Current Affairs
A podcast of politics and culture, from the editors of Current Affairs magazine.
- Update frequency
- every 3 days
- Average duration
- 42 minutes
- Episodes
- 600
- Years Active
- 2018 - 2025
We Took Hillary Clinton's MasterClass So That You Don't Have To
Hillary Clinton has just released an online course on "The Power of Resilience" through the website MasterClass, where celebrities teach their skills. The course has made the news because in it, she …
Have Feminists Been Too Quick To Embrace Criminal Punishment?
Prof. Aya Gruber teaches criminal law at the University of Colorado Law School. Her book The Feminist War on Crime: The Unexpected Role of Women's Liberation in Mass Incarceration makes the case that…
What's Useful and Correct About Critical Race Theory? (w/ Randall Kennedy)
Harvard Law School professor Randall Kennedy has been known for decades as a critic of Critical Race Theory, which was developed in part by his late colleague Derrick Bell. But Kennedy's critiques co…
How Have Elon Musk and Tesla Gotten Away With So Much Lying and Fraudulence?
Today Nathan is joined by Edward Niedermeyer, an investigative journalist whose book Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors remains the definitive critical account of the rise of Elon Musk …
Has "Wokeness" Become a "Religion"?
In this contentious conversation, Nathan speaks to Prof. John McWhorter about his book Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America. Prof. McWhorter is a linguist at Columbia University…
How Did The COVID-19 Pandemic Actually Start? (w/ Alina Chan)
Today's guest is molecular biologist Dr. Alina Chan, a fellow at the Broad Institute and co-author of Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19. She has been one of the most prominent commentators…
Why We Should Reclaim Thomas Paine and FDR (w/ Harvey Kaye)
Prof. Harvey J. Kaye is the author of books like Thomas Paine and the Promise of America, The Fight for the Four Freedoms: What Made FDR and the Greatest Generation Truly Great, and most recently Tak…
Why Is the Pursuit of Money Such an American Obsession? (w/ Lewis Lapham)
Today Nathan is joined by legendary former Harper's editor Lewis Lapham. Lapham is the author of numerous books including Money and Class in America, Age of Folly, and Lapham's Rules of Influence. He…
Why All The Anti-Trans Arguments Are Ignorant Nonsense (w/ Julia Serano)
Julia Serano is a PhD molecular biologist, writer, and musician whose books include Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender…
When YIMBYs Attack: Democratic Socialist Dean Preston on the San Francisco Housing Crisis
Dean Preston represents District 5 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. A tenants' rights attorney and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, he was the first democratic socialist elec…
Why Don't We Have Constitutional Rights Anymore? (w/ Aziz Huq)
Aziz Huq is an expert in constitutional law at the University of Chicago law school. He is the author of the book The Collapse of Constitutional Remedies, available from Oxford University Press. Prof…
What Is "Systemic Racism" and How Pervasive Is It?
Today's guest is Glenn Loury, professor of economics at Brown University. Prof. Loury has had a distinguished career—he was the youngest-ever tenured Black economics professor at Harvard and is known…
Does the Right to Counsel Actually Exist In the U.S.?
Today's guest is Stephen Bright, one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the United States. Prof. Bright teaches at Yale Law School and Georgetown Law, but has spent most of his life working as…
Abortion in America, Part II: Diana Greene Foster on "The Turnaway Study"
Abortion in America: Carole Joffe on the "Obstacle Course" to Get Necessary Medical Care
How Did the Bloating Military Become a Cancer on the US? (w/ Andrew Cockburn)
Why Are Millennials So Into Astrology?
What Does Moral Philosophy Tell Us About Our Obligation To Stop Climate Change?
American Machiavellian: The Rise and Fall of Andrew Cuomo