Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute
John Adams Institute
John Adams, the first American ambassador to the Netherlands, once said “Let us tenderly and kindly cherish...the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.” The John Adams Institute has brought the best and the brightest of American thinking to Amsterdam for three decades. We have amassed a unique archive of great thinkers, speakers and writers, from Spike Lee to Francis Fukuyama to Al Gore. Now we’re sharing this treasure trove of thought and word with you. We believe John Adams would have wanted it that way. And so, from Amsterdam, this is: Bright Minds: the podcast from the John Adams Institute!
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Top 10 Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
FUTURE 400: From the Streets to the Heart
Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute
06/05/24 • 19 min
This second episode of the Future 400 podcast looks at work by Dutch and American photographers who are part of the annual international photo festival Photoville in Lower Manhattan. Dutch photographer Ernst Coppejans delves deep into the lives of LGBTQIA+ people living on the streets in New York. Kennedi Carter, a young Black photographer from the South, dresses people of color in a combination of garb from colonial times and contemporary streetwear. Photoville’s founder Sam Barzilay says: “Even though they are an Atlantic apart, there is a shared sensibility here.”
Future 400 is a bi-weekly four-part podcast series from the Dutch Consulate in New York, created and presented by John Adams Institute director Tracy Metz. It marks the 400th anniversary of the founding of New Amsterdam, the city that became New York. Each episode highlights a selection of the creative collaborations between artists, communities and institutions in both the Netherlands and the United States. Learn more about the whole two-year Future 400 program at dutchcultureusa.com.
FUTURE 400: Wolves and Kings
Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute
07/03/24 • 21 min
This fourth episode of the Future 400 podcast is all about theater and dance. Battery Dance, New York City's longest running public dance festival, is hosting the Dutch-Turkish choreographer Rutkay Özpinar from Korzo Theater as part of the Future 400 exchange. And the Dutch theater director Ira Kip is working on her new play, Kings... Come Home, a reflection the impact of being uprooted, which will go to the National Black Theater and the Apollo Theater in New York. Both Kip and Özpinar are searching for a global conversation that brings disparate cultures and histories together on the stage. “The reason why we dance is not just the music,” says Rutkay. “In every culture you can find dance, from a prayer to a celebration.”
This is the final episode of the Future 400 podcast series from the Dutch Consulate in New York, created and presented by John Adams Institute director Tracy Metz. It marks the 400th anniversary of the founding of New Amsterdam, the city that became New York. Each episode highlights a selection of the creative collaborations between artists, communities and institutions in both the Netherlands and the United States. For the full Future 400 cultural exchange program see www.dutchcultureusa.com.
Hanya Yanagihara: Creating Paradise
Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute
09/21/22 • 41 min
On March 11, 2022, Hanya Yanagihara returned to the John Adams for a conversation about 'To Paradise', her three-part story across three centuries, centered around New York City. To Paradise is a revisionist American history – not identical to the America as we know it but a ‘what if’ narrative, invested in raising concerns about America as a nation: what it has been, what it might have been and what it could be. An epic tale told across multiple timelines and characters, separate from each other, but providing major themes and takeaways for the reader. “A masterpiece of our time,” according to The Guardian.
Christopher Hitchens: God is Not Great
Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute
09/07/22 • 29 min
The late, great Christopher Hitchens came to Amsterdam in 2008 touring his book: God is Not Great. Hitchens excelled at polemics. He considered himself to be politically liberal and yet expressed his full-throated support for the war in Iraq and called Hillary Clinton “an aging and resentful female”. And then there were the blistering attacks on religion and religious belief. He also details: how religion is a worse than any totalitarian regime, why science and religion are fundamentally incompatible, and why it’s a bad time for secularism in politics.
Somehow, despite this talk being 13 years old now, his remarks about religion in politics, seem as relevant as ever.
Donna Tartt: A Secret History
Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute
08/24/22 • 29 min
A gem from our archive! Way back on March 14, 1993, the then fresh new Southern author, Donna Tartt, visited the John Adams hot on the heels of her massive bestseller 'The Secret History', currently translated into 24 languages and counting.
'The Secret History' takes place at a fictional college where a close-knit group of six students embark upon a secretive plan to stage a bacchanal, a plan that ultimately leads to a death. Tartt has subsequently written 'The Little Friend' and 'The Goldfinch, the latter of which became a bestseller, a film and a Book of the Year by numerous publications including, New York Times Book Review, the Economist and NPR. 'The Goldfinch' even won the Pulitzer Prize.
Daniel Ziblatt: How Democracies Die
Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute
06/15/22 • 42 min
How do democracies die? Not at the hands of generals, but of elected leaders – presidents or prime ministers who subvert the very process that brought them to power. That is the unsettling conclusion of Harvard professor Daniel Ziblatt’s highly praised book How Democracies Die.
Ziblatt and his co-author Steven Levitsky have analyzed the collapse of various democracies in recent history, and compare them to the state of the US government today. Is our democracy in danger? Yes, says Ziblatt. He warns us against politicians who reject the democratic rules of the game; who deny the legitimacy of opponents; who tolerate or encourage violence; and who indicate a willingness to curtail the civil liberties of opponents, including the media.
Toni Morrison: A Mercy
Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute
06/01/22 • 39 min
In 2009, one of the most important American writers of her generation took the John Adams Institute stage for the first time. Toni Morrison—as renowned for her magical realism as for her portrayal of the African American struggle—is that rare writer who is acclaimed by critics and adored by the reading public. In her novel, A Mercy, a mother gives away her daughter as she struggles for a better life, and the reader unravels the meaning behind seemingly cruel acts. Join us for an evening with this distinguished writer of whom the Nobel Prize committee wrote: “...in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, she gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.
Jonathan Franzen: The Corrections
Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute
05/18/22 • 41 min
The John Adams Institute, in co-operation with Prometheus Publishing House, proudly presented an evening with Jonathan Franzen, winner of the National Book Award 2001. Franzen discussed his novel The Corrections, which has been translated into Dutch under the title De Correcties. Michaël Zeeman, renowned literary critic for the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant, introduced Franzen and moderated questions from the audience.
The Corrections is a novel about the American Family. You could interpret it as a family soap opera of sorts, but Franzen has much more to say, giving a view on modern western society that is both humorous and poignant. The Lambert family takes you to everyday America and brings you into the world of ‘consumerism, pharmacology, biotechnology, the ‘optimistic egalitarianism’ of the American Middle West, the superstitious magic of the stock exchange, and the unbearable lightness of virtual being on the home pages of the Infobahn, not to mention asparagus steamers, refrigerator magnets, a vacuum pump to keep leftover wine from oxidizing, cell phones, and class hatred’ (New York Review of Books). It creates the illusion of giving a complete account of a world, and while we’re under its enchantment it temporarily eclipses whatever else we may have read’ (The New York Times).
Patrick Radden Keefe: Drugs, Death and Money
Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute
05/04/22 • 46 min
The great American author and investigative journalist, Patrick Radden Keefe, knows irony when he hears it. Such as when the patriarch of what would become an infamous family, imparted these words to his sons: “I leave you my good name”.
And that name is...Sackler: frequent visitors to some of the world’s great museums and educational institutions know that name.
The Sackler family name adorns the walls of Harvard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oxford, the Louvre. The Sacklers are one of the richest families in the world, and they donate lavishly to the arts and sciences.
Just where all that money came from was vague, until it emerged that the Sacklers were the owners of Purdue Pharma, responsible for making and aggressively marketing OxyContin, a blockbuster painkiller that was the catalyst for today’s opioid crisis. Opioids were responsible for the overdose deaths of nearly 500,000 Americans over the past two decades.
Jane Fonda: Living the Life
Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute
12/06/23 • 57 min
From Hollywood to Hanoi, Jane Fonda has endeared and enraged Americans for decades with her sparkling performances and outspoken views. Following an eclectic career as an actress, activist and fitness guru plus a string of high-profile husbands, the acclaimed Fonda tells all in her autobiography My Life So Far.
In this episode of Bright Minds, Jane Fonda reveals intimate details and universal truths that she hopes ‘can provide a lens through which others can see their lives and how they can live them a little differently.’
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FAQ
How many episodes does Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute have?
Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute currently has 49 episodes available.
What topics does Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute cover?
The podcast is about Society & Culture and Podcasts.
What is the most popular episode on Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute?
The episode title 'Christopher Hitchens: God is Not Great' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute?
The average episode length on Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute is 38 minutes.
How often are episodes of Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute released?
Episodes of Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute are typically released every 14 days.
When was the first episode of Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute?
The first episode of Bright Minds: from the John Adams Institute was released on Nov 22, 2021.
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