With Good Reason

John Aler made his operatic debut in 1977 as Ernesto in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale. Since then, he’s performed in some of the greatest opera houses in the world and has won four Grammys for his classical recordings. Aler shares his thoughts on voice and the future of singing. Also featured: It’s Mozart meets the Clash. [...]

A Confederacy of Dunces, by New Orleans-born John Kennedy Toole, is one of the great stories of American literature. Published almost 12 years after his tragic suicide, the book went on to win the Pulitzer Prize and became a modern classic. Cory MacLauchlin’s (Germanna Community College) new biography of Toole, Butterfly in the Typewriter, tells [...]

Michael Jones McKean (Virginia Commonwealth University) is an artist whose work is a simple, but phenomenal visual event: he creates rainbows that can arc up to 400 feet in height. For over two weeks last summer, his rainbows in downtown Omaha, Nebraska could be seen from a thousand feet away. Also featured: If you’ve ever [...]

Horses and humans have long interacted, but now therapeutic horse riding is helping children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in some life-changing ways. Kim Wendell (Cori Sikich Therapeutic Riding Center) and Sandra Ward (College of William Mary) were part of a study that found the benefits of riding carried over to more positive behaviors in the [...]

Aniko Bodroghkozy  (University of Virginia) is the author of the new book Equal Time: Television and the Civil Rights Movement which explores how the newly created evening news shows shaped attitudes about race relations during the Civil Rights Movement. She investigates the network news treatment of events including the 1965 Selma voting rights campaign, integration [...]

First published in 1947, Goodnight Moon has become one of the most popular books for young children. Yet the book’s author, Margaret Wise Brown, always wanted to write for adults. With Good Reason producer Kelley Libby tells the story of Brown’s life, from Hollins College to her tragic early death. Also featured: Opened after the [...]

A common historical myth is that Native Americans were an “oral people” and did not engage in literacy. In his new book Red Ink: Native Americans Picking Up the Pen in the Colonial Period, Drew Lopenzina  (Old Dominion University) argues that Native Americans early on acquired the skills of reading and writing in an effort [...]

Sew Katie Did / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND Feminists tend to be thought of as “anti-motherhood.” But psychologist (and mom) Miriam Liss (University of Mary Washington) says feminists are actually more likely than non-feminists to be intense mothers who practice parenting techniques like co-sleeping, breastfeeding, and carrying a child in a body sling. Also featured: [...]

Jazz Archive at Duke University / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA Sister Rosetta Tharpe attained great popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with her gospel recordings that were a unique mixture of spiritual lyrics and early rock and roll. She became the first superstar of gospel music and was an early influence on Elvis Presley, Jerry [...]

National interest in the spiritual practices and beliefs of our presidents is as strong as ever.  In his new book, The Faiths of the Postwar Presidents, David Holmes (College of William and Mary) looks at the role of religion in the lives of the twelve presidents who have served since the end of World War [...]