Hold That Thought

While Shakespeare wrote his plays, English theater itself was changing. The first actual theaters like the Globe were built, so companies could perform in places built soley for performance rather than marketplaces, pubs, or inns. Instead of religious and morality plays, writers brought politics, race, and class issues to the stage for the first time in London, which made authorities wary. Musa Gurnis, an associate professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis, explains what early modern theater was like for London-theater goers and how the theater gave English society a way to think about itself in a new way.

Dr. Michael Friedlander, professor emeritus of physics at Washington University in St. Louis, describes how using historical writings to calculate when future eclipses will take place has revealed new questions about the earth's rotation which scientists are still puzzling over.

The results from the 2014 midterm elections are in, and Republicans stole the show. On the national scene, the GOP gained 15 seats in the House of Representatives and took control of the Senate for the first time since 2006. As predicted, conservative Christian voters played a significant role in these outcomes. Yet despite the recent focus on the political power of Evangelicals, the influence of liberal Protestantism may be more present in American culture and politics than you think. Historian David Hollinger, professor emeritus at the University of California - Berkeley, discusses what it means to be "Post-Protestant." His most recent book is After Cloven Tongues of Fire: Protestant Liberalism in Modern American History.

In 1957, Ghana declared its independence from colonial rule, and a new leader named Kwame Nkrumah rose to take the helm. Jean Allman, professor of history and director of the Center for the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis, has been studying the surprising networks that formed around Nkrumah, and in her research, she's discovered documents never meant for her eyes. She raises questions about the morality of the archival process and reveals how the NSA may change the future of history research.

Climate scientist Bronwen Konecky travels to tropical regions around the world gathering evidence of the geologic past. Using data from rain samples and sediments deep at the bottom of lakes, she is piecing together a story about Earth's climatic history – and what it can tell us about our planet's future.