The Returns: A Conversation with Jill Lepore

This episode features an essay from Jill Lepore’s ‘The Deadline.’ Today on the show, Jill and Ben travel back in time to the disrupt-or-die 2010s to revisit Jill’s essay about the gospel of disruption. And afterwards, they talk about the consequences and challenges taking on controversial subjects, Ben’s time as a media disruptor, and Jill’s time as a temp worker.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode features an essay from Jill Lepore’s ‘The Deadline.’ Why do we insist on misreading ‘Frankenstein?’ Hardly a day goes by without someone comparing some new technology to Frankenstein’s monster. But there’s a much richer set of lessons to draw from Mary Shelley’s book. Today on the show, Jill reads her essay “It’s Still Alive.” And then afterwards, Jill and Ben talk about the meaning of the story, the biography of its author, and how what you read shapes who you are.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode features an essay from Jill Lepore’s ‘The Deadline.’ Jill reads her essay on the tangled history of Barbie. And then, after, Ben and Jill talk about how the film fits in with the core concerns of the essay — the tangled web of intellectual property, IP theft, and the relationship between corporations and feminism.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In our first installment of essays from The Deadline, we’re bringing you ‘The Ice Man,’ a story about the history of cryogenic freezing, and the perils of being unable to let go.  After the essay, Jill and Ben talk about where the essay began and the moral challenges of writing about a living person. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last year, Jill Lepore published a book called The Deadline. It’s a compilation of years worth of beautiful essays Jill has written on everything from the history of cryogenics to the Silicon Valley gospel of disruption. For the next six weeks, we’re going to be bringing you one of those essays each week. And then, at the end of each essay, Ben Naddaff-Hafrey will interview Jill about her craft and the themes of her essays.  Remember when DVDs had special features? This would be the best of the special features. You can purchase the full collection at: https://www.pushkin.fm/audiobooks/the-deadline-essays  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re bringing you an episode of Decoder Ring from our friends at Slate. This episode dives into a strange historical urban legend: Did Peter Falk of Columbo fame really help quell a Romanian communist revolt during the Cold War? Host Willa Paskin investigates. Listen to “The Curious Case of Columbo’s Message to Romania Part 2” on Decoder Ring’s feed and follow to never miss an episode: https://slate.com/podcasts/decoder-ring. This podcast was written by Willa Paskin, who produces Decoder Ring with Katie Shepherd. This episode was edited by Joel Meyer. Derek John is Slate’s executive producer of narrative podcasts. Merritt Jacob is senior technical director.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In a special, all-new episode of ‘The Returns,’ host emerita Jill Lepore returns to talk about the post-truth moment we find ourselves in and what it means for the 2024 election.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Each week on ‘The Returns,’ we pull a different episode from our own archive to help put our present politics into historical context. This episode, Epiphany, first ran in 2021, as the finale to Season 2, which was all about lies, fakes, frauds, and hoaxes. In this episode, Jill Lepore takes listeners down the winding path from the little-known Iron Mountain hoax of the late 1960s to the Capitol insurrection on January 6th, 2021.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Each week on ‘The Returns,’ we pull a different episode from our archive to help put our present politics into historical context.  In the 1980s, Rush Limbaugh transformed talk radio. In the process, he radicalized his listeners and the conservative movement. Limbaugh’s talk radio style became a staple of the modern right. Then, the left joined the fray. This week: partisan loudmouth versus partisan loudmouth, and the shifting media landscape that helped create modern political warfare. This episode first ran in June, 2021.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Each week on ‘The Returns,’ we pull a different episode from our archive to put our present politics into historical context. The election of 1952 brought all kinds of new technology into the political sphere. The Eisenhower campaign experimented with the first television ads to feature an American presidential candidate. And on election night, CBS News premiered the first computer to predict an American election — the UNIVAC. Safe to say, that part didn’t go according to plan. But election night 1952 is ground zero for our current, political post-truth moment. If a computer and a targeted advertisement can both use heaps of data to predict every citizen’s every decision, can voters really know things for themselves after all? This episode first ran in the summer of 2020.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.