TED Talks
Perception, Self, and the Art of Acting: A Dialogue with Anil Seth and Yara Shahidi
In a conversation between cognitive neuroscientist Anil Seth and actor Yara Shahidi, they explore the interplay between perception, self-awareness, and acting. Seth delves into the neuroscience of experiencing oneself, while Shahidi...
TED Talks
TED: Entertainment is getting an AI upgrade | Kylan Gibbs
AI has the power to bring your favorite fictional characters to life, says technologist Kylan Gibbs. Introducing Caleb, an "AI agent" with personality and internal reasoning, he demonstrates how AI-powered characters can interact with...
PBS
Fighting the stigma of opioid addiction with stories of recovery
People working on the front lines of the opioid crisis at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation offer their Brief but Spectacular takes on addiction and recovery.
PBS
Are there Infinite Versions of You?
The cosmological equations that so beautifully describe our universe make an uncomfortable prediction: interpreting them in the most straightforward way, they tell us that the universe may be infinite. Or not; it could turn out that the...
PBS
Pachinko’ author Min Jin Lee answers your questions
Min Jin Lee, author of our July pick for the NewsHour-New York Times book club Now Read This, joins Jeffrey Brown to answer questions from readers, plus Jeff announces August’s book.
SciShow
Cinema Psychology | Compilation
Movie magic is more than just what's happening on screen, sometimes the work is all in what's going on inside your brain.
PBS
At this college, academic excellence requires passion for the social good
At New Jersey's Rutgers University, a new honors program for undergraduates is redefining academic excellence. Students accepted into the highly competitive Honors Living Learning Community (HLLC) study critical social
issues and prove...
PBS
Michael Beschloss chronicles American 'Presidents of War'
"When it came to involving the nascent republic in military conflict, one of the founding fathers' biggest fears was that American presidents would be reckless and aggressive to suit their own agendas. Judy Woodruff sits down with...
PBS
Tayari Jones Answers Your Questions About ‘The Street’
Author Tayari Jones wrote the introduction to a new edition of Ann Petry's 1946 novel "The Street," our May pick for the NewsHour-New York Times book club, Now Read This. Jones joins Jeffrey Brown to answer reader questions about the...
PBS
Author Lauren Wilkinson Answers Your Questions About ‘American Spy’
Lauren Wilkinson, author of our June pick for the NewsHour-New York Times book club, Now Read This, joins Jeffrey Brown to answer reader questions about “American Spy.”
PBS
Stephen King wants to reach out and grab you - with his writing
Novelist Stephen King is best known for his works of horror, but he says what scares him the most is not being able to write. Jeffrey Brown spoke with him at the Library of Congress National Book Festival about his latest novel, "End of...
Crash Course
Moonlight: Crash Course Film Criticism
Moonlight is a hard-edged yet beautifully made story about a black American dealing with his sexuality in a sometimes unforgiving and violent world. Its director, Barry Jenkins, uses every trick in the filmmaking book to put us in the...
Crash Course
Role-playing Games: Crash Course Games
Today, we're going to explore the world of role-playing games. Role-playing games are different than most, because they're technically a form of interactive storytelling with one player managing the game as the game master (or dungeon...
TED Talks
Gabriel Barcia-Colombo: Capturing memories in video art
Using video mapping and projection, artist Gabriel Barcia-Colombo captures and shares his memories and friendships. At TED Fellow Talks, he shows his charming, thoughtful work -- which appears to preserve the people in his life in jars,...
Crash Course
Fate, Family, and Oedipus Rex: Crash Course Literature 202
In which John Green teaches you about one of the least family-friendly family dramas in the history of family dramas, Oedipus Rex. Sophocles' most famous play sees it's main character, who seems like he's got it all together, find out...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: How to make your writing funnier - Cheri Steinkellner
Did you ever notice how many jokes start with _Did you ever notice?" And what's the deal with "What's the deal?" There's a lot of funny to be found simply by noticing the ordinary, everyday things you don't ordinarily notice every day....
TED Talks
Ariana Curtis: Museums should honor the everyday, not just the extraordinary
Who deserves to be in a museum? For too long, the answer has been "the extraordinary" -- those aspirational historymakers who inspire us with their successes. But those stories are limiting, says museum curator Ariana Curtis. In a...
Crash Course
The Birth of the Feature Film: Crash Course Film History
Movies didn't always look like they do now. There was a period (kind of a problematic one) where movies transitioned from short novelties to big, epic, feature films. That's our focus this week as Craig talks to us about the birth of the...
Crash Course
Pitching and Pre-Production: Crash Course Film Production
Pitching your movie to people can be hard. A studio, a friend, your mom... each of these entities will have different stressed and give you different results. But, what's important in a pitch? And what happens after the pitch? How do you...
TED Talks
Alice Dreger: Is anatomy destiny?
Alice Dreger works with people at the edge of anatomy, such as conjoined twins and intersexed people. In her observation, it's often a fuzzy line between male and female, among other anatomical distinctions. Which brings up a huge...
SciShow
Why a Bad Series Finale Ruins the Whole Show
Objectively, some shows end with rough final acts, but we are finding that this isn’t the only factor in our discontent. Unsatisfactory finales also reflect common types of relationships we build with fictional characters.
TED Talks
TED: The birth of virtual reality as an art form | Chris Milk
Chris Milk uses innovative technologies to make personal, interactive, human stories. Accompanied by Joshua Roman on cello and McKenzie Stubbert on piano, Milk traces his relationship to music and art -- from the first moment he...
Crash Course
LARP: Crash Course Games
Today we're going to talk about LARPs or live action role-playing games. Larping tends to conjure up the image of a bunch of nerds hitting each other with foam weapons but it's much more than that. LARPs merge performance, community, and...