Get ready for Russian modernism. Mike is teaching you about the playwrighting of Catherine the Great, Anton Chekhov's plays, the Moscow Art Theater, and the acting theories of Stanislavski. It's all very real, and very modern. From a...

I don't mean it mean, but today we're going to be cruel. It's the fun-loving Theater of Cruelty, which was pioneered by the genius Antonin Artaud in France during the inter-war period in twentieth century. The Theater of Cruelty was...

What do we say to kids when intensely traumatic events interrupt everyday life? Whether you're a teacher, parent or community builder, educator Kristen Nguyen provides three research-backed steps for navigating these difficult...

Confronting climate change makes for better cities and a better quality of life, says Heidi Sørensen, director of the climate agency for the city of Oslo, Norway. From construction sites without noise pollution to fully electric...

Right now, hundreds of thousands of people are "stuck" in the US criminal justice system. They've completed all of their requirements for release, but nobody knows it because the system is run on old databases that don't talk to each...

Names like Bayard Rustin, Frances Thompson and William Dorsey Swann have been largely erased from US history, but they and other Black queer leaders played central roles in monumental movements like emancipation, civil rights and LGBTQ+...

Pakistan contributes less than one percent to the global greenhouse gas emissions perpetrating climate change, yet one-third of the country was recently inundated with "biblical" floods that killed hundreds and displaced millions. If...

To restrain global warming, we know we need to drastically reduce pollution. The very next step after that: using both natural and technological solutions to trap as much excess carbon dioxide from the air as possible. Enter Orca, the...

Eighty percent of the world's biodiversity is within Indigenous territories, yet these communities often don't have a say when it comes to protecting the lands they inhabit. Environmental activist Jupta Itoewaki explains why Indigenous...

Imagine a boat that propels by moving its "tail" from side to side, just like a fish. That's the kind of machine that TED Fellow Robert Katzschmann's lab builds: soft-bodied robots that imitate natural movements with artificial, silent...

You are constantly becoming a new person, says journalist Shankar Vendantam. In a talk full of beautiful storytelling, he explains the profound impact of something he calls the "illusion of continuity" -- the belief that our future...

As the child of Holocaust survivors and a World War II refugee herself, peace builder Georgette Bennett was stunned by the human toll and tragedy of the Syrian civil war. She got to work, bringing together historical enemies to build an...

Buildings are bad news for the climate -- but they don't have to be. While our structures are currently responsible for a third of global energy consumption and emissions, a future where they create more energy than they consume is...

Scientist Saad Bhamla is on a mission to answer a question most people don't think to ask: How do insects pee? Taking inspiration from the incredible "butt flickers" of the glassy-winged sharpshooter, Bhamla presents a fascinating study...

Global consumer strategist Aparna Bharadwaj shares a fascinating glimpse at under-the-radar affinities that transcend cultures and borders -- from the way people snack in China and Saudi Arabia to how people shop for clothes in the US...

The women of Afghanistan are being persecuted under Taliban rule, but they're not standing down. Filmmaker Tamana Ayazi chronicles the harrowing reality of one women's rights advocate -- Zarifa Ghafari, Afghanistan's youngest female...

When we think about the Harlem Renaissance, the arts come immediately to mind. But new political theories were also blossoming during this time. We'v talked about Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois, but today we'll get into some...

Today, Craig is going to talk about employment discrimination, and we're going to focus primarily on women in the workforce. Discrimination against women tends to be handled somewhat differently in the courts as they are not a minority....

In which John Green talks about the methods of writing history by looking at some of the ways that history has been written about the rise of the West. But first he has to tell you what the West is. And then he has to explain the Rise of...

The March on Washington of 1963 is an enduring and widely-known event of the Civil Rights movement. But the March has its roots in an earlier planned March on Washington that didn't happen. In 1941, labor leader A. Philip Randolph began...

We've come a long way in our understanding of dark energy. In previous episodes we've looked at how our universe is paradoxically flat and how dark energy is exponentially accelerating the expansion of the universe. Now, let's dive into...

Current treatments for depression and PTSD only suppress symptoms, if they work at all. What if we could prevent these diseases from developing altogether? Neuroscientist and TED Fellow Rebecca Brachman shares the story of her team's...

In which John introduces you to quite a lot of Chinese history by discussing the complicated relationship between the Confucian scholars who wrote Chinese history and the emperors (and empress) who made it. Included is a brief...

Mike Rugnetta is going to tell you stories of death, destruction, divine judgment, damnation, and the occasional happy ending. That's right, this week we're talking about the Apocalypse. Actually we're talking about a bunch of ways the...