Shows / With Good Reason
With Good Reason
Each week on With Good Reason we explore a world of ideas with leading scholars in literature, history, science, philosophy, and the arts. With Good Reason is created by Virginia Humanities and the Virginia Higher Education Broadcasting Consortium.
Episodes
With Good ReasonBorderlands
The colonial era is usually seen as prim and proper - a time when manners were refined and marriage was sacrosanct. But that period may have been much wilder…
With Good ReasonThe Wonder Years
Being a Black girl in a mostly white space can bring stress, frustration, anger, and all kinds of mixed emotions. In Finding Her Voice, Faye and Ivy Belgrave…
With Good ReasonREPLAY Gun Sense
Student survivors of school shootings have made their voices heard, loud and clear. But the teacher's perspective of school shootings is less common. Megan…
With Good ReasonNewton's Annotator
A lot of the day’s popular shows like Lovecraft Country and Watchmen have their roots in Black newspapers. Brooks Hefner says these stories imagined futuristic…
With Good ReasonHomecoming
The first federally registered Black neighborhood in the United States was Jackson Ward, a once-booming economic and residential district in Richmond…
With Good ReasonThe Health Gap
Last year, officials and public health leaders across the United States were also talking about a public health emergency besides Covid-19: racism. Jamela…
With Good ReasonThe Highest Office
When Colin Rafferty moved to Virginia in 2008 he didn’t know much about the presidents, so he set out to read a biography of each one. What began as a personal…
With Good ReasonREPLAY American Terrorism
In 1979, members of the KKK shot and killed five labor and civil rights activists in Greensboro, North Carolina. Aran Shetterly, who is writing a book about…
With Good ReasonMi Voz, Mi Cultura
Little kids absorb everything around them–from the words we say, to the way we move and dress. Psychologist Chelsea Williams says that long before we realize…
With Good ReasonGray Areas
As technology advances, society becomes more vulnerable to cybersecurity threats. Bug bounty hunters to the rescue! Bug hunters are ethical hackers who help…
With Good ReasonNext Stop: Mars
Back in the 1950s, the Soviets were eager to follow their Sputnik success with an even bigger milestone: they would send something living to outer space. Amy…
With Good ReasonNew Year, New You
The 1970s saw a renaissance of Black women writers like Alice Walker and Gloria Naylor who told stories of Black women’s pain and healing. Tamika Carey says…
With Good ReasonREPLAY Parenting On The Spectrum
When Jennifer Malia started researching her young daughter’s behaviors, she realized that both she and her daughter were on the autism spectrum. Malia has a…
With Good ReasonREPLAY Policing The Jig
Francis O’Neill rose through the ranks to become a prominent Chicago police chief at the turn of the 20th century. But he’s mostly remembered as the savior of…
With Good ReasonFood Is Family
While many Americans keep the Christmas decorations stowed away until after Thanksgiving, the Philippines takes Christmas to another level. From September to…
With Good ReasonGift Wrapped America
It’s all about the power of the almighty dollar. Meredith Katz says that from From the Boston Tea Party to the Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work, consumers have…
With Good ReasonTreating The Whole Person
Pregnant people who struggle with substance abuse face an uphill battle getting the care they need for their pregnancy and the care they need for their…
With Good ReasonREPLAY Friendsgiving
For many, the Thanksgiving holidays are a time to gather with your biological relatives. But what if you don’t have the traditional, Norman-Rockwell family?…
With Good ReasonWhats On Your Plate?
Since she was a child, Luz Lopes would help her mother prepare the altar for the Day of the Dead. This year, her go-to bakery shut down so she made her own pan…
With Good ReasonSaving Endangered Species
The red colobus monkey is one of the most endangered primates in the world. Found in West, East, and Central Africa, the once thriving species has been…
With Good ReasonIn Another Life
A lot of parents are tired of telling their kids to put down the video games, and pick up the textbooks. But now, video games are part of school. Lisa Heuvel…
With Good ReasonStagecraft
During the early months of the pandemic, live theater shut down completely. Leslie Scott-Jones, a theater director and producer, was looking for a way to…
With Good ReasonWomen On Screen
After new episodes drop, fans of TV shows from The Bachelor to Grey’s Anatomy take to social media to dissect what they just saw. And the twittersphere isn’t…
With Good ReasonAbolishing the Death Penalty
Earlier this year, Virginia made headlines when it became the latest state to abolish the death penalty. Sabrina Butler-Smith is the first woman to be…
With Good ReasonREPLAY The Conflicting Ideals in Jefferson's Architecture
The most important architectural thinker of the young American republic was Thomas Jefferson. He also held captive more than 600 enslaved men, women, and…
With Good ReasonGut Feelings
Cancer is a beast, and it doesn’t discriminate. For decades researchers have been trying to treat and cure children with cancer. Dr. Daniel “Trey” Lee is…
With Good ReasonThe Suffragist Playbook
Last year, America celebrated the anniversary of many women getting the right to vote. But what led up to that victory was decades and decades of hard work and…
With Good ReasonREPLAY Finding Classroom Success
The first year of college can be stressful and disorienting, especially for shy students. But Madelynn Shell says shy freshmen who have at least one good…
With Good ReasonThe Wide World Of Video Games
For decades, video games have inspired hit songs and have been adapted into countless movies. Boris Willis says the next horizon for video games is the stage…
With Good ReasonReading And Writing Ourselves
In 2017, many Americans watched in horror as violent images from the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville started spreading. A few short years later, My…
With Good ReasonSchool's In Session
Many American students left for Spring Break in March 2020, and will be returning to in-person school for the first time this Fall. It sounds nice in theory --…
With Good ReasonUFOs And Space Aliens
What caused the Big Bang? Are black holes key to interstellar travel? And how close are we to discovering extraterrestrial life? These are some of the big…
With Good ReasonPandemic Pockets
What do you do for work? That answer changed for many people at the top of the pandemic. But what was a tragedy, has become a choice for many. Nathaniel…
With Good ReasonREPLAY Talkin Hurricanes
In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. In the years since, as residents have come and gone and rebuilt their lives, a lot has changed about…
With Good ReasonEntangling Alliances
During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, tensions between the United States and Russia very nearly led to nuclear disaster. So what prevented the unthinkable from…
With Good ReasonPandemics Past
Mask debates, a rush for a vaccine, and closed schools--not much has changed in the years since the 1890 and 1918 influenza epidemics. Tom Ewing takes us back…
With Good ReasonLondon Fog, LA Smog
For generations, Englishmen grew food on public land. They sustained their families with these gardens, and with fish and animals they hunted and killed. Then…
With Good ReasonAAPI Summer Reading Recs
This year’s annual summer reading show explores the broad, diverse, and wonderful world of Asian American and Pacific Islander writers. We hear recommendations…
With Good ReasonREPLAY Music And Democracy
The evolution of social change in America can be traced through popular songs by the likes of Nat King Cole, Percy Mayfield, Lena Horne, and the Impressions…
With Good ReasonREPLAY Wearing Down The Appalachian Trail
From start to finish, the Appalachian Trail covers a whopping 2,181 miles. Rodney Bragdon dishes on the toughest challenges he experienced while through-hiking…
With Good ReasonLife After Life
You only die once. But you can get close a few times. Bruce Greyson never was very spiritual, but after interviewing 1,000’s of people who have had near-death…
With Good ReasonCelebrating American Freedom
In 2019, Virginia joined just three other states in making Juneteenth a paid state holiday, recognizing it as a holiday for all Virginians. Historian Lauranett…
With Good ReasonREPLAY Giving Birth While Black
Black women are three and a half times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. Even highly educated, wealthy African Americans are at a greater risk…
With Good ReasonFront Porch Healthcare
One study found that in the early months of the pandemic, as many as 40% of Americans skipped medical care. But new health insurance coverage of telehealth…
With Good ReasonPlanned Destruction
It’s difficult to imagine that the highway was someone’s home. But it was. LaToya S. Gray says a once thriving Richmond neighborhood known as the Harlem of the…
With Good ReasonLighting Up For A Better Future
In July of this year, Virginia will become the first Southern state to legalize marijuana, marking a major milestone in the failure of the War on Drugs…
With Good ReasonPlant Music Hour
If plants could talk, what would they say? What if they could sing? Sam Nester, Yassmin Salem, and Donald Russell explain how George Mason University’s Arcadia…
With Good ReasonEntertain Us
More and more often, celebrities are home-grown in front of a ring light and iPhone. As viewers keep scrolling past these insta-celebs, they’re starting to see…
With Good ReasonProtecting Human Rights
Kirsten Gelsdorf has spent over 20 years working for the United Nations and other organizations in the humanitarian sector. She discusses her experience in…
With Good ReasonLet's Take A Walk
Thanks to COVID-19, many of us are more closely tuned in to the environment around us than ever before. We’re spending more time hanging outdoors, planting…
With Good ReasonFurious Flower: A Celebration of the Greats of African American Poetry
In 2019, the most notable poets of our time gathered in the nation’s capital to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Furious Flower Poetry Center, devoted to…
With Good ReasonThe Waters
We have a lot to do with what happens to rainwater from the time it hits the ground, to the time we drink it. And our small efforts can add up over time to…
With Good ReasonA Woman's Place
The Women’s March in January 2017 was the largest single-day protest in U.S. history. Anywhere from 3 to 5 million Americans--most of them women--took to the…
With Good ReasonBigger Than A Game
Serena Williams is widely regarded as one of the best athletes of all time. But far too often her passion on the tennis court has been criticized as…
With Good ReasonWho Votes?
Remember those twelve months where every ad was asking you to vote? It was inescapable. Gilda Pedraza and her team worked around the clock to ensure Latino…
With Good ReasonMusic Matters
We all know that teenagers would rather die than hang out with their parents, right? Not so, says Jon Lohman. The Old Fiddlers Convention in Galax, Virginia…
With Good ReasonNew Voices At The Table
In 2016, Lashrecse Aird made history as the youngest woman ever elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. She says her unique perspective - shaped by a…
With Good ReasonInvisible Founders
Scholars, historic interpreters, and descendants of enslaved people recently gathered at Montpelier, the home of James Madison. They were there to create a…
With Good ReasonTaking The Shot
In mid-December, UVA Health physician Taison Bell rolled up his sleeve to be one of the first people in Charlottesville to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Today he…
With Good ReasonMy Pandemic Valentine
We’re drawn to people who are kind to others. But once that kind person becomes our partner, we want special treatment. Lalin Anik says that we get a boost…