Thoughtcast

ThoughtCast is a Podcast and public radio interview program with authors and academics. The interviews are conducted by Jenny Attiyeh,^[1] a former public radio and TV reporter from Manhattan and elsewhere whose previous work focused on covering the arts and ideas. ThoughtCast aims to offer a "bridge between the publications and pursuits of the intellectual world and a curious, informed, mainstream audience."^[2] ThoughtCast is marked by its pace and focus: its segments consist of detailed, unhurried and personal conversation with current writers and thinkers.

Range of Guests

ThoughtCast thus far has a strong New England emphasis, with a majority of the interviewees being Harvard professors. Guests have ranged from Lisa Randall,^[3] the Harvard theoretical physicist; to Nobel laureate Amartya Sen,^[4] to Alan Dershowitz,^[5] who needs no introduction (he speaks on the subject of pre-emption and the Israel-Hezbollah war); to Sam Huntington^[6] of Clash of Civilizations fame, to public radio program directors, to biographers Megan Marshall^[7] and Carol Bundy,^[8] to philosopher Simon Blackburn,^[9] author of the recent book Lust, of Cambridge University, England; to David Weinberger and two other netizens on the Web 2.0 who attended a symposium on social architecture that took place at Harvard Law School.^[10]

As of the summer of 2008, ThoughtCast introduced video to its lineup.^[11] The video includes interviews with Scottish historian Niall Ferguson on the "American Empire,"^[12] Internet gurus on neologisms gleaned from life online, and Joshua Micah Marshall,^[13] the creator of Talking Points Memo^[14] A conversation on Steve Reich's Different Trains with the Borromeo String Quartet was also picked up by New Hampshire Public Radio.^[15] The program examines how Reich, in this challenging composition, compares the train trips he took as a child to the very different train trips Jews were forced to take during the Holocaust.^[16]

Means of Distribution

ThoughtCast is podcast through the program's Web site and iTunes. The program is also available through the Public Radio Exchange,^[17] which provides public radio stations throughout the country the means to broadcast ThoughtCast segments. WGBH, an arts and culture public radio station in Boston, has broadcast many ThoughtCast interviews, and has featured the program on its Forum Network.^[18]

Media coverage

• Inside Higher Ed's Intellectual Affairs
• Internet pioneer Bob Doyle introduces ThoughtCast in Econtent Magazine article "The First Podcast"
• Associate producer Susan Wennemyr discusses ThoughtCast in Amherst Bulletin
• One Minute "How To" -- eyeliner!

- PRX reviews of ThoughtCast interviews:

• Amartya Sen
• Alan Dershowitz
• Natalie Goldberg
• Virgil's "Georgics"
• Megan Marshall's biography of the Peabody Sisters
• Jack Beatty, Harvey Cox and Simon Blackburn on "Intellect, Faith and Philosophy"

External links

• ThoughtCast website

References