In this episode, evolutionary biologist Douglas Emlen joins Fred Lawrence in a conversation about his research on extreme animal weapons— from the horns of a rhinoceros beetle to elk antlers. He discusses his family's scientific legacy, his early reluctance to follow in their footsteps, and how his childhood experiences in Kenya influenced his path. In his award-winning book, Animal Weapons: The Evolution of Battle, Emlen also explores the parallels between animal and human arms races. His inter...
Aug 04, 2025•24 min•Ep. 83
For a lot of Americans, geography is just a middle school subject or a trivia night category at their neighborhood bar. But for Professor Kendra McSweeney, the “invisible field” of geography is a way to understand the relationship between people and their environment, from adaptation to climate change to how the drug trade impacts biodiverse forests in Colombia. In this episode, McSweeney highlights how her dynamic career as an academic has taken her from Canada to eastern Honduras, and talks ab...
Jul 07, 2025•28 min•Ep. 82
With an international background and love of languages, Professor Shawkat M. Toorawa decided to study intensive Arabic with the encouragement of a highly influential advisor at the University of Pennsylvania, which set him on a path to becoming a professor of Arabic literature, Comparative literature and Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale University. In this episode, Professor Toorawa reflects on the journey, which was admittedly not linear, with stops in...
Jun 02, 2025•28 min•Ep. 81
In this episode, Fred Lawrence speaks with Professor Martin Kern, a leading scholar in Chinese antiquity and a professor at Princeton University. Kern shares his unique academic journey, from growing up in post-war Germany to studying in Beijing during a period of political transformation. He discusses the complexities of interpreting ancient Chinese texts, the challenges of nationalism in historical scholarship, and his passion for comparative antiquity. The conversation also explores the richn...
May 05, 2025•24 min•Ep. 79
This special episode of Key Conversations is joined by Kate Manne, associate professor of philosophy at Cornell University, and David Livingstone Smith, Professor of Philosophy at the University of New England. Each year, the Lebowitz Prize is presented to a pair of philosophers who hold contrasting views of an important philosophical question that is of current interest both to the field and to an educated public audience. The professors discuss the topic for the 2024 Lebowitz Prize, which is t...
Apr 07, 2025•30 min•Ep. 80
In this episode, evolutionary biologist Douglas Emlen joins Fred Lawrence in a conversation about his research on extreme animal weapons— from the horns of a rhinoceros beetle to elk antlers. He discusses his family's scientific legacy, his early reluctance to follow in their footsteps, and how his childhood experiences in Kenya influenced his path. In his award-winning book, Animal Weapons: The Evolution of Battle, Emlen also explores the parallels between animal and human arms races. His inter...
Mar 03, 2025•24 min•Ep. 78
In this episode, Professor Kristina Richardson, a distinguished historian and Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, joins Fred Lawrence for a compelling conversation about her groundbreaking research on marginalized communities in medieval Islamic societies. Professor Richardson sheds light on the lives of disabled individuals, Romani crafts people, and East African enslaved laborers—groups often overlooked. She also explores her personal journey from Detroit to academia, her transformative fieldwork...
Feb 03, 2025•25 min•Ep. 77
The Phi Beta Kappa Book Awards are presented annually to three outstanding scholarly books published in the United States. The 2024 winners are Gregg Hecimovich for his book The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of The Bondwoman's Narrative ; Jeremy Eichler for his book Time's Echo: The Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Music of Remembrance; and Emily Monosson for her book Blight: Fungi and the Coming Pandemic. This year, the Book Awards Dinner was held in person in Washingt...
Jan 13, 2025•30 min•Ep. 76
Growing up in a New York City suburb, Corey Robin was influenced by his public high school teachers who taught American history via the Socratic method. Today, Robin tries to replicate that magnetic energy in his own classroom as a political science professor at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center while authoring books and essays that have been read and translated across the world. In this episode, Robin touches on his Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar teachings of Austrian economist and...
Dec 02, 2024•26 min•Ep. 74
For a lot of Americans, geography is just a middle school subject or a trivia night category at their neighborhood bar. But for Professor Kendra McSweeney, the “invisible field” of geography is a way to understand the relationship between people and their environment, from adaptation to climate change to how the drug trade impacts biodiverse forests in Colombia. In this episode, McSweeney highlights how her dynamic career as an academic has taken her from Canada to eastern Honduras, and talks ab...
Nov 04, 2024•27 min•Ep. 73
With an international background and love of languages, Professor Shawkat M. Toorawa decided to study intensive Arabic with the encouragement of a highly influential advisor at the University of Pennsylvania, which set him on a path to becoming a professor of Arabic literature, Comparative literature and Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale University. In this episode, Professor Toorawa reflects on the journey, which was admittedly not linear, with stops in...
Oct 07, 2024•28 min•Ep. 72
For Professor Julia Clarke, paleontology is more than just a passion for exploration and discovery — it’s a shared, global dialogue that has the ability to permeate cultural differences. In this episode, Dr. Clarke recounts how her early interest in the history and philosophy of science merged with her desire to have a practice deeply woven into narrative. As a professor and researcher, she prioritizes the questions that guide a discipline into a new area, calling it “a fundamental part of scien...
Sep 09, 2024•28 min•Ep. 71
Professor Emily Yeh is a Professor of Geography at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she researches the nature-society relationship in political, cultural and developmental relations in the mostly Tibetan parts of China. Although she majored in electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, while interning in China, she realized that her understanding of sustainable development needed to be further explored. Her first visit to Tibet proved to be life changing, and Yeh has committed ...
Aug 05, 2024•29 min•Ep. 70
Professor Rosemarie Garland-Thomson is a disability justice and cultural thought leader, bioethicist, educator, and humanities scholar. Garland-Thomson grew up with a congenital disability, an experience that highlighted the barriers that exist for people with disabilities. Inspired by the Civil Rights movement and hearing the narratives from Black authors for the first time, the disability pioneer explores the perspectives of disabled people in all aspects of society. In this insightful convers...
Jul 08, 2024•27 min•Ep. 69
Professor Natalia Molina was the first in her family, and her neighborhood, to go to college. Being a first-gen student, the 2020 MacArthur Fellow’s higher education was shaped by curiosity and a being open to new opportunities—even when they brought her across the country for her graduate degree. As an expert of the humanities, Professor Natalia Molina emphasizes the importance of literature in understanding the experiences of those around us, how the conversation around immigration has evolved...
Jun 03, 2024•29 min•Ep. 68
Growing up in a tight-knit African-American community in Evansville, Indiana, Dr. Talitha Washington quickly understood the role that her race and racism would play in her life—always choosing to rise above it all. Amongst her Black cohort at Spelman College, Dr. Washington felt she was finally able to learn freely, and without the pressure of being the only Black student in the class. The mathematics scholar is now the Director of the Atlanta University Center (AUC) Data Science Initiative wher...
May 06, 2024•26 min•Ep. 67
This special episode of Key Conversations is joined by Dr. Kristie Dotson, the University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor at the University of Michigan, and Dr. Susanna Siegel, the Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. Each year, the Lebowitz Prize is presented to a pair of philosophers who hold contrasting views of an important philosophical question that is of current interest both to the field and to an educated public audience. The professors discuss the t...
Apr 08, 2024•28 min•Ep. 66
Professor Corey D. B. Walker is the Dean of the Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Wake Forest Professor of the Humanities, and Director of the Program in African American Studies. He pursued his education at two HBCUs and two of the oldest schools in America, and talks about how each of these formations gave him the ability to develop into the intellectual he is today. As an expert in the areas of African American philosophy, critical theory, ethics and religion, Professor Walker discus...
Mar 04, 2024•28 min•Ep. 65
Professor Emily Yeh is a Professor of Geography at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she researches the nature-society relationship in political, cultural and developmental relations in the mostly Tibetan parts of China. Although she majored in electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, while interning in China, she realized that her understanding of sustainable development needed to be further explored. Her first visit to Tibet proved to be life changing, and Yeh has committed ...
Feb 05, 2024•28 min•Ep. 64
The Phi Beta Kappa Book Awards are presented annually to three outstanding scholarly books published in the United States. The 2023 winners are Dennis Tyler for his book Disabilities of the Color Line: Redressing Antiblackness from Slavery to the Present ; Jennifer Raff for her book Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas; and Deborah Cohen for her book Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: The Reporters Who Took On a World at War. This year, the Book Awards Dinner was held in person in Washington,...
Jan 08, 2024•49 min•Ep. 63
Scholar and author Cathleen Kaveny focuses on the relationship of law, religion, and morality. As the Darald and Juliet Libby Millennium Professor at Boston College, she has dual appointments in both the Theology Department and the Law School—the first to hold the joint appointment. Kaveny has devoted her career to exploring the connection between law and theology and explores the use of prophetic language and rhetoric in the past, and how we use it in today's society. In this important conversa...
Dec 04, 2023•27 min•Ep. 62
Professor Rosemarie Garland-Thomson is a disability justice and cultural thought leader, bioethicist, educator, and humanities scholar. Garland-Thomson grew up with a congenital disability, an experience that highlighted the barriers that exist for people with disabilities. Inspired by the Civil Rights movement and hearing the narratives from Black authors for the first time, the disability pioneer explores the perspectives of disabled people in all aspects of society. In this insightful convers...
Nov 06, 2023•26 min•Ep. 61
Professor Natalia Molina was the first in her family, and her neighborhood, to go to college. Being a first-gen student, the 2020 MacArthur Fellow’s higher education was shaped by curiosity and a being open to new opportunities—even when they brought her across the country for her graduate degree. As an expert of the humanities, Professor Natalia Molina emphasizes the importance of literature in understanding the experiences of those around us, how the conversation around immigration has evolved...
Oct 04, 2023•28 min•Ep. 60
The Civil War historian talks about combining intellectual, cultural, social, and economic history to truly grasp the U.S.’s past, especially events that took place in the South. He shares with Fred how he helps make free, nonpartisan, educational resources for teaching lively history lessons.
Aug 21, 2023•27 min•Ep. 59
The Princeton University professor shares how instrumental one teacher was in her own path to college, and why the U.S. should do more to invest in higher education. She speaks to Fred about how important public policy is in shaping our individual and collective destinies.
Jul 24, 2023•25 min•Ep. 58
The UCLA professor shares how the life-changing revelation that she could be a scientist, and work outdoors, led to her research on tree genomes and evolutionary biology. Plus, how she harnesses the teaching power of plants as the director of UCLA’s botanical garden.
Jun 26, 2023•27 min•Ep. 57
Growing up, Professor Maya Jasanoff was surrounded by academics and scholars—an environment she believes gave her the confidence to explore academia herself. Initially, her fellowship at Cambridge sparked her interest in studying the British Empire, and as she dove deeper into the subject matter, she began recognizing the many ways that British imperialism has infiltrated our world. Today, the author and professor writes about history and is interested in how people—and power— have historically ...
May 29, 2023•24 min•Ep. 56
An assumption about life expectancy is that the richer the society, the longer and healthier the individuals in that society will live—but in the case of life expectancy, money can’t collectively buy us more time. Sociologist and demographer Mark Hayward has spent the majority of his career studying all-things life expectancy, and in this episode he talks about the devastating societal impacts of inequality and unpacks some of the largest factors to living a long and healthy life: education, soc...
May 01, 2023•25 min•Ep. 55
This special episode of Key Conversations is joined by Dr. Cristina Lafont, Harold H. and Virginia Anderson Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University, and Dr. Alex Guerrero, Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. Each year, the Lebowitz Prize is presented to a pair of philosophers who hold contrasting views of an important philosophical question that is of current interest both to the field and to an educated public audience. The professors discuss the topic for the 2022 Lebowit...
Apr 03, 2023•27 min•Ep. 54
The Michigan State University Professor of Integrative Biology shares how her early fascination for animals led to an extensive career in researching mammalian behavioral development, and the importance of studying the social, ecological, and endocrine variables of a species. As a leading behavioral ecologist, Professor Holekamp’s initial field studies as a Ph.D. candidate transpired into decades of research on the spotted hyena including their reproductive success, their survival, and the force...
Feb 27, 2023•24 min•Ep. 53
