The Making of America's First Muslim College

The recent events in Boston once again raise questions about the place of Islam in modern American society. The impacts for Muslims trying to live and practice their faith in the US, is that they often run headlong into popular misconceptions about the faith.

One of the places taking on this challenge is Zaytuna College, the first Muslim four year undergraduate liberal arts college founded in Berkeley in 2008

Scott Korb, who teaches writing at New York University and the New School, spent time with the College's inaugural class and writes about the first year of Zaytuna College in his new book Light without Fire: The Making of America's First Muslim College.

My conversation with Scott Korb:

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In search of moral behavior

One of the central tenants in the debate about religion, is that some claim it provides the only construct for understanding moral behavior. In fact, science, research and even our own pets should tell us clearly that empathy, cooperation, fairness and reciprocity are all traits we see in animal behavior. This is particularly true of the primates.

And just as the monstrous instinct exists in all of us, including animals, so to do the traits of social cooperation. It’s simply the other side of the same coin.

No one has done a better job of explaining this than Frans De Waal in his new work The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates.

My conversation with Frans De Waal:

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Finding Your Story

We would all like the ability to see the future. Unfortunately, few of us have the appropriate psychic powers. What we can do however, is invent the future, at least our own. For we each have our own unique path, our own unique story that is evolving right here and right now, even as we listen to this.

Unfortunately, too often we lose our place in that story. We’re told, often as young people, to abandon it in favor of some standardized norm of education, business and career.

The fact is that conformity does not work. It’s the enemy not only of creativity, but of an authentic life. Trying once again to find our place in our own story is what best selling author and thought leader, Sir Ken Robinson is trying to teach us in Finding Your Element: How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life.

My conversation with Sir Ken Robinson:

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Acting White

Many of us would like to think we live in a post-racial society. And while we may be post-racial, when it comes simply to skin color, as the election and reelection of Barack Obama bears out, we are not post-racial when it comes to racial character and the perceptions and expectations of racial stereotypes.

Today, even younger generations seem inculcated with certain racial ideas; for which their experience and encounters either run consistent with or counter to their racials perceptions. These perceptions often seem to be hardwired into us, or at the very least reinforced by popular culture. UCLA law professor Devon Carbado examines this notion of racial character in his new book Acting White?: Rethinking Race in Post-Racial America.

My conversation with Professor Devon Carbado:

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The New Reality of Adoption

Adoption today is a far cry from the idyllic portral we imagined and maybe have even witnessed, years ago. It has become engaged in international politics, domestic politics, and the abortion debate. Add to this, the current complexity of the process, the expanding landscape of open adoptions and you have a space that is no longer just about the love of a child, but an emotional minefield that prospective parents have to learn how to navigate.

That’s the backdrop for The Mothers,a new novel that provides a powerful portrayal of modern adoption by Jennifer Gilmore.

My conversation with Jennifer Gilmore:

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The New Gospel of Adoption

In the world of international adoption, market forces have always played a key role. The issues of supply and demand impact both policy and outcomes. But the adoption business, which has long been the province of religious and secular agencies, has lately been overtaken by evangelical advocacy.

Evangelical organizations and churches, which have been build upon the cultural practices which they oppose, like abortion and gay marriage, now seem to have found a cause they can champion....but what are its consequences for the children?

Kathryn Joyce had plowed deep into this world in The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption.

My conversation with Kathryn Joyce:

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The Plateau Effect

Often it seems as if there is a hopelessness with respect to our personal progress: That it is our ultimate destiny not to go forever forward, but at some points to be pushed back or stuck in our past.

It would seem that this is almost a part of our DNA as a species,  or at least as Americans. But does it have to be so? Investigative journalist Bob Sullivan thinks not. He believes we can overcome what he calls The Plateau Effect.

My conversation with Bob Sullivan:

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The Philadelphia Chromosome

Someday, perhaps 20 or 30 years from now, or maybe even sooner, we will look back at the way we treat most cancers today and be shocked at the barbarism of it all. The surgery, the killer chemicals of chemo, all will be looked at the way we view the leaching of the middle ages.

At the forefront of this transition is a discovery made in 1959. A chromosomal mutation dubbed the Philadelphia Chromosome, that caused a deadly form of leukemia. Ultimately a drug would be developed that stopped the cancer at it’s source.

Science journalist Jessica Wapner has written The Philadelphia Chromosome: A Mutant Gene and the Quest to Cure Cancer at the Genetic Level.  It is both the story of 50 years of the march of science on cancer and also a mystery thriller that lifts the veil on how drugs get developed and make it to the marketplace.

My conversation with Jessica Wapner:

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How Nonotechnology Will Change Civilization

We face a vast array of global problems. Not the least of which is our environment and the way in which the expanding western industrial model of abundance, seems certain to geometrically grow these problems.

Many think that somewhere, in some abstract way, technology will help of solve these problems. But perhaps the same industrial system that created the problems, is not the place to start looking for solutions. In short, it seems we can’t fix the problems of industrial technology with the same tools that created them.

That’s where the work of K. Eric Drexler comes in. In his new book Radical Abundance: How a Revolution in Nanotechnology Will Change Civilization, he shows us how the world of nanotechnology and Atomic Precise Manufacturing may hold the answers.

My conversation with K. Eric Drexler:

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The Last Men on Top

On the surface, it seems that the men of Mad Men have it all. Great jobs, lots of money, smart attractives wives and families, even more attractive mistresses and, as long as the paychecks keep coming, unlimited freedom.

But is it possible these men represented the one percent of their day? And that the paradigm and expectations they set up, men with power and money, created a set of responsibilities that made it hard for other men to live up to? And how did this play out against the rising tide of 60’s feminism? Was the landscape for men portrayed by Matthew Weiner and Richard Yates and Cheever and Updike, one that, in the long run, had a very negative impact on the men of the Greatest Generation?

These are just some of the questions and ideas taken up by author and cultural seer Susan Jacoby. The author of The Age of American Unreason, Freethinkers as well as books about Alger Hiss and Robert Ingersoll, she has now written a new ebook entitled The Last Men on Top.

My conversation with Susan Jacoby:

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Meg Wolitzer's "The Interestings"

How many of us think about what you wanted to be as a child? A time when the world was filled with possibility. When your parents told you that you could do or be anything. When you would sit with your friends for hours, talking about what kind of glamours life you were going to have. Sometimes those youthful ambitions would come to define us for the rest of our lives, both in terms of what we achieved and what we didn't achieve.

I knew a woman once who was a world renowned ballerina. I once asked her how she achieved that. She said she just did what every little girl does, she dressed up, and got her mom to take her to ballet classes; except , she said, that she never stopped going. How much of her success was family, luck or talent? Who knows?

These are just some of the ideas inside Meg Wolitzer sweeping new novel The Interestings. The story of six teenagers coming of age in the 70’s and the 40 years that would follow.

My conversation with Meg Wolitzer:

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If you are caught or captured the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.....

We all grew up with our own impressions of what covert actions were all about. John le Carre talked about the moral twilight in which these activities operated. But never has that line between military, espionage and covert actions been more blurred than it is today. From 9/11 to the bin Laden raid, the CIA has been front and center as the agency of first resort, to carry out difficult and controversial missions.

Now Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Mark Mazzetti lays bear much of this activity in The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth.

My conversation with Mark Mazzetti:

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Bunker Hill

For the past several weeks all eyes have been on Boston. In some ways it’s a good reminder of the important role that city has played in our nation's history. Boston is the fulcrum from which the revolution was launched.

Now, bestselling author Nathaniel Philbrick, author of In The Heart of the Sea and Mayflower, tells the story of Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution.




My conversation with Nathaniel Philbrick:

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Humanity Beyond Our Differences

Suppose we found out that most of what we know about history and what shapes it, is wrong. That the traditional manichean world view, that history only marched forward on the feet of soldiers, is not the whole story.

In fact, we didn’t get to our globalized, 21st century world via the battlefield, but through cooperation and a sense of our shared humanity. This is the view of distinguished historian David Cannadine, as laid out in his new work, The Undivided Past: Humanity Beyond Our Differences.

My conversation with David Cannadine:

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Reimagining American Influence in a New Middle East

There is an old saying that says that if the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat every problem as if it is a nail. So too for American policy in the Arab world. If every problem looks like an existential threat, then perhaps it’s because we often see the military as the only tool we have.

In fact, as Bill Clinton famously said, “it’s the economy stupid.” Perhaps if we found new ways to deal with the Middle East in terms of its economics, its desire for goods, jobs for the 60% of it’s population under 30, we’d have a better outcome.

Few know the region better than two time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Rohde. He lays out his ideas in Beyond War: Reimagining American Influence in a New Middle East.

My conversation with David Rohde:

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Manhunt

The events of Sept. 11, 2001, would set off the ten year search for Osama bin Laden. That manhunt would end exactly two years ago today, on May 1st, 2011. In between, was one of the greatest detective stories of our time.

CNN’s national security analyst Peter Bergen, through his exhaustive research, unprecedented interviews with key players, and exclusive access to the Abbottabad compound in which bin Laden lived his final years, has now been able to tell the full story. In fact, Bergen was the only outsider to tour the compound before it was destroyed by the Pakistani military. Considered the definitive account of the hunt for bin Laden, his book Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad, serves as the basis for the documentary of the same name, which debuts tonight on HBO.

My conversation with Peter Bergen:

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Life After Prison

One of the consequences of the vast numbers of men we incarcerate in America, is that over 700,000 people each year are being released from prisons. Many have served long sentences and are woefully unprepared to integrate back into society. Especially a society that has little willingness to receive them.

As changes in society come more rapidly, its harder and harder for these individuals to adjust. The result is often increased rates of recidivism, and a revolving door into the prison/industrial complex.

Sabine Heinlein has taken both a micro and macro look the public policy consequences of this behavior. Her new book is Among Murderers: Life after Prison

My conversation with Sabine Heinlein:

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One Photo. Endless Possibility.

When we look at a photograph or a piece of art there are usually two imaginations at work. The artist or photographer, and the viewer whose interpretation gives the work life, energy and meaning.

Author and filmmaker Marisa Silver has taken a single, iconic photograph, the “Migrant Mother” by Dorothea Lange, as her inspiration for her own story and her own reinterpretation. It now allows all of us, to bring our own imagination and understanding to her novel, Mary Coin

My conversation with Marisa Silver:

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The Rebirth of a Great American School System

There is an apocryphal story about the state of education, which tells the tale of a man who falls asleep, ala Rip Van Winkle, 100 years ago. He wakes up today and is totally disoriented. Everything is new and different. Transportation, technology, design, fashion, entertainment....then he stumbles into a school, into a 21st century classroom and suddenly he feels calm, at home....because, well because almost nothing has changed.

Some would argue that this is part of the problem of education today. Others would argue for the value of those fundamentals; that we’ve long had many of the right ideas, but that we just needed to execute them
better.

This is where we join the conversation with UC Berkley Professor and education expert, David Kirp and his latest work Improbable Scholars: The Rebirth of a Great American School System and a Strategy for America's Schools

My conversation with David Kirp:

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