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PODCAST

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human

What makes you … you? And who tells what stories and why? In the SAPIENS podcast, listeners will hear a range of human stories: from the origins of the chili pepper to how prosecutors decide someone is a criminal to stolen skulls from Iceland. Join SAPIENS on our latest journey to explore what it means to be human.

science social sciences

All Episodes

29:32

Learning from Handy Primates

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human ·

2024/05/29

Many of our primate relatives use tools. How do they use them? And why?And what do these skills mean for understanding tools across the animal kingdom, including for us humans?In this episode, host Eshe Lewis delves into a conversation with Kirsty Graham, an animal behavior researcher. Kirsty explains how primates such as chimpanzees use tools to forage. Such innovative methods to access food reflect the basic yet profound necessities that drive tool innovation. Contrasting these findings

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34:18

Moving Through Deaf Worlds

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human ·

2024/05/22

Why do people migrate from one country to another, leaving behind friends, family, and familiarity in search of another life elsewhere? And how might their experiences look different if they are deaf? Ala’ Al-Husni is a deaf Jordanian who moved to Japan five years ago, where he still lives with his deaf Japanese wife and their family just outside of Tokyo.Reported by Timothy Y. Loh, a hearing anthropologist who researches deaf communities in the Arabic-speaking Middle East, this episode

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35:10

Untangling the World’s First-Known String

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human ·

2024/05/15

At the Abri du Maras site in southern France, archaeologists recovered twisted plant fibers dating back 50,000 years, suggesting Neanderthals had knowledge of plant materials and the seasonal cycles necessary for making durable string. This finding challenges a view of Neanderthals as simplistic and inferior to modern humans, highlighting their sophisticated use of technology and deep environmental knowledge. In this episode, Bruce Hardy discusses with host Eshe Lewis the oldest piece of

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32:12

In Search for the First Cyborg

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human ·

2024/05/08

These days, a mention of cyborgs often conjures images from a science fiction future: robot arms and legs, infrared eyes, and other modified humans. However, we don’t need to look into the future to find cyborgs. In many ways, people today are already cyborgs. We are deeply intertwined with technology—from the clothes we wear to the structures we live in. But when did our relationship with technology start? Who was the first cyborg?These questions take us from the present to the deep

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34:34

Black Influencers Beyond the Screens

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human ·

2024/05/01

Anuli Akanegbu is the host of BLK IRL, an audio docuseries. She is also a Ph.D. candidate in cultural anthropology at New York University, conducting research on Black creatives who are contract workers in Atlanta, Georgia. In conversation with SAPIENS’ podcast host, Dr. Eshe Lewis, Anuli delves into the historical and current successes and struggles of Black influencers, content creators, and artists for labor rights and recognition.Through in-depth ethnographic interviews, Akanegbu’s

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01:09

Cultures of Technology: Season 7 Trailer

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human ·

2024/04/24

Since the dawn of our species, the ability to make things has made us who we are. Human-made objects, large and small, have enabled and molded evolutionary forces, sparked and expressed our imagination, guided and structured social relations, transformed and destroyed the environment–and much more. This season of the podcast looks at how a wide range of technologies—from smartphones to comic books to cooking to hydroelectric dams—are intertwined with our lives. Anthropologists’ stories

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30:00

Can We Understand One Another?

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human ·

2023/12/14

Hosts Kate Ellis and Doris Tulifau explore the perils and possibilities of the kind of fieldwork that defined Margaret Mead as an anthropologist. They provide answers to the Mead-Freeman controversy but also ask the questions that remain.In this season finale, we circle back to the problems with coming of age … in Samoa and everywhere. Season 6 of the SAPIENS podcast was co-produced by PRX and SAPIENS, and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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30:32

Weaving Stories: Two Women Speak

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human ·

2023/12/05

We turn from Margaret Mead’s and Derek Freeman’s conflicting accounts of adolescence and sexuality in Samoa to more stories from Samoans themselves. Author and poet Sia Figiel and activist and anthropologist Doris Tulifau are two Samoan women from different generations. Yet they share a bond and have a similar experience of terrible violence and survival. They bravely give us a glimpse into the dynamics of power within sexuality and their heartfelt journey of reclaiming it. Season 6 of

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28:30

Sex, Lies, and Science Wars

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human ·

2023/11/28

After Derek Freeman publishes Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth, the controversy heats up. Op-eds, documentaries, censure by a leading anthropological organization, and even a debate on the Phil Donahue Show all follow. Was Margaret Mead, “the grandmother of the world,” wrong? Or was Freeman? At stake was the heart of an academic discipline and the nature of being human. Mead’s own daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson, launches a defense, and other

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38:23

Bonus: Flemmie Kittrell and the Preschool Experiment

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human ·

2023/11/21

SAPIENS is happy to present this bonus episode from Lost Women of Science about another path-breaking thinker. In the 1960s, a Black home economist at Howard University recruited kids for an experimental preschool program. All were Black and lived in poor neighborhoods around campus. Flemmie Kittrell had grown up poor herself, just two generations removed from slavery, and she’d seen firsthand the effects of poverty. While Flemmie earned a PhD from Cornell, most of her siblings didn’t

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23:52

Into the Light

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human ·

2023/11/14

The first missionary arrived in Samoa in 1832, almost a century before Margaret Mead set out to study the culture of the islands. By the time she arrived, the church had been a central part of Samoan life for generations. In this episode, Doris Tulifau explores how Christianity and colonization complicate Mead’s—and her critic Derek Freeman’s—conclusions and continue to shape Samoan identity today. Season 6 of the SAPIENS podcast was co-produced by PRX and SAPIENS, and made possible by a

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28:27

Trashing an American Icon

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human ·

2023/11/07

In January 1983, the front page of The New York Times read: “New Samoa Book Challenges Margaret Mead’s Conclusions.” Anthropologist Derek Freeman had been building his critique of Mead for years, sending her letters and even confronting her in person. Freeman’s resulting book, Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth, was published five years after Mead died. Who was Freeman and why did he take such issue with Mead’s work in American Samoa? Season 6

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28:29

We Need to Tell Our Own Stories

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human ·

2023/10/31

Sparked by a provocative encounter in American Samoa, Doris Tulifau explores modern-day Samoan attitudes toward Margaret Mead. With a mix of voices and opinions, we encounter three loud ideas around Mead’s work, ultimately dropping us at the doorstep of Derek Freeman’s central critique about Samoan culture and society. Season 6 of the SAPIENS podcast was co-produced by PRX and SAPIENS, and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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25:05

Flapper of the South Seas

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human ·

2023/10/24

In 1925, Margaret Mead set sail for American Samoa. What she claimed she found there—teenagers free to explore and express their sexuality—instantly captivated her audience in the U.S. Her book became a bestseller, and Mead skyrocketed to fame. But what were her actual methods and motivations? We trace Mead’s legendary nine-month journey in the South Pacific. Season 6 of the SAPIENS podcast was co-produced by PRX and SAPIENS, and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for

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23:34

Coming of Age … Today

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human ·

2023/10/17

Being a teenager can be hard. Very hard. Our hosts Kate Ellis and Doris Tulifau recount the tough parts from their adolescence to ask whether being a teen is difficult in every culture. It’s the question that inspired Margaret Mead, one of the most influential figures in American anthropology, to begin her research in American Samoa in 1925. And it’s the question that has sparked years of debate about human sexuality, nature versus nurture, and whether we can ever really understand each

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03:19

The Problems With Coming of Age: Season 6 Trailer

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human ·

2023/10/10

This special SAPIENS podcast season tells the story of famed anthropologist Margaret Mead’s epic life and controversial research to explore key quandaries about the human experience: sex and adolescence, nature versus nurture, and the question of whether it’s ever possible to fully understand cultures different from your own. In addition, we hear from Samoans themselves about their views on the matter and their lives today. In 1928, when she was just 27 years old, Mead published Coming of

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01:40

Introducing: Going Wild

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human ·

2023/09/05

The chart-topping and Signal Award-winning podcast “Going Wild with Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant” has returned for a brand new season. Produced by Nature on PBS, “Going Wild” is a sound-rich podcast about the human drama behind saving animals. This season, host and acclaimed wildlife ecologist Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant takes you on a journey through the entire ecological web—from the tiniest of life forms to apex predators. The new season is guided by one central question: “How can we, humans, look at our

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16:16

Introducing: The Disappearing Spoon

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human ·

2023/08/15

Archaeologists around the world have long unearthed skulls with holes in them. But they were usually dismissed as natural accidents—the result of infections, birth defects, or animal bites. But in 1864 an archaeologist named Ephraim George Squier found a skull in Cuzco, Peru with a hole that was clearly not natural—it was square-shaped. The hole also showed signs of new bone growth around its edge, which meant the person couldn’t have been dead when the hole was cut. This skull was the

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02:00

Introducing: The Bioneers – Revolution from the Heart...

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human ·

2023/05/30

The Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature is an award-winning, international radio and podcast series. Free to everyone, this series offers listeners and radio stations the opportunity to experience the conference year-round, and allows access to in-depth interviews with leading social and scientific innovators. It highlights diverse voices of grassroots leaders and voices that are often marginalized or excluded by corporate media. The programs cover a wide range of topics,

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02:12

Introducing: Outside/In

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human ·

2023/05/23

Outside/In from New Hampshire Public Radio is a show about the natural world and how we use it. The show combines solid reporting and long-form narrative storytelling to bring the outdoors to you wherever you are. The program casts a wide net across the environmental spectrum. They do fun explorations of nature, with lots of sound design and immersive scenes; they cover climate change and sustainability, but try to keep solutions to environmental problems in the spotlight; and they do

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