With our Capitalism season and the election behind us, now what? Can we find hope and a way forward? In... more

Host John Biewen is joined by Celeste Headlee, Chenjerai Kumanyika, Ellen McGirt, and Amy Westervelt, co-hosts of Scene on Radio's... more

In our season finale, we visit with people on two continents who are turning core structures of capitalism on their... more

The police tell us they are here to protect us. But what if their original purpose was something else altogether?... more

In the first of two episodes looking at responses to capitalism’s failings, we explore reforms aimed at making the current... more

A visit to West Africa and Western Europe to look at the cocoa trade. Did the colonial side of early... more

In 1972, a team of young scientists at MIT published a study exploring what would happen to human civilization if... more

S7 E8: The People’s Pushback  Over several decades, a growing number of people in the United States and elsewhere – especially... more

S7 E7: Gilded Age 2.0 After 40 years of neoliberalism, most Americans of every political stripe agree that the economy is... more

How the balance of power shifted, for a time, in the decades after World War II, and led to a... more

An age of invention and mass production, propelled by a new mechanism – the corporate research lab – leads to... more

Economic change happens in a cultural context. We trace the tectonic shifts in the Western mind that made capitalism thinkable... more

From the voyages of Columbus and Vasco da Gama to colonial conquest and the Atlantic Slave Trade, to the privatization... more

To fully grasp capitalism, it helps to understand the system it replaced – and the most meaningful differences between feudalism... more

Introduction to our 7th season: Capitalism. The world’s dominant economic system is on trial as it hasn’t been for at... more

Welcome to Season 7: Capitalism. The world's dominant economic system is on trial as it hasn't been for at least... more

As we get ready to launch our Season 7, a bonus episode from another podcast we think our listeners will... more

What would it take, and what would it even mean, to heal from a wound like the Wilmington massacre and... more

After the massacre and coup of November 10, 1898, white supremacists in North Carolina soon finished the job of disenfranchising... more

On November 1898, North Carolina Democrats won a sweeping victory at the polls – confirming the success of their campaign... more

By 1898, two decades after the end of Reconstruction, white elites, backed by violent terror groups, have installed Jim Crow... more

This series tells the story of the only successful coup d’etat in U.S. history, and the white supremacist massacre that... more

Introduction to Season 6, a series co-produced by Michael A. Betts II and Scene on Radio producer and host John... more

Scene on Radio is on an extended hiatus, but is on its way back. Host and producer John Biewen explains... more

In the summer of 1787, fifty-five men got together in Philadelphia to write a new Constitution for the United States,... more

When it comes to U.S. government programs and support designed to benefit particular racial groups, history is clear. White folks... more

The next in our summer mini-season of rebroadcasts: For Eddie Wise, owning a hog farm was a lifelong dream. In... more

In this bonus episode we share a recent installment from Hot Take, the climate podcast co-hosted by Amy Westervelt (co-host/reporter... more

Several years after Janey was sexually assaulted by her former boyfriend, Mathew, she told some of her closest friends, and... more

A refugee from war in Eastern Europe. An NYC-born survivor who grew up poor, Black, Muslim, and gay. And how... more

How to grieve when the deaths come so quickly? How, as a Black mother in America, to protect your child’s... more

In our Season 5 finale: What’s the cultural transformation we need to make — in the West, and the U.S. in particular... more

The first of two concluding episodes in Season 5, in which we focus on solutions. In Part 10 of The Repair,... more

In several countries around the world, including Ecuador, New Zealand, and the U.S., some people are trying to protect the... more

Among the wealthy, industrialized Western countries that created the climate crisis, Scotland is one of the leaders in pivoting away... more

The climate crisis is not new to Bangladesh. For decades, global warming has exacerbated storms and flooding and turned many... more

Earth’s changing climate is already displacing millions of people, worsening tension and conflict, and sometimes violence – for example, between... more

Co-hosts John Biewen and Amy Westervelt discuss the U.S. Congress’s effort to pass its first major climate bill ever, and... more

Southeast Asia is especially vulnerable to storms, rising oceans, and other climate effects—though countries in the region did very little... more

Why has the United States played such an outsized role in the creation of the climate crisis? As a settler... more

If the Enlightenment was so great, why was it not a course correction? In fact, did cultural values that took... more

How western Europe really broke bad in its understanding of humanity’s place in the natural world, from the Crusades to... more

Part 1 of our series on the climate emergency. How did we drive ourselves into the ecological ditch? And, crucially,... more

This season will explore the cultural roots of our current ecological emergency, and the deep changes Western society will need... more

This special re-broadcast of a Season 4 episode is in response to the attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump... more

What does the 2020 election in the United States tell us, or remind us, about the state of democracy in... more

The word “Hiroshima” may bring to mind a black-and-white image of a mushroom cloud. It’s easy to forget that it’s... more

What will it take to make the United States a more fully-functioning democracy, and how can we, as citizens, bring... more

How well do the news media serve us as citizens, and what role does the notion of “objective,” or “neutral,”... more

In most American schools, children *hear about* democracy, but don’t get to *practice* it. What would a more engaged brand... more

“America” and “empire.” Do those words go together? If so, what kind of imperialism does the U.S. practice, and how... more

The conservative, neoliberal counterrevolution in the face of expanding democracy in America: It started long before Donald Trump. Even before... more

In the summer of 1964, about a thousand young Americans, black and white, came together in Mississippi to place themselves... more

In this special episode, host John Biewen and series collaborator Chenjerai Kumanyika discuss the coronavirus pandemic and how the crisis, and... more

The Great Depression presented a crisis not only for the U.S. economy, but for American democracy. President Franklin Roosevelt wanted... more

People fighting for more democracy in the United States often have to struggle against sexism and racism. In fact, those... more

After the Civil War, a surprising coalition tried to remake the United States into a real multiracial democracy for the... more

In the decades after America’s founding and the establishment of the Constitution, did the nation get better, more just, more... more

In the summer of 1787, fifty-five men got together in Philadelphia to write a new Constitution for the United States,... more

In the American Revolution, the men who revolted were among the wealthiest and most comfortable people in the colonies. What... more

Our season-long series will touch on concerns like authoritarianism, voter suppression and gerrymandering, foreign intervention, and the role of money... more

In our Season Three finale, co-hosts Celeste Headlee and John Biewen talk about where American culture goes from here, sexism-wise.... more

Host John Biewen dips into the world of sports talk radio, where guys talk not just about sports but also... more

Writer Ben James and his wife Oona are raising their sons in a progressive and “queer-friendly” New England town. They... more

Lewis Wallace, female-assigned at birth, wanted to transition in the direction of maleness—in some ways. He shifted his pronouns, had... more

American history—law, economics, culture—has built different notions of masculinity (and femininity) for people of varying races and ethnicities.  A trip... more

Several years after Janey was sexually assaulted by her former boyfriend, Mathew, she told some of her closest friends, and... more

Do nations fight wars because men are naturally violent? Or do societies condition men to embrace violence so they’ll fight... more

The #MeToo Movement has shed a harsh light on sexual harassment in the workplace. Just how bad, and how pervasive,... more

The struggles against sexism and racism come together in the bodies, and the lives, of black women. Co-hosts Celeste Headlee... more

A few hundred years ago, the great thinkers of the Enlightenment began to declare that “all men are created equal.”... more

For millennia, Western culture (and most other cultures) declared that men and women were different sorts of humans—and, by the... more

Launching our Season 3 series, co-hosts John Biewen and Celeste Headlee look at the problems of male supremacy. And we... more

Scene on Radio opens its Season 3 series, MEN, with this preview. Host John Biewen introduces the series with series... more

A father turns on a recorder while tucking in his 7-year-old, having no idea he’s about to capture a poignant... more

The concluding episode in our series, Seeing White. An exploration of solutions and responses to America’s deep history of white... more

When it comes to U.S. government programs and support earmarked for the benefit of particular racial groups, history is clear.... more

For Eddie Wise, owning a hog farm was a lifelong dream. In middle age, he and his wife, Dorothy, finally... more

For years, Myra Greene had explored blackness through her photography, often in self-portraits. She wondered, what would it mean to... more

For hundreds of years, the white-dominated American culture has raised the specter of the dangerous, violent black man. Host John... more

The story of Bhagat Singh Thind, and also of Takao Ozawa – Asian immigrants who, in the 1920s, sought to... more

In 1919, a white mob forced the entire black population of Corbin, Kentucky, to leave, at gunpoint. It was one... more

Scientists weren’t the first to divide humanity along racial – and and racist – lines. But for hundreds of years,... more

“How attached are you to the idea of being white?” Chenjerai Kumanyika puts that question to host John Biewen, as... more

When it comes to America’s racial sins, past and present, a lot of us see people in one region of... more

Growing up in Mankato, Minnesota, John Biewen heard next to nothing about the town’s most important historical event. In 1862,... more

“All men are created equal.” Those words, from the Declaration of Independence, are central to the story that Americans tell... more

Chattel slavery in the United States, with its distinctive – and strikingly cruel – laws and structures, took shape over... more

For much of human history, people viewed themselves as members of tribes or nations but had no notion of “race.”... more

Events of the past few years have turned a challenging spotlight on White people, and Whiteness, in the United States.... more