Randy Cohen

Historian David Levering Lewis talks to us about W. E. B. Du Bois, born in 1868, and “The Interstate Tatler” and Karl Marx. Learn how it all started by finding a bunch of newspapers.

Host Randy Cohen speaks with co-founder of WORKac, professor and dean emeritus of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation Amale Andraos; and Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, Former Vice President for Design Excellence of the New York Chapter of the AIA and co-founder WORKac Dan Wood on what inspires them and what inspired them to build WORKac.

Michael Novak, artistic director of the Paul Taylor Dance Company, captures his aesthetic perfectly: "The curtain goes up, 20 minutes happen, and it’s transformative." This ambitious vision is brought to life with every performance. From the legendary Paul Taylor to the cultural richness of Iona, Scotland, dance and storytelling intersect. Alongside it, the rock-musical “Catch My Soul” brings an electrifying Othello to the stage, adding a modern twist to Shakespeare's timeless tragedy.

Photographer Mitchell Epstein has worked everywhere from Hanoi to Berlin to America’s old-growth forests. “As a photographer, it’s only in getting lost that you move forward,” he says. This piece was produced with the National Academy of Design and features music by Stephanie Jenkins. Person: Mikio Shinigawa. Place: Hanoi, 1994. Thing: a hydrangea.

Director Gregory Mosher shares stories from a life spent shaping American theater — from revitalizing Chicago’s Goodman Theater to launching Theater at Lincoln Center. His happiest place? A rehearsal room, where he’s worked with legends like Mamet, Beckett, and Tennessee Williams. Along the way, we meet Adam Michnik, glimpse a haunting portrait by Williams, and recall NBC’s old Standards and Practices guy. Presented with Hunter College, with music by Elijah Caldwell, Ally Ann Long, Stephan Shteinberg, and Sumayya Ahmed.

Lawyer Michael Sparer works on health policy at Columbia’s Mailman School: “Public health in a certain sense is about balancing, the rights we have as individuals with the needs of society to preserve, protect, and promote the health of the population.” Not a bad approach to democracy in general. Sparer tells us about Roachdale, Indiana, basketball, and his dad Edward Sparer.

Children’s book author Kate DiCamillo — “Because of Winn-Dixie,” “The Tiger Rising,” “The Tale of Despereaux”— describes her innate ability: “I have a knack for nothing except being filled with wonder.” DiCamillo tells us about Sophie Blackall, a Minneapolis attic, and Vuillard’s “Repast in a Garden.”

Min Lew has conceived graphic design for MoMA, Apple, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and JFK Terminal 4 — which would be in the Airport Terminal Hall of Fame if there were one. Lew tells us her journeys through design.

Host Randy Cohen speaks with Senior Curator of Costume at The Museum at FIT Dr. Colleen Hill. “We got it from Lauren Bacall,” says Hill. The flu? Certainly not. An Elsa Peretti handbag, one of 700 items from Bacall’s wardrobe donated to the Museum at FIT. That handbag is part of Hill’s current exhibition, Fashioning Wonder: A Cabinet of Curiosities.

“The disease, the people believed, was caused by sorcery and could be cured by sorcery,” says bioethicist Robert Klitzman. And by “the people” he does not mean RFK Jr. but a stone age tribe in New Guinea. Klitzman also tells us about hospital chaplains, the pool in central park and a stone axe head.