By Catie Talarski
Here is what we have on tap for next week, June 13 to 17, 2011:
MONDAY: Young and Jewish in America
Young people today have a lot of ways to define themselves – their clothes, their music, their facebook profiles. But religious identity has become less of a defining characteristic because, well, it’s trickier to characterize. Today we’ll look at the question “what does it mean to be an American Jew?” We’ll hear the story of Luzer Twersky, a 23 year old Hasidic Jew from Brooklyn who has made the decision to abandon the conservative faith and community of his upbringing and reintegrate himself into secular American society. And we’ll look at young, American secular Jews seeking to explore their Judaism through a free 10-day, all expenses paid trip to Israel. But how does a trip to Israel fit into this process of self discovery? We’ll talk to Jewish scholars and students who have participated in the trip about their praises for and ambivalence towards this program.
TUESDAY: Open For Tourism?
The Connecticut Tourism industry took some flack under the Rell administration for its one-dollar yearly budget and the state’s disappearance from the official tourism map of New England. Now we’re back on the map, but facing a tight budget for culture and tourism. Coming up, Executive Director of the Commission Kip Bergstrom will join us to talk about the move into the Department of Community and Economic Development, and what he’ll be doing to bring tourists, and tourism jobs, to the state.
WEDNESDAY: Arts and Ideas!
It’s a LIVE broadcast from The Study at Yale – and we’ll talk to some of the artists and thinkers involved in the annual New Haven festival – like choreographer Susan Marshall and Haitian performer Emeline Michel. How about you get up early and drive yourself to New Haven to be part of our audience!
THURSDAY: Brooke Gladstone On The Media (rebroadcast)
A 24-hour news cycle, media moguls with political agendas, blurred lines between news and commentary. To many, these are sign’s that today’s media couldn’t be farther removed from the integrity of its roots. After more than two decades reporting on the Media, NPR’s Brooke Gladstone is of the opinion that we’ve been here before, and it’s actually been worse. Gladstone presents her manifesto in the new book The Influencing Machine. Through the medium of graphic nonfiction, She and illustrator Josh Neufeld frame today’s media in the context of two thousand years of history, and in the process challenge some cornerstone assumptions of the press, including objectivity and the roots of media bias, and dispell a fear that a media machine may be controlling our minds. Today we’ll talk with Gladstone and Neufeld about all this, and what the media really says about us.
FRIDAY: A Father’s Day
It’s a tribute to Father’s today! We’ll hear from fathers and about fathers in essays from the upcoming book “THIS I BELIEVE: On Fatherhood” – and Dr. Peggy Drexler joins us to talk about her research on the complicated father-daughter relationship, and how the bond girls have (or don’t have) with their dads shapes them throughout life.
