How do we defend people's freedom and dignity against authoritarianism, when the "law of war" doesn't seem to apply anymore? In the face of the Russian occupation of Ukraine, human rights lawyer and Nobel laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk...

Dasha Navalnaya is the daughter of Alexey Navalny, the politician and leader of the Russian opposition to Vladimir Putin. Sharing the story of her father's poisoning, persecution and current imprisonment, she details what it was like...

For over 200 years, potatoes thrived in Ireland; roughly half the country’s residents lived almost entirely on potatoes. But when harvesting began in 1845, farmers found their potatoes blackened and shriveled. While this failed harvest...

Based on her work for a CIA task force aimed at predicting civil wars, political scientist Barbara F. Walter examines the rise in extremism and threats to democracies around the globe -- and paints an unsettling picture of the increasing...

During the 14th and 15th centuries, mercenaries known as condottieri dominated Italian warfare, profiting from— and encouraging— the region's intense political rivalries. As rulers competed for power and prestige, their disputes often...

So today Craig is going to look at political ideology in America. We're going to focus on liberals and conservatives and talk about the influencers of both of these viewpoints. Now, it's important to remember that political ideologies...

Hank usually likes to keep science and politics separated, but the reality is that a lot of scientific research in the United States is funded by the government. This is a problem right now because the disfunction in the world of...

Who runs the world? Political scientist Ian Bremmer argues it's not as simple as it used to be. With some eye-opening questions about the nature of leadership, he asks us to consider the impact of the evolving global order and our...

Nadya Tolokonnikova, founding member of the anti-Putin resistance group Pussy Riot, was named a top enemy of Russia for speaking out against Vladimir Putin's dictatorship throughout the last decade. In this inspiring talk, she tells the...

Actor and activist Jane Fonda discusses her frontline work fighting for climate action, including recent efforts to support climate-minded candidates running for office in the US and to break the fossil fuel industry's stranglehold on...

Youth leader Shreya Joshi diagnoses a key source of political polarization in the US and shows why having "uncomfortable conversations" with people you disagree with is crucial to bridging the divide. "When we are able to recognize what...

We know capitalism exacerbates injustice and inequality worldwide. So how can we fix it? Professor and social entrepreneur Manish Bhardwaj thinks we need to integrate "moral clarity" -- which he defines as "doing the right thing because...

In August 1968, factory workers overheard news of a mandatory meeting. Whispered rumors described shipments of a gift from the country's Communist leader, Chairman Mao Zedong. And sure enough, managers soon distributed a gift to every...

This week Craig Benzine takes a first look at the judicial branch. It's pretty easy to forget that the courts, and the laws that come out of them, affect our lives on a daily basis. But how exactly these decisions are made and where each...

Today, Craig Benzine is going to dive into the factors that influence judicial decisions. As you may have noticed, the Supreme Court recently handed down some pretty big decisions on same-sex marriage (in Obergefell v Hodges) and the...

Today, Craig is going to talk about employment discrimination, and we're going to focus primarily on women in the workforce. Discrimination against women tends to be handled somewhat differently in the courts as they are not a minority....

In a lyrical talk full of radical imagination, poet Aja Monet and community organizer phillip agnew share the story of how they fell in love and what they've learned about the powerful connection between great social movements and...

This week Craig Benzine explores the leadership structure of congress. We’ll break out the clone machine to examine the responsibilities of the speaker of the house, the majority and minority leaders as well as the majority and minority...

In which John Green teaches you about the Progressive Presidents, who are not a super-group of former presidents who create complicated, symphonic, rock soundscapes that transport you into a fantasy fugue state. Although that would be...

In which John Green discusses the strange and mutually beneficial relationship between a republic, the citystate of Venice, and an Empire, the Ottomans--and how studying history can help you to be a better boyfriend and/or girlfriend....

If we want to fix our politics, we have to do something about inequality, says social psychologist Keith Payne. Showing how economic inequality changes the way people see and behave towards one another, Payne helps explain the rise of...

Why are we so deadlocked on climate, and what would it take to overcome the seemingly insurmountable barriers to progress? Policy entrepreneur TED Halstead proposes a transformative solution based on the conservative principles of free...

A historic number of Latinx voters participated in the 2020 US presidential election, including a record number of young people casting their ballots for the first time. Civic leader María Teresa Kumar takes a look at the issues closest...

The year was 1776. In Bavaria, new ideals of rationalism, religious freedom and universal human rights competed with the Catholic church's heavy influence over public affairs. Adam Weishaupt, a law professor frustrated with the Church's...