Humankind on Public Radio
In times of fast-paced change and challenge, how do we hold onto our humanity? Each week, the Humankind on Public Radio podcast presents stories of doers and dreamers who strive to make our planet a more humane and livable place. From our award-winning public radio series, the podcast features David Freudberg’s moving documentaries and dialogues. Hear new and evergreen episodes.
Chaplains
Facing a personal crisis, hospital patients and their loved ones often receive needed emotional support from a quiet army of chaplains, who are skilled at empathetic listening to people gripped by difficult and confusing emotions.
To see additional resources and our other programs, please visit humanmedia.org . Humankind specials are heard on NPR and PRX member-stations, in association with GBH Boston.
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A veteran negotiator in world hot-spots including the Middle East, Louise Diamond practices a citizens-based diplomacy that sometimes finds cooperation at the grass roots level, [...]
May 1, 2025
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Charlie Starbuck, an affable tax attorney, single-handedly has increased the “canopy” of San Francisco by planting more than 7,500 trees, as part of the movement [...]
April 24, 2025
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How does the widespread low level of literacy among American adults affect the functioning of our democracy? Are voters in this group vulnerable to political [...]
April 21, 2025
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About half of American adults read at or below a 6th-grade level. What challenges do they face – at work, in health care, when helping [...]
April 17, 2025
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This episode explores the very human level at which some nurses interact with patients at their most vulnerable moments. What spiritual questions about life and [...]
April 10, 2025
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In a health care setting, where serious illness may be on the line, what does it mean for a provider to listen attentively? We examine [...]
April 3, 2025
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Demanding and sometimes nerve-racking circumstances are a natural part of life and inevitably occur in the health care environment, where patients often arrive when they [...]
March 27, 2025
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A no-holds-barred look at the stressful conditions in which many nurses work: the long hours, the emotional toll, the rapid pace, and the way that [...]
March 20, 2025
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We remember the late Anthony DeMello with the help of University of London Theologian Michael Barnes as well as recordings of the colorful DeMello during [...]
March 13, 2025
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Rather than merely write checks to charities they don’t really know well, a group of concerned women formed a “giving circle” which identifies social needs [...]
March 6, 2025
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A Kansas therapist and author, John Heider, describes how his life has been profoundly affected by studying a renowned 2,500 year old wisdom text from [...]
February 27, 2025
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Ida Wells published the first major study of lynching. A close associate of Frederick Douglass, she helped to found the NAACP and advocated the right [...]
February 20, 2025
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Born to enslaved parents, Ida B. Wells emerged as a powerful investigative journalist. She overcame death threats and published widely in her quest to document [...]
February 17, 2025
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After John Wood trekked through Nepal and saw under-educated children, he quit his job as a Microsoft executive and founded Room to Read, a nonprofit [...]
February 13, 2025
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It’s been said that we’ve learned how to speak but not necessarily how to communicate. Rarely are we taught the art of deep listening or [...]
July 25, 2024
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In this documentary we explore how federal courts enforced fugitive slave laws. Historians, actors and legal scholars re-create the famous case of a young escaped [...]
February 21, 2024
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In the second half of our documentary on the history of Alcoholics Anonymous, we examine the AA recovery principles that have promoted sobriety for millions [...]
December 7, 2023
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Herbal remedies: Do they work? Are they safe? In The Medicine Garden, a special series drawn from our archives, you’ll take a fascinating tour of this [...]
January 2, 2023
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In this episode, we hear from physician Ralph Snyderman, MD, a proponent of preventive medicine, who believes that our health care system should place greater [...]
December 8, 2022
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Have we entered an age of unrelenting chaos? As we grope for a “new normal”, has humanity reached a kind of turning point? In this [...]
July 21, 2022
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Take a trip to a pristine spot in Maine for an afternoon spent with Palestinian and Israeli youth as they come together to play, connect, [...]
July 21, 2022
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As we grope for a “new normal”, has humanity reached a kind of turning point? It feels that way — in the wake of the [...]
June 23, 2022
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After war, our veterans face a new battle: emotional and spiritual conflict that is normal to human beings who’ve experienced intense brutality. In this documentary, [...]
June 23, 2022
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The Prisoners Literature Project, an all-volunteer service based in Berkeley, California, packages and ships books to people who are incarcerated, as a humanitarian gesture and [...]
June 9, 2022
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In the wake of shocking violence at abortion clinics, two apparent enemies — women representing pro-choice and pro-life factions in the Boston area, where shootings [...]
May 30, 2022
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Christal Presley, an English teacher in Virginia who experienced “secondary trauma” in response to the extreme behavior of her father, a Vietnam-era veteran with PTSD, [...]
December 16, 2021
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Today over two million people partake of the storytelling, the good humor, the words of wisdom and the gallons and gallons of free coffee made [...]
November 25, 2021
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Alcoholics Anonymous marks its beginning when one hopelessly addicted drunk realized that connecting with a fellow-sufferer would create a safe zone in which both could [...]
November 18, 2021
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“At the end of the day,” says Jonathan Star about his English translation of Tao te Ching from the original Chinese, “it’s not about attaining [...]
November 11, 2021
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Jonathan Star took twelve years to master the nuances of ancient Chinese in his quest to produce a remarkably lucid and evocative English translation of [...]
November 4, 2021
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When we nurse grudges, the person clinging to a resentment often pays a high price in anxiety, hostility, perhaps depression. What follows from that for [...]
October 28, 2021
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Within a decade, America will be looking different. In addition to other demographic changes, 70 million Baby Boomers are now entering their retirement years. For [...]
October 28, 2021
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Author and prison therapist Robin Casarjian reframes the act of forgiveness not to condone hurtful behavior, but as a shift in perception that allows us [...]
October 21, 2021
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Within a decade, America will be looking different. In addition to other demographic changes, 70 million Baby Boomers are now entering their retirement years. For [...]
October 21, 2021
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The Constitution specifies that once federal judges are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, they can hold their office “during good behavior,” [...]
February 4, 2021
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The Republican party has not won the majority of votes in six of the last seven presidential elections. And yet vacancies on the Supreme Court [...]
January 28, 2021
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Have our courts – intended by America’s founders to be an independent arbiter of justice – turned into another political battlefield? Are today’s judges mere [...]
August 20, 2020
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Have our courts – intended by America’s founders to be an independent arbiter of justice – turned into another political battlefield? Are today’s judges mere [...]
August 13, 2020
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Bay Area physician and Univ. of California medical professor Martin Rossman, author of “The Worry Solution”, describes ways to distinguish between what we can change [...]
March 12, 2020
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This episode of ‘Humankind on Public Radio’ is part of a special series, ‘The Spiritual Care Podcast’. For more episodes exploring the role of spiritual [...]
June 19, 2018
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This episode of ‘Humankind on Public Radio’ is part of a special series, ‘The Spiritual Care Podcast’. For more episodes exploring the role of spiritual [...]
June 12, 2018
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This episode of ‘Humankind on Public Radio’ is part of a special series, ‘The Spiritual Care Podcast’. For more episodes exploring the role of spiritual [...]
June 5, 2018
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This episode of ‘Humankind on Public Radio’ is part of a special series, ‘The Spiritual Care Podcast’. For more episodes exploring the role of spiritual [...]
May 29, 2018
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David Freudberg, host of Humankind public radio, announces a new podcast on the fascinating practice of “spiritual care”: stories of caregivers (chaplains, nurses, social workers, [...]
January 26, 2018
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A 15-minute stress reduction session to calm the body and mind. [...]
December 20, 2016
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Gas taxes you pay at the pump go into a huge pool of federal transportation funds. How should the money be divided up? Plus high-speed [...]
December 13, 2016
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What is the global warming footprint of cars vs. public transit? Story of a family seeking a low-carbon lifestyle. Also, hear the views of transportation [...]
December 6, 2016
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Business people and environmentalists come together: improved public transportation helps to grow the economy, for lots of reasons. Bankers and the Sierra Club on the [...]
November 29, 2016
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The story of a Virginia man who accepted his county’s “challenge” to go car-free for a month; plus voices of motorists filling up at the [...]
November 22, 2016
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Professors of medicine and nursing describe ways to treat the whole patient. And a look at medical use of acupuncture and meditation, for which evidence [...]
November 15, 2016
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With diet a factor in ailments from diabetes to obesity, medical students at the country’s third largest campus attend cooking classes to learn how to [...]
November 8, 2016
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The problem of rushed medical visits, now standard nationwide, can strain both doctors and patients. The story of a Calif. woman who was misdiagnosed with [...]
November 1, 2016
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This look at the emergence of “integrative medicine” begins with a visit to America’s busiest trauma center, in Baltimore, where patients receive both emergency care [...]
October 25, 2016
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A lively profile of “Granny D,” (Mrs. Doris Haddock of Dublin, New Hampshire) famous for her 14-month walk across the United States to promote campaign [...]
October 18, 2016
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A lively profile of “Granny D,” (Mrs. Doris Haddock of Dublin, New Hampshire) famous for her 14-month walk across the United States to promote campaign [...]
October 11, 2016
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Hear a diversity of voices and views on today’s debates over whether voters should be required to show ID at the polls. Some Americans believe [...]
September 30, 2016
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A fascinating history of the much-contested right to vote in America: from slaves freed after the Civil War, to women’s suffrage, to the civil rights [...]
September 30, 2016
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We hear from veterans who wrestle with healing from “moral injury” which occurs after a violation of conscience, based on events they witnessed or participated [...]
September 22, 2016
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We hear profiles of American soldiers who, after military duty, returned home to face another battle—the effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). [...]
September 21, 2016
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When we’re in a disagreement, it’s sometimes hard simply to listen to the other person. But skillful listening is a core practice of conflict resolution [...]
September 20, 2016
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A return visit to the Seeds of Peace summer camp, when teenagers from opposing sides of conflict regions, including the Middle East, arrive for amazing [...]
September 13, 2016
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How can we avoid reacting furiously when someone provokes us? Hear a fascinating array of answers from theologian Frank Rogers, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Rev. Betty [...]
February 4, 2016
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In a world given to so much brutality, it would be easy to underestimate the impact of basic human compassion in actually resolving strife, yet [...]
January 28, 2016
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We hear stories of peacemakers who draw from their diverse lives and religious traditions as a basis for breaking down barriers and promoting conflict resolution. [...]
January 21, 2016
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We look back on the stunning display of forgiveness and nonviolence by the grieving families and congregants of Mother Emanuel church, where a gunman murdered [...]
January 14, 2016
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In this episode of Humankind, hear nuclear experts pro and con, an emergency room physician, and a variety of voices telling the story of a [...]
April 9, 2015
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This episode explores the very human level at which some nurses interact with patients at their most vulnerable moments. What spiritual questions about life and [...]
March 14, 2015
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How do nurses, who are exposed to continual suffering by patients, manage to keep their hearts open and maintain compassion? Nurses describe the centrality of [...]
March 13, 2015
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Inspiring stories of how active nurses use self-care techniques that help them manage, and transcend, the stresses of their essential work life, both on the [...]
March 12, 2015
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A no-holds-barred look at the stressful conditions in which many nurses work: the long hours, the emotional toll, the rapid pace, and the way that [...]
March 5, 2015
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