Translation from English

Saturday, January 4, 2014

WNYC- American Icons Series

What an impressive list of programs!

A Radio Series From Studio 360

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In April, the band Nirvana is being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — it’s been 25 years since the release of their first album, a gnarly piece of late punk called Bleach. But it was their second album, from 1991, that made them famous.

More American Icons

American Icons: Nirvana's Nevermind

Friday, January 03, 2014

In April, the band Nirvana is being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — it’s been 25 years since the release of their first album, a gnarly piece of late punk called Bleach. But it was their second album, from 1991, that made them famous.

American Icons: The Wizard of Oz

Friday, November 29, 2013

It's been over seventy years since movie audiences first watched The Wizard of Oz. Meet the original man behind the curtain, L. Frank Baum, who had all the vision of Walt Disney, but none of the business sense. Discover how Oz captivated the imaginations of Russians living under Soviet rule ...

American Icons: The Scarlet Letter

Friday, November 01, 2013

One of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ancestors was a judge in the Salem witch trials. In his novel of early America, Hawthorne explores the tension between our deeply ingrained Puritanism and our celebration of personal freedom. Hester Prynne was American literature’s first heroine, a fallen woman who’s not ashamed of her sin ...
Bonus Track: Tom Perrotta on Nathaniel Hawthorne's influence

American Icons: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Friday, October 25, 2013

Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin to promote the abolitionist cause. So how did Uncle Tom become the byword for a race traitor — a “shuffling, kowtowing, sniveling coward”? A scholar traces Tom’s unfortunate journey through pop culture, and a controversial writer who’s been called an Uncle Tom decides to own it ...
Slideshow: Uncle Tom in popular culture

American Icons: The Disney Parks

Friday, October 18, 2013

Generations of Americans have grown up with Walt Disney shaping our imaginations. We’ll tour Disneyland with its art director, a second-generation Imagineer, who explains why even the trash cans are magic. In Florida, urban planner Andres Duany shows how a theme park helped reimagine city life; Tom Hanks, the first person to play Walt Disney on screen, and futurist Cory Doctorow explain how Disney made them kids for life.
Bonus Track: Cory Doctorow on the Disney theme parks

American Icons: Untitled Film Stills

Friday, October 11, 2013

In the 1980s, Cindy Sherman began taking self-portraits that showed her in costumes and scenarios that looked just like movie stills, although they were her own inventions. In a media-saturated age, Untitled Film Stills have influenced a generation of artists as well as pop stars who play with identity as a kind of performance.
Slideshow: Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Stills

American Icons: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Friday, October 04, 2013

How do you build a monument to a war that was more tragic than triumphant? Maya Lin was practically a kid when she got the commission to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall. Her minimalistic granite wall was derided by one vet as a “black gash of shame.” But inscribed with the name of every fallen soldier, it became a sacred place for veterans and their families, and it influenced later designs like the National September 11 Memorial.
Bonus Track: Kurt Andersen's full interview with Maya Lin

American Icons: Leaves of Grass

Friday, September 27, 2013

Walt Whitman set out to invent a radically new form of poetry for a new nation. His book was first viewed as bizarre and obscene — one reviewer said that the author should be publicly flogged. But revising and adding to the book until his death, Whitman accomplished his goal, creating a new Bible for American poets.
Slideshow: The changing editions of Leaves of Grass

American Icons: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Friday, September 20, 2013

Ken Kesey had worked in a mental hospital, but his first novel was really a parable of what happens when you stand up to the Man – a counterculture fable that doesn’t end well. We visit Oregon State Hospital, where the film was shot, Louise Fletcher describes what it was like to play one of the top movie villains, and Sherman Alexie debunks the myth of the silent Indian.
Slideshow: Behind-the-scenes of the film

American Icons: Anything Goes

Friday, September 13, 2013

Cole Porter lived in Europe during the 1920s, and returned to American to write a sharp satire of this freewheeling era that has outlived the people and events it referred to. Music historian Will Friedwald explains how Frank Sinatra saved the song, and we hear a new version written by Joe Keenan.
Exclusive Bonus Track: An updated version of "Anything Goes"

American Icons: Native Son

Friday, September 06, 2013

The story of a young man in the ghetto who turns to murder was an overnight sensation. But some think Native Son exploited the worst stereotypes of black youth. We trace the line from Bigger Thomas to Notorious B.I.G., and visit a high school drama class acting out Native Son, and struggling to grasp the racism their grandparents experienced.
Video: Author Richard Wright's screen test for the film adaptation of Native Son

American Icons: Season 3 Preview

Friday, August 02, 2013

This September, we'll launch a new season of our award-winning documentary series American Icons. We'll look at Richard Wright's Native Son, the Disney theme parks, The Vietnam Veteran's Memorial, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and many more great works of ...
Listen to a preview

Richard Wright as Bigger Thomas

Monday, July 08, 2013

Over the past year, Studio 360 has been producing new episodes of our American Icons series. I'm working on a program about Richard Wright's 1940 novel, Native Son. One of the strangest artifacts I've run into is this 7-minute video of the author himself, playing his most infamous ...

American Icons: Appalachian Spring

Friday, July 05, 2013

In 1942, Aaron Copland was commissioned to write a score for the choreographer Martha Graham. Dance and music in America have never been the same. Their ballet Appalachian Spring looks at the tension between community and individualism through the story ...

American Icons: The House of Mirth

Friday, July 05, 2013

Lily is a smart single woman, a beauty in demand on the party circuit. But Lily is nearing thirty, and struggling to manage money, friendships, and romance. In The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton examined the dangerous compromises facing a woman who wants ...
Bonus Track: Jonathan Franzen on Edith Wharton

Why the Song Dixie Continues to Divide Americans

Friday, July 05, 2013

It’s been a century-and-a-half since a minstrel tune called “Dixie” debuted in New York. The song went viral, and soon North and South alike were whistling “Dixie.” With the outbreak of the Civil War, “Dixie” became an anthem of the antebellum way of life. And today ...
Bonus Track: Elvis Sings "Dixie"

American Icons: Superman

Friday, May 31, 2013

Kurt Andersen goes up, up and away with Superman and finds out why "The Man of Steel" remains as popular and elusive as ever.

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