Episodes

Lauded by KEEN ON favorites like Dave Eggers & Dale Maharidge, J. Malcolm Garcia might be the Studs Terkel of contemporary American literature. Having worked as a social worker with San Francisco’s homeless community for 14 y...

I was at the Liberalism for the 21st Century conference last week in DC where I bumped into an old friend and KEEN ON regular Jonathan Rauch . A Brookings Fellow and prolific author, Rauch is amongst America’s most thoughtful...

For all the “progress” in civil rights front over the last couple of generations, the wealth gap between white and black Americans hasn’t changed much. As Ebony Reed, co-author of best selling new book, Fifteen Cents on the D...

In the wake of the failed Trump assassination attempt by what seems to be a conventionally lonely and bullied young man, more and more Americans are asking what has gone wrong. According to CNN correspondent Elle Reeve , onli...

Trust a French literary theorist to think creatively about whether AI can think creatively. Laurent Dubreuil is a professor of French literature at Cornell and the author of the intriguing Harper’s piece, Metal Machine Music ...

I’m just back from the Liberalism for the 21st Century conference in DC which featured a lively discussion about digital misinformation between KEEN ON regular Jonathan Rauch and Renee DiResta , the author of Invisible Rulers...

Does America have problem with its boys and men? Yes , says author of Boys and Men , Richard Reeves, a previous guest on KEEN ON. Today’s guest, Niobe Way, a NYU professor of developmental psychology, give a more nuanced answ...

Few Americans know contemporary China better than Peter Hessler . The author of four prize winning books about life in China as well as the former China correspondent of the New Yorker , Hessler originally came to China as a ...

What a treat. LA Times book critic Bethanne Patrick and I got the opportunity to talk today with the great Andrew O’Hagan , author of Caledonian Road , his new blockbuster novel about the state of contemporary Britain. It’s a...

Spy novelists often make excellent moralists and the American writer Daniel Silva , author of the Gabriel Allon series of best-selling thrillers, is a particularly sharp critic of contemporary morals. His new Allon thriller, ...

Earlier this week, I visited the offices of Floodgate Partners in Menlo Park to talk with its co-founding partner Mike Maples . As an early investor in Twitter, Twitch.tv and many other successful start-ups, Maples is one of ...

In episode 2022 , That Was The Week publisher Keith Teare and I violently disagreed about the current AI boom. Keith, the eternal techno-optimist, thinks AI is about to radically change everything; as the perennial techno-pes...

The seductive promise of microfinance might have conveniently died in the Western media, but Muhammad Yunis’ alluring economic idea has actually wreaked unintentional havoc around the world. Mara Kardas-Nelson’s important new...

Last week, That Was The Week publisher Keith Teare and I discussed whether Silicon Valley has an AI Bubble Problem. And we return to the same subject today, comparing today’s AI driven Wall Street techno-mania with the automo...

Memoirs are usually morally uplifting reads with happy endings. But Phil Elwood’s new memoir, All the Worst Humans , is a confession of how Elwood, as a top DC based PR operative, created what he calls a “counter-narrative” f...

In 2011, Simon Reynolds is one of the world’s most prolific music journalists, came on KEEN ON to explain why the Internet has been bad for both musical artists and fans. Back then it took a brave man like Reynolds to argue a...

Our second July 4 interview features Diane McLain Smith , author of Remaking the Space Between Us: How Citizens Can Work Together to Build a Better Future For All . The problem with America, McLain Smith believes, is that “we...

As the former Assistant Attorney General for Maryland, one would expect Debbie Hines to be a strong supporter of the American criminal justice system. But the Baltimore based veteran trial lawyer is unambiguously critical in ...

Last week’s horror show debate woke up a lot of progressive Americans. For Celeste Marcus , managing editor of Liberties Quarterly , Biden’s dismal performance was akin to the shock of the January 6th insurrection. In contras...

Over the last couple of years we’ve had multiple guests questioning the economic and moral value of a college education. But Daniel R. Porterfield, the Aspen Institute CEO and former President of Franklin and Marshall College...

Amongst the most bizarro thing about last week’s truly bizarre Presidential debate was how much Biden and Trump were in violent agreement on China. Trump certainly has won the ideological battle about the supposedly existenti...

In the wake of Biden’s pathetically dismal performance last week, it’s worth remembering that some progressive thinkers have been warning for months about this catastrophe. Back in May, the New York Times ran an op-ed by UC B...

Does Silicon Valley have an AI bubble problem? That Was the Week’s Keith Teare, usually the most bullish of tech bulls, acknowledges that Silicon Valley has an overvaluation issue with AI startups. But I wonder if the problem...

Imagine accosting a stranger in a grocery store because you mistook him to be your husband? That was the fate of the Washington Post science reporter, Sadie Dingfelder , who suffers from the bizarre condition of faceblindness...