambition, Native Resistance, and How the Tlingit-Russian War Shaped a Continent, which was just published a few…

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#143. How American Capitalists Harnessed the American Work Ethic 51:50

3M ago51:50

51:50

Erik Baker is a historian, writer, and teacher based in Boston, a lecturer in the History of Science department at Harvard University and associate editor of The Drift, a magazine about culture and politics. In addition to articles about labor, politics, and American history, he recently published his first book, Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepre…

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#142. The South's Long War on Black Literacy 57:04

3M ago57:04

57:04

Derek W. Black is a Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina, where he directs the Constitutional Law Center. He is one of the nation’s foremost experts in education law and policy, on such topics as school funding and ensuring equal opportunities for disadvantaged students. His research is often cited in court opinions and briefs, incl…

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#141, Whether Dictatorship, Democracy, or Corporation: What It Takes to Stay in Power 56:56

4M ago56:56

56:56

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is a political science professor at New York University and past president of the International Studies Association, who has served as an adviser to the U.S. government on national security and to numerous corporations on business negotiations. In addition to many articles in the professional literature and major newspapers,…

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#140. Malcolm Before X: Family Background, Childhood, and Incarceration 55:43

4M ago55:43

55:43

Patrick Parr is an historian and biographer of writers and civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., James Baldwin, Kurt Vonnegut, Ralph Ellison, and Kato Shidzue. Teaching in Japan since 2018, he currently writes a history column for Japan Today, about historical figures or businesses coming to Japan for the first time. His new book,…

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#139. The Amazing New Science of Smell 55:42

4M ago55:42

55:42

Jonas Olofsson is a professor at Stockholm University in Sweden, where he directs the Sensory Cognitive Interaction Lab, with a particular focus on the sense of smell, as well as its loss, as it interacts with memory, emotion, language, and information processing. He is the author of the recent book, The Forgotten Sense: The New Science of Smell an…

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#138. The History and Enduring Effects of the 2022 Uprising in Iran 55:02

4M ago55:02

55:02

Farhad Khosrokhavar is a retired professor and former Director of Studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris, whose work focuses on the social movements in Iran after the Islamic Revolution, the uprisings during the Arab Spring of 2010-12, the Jihadist movements in France and the rest of Europe, and the philosophical…

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#137. Science, Pseudoscience, and the Co-opting of Quantum Physics by the New Age Movement 54:02

5M ago54:02

54:02

Sadri Hassani is a professor emeritus of Physics at Illinois State University, who continues to teach courses in thermal and quantum physics as the University of Illinois. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics from Princeton University, has authored several books on mathematical physics for undergraduate and graduate students, and in addition has a…

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#136. The Complicated History of Native American Identity 57:02

5M ago57:02

57:02

For seven years Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz was a policy advisor in the Obama Administration, focusing on homelessness and Native policy. In addition to an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she holds a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard University and was a Fulbright Scholar in Denmark. She currently teaches public …

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#135. Where Does Economic Inequality Come From? 51:19

5M ago51:19

51:19

Jeffrey Zax is an economics professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, whose research focuses on labor economics, public economics, and urban economics. He has served as a consultant for various public entities, including the Attorneys General of several states. He has also been a Fulbright Lecturer and has taught at the University of Ghana.…

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#134. Reflecting on (an Unusally) Long Career as a Child Protective Worker 48:17

5M ago48:17

48:17

Tom Russell is a retired Child Protective Services investigator and foster care worker, who was employed by the state of Michigan. Although this honest and thoughtful interview does not go into graphic detail about child abuse, it may nevertheless be upsetting to some. Listener discretion is advised. Recorded 9/10/20.…

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#133. Benjamin Franklin's Scientific Dimension Underpinned Everthing Else 52:02

6M ago52:02

52:02

Author and environmental activist, Richard Munson, has served as senior director of the Environmental Defense Fund, and senior vice president at Recycled Energy Development. He has been a coordinator for the Northeast-Midwest Institute and Congressional and Senate Coalitions and several other environmental organizations, including bipartisan caucus…

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#132. A Religious Movement that is Reshaping American Politics and is Threatening Our Democracy 57:33

6M ago57:33

57:33

Matthew Taylor is a senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies in Baltimore, where he specializes in American Christianity, American Islam, Christian extremism, and religious politics. He also serves as an associate fellow at the Center for Peace Diplomacy in New Orleans, where he works on preventing religion-related…

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#131. A Daughter of Holocaust Survivors Reflects on Intergenerational Trauma, Memory, and Listening 54:28

6M ago54:28

54:28

Award-winning novelist, poet, and non-fiction writer, Elizabeth Rosner, talks about themes from Survivor Café: the Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory, published in 2017, and her latest book, Third Ear: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening. The daughter of Holocaust survivors, Rosner became attuned not only to words and sounds, …

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#130. State Laws that Promote Vigilante Intimidation 55:39

7M ago55:39

55:39

David Noll is the former associate dean for faculty research and a professor of law at Rutgers University Law School. His scholarly work encompasses a broad set of interlocking aspects of the law, including complex litigation, governmental legislation, regulation, and administration, and the framework of constitutional law in which all of these are…

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#129. An Evangelical Mega-Church that Fights Racism 57:44

7M ago57:44

57:44

Hahrie Han is a Political Science Professor at Johns Hopkins University, whose research focuses on grass-roots political activism, particularly against systemic racism. She has partnered with a wide range of civic and political organizations and movements around the world, including those in the United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the Un…

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#128. Space, Time, and the Universe 49:51

7M ago49:51

49:51

Wladimir Lyra is an astronomer at New Mexico State University, whose research focuses around high-end computer simulations of planet formation, both in our own solar system and beyond, i.e., exoplanets and their solar systems. In this interview, we discuss empirically-based theories of time and space, their relationship to each other, and current i…

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#127. White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy 58:22

8M ago58:22

58:22

Thomas Schaller and Paul Waldman and the co-authors of Rural White Rage: The Threat to American Democracy. Tom Schaller, who is a professor of political science at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, is the author of The Stronghold: How Republicans Captured Congress but Surrendered the White House; Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win W…

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#126. The Paranoia and Drama of the McCarthy Era 57:08

8M ago57:08

57:08

Historians Andrea Balis and Elizabeth Levy are co-authors of the Bringing Down a President: The Watergate Scandal, published in 2019, and Witch Hunt: The Cold War, Joe McCarthy, and the Red Scare, published just this year and the subject of today’s interview. Andrea was a professor at the City University of New York for 30 years, has worked as a th…

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#125. Immigrant Workers Take on America's Largest Meatpacking Company 53:11

8M ago53:11

53:11

Alice Driver is a writer from the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas. She is the author of More or Less Dead: Feminicide, Haunting, and the Ethics of Representation in Mexico, published in 2015, and the translator of Abecedario de Juárez, published in 2022. Her latest book, The Life and Death of the American Worker: The Immigrants Taking on America's Larg…

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#124. Hypochondria: A Personal Story and Historical Exploration 57:38

8M ago57:38

57:38

Caroline Crampton is a writer and a podcaster, and the author of two books. The Way to the Sea, published in 2019, recounts the stories, literature, and history about the Thames Estuary in the U.K. Her second book, published in 2024 and the subject of today’s interview, is A Body Made of Glass: A Cultural History of Hypochondria. Crampton creates a…

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#123. Space Archaeology: Preserving Artifacts on the Moon 56:49

9M ago56:49

56:49

Beth O’Leary is a Professor Emerita at New Mexico State University, whose areas of interest include both cultural anthropology and archaeology. She is one of the creators and experts in Space Archaeology and Heritage, investigating the heritage status of the Apollo 11 Tranquility Base site on the Moon. In 2010, she and colleagues successfully nomin…

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#122. The Life, Times, and Philosophy of Baruch Spinoza, a Founding Thinker of the Enlightenment 53:40

9M ago53:40

53:40

Ian Buruma is a Professor of Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College. Originally from the Netherlands, he is a prolific writer with broad interests, including Japanese and Chinese culture and history, organized religion and religious intolerance, and intellectual and political freedom or lack thereof. He has been a regular contributor to the Ne…

1
#121. Doing Philosophy with Children 55:16

9M ago55:16

55:16

This interview is dedicated to Samantha Keleher Bursum, who died on March 1 of 2024 in a car accident at the age of 14. She participated in this interview, at age 11, with her mother, Lori Keleher, who is a philosophy professor at New Mexico State University. Together they share the joys and benefits of philosophical conversations with children, st…

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#120. A Muslim Scholar, Who Converted to Islam, Promotes Interfaith Dialogue 59:42

9M ago59:42

59:42

Celene Ibrahim is a multidisciplinary scholar specializing in Islamic intellectual history, gender studies, and ethics. Her 2020 monograph, Women and Gender in the Qur'an, won the Association of Middle East Women's Studies Book Award and was featured by the American Academy of Religion for Women's History Month. Ibrahim is also the author of Islam …

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#119. A History of American Inequality. 58:59

9M ago58:59

58:59

Jamie Bronstein has been a history professor at New Mexico State University since 1996. She is the author of six books about American and British History: Land Reform and Working-Class Experience in Britain and the United States, 1800-1862 (published in 1999); Caught in the Machinery: Workplace Accidents and Injured Workers in 19th-century Britain …

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#118. Unjust Inequities in Bankruptcy Law 56:02

9M ago56:02

56:02

Melissa Jacoby is a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she teaches commercial and bankruptcy law. Melissa is a frequent commentator in the news media and has spoken with thousands of people about debt, lending, commercial law, and bankruptcy. In 2021 the Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts, appointe…

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#117. A Cause Fraught with Peril: Exposing Abusive Medical Research 52:28

9M ago52:28

52:28

Carl Elliott is a philosophy professor at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and a recipient of the Erikson Institute Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media. His work focuses on the influence of market forces on medicine, the ethics of enhancement technologies, research ethics, the philosophy of psychiatry, and the work of Ludwig Wittg…

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#116. What is the Universe Made of and What is its Destiny? 59:04

10M ago59:04

59:04

Harry Cliff is a particle physicist at the University of Cambridge. He is a member of an international team of around 1400 physicists, engineers and computer scientists who use the CERN particle accelerator in search of answers to some of the biggest questions in modern physics, such as the nature of dark matter and why the universe is made of matt…

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#115. Women and War 56:30

10M ago56:30

56:30

David Jacobson, Professor of Sociology at the University of South Florida. Today's interview, focuses on his book, Of Virgins and Martyrs: Women and Sexuality in Global Conflict. Published in 2013, the book explores the interplay among cultural, political, economic, and historical forces that shape gender relations and violence, individualistic vs.…

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#114. Real World Harms Created by Advances in Artificial Intelligence 56:23

10M ago56:23

56:23

Madhumita Murgia is a writer specializing in artificial intelligence and its impact on society. She was the artificial intelligence editor for Wired magazine and in February 2023 was appointed as the first A.I. Editor of the London-based Financial Times. Her recent book, Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of A.I., was shortlisted for the 2024 Wom…

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#113. A Renaissance Man Reflects on the Creative Process and the Honing of Artistic Skills 56:21

10M ago56:21

56:21

Las Cruces’s very own renaissance man, Bob Diven -- an accomplished painter, sculptor, set designer, actor, playwright, composer, actor, satirist, cartoonist, singer-songwriter, folk guitarist; columnist, and more -- reflects on the creative process and the development of artistic skills. Recorded 2/13/21.…

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#112. Reclaiming the Vietnamese Heritage Her Refugee Father Never Shared 54:11

10M ago54:11

54:11

Vietnamese-American Christina Vo is the author of two memoirs. The first, entitled The Veil Between Two Worlds: A Memoir of Silence, Loss, and Finding Home, was published in 2023. Our interview will focus on her second book, published this past April, entitled, My Vietnam, Your Vietnam: A Father Flees. A Daughter Returns. A Dual Memoir. This book c…

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#111. The National Park Service, Its Mission, and How it was Co-opted by the South to Celebrate the Confederacy 55:25

10M ago55:25

55:25

Dwight Pitcaithley, the former Chief Historian of the National Park Service, discusses NPS's history and its three-fold mission of preservation, research, and education, with the last segment focusing on the controversies surrounding Civil War monuments. Recorded 2/10/21.By Stuart Kelter

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#110. Research that Proved the Toxic Effects of Lead in Our Gasoline and in Our Drinking Water 56:12

11M ago56:12

56:12

Joel Schwartz won a MacArthur Award for work that made a major contribution to the phase-out of lead in gasoline. Ronnie Levin worked at the Environmental Protection Agency to help establish federal standards and more robust testing to protect consumers from lead in drinking water. Both Schwartz and Levin teach at the Harvard University T.H. Chan S…

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#109. Finding Meaning After Catastrophic Illness or Injury 57:57

11M ago57:57

57:57

Dr. Keith Rafal, medical director of the Rehabilitation Hospital of Rhode Island and creator of the non-profit organization and website, Our Heart Speaks, through which people from around the world share inspirational stories and artistic expressions about their rehabilitation, healing, connection, and meaning. Recorded 3/7/21.…

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#108. The Amazing Auditory World of Sea Creatures 58:16

11M ago58:16

58:16

Amorina Kingdon is an award-winning science writer, at Hakai Magazine until 2021 and as a contributor to publications at the University of Victoria and the Science Media Center, both in Canada. She is also a writer of fiction, published in PRISM and Flash Fiction magazine. The subject of today’s interview is her recently released book, Sing Like Fi…

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#107. Teaching Social Justice Issues to White Students in a Wealthy Suburb of Boston 57:54

11M ago57:54

57:54

David Nurenberg is a professor, educational consultant, and writer in the Boston area who teaches courses at both the high school and graduate level, in suburban, urban, and international teaching and learning environments. He shares his insights on all things educational in his podcast, Ed Infinitum, and is the author of the book, What Does Injust…

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#106. The Incredible Potential and Daunting Risks of Stem Cell Therapy 56:22

11M ago56:22

56:22

Sheldon Krimsky was a professor of humanities and social sciences at Tufts University and a fellow of the Hastings Center, an independent bioethics research institution. His long and distinguished career focused on the links between public policy and science and technology, environment and health, and ethics and values. His work stressed the import…

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#105. How Mandela Averted Civil War in South Africa 53:28

11M ago53:28

53:28

Justice Malala is one of South Africa’s foremost political commentators, both in print and on television. A longtime weekly columnist for The Times of South Africa, he has also written for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and Financial Times, among other major publications. He is the author of the #1 bestseller, We Have N…

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#104. The Promise and Shortcomings of Massive Open Online Courses 56:32

11M ago56:32

56:32

Justin Reich is a professor in Comparative Media Studies and director of the Teaching Systems Lab, both at MIT. He is the host of a podcast called TeachLab; one of the earliest researchers in the development of Harvard X, which was one of the first initiatives in massive scale online course offerings; and developer and host of five open online cour…

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#103. Cognitive Biases that are Amplified by Social Media 56:09

11M ago56:09

56:09

Amanda Montell is a linguist, cultural commentator, and host of the weekly podcast Sounds Like a Cult. In addition to essays published in Time, Cosmopolitan, and other magazines, she has published three books. Her first, Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language, released in 2019, established her as a writer who deconstructs bi…

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#102. How Bayesian Statistics Underpins Both Scientific Prediction and Everyday Functioning 55:28

12M ago55:28

55:28

Tom Chivers is a science writer who has won several awards, including the Royal Statistical Society’s award for statistical excellence in journalism, the Association of British Science Writers’ science journalist of the year, and the Times’s science books of the year. He has written three books. His first, The Rationalist’s Guide to the Galaxy: Sup…

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