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PODCAST

UMich Retirees Podcast

University of Michigan Retirees Association

Our podcast offers a fresh way to stay connected with UMRA and the greater University of Michigan community. Whether through our many Seminar and Learn & Grow sessions, delivered by prominent faculty and inspirational community leaders, or intellectual discussions by our vibrant interest groups – UMRA Reads and UMRA Travels – we are certain you will find each episode engaging; fitting conveniently into your daily routines and busy schedules.

education self-improvement

All Episodes

77:56

UMRA Reads: The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

UMich Retirees Podcast ·

2025/10/29

Ta-Nehisi Coates began The Message intending to write about writing, but it evolved into a meditation on how stories and myths shape—and distort—our realities.In three linked essays, Coates journeys from Dakar to South Carolina to Palestine, each revealing a struggle between myth and truth. In Dakar, he confronts the romantic Afrocentric visions of his youth against the tangible legacy of slavery. In Columbia, South Carolina, he witnesses both the transformative power and the backlash of America’s

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80:44

UMRA Reads - The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene...

UMich Retirees Podcast ·

2025/09/25

"When Jennifer Doudna was in sixth grade, she came home one day to find that her dad had left a paperback titled The Double Helix on her bed. As she sped through the pages, she became enthralled by the intense drama behind the competition to discover the code of life. Even though her high school counselor told her girls didn’t become scientists, she decided she would.""Driven by a passion to understand how nature works and to turn discoveries into inventions, she would help to make what the book’s

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50:49

UMRA Reads: An Elephant in the Kitchen by Francoise...

UMich Retirees Podcast ·

2025/08/28

"A heart-warming sequel to the international bestseller The Elephant Whisperer, by Lawrence Anthony's wife Françoise Malby-Anthony.""A blonde, chic Parisienne, Françoise never expected to find herself living on a South African game reserve. But when she fell in love with renowned conservationist Lawrence Anthony her life took an unexpected turn. Lawrence died in 2012 and Françoise was left to face the tough reality of running Thula Thula without him, even though she knew very little about

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01:12:55

UMRA Reads: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

UMich Retirees Podcast ·

2025/07/24

"The beloved American classic about a young girl's coming-of-age at the turn of the century, Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a poignant and moving tale filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident. The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years. By turns overwhelming, sublime,

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42:30

UMRA Reads: We Solve Murders by Richard Osman

UMich Retirees Podcast ·

2025/06/25

"Steve Wheeler is enjoying retired life. He does the odd bit of investigation work, but he prefers his familiar habits and routines: the pub quiz, his favorite bench, his cat waiting for him when he comes home. His days of adventure are over: adrenaline is daughter-in-law Amy’s business now.""Amy Wheeler thinks adrenaline is good for the soul. As a private security officer, she doesn’t stay still long enough for habits or routines. She’s currently on a remote island keeping world-famous author

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01:10:39

UMRA Reads: Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want...

UMich Retirees Podcast ·

2025/05/30

"All of us have in our minds a cartoon image of what an autocratic state looks like, with a bad man at the top. But in the 21st century, that cartoon bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are run not by one bad guy, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, security services and professional propagandists. The members of these networks are connected not only within a given country, but among many countries. The corrupt, state-controlled

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51:25

ChatGPT Unveiled: Exploring the Power of AI...

UMich Retirees Podcast ·

2025/05/28

ChatGPT Unveiled: Exploring the Power of AI ConversationsEdward Adams Former Chief Technology Officer Stephen M. Ross School of Business Ever wonder what it would be like to have an intelligent conversation with a computer? A conversation exploring history, science and the arts; taking deep dives into philosophy, physics, medicine, and economics; discussing current books, movies and theater; engaging in casual chats about daily life; and more. Well, that's the exciting world of AI chatbots, and

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58:43

UMRA Reads: Tom Lake by Ann Patchette

UMich Retirees Podcast ·

2025/04/24

"In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.""Tom Lake is a meditation

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01:29:38

UMRA Reads: The Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

UMich Retirees Podcast ·

2025/03/27

"Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, a novel of large beauty and power, creates a magical world out of four generations of black life in America, a world we enter on the day of the birth of Macon Dead, Jr. (known as Milkman), son of the richest black family in a mid-western town; the day on which the lonely insurance man, Robert Smith, poised in blue silk wings, attempts to fly from a steeple of the hospital, a black Icarus looking homeward...""We see Milkman growing up in his father's money-haunted,

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01:02:34

Why Incompetence Fails to Recognize Itself with...

UMich Retirees Podcast ·

2025/03/17

Why Incompetence Fails toRecognize Itself David Dunning Professor of Psychology in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts Faculty Associate in the Research Center for Group Dynamics, Institute for Social Research Professor Dunning discusses the psychology underlying the notorious "Dunning-Kruger Effect," where people remain unaware of their incompetence and ignorance, thus left with illusions of expertise they do not have (a condition that visits all of us sooner or later). He

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01:12:23

UMRA Reads: The Rose Code by Kate Quinn

UMich Retirees Podcast ·

2025/02/27

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn is a book about three female code breakers -- Osla, Mab and Beth -- at Bletchley Park during WWII. The women form a friendship (and a book club) over the years, but a betrayal and traitor among their colleagues lands one of them in locked up in an asylum in the years after the war. But through a letter carefully smuggled out, she's able to issue a cry for help from her confinement.In this exciting and enthralling tale, The Rose Code tells the story of their friendship,

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40:43

UMRA Reads: The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family

UMich Retirees Podcast ·

2025/01/24

"Happy Days, The Andy Griffith Show, Gentle Ben—these shows captivated millions of TV viewers in the ’60s and ’70s. Join award-winning filmmaker Ron Howard and audience-favorite actor Clint Howard as they frankly and fondly share their unusual family story of navigating and surviving life as sibling child actors.""With the perspective of time and success—Ron as a filmmaker, producer, and Hollywood A-lister, Clint as a busy character actor—the Howard brothers delve deep into an upbringing that

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01:02:06

Tax Follies & Wisdom: Odd to Horrific Episodes from...

UMich Retirees Podcast ·

2025/01/17

Tax Follies & Wisdom: Odd to HorrificEpisodes from Ancient to Present Joel Slemrod Paul W. McCracken Professor of Business Economics and Public policy and Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy in the Stephen M. Ross School of Business Professor of Economics in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts Professor Slemrod, an authority on tax policy design, is known for his pioneering research on how tax policies influence households and companies. He will use

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01:00:48

UMRA Reads: The Toledo War: The First Michigan Ohio...

UMich Retirees Podcast ·

2024/12/23

Most are familiar with the Michigan-Ohio football rivalry, an intense but usually good-natured contest that stretches back over one hundred years. Yet far fewer may know that in the early nineteenth century Michigan and Ohio were locked in a different kind of battle---one that began before Michigan became a state. The conflict started with a long-simmering dispute over a narrow wedge of land called the Toledo Strip. The Toledo War: The First Michigan-Ohio Rivalry gives a well-researched and

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01:04:07

Attack from Within with Barbara McQuade

UMich Retirees Podcast ·

2024/12/02

Attack from WithinBarbara McQuade Professor from practice at Michigan Law Professor McQuade will discuss observations and recommendations from her recent book, Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America (Seven Stories Press, 2024). The book defines disinformation as "the deliberate use of lies to manipulate people, whether to extract profit or to advance a political agenda." She will discuss why disinformation is especially dangerous at this point in U.S. history,

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49:04

Estate Planning, Elder Law, Probate

UMich Retirees Podcast ·

2024/12/02

Legacy Law Center: Estate Planning, Elder Law, Probate Terrance (Terry) Bertram President of the Legacy Law Center Terry Bertram is a U-M alum, who has been providing estate and elder law planning services in the greater Washtenaw County area for over 30 years. His talk will focus on the importance of keeping estate plans updated and the steps to assure solid planning for elder life, as well as protecting one's legacy for family members and/or designated recipients.

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01:02:57

UMRA Reads: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

UMich Retirees Podcast ·

2024/11/21

"Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.” But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in

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01:00:04

UMRA Reads: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha...

UMich Retirees Podcast ·

2024/10/24

Considered to be one of Agatha Christie's greatest, and also most controversial mysteries, 'The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd' breaks the rules of traditional mystery.The peaceful English village of King’s Abbot is stunned. The widow Ferrars dies from an overdose of Veronal. Not twenty-four hours later, Roger Ackroyd—the man she had planned to marry—is murdered. It is a baffling case involving blackmail and death that taxes Hercule Poirot’s “little grey cells” before he reaches one of the most startling

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55:39

UMRA Reads: Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom by...

UMich Retirees Podcast ·

2024/09/27

"Carl Bernstein, the Pulitzer Prize-winning coauthor of All the President’s Men and pioneer of investigative journalism, recalls his beginnings as an audacious teenage newspaper reporter in the nation’s capital―a winning tale of scrapes, gumshoeing, and American bedlam.""In Chasing History, Bernstein recalls the origins of his storied journalistic career as he chronicles the Kennedy era, the swelling civil rights movement, and a slew of grisly crimes. He spins a buoyant, frenetic account of

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01:04:21

Profiles in Ignorance: How America's Politicians Got...

UMich Retirees Podcast ·

2024/09/06

"Andy Borowitz argues that over the past fifty years, American politicians have grown increasingly allergic to knowledge, and mass media have encouraged the election of ignoramuses by elevating candidates who are better at performing than thinking. Starting with Ronald Reagan’s first campaign for governor of California in 1966 and culminating with the election of Donald J. Trump to the White House, Borowitz shows how, during the age of twenty-four-hour news and social media, the US has elected

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41 results

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