In her memoir Making a Scene, actress Constance Wu writes about the sexual harassment and abuse she faced on her breakout show Fresh off the Boat, and why she hesitated to speak out at first. She tells WBUR's Scott Tong that "trauma and feelings don't go away simply because you will them to." And when she finally spoke up about that trauma on social media, she received a wave of online hate. A warning that this episode – and the book – includes descriptions of assault and a suicide attempt.
Amanda Holmes reads Louis MacNeice’s poem “Plurality.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.
This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch.
By the late 1980s, most Ivy League schools were a fifth or a quarter Jewish—and the University of Pennsylvania was more Jewish than most. For starters, unlike several other Ivies, Penn was never a Christian divinity school. It’s located in the heart of a big city that has had a large Jewish population going back to colonial times. Plus, it offered a plethora of professional schools, which, as we’ve learned in this series, appealed to students seeking social mobility in the early and mid-20th century. In the 1980s, where this episode picks up, Penn was a place where Jews felt truly comfortable.
In this episode of Gatecrashers, we explore Jewish Greek life. Jewish sororities like Alpha Epsilon Pi and Sigma Delta Tau were founded in the early 20th century by Jewish women who were excluded from the Greek system and wanted to create their own sense of sisterhood and social structure. But in the late 1980s, that sense of solidarity seems to have faded. The national headquarters of Sigma Delta Tau stepped in to make some unusual adjustments to the Penn chapter, which had been facing a membership decline. They put the entire chapter on probation following a suspicious underage drinking charge, and brought in a social club called Alpha Zeta to fill the chapter’s ranks and leadership positions.
What does it mean to be a representative of Jewish womanhood, particularly in the 1980s, when stereotypes of Jewish women permeated American culture? What do the actions of SDT’s national leadership tell us about Jews’ place in the Ivy League, and in the wider culture, at that time? And when a minority reaches the point of feeling truly comfortable, is in-fighting inevitable?
Episode 7 of Gatecrashers features historian Shira Kohn on the rise and role of Jewish sororities, Judith Silverman Hodara on Penn’s Jewish history, and several SDT and Penn alumni on the events of 1987.
For thousands of years, humans have looked up at the night sky and wondered, “are we alone?”
For the longest time, it remained nothing more than a philosophical question, but in the 20th century, some researchers thought it was time to finally start looking.
One of the big questions was how do you look for something that you don’t know exists, and if it does, you don’t know where it is?
Learn more about SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
The Generation Why Podcast released its first episode in 2012 and pioneered the true crime genre in the podcasting world. Two friends, Aaron & Justin, break down theories and give their opinions on unsolved murders, controversies, mysteries and conspiracies.
One of the longest running true crime podcasts out there, Generation Why has a little something for every true crime listener.
Follow The Generation Why Podcast on Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Or you can listen ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Listen here: wondery.fm/IGWL_GenWhyKB
Celeste Ng's new novel Our Missing Hearts is set in a dystopian America, where children are taken away from their parents. The story is told from the perspective of a 12-year-old boy who goes in search of his missing mother. In an interview with NPR's Ayesha Rascoe, Ng says she wanted to look at how people rationalize their faith in institutions, and how willing they are to look away from something that's wrong.
