Scene on Radio
Scene on Radio is a two-time Peabody-nominated podcast that dares to ask big, hard questions about who we are—really—and how we got this way. Our latest is Season 7, Scene on Radio: Capitalism. Previous series include Seeing White (Season 2), looking at the roots and meaning of white supremacy; MEN (Season 3), on patriarchy and its history; The Land That Never Has Been Yet (Season 4), exploring democracy in the U.S. and why we don’t have more of it; The Repair (Season 5), on the cultural roots of the climate crisis; and Season 6, Echoes of a Coup, the story of the only successful coup d'etat in U.S. history, in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1898. Produced and hosted by John Biewen, with collaborators, Scene on Radio comes from the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University.
The show is distributed by PRX.
- Update frequency
- every 12 days
- Average duration
- 37 minutes
- Episodes
- 131
- Years Active
- 2015 - 2025
Voices of Hiroshima
A rebroadcast of a Scene on Radio episode, eighty years after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
The word “Hiroshima” may bring to mind a black-and-white i…
00:33:37 |
Wed 06 Aug 2025
Lever Time: Trump, Colbert, And The War On Truth
A bonus episode from the Lever Time podcast: Their latest, exploring the decision by CBS to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and the wider context for that move -- Donald Trump's effort to c…
00:39:10 |
Wed 23 Jul 2025
Favorite Things: Happy Forgetting
The fifth and final installment in our between-seasons miniseries, "a few of my favorite things," chosen by host John Biewen -- selections from outstanding podcast series. This project, led by host a…
00:36:57 |
Wed 21 May 2025
Making Ignorance Sacred Again: Keeping ScOR #7
Host John Biewen reads an essay from his newsletter, Keeping ScOR. Reflections on the Trump Administration's attempt to wrangle control of the national story and how it's told. Will this attack on fa…
00:15:33 |
Wed 14 May 2025
Favorite Things: The Outlaw Ocean
The fourth installment in our between-seasons miniseries, "a few of my favorite things," chosen by host John Biewen -- selections from exceptional podcast series. From CBC Podcasts and the L.A. Times…
00:52:43 |
Wed 07 May 2025
Favorite Things: Shocking, Heartbreaking, Transformative
The third installment in our between-seasons miniseries, "a few of my favorite things," chosen by host John Biewen -- selections from exceptional podcast series. From producer Jess Shane and Radiotop…
00:39:00 |
Wed 23 Apr 2025
Favorite Things: The Copernic Affair
The second in a between-seasons miniseries, "a few of my favorite things," chosen by host John Biewen: Episode 1 of The Copernic Affair, from the Canadaland network. The series tells the story of a s…
00:28:23 |
Wed 09 Apr 2025
Favorite Things: Slow Burn: Becoming Justice Thomas
The first of a between-seasons miniseries, "a few of my favorite things," chosen by host John Biewen. From Slow Burn, episode 1 of "Becoming Justice Thomas," an exploration, by journalist Joel Anders…
00:52:07 |
Wed 26 Mar 2025
The New Old Racism: Keeping ScOR#4
Host John Biewen teases Season 8 and reads an installment from his new newsletter, Keeping ScOR. Eight years after our "Seeing White" series, whiteness is still a helluva drug -- and a powerful tool …
00:18:27 |
Tue 18 Mar 2025
Bonus: Michael Kliën and the Body Politic
Michael Kliën wants to help bring about profound change in the world, but not through the usual means. An Austrian-born Dance professor at Duke University, Kliën is a leading social choreographer. He…
00:34:10 |
Wed 22 Jan 2025
S7 E13: CAPITALISM Bonus, Live at Motorco
With our Capitalism season and the election behind us, now what? Can we find hope and a way forward? In a live show taped December 5, 2024, at Motorco Music Hall in Durham, North Carolina, Season 7 c…
01:11:59 |
Wed 11 Dec 2024
Post-election '24 All-Star Special
Host John Biewen is joined by Celeste Headlee, Chenjerai Kumanyika, Ellen McGirt, and Amy Westervelt, co-hosts of Scene on Radio's full-length seasons -- Seeing White, MEN, The Land That Never Has Be…
01:20:23 |
Thu 21 Nov 2024
S7 E12: Reimagined Economies
In our season finale, we visit with people on two continents who are turning core structures of capitalism on their heads – or, at least, sideways.
By John Biewen with co-host Ellen McGirt. Interv…
01:03:12 |
Wed 18 Sep 2024
Bonus: Introducing Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD
The police tell us they are here to protect us. But what if their original purpose was something else altogether? Peabody Award-winning host Chenjerai Kumanyika takes listeners on a journey to uncove…
00:45:31 |
Thu 12 Sep 2024
S7 E11: Better Capitalism?
In the first of two episodes looking at responses to capitalism’s failings, we explore reforms aimed at making the current economic system more humane, fair, effective, and sustainable.
By John Bie…
00:50:53 |
Wed 04 Sep 2024
S7 E10: The Extracted
A visit to West Africa and Western Europe to look at the cocoa trade. Did the colonial side of early capitalism – Western countries getting rich at the expense of poorer nations – ever change, or doe…
00:55:09 |
Wed 21 Aug 2024
S7 E9: At the Tipping Point
In 1972, a team of young scientists at MIT published a study exploring what would happen to human civilization if people kept pursuing endless economic growth on a finite planet. They weren’t just di…
01:03:28 |
Wed 14 Aug 2024
S7 E8: The People's Pushback
S7 E8: The People’s Pushback
Over several decades, a growing number of people in the United States and elsewhere – especially younger people – have turned against capitalism. The reasons are not my…
00:45:09 |
Wed 07 Aug 2024
S7 E7: Gilded Age 2.0
S7 E7: Gilded Age 2.0
After 40 years of neoliberalism, most Americans of every political stripe agree that the economy is “rigged” in favor of corporations and the wealthy. But we may not know the h…
00:58:19 |
Wed 31 Jul 2024
S7 E6: Thirty Glorious Years
How the balance of power shifted, for a time, in the decades after World War II, and led to a better kind of capitalism – if you think prosperity being broadly shared is a good thing.
By John Biewe…
00:50:21 |
Wed 24 Jul 2024
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