The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Latest Episodes:

The paradox of American freedom Nov 08, 2021

Show notes

Sean Illing talks with Sebastian Junger, journalist, filmmaker, and author of the recent book Freedom. Informed by his experience hiking (and trespassing) along America's rail lines, Junger discusses the paradoxes of a "free" society, his recent near-death experience, and how the definition of freedom can change over the course of a life.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), Interviews Writer, Vox

Guest: Sebastian Junger (@sebastianjunger), author & filmmaker

References:

Freedom by Sebastian Junger (Simon & Schuster; 2021)
The Last Patrol dir. Sebastian Junger (HBO Films; 2014)
Our Political Nature: Two Evolutionary Origins of What Divides Us by Avi Tuschman (Rowman & Littlefield; 2013)
Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger (Twelve; 2016)

Enjoyed this episode? Rate Vox Conversations ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of Vox Conversations by subscribing in your favorite podcast app.

Support Vox Conversations by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts

This episode was made by:

Producer: Erikk Geannikis
Editor: Amy Drozdowska
Engineer: Paul Robert Mounsey
Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall
Vox Audio Fellow: Victoria Dominguez

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nonbinary parenthood Nov 04, 2021

Show notes

Anna North talks with Krys Malcolm Belc, nonbinary transmasculine parent, essayist, and author of the memoir The Natural Mother of the Child. They talk about what it means to be a parent, our gendered assumptions about parenthood, and the dynamics of gender identity in having and raising children.

Host: Anna North (@annanorthtweets), Senior Reporter, Vox

Guest: Krys Malcolm Belc (@krysmalcolmbelc), author

References:

The Natural Mother of the Child: A Memoir of Nonbinary Parenthood by Krys Malcolm Belc (Counterpoint; 2021)
“A Few Words About Breasts” by Nora Ephron (Esquire; May 1972)

Enjoyed this episode? Rate Vox Conversations ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of Vox Conversations by subscribing in your favorite podcast app.

Support Vox Conversations by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts

This episode was made by:

Producer: Erikk Geannikis
Editor: Amy Drozdowska
Engineer: Paul Robert Mounsey
Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall
Vox Audio Fellow: Victoria Dominguez

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

John McWhorter, the anti-antiracist Nov 01, 2021

Show notes

Sean Illing talks with John McWhorter, linguist, New York Times columnist, and author of Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America. They talk about the effects of modern antiracism, why McWhorter compares it to a religion, and the societal implications of the way we talk — and don't talk — about racism.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), Interviews Writer, Vox

Guest: John McWhorter (@JohnHMcWhorter), author

References:

Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America by John McWhorter (Portfolio; 2021)
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi (One World; 2019)
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo (Beacon; 2020)
“What Hope?” by John McWhorter (New Republic; Aug. 10, 2010), a review of Race, Wrongs, and Remedies by Amy Wax (Rowman & Littlefield; 2009)
“The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates (The Atlantic; June 2014)
The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks by Randall Robinson (Plume; 2001)
“Alison Roman and Chrissy Teigen’s feud is about more than selling out” by Alex Abad-Santos (Vox; May 11, 2020)
“Professor Not Teaching After Blackface ‘Othello’ Showing" by Colleen Flaherty (Inside Higher Ed; Oct. 11)
“The Middle-Aged Sadness Behind the Cancel Culture Panic” by Michelle Goldberg (New York Times; Sept. 20)

Enjoyed this episode? Rate Vox Conversations ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of Vox Conversations by subscribing in your favorite podcast app.

Support Vox Conversations by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts

This episode was made by:

Producer: Erikk Geannikis
Editor: Amy Drozdowska
Engineer: Paul Robert Mounsey
Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall
Vox Audio Fellow: Victoria Dominguez

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The overwhelming, invisible work of elder care Oct 28, 2021

Show notes

Vox culture contributor Anne Helen Petersen talks with Liz O'Donnell, an advocate for working caregivers and the author of Working Daughter: A Guide to Caring for Your Aging Parents While Making a Living. They talk about the emotional and financial costs of elder care in America, how the burden disproportionately falls on women, and what everyone should know before taking on a caregiving role.

Host: Anne Helen Petersen (@annehelen), culture contributor, Vox

Guest: Liz O'Donnell (@LizODTweets), founder, Working Daughter

References:

"The staggering, invisible, exhausting costs of caring for America's elderly" by Anne Helen Petersen (Vox; Aug. 26)
Working Daughter: A Guide to Caring for Your Aging Parents While Making a Living by Liz O'Donnell (Rowman & Littlefield; 2019)
The Working Daughter Facebook group
National Domestic Workers Alliance

Enjoyed this episode? Rate Vox Conversations ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of Vox Conversations by subscribing in your favorite podcast app.

Support Vox Conversations by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts

This episode was made by:

Producer: Erikk Geannikis
Editor: Amy Drozdowska
Engineer: Paul Robert Mounsey
Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall
Vox Audio Fellow: Victoria Dominguez

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How Big Tech benefits from the disinformation panic Oct 25, 2021

Show notes

Sean Illing talks with Joe Bernstein of BuzzFeed News about online disinformation and what — if anything — can be done about it. They discuss the role of tech giants in the spread of propaganda, why it's been impossible for researchers to agree on what disinformation even is, and how the nature of both mass media and democracy means that disinformation is here to stay.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), Interviews Writer, Vox

Guest: Joe Bernstein (@Bernstein), Senior Reporter, BuzzFeed News

References:

"Bad News: Selling the story of disinformation" by Joseph Bernstein (Harper's; Sept. 2021)
"Civil Society Must Be Defended: Misinformation, Moral Panics, and Wars of Restoration" by Jack Bratich (Communication, Culture & Critique 13 (3); Sept. 2020)
"The Priest in Politics: Father Charles E. Coughlin and the Presidential Election of 1936" by Philip A. Grant Jr. (Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia 101 (1); 1990)
"Lying in Politics: Reflections on The Pentagon Papers" by Hannah Arendt (NYRB; Nov. 18, 1971)
Subprime Attention Crisis: Advertising and the Time Bomb at the Heart of the Internet by Tim Hwang (FSG Originals; 2020)
"Does Instagram Harm Girls? No One Actually Knows" by Laurence Steinberg (New York Times; Oct. 10)
The Radio Right: How a Band of Broadcasters Took on the Federal Government and Built the Modern Conservative Movement by Paul Matzko (Oxford; 2020)
"What's so bad about scientism?" by Moti Mizrahi (Social Epistemology 31 (4); 2017)

Enjoyed this episode? Rate Vox Conversations ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of Vox Conversations by subscribing in your favorite podcast app.

Support Vox Conversations by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts

This episode was made by:

Producer: Erikk Geannikis
Editor: Amy Drozdowska
Engineer: Paul Robert Mounsey
Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fannie Lou Hamer and the meaning of freedom Oct 21, 2021

Show notes

Vox's Jamil Smith talks with Keisha Blain, associate professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer's Enduring Message to America. They discuss the legacy of Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper-turned-civil-rights-activist, whose speech about voting rights at the 1964 Democratic National Convention changed how the Democratic Party viewed Black activism. They talk about how Hamer's ideas influence movements for human rights and racial equity today.

Host: Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith), Senior Correspondent, Vox

Guest: Keisha Blain (@KeishaBlain), author; professor of history, University of Pittsburgh

References:

Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer's Enduring Message to Americaby Keisha Blain (Beacon Press; 2021)
Fannie Lou Hamer's speech at the DNC (August 22, 1964)
American Experience: Freedom Summer(dir. Stanley Nelson. PBS; 2014)

Enjoyed this episode? Rate Vox Conversations ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of Vox Conversations by subscribing in your favorite podcast app.

Support Vox Conversations by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts

This episode was made by:

Producer: Erikk Geannikis
Editor: Amy Drozdowska
Engineer: Paul Robert Mounsey
Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What the internet took from us Oct 18, 2021

Show notes

Sean Illing talks with writer and New York Times Book Review editor Pamela Paul about her book 100 Things We've Lost to the Internet and the ways, big and small, that the internet has changed our lives. They talk about the complicated relationship between change, innovation and loss, and how to understand who we are and who we've become in a world where we're never truly offline.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), Interviews Writer, Vox

Guest: Pamela Paul (@PamelaPaulNYT), author and editor

References:

100 Things We've Lost to the Internet by Pamela Paul (Penguin Random House; 2021)
Pornified: How Pornography Is Damaging Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Familiesby Pamela Paul (St. Martin's Griffin; 2006)
"Let Children Get Bored Again" by Pamela Paul (New York Times; Feb. 2, 2019)
"For Teen Girls, Instagram Is a Cesspool" by Lindsay Crouse (New York Times; Oct. 8)
"The Moral Panic Engulfing Instagram" by Farhad Manjoo (New York Times; Oct. 13)

Enjoyed this episode? Rate Vox Conversations ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of Vox Conversations by subscribing in your favorite podcast app.

Support Vox Conversations by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts

This episode was made by:

Producer: Erikk Geannikis
Editor: Amy Drozdowska
Engineer: Paul Robert Mounsey
Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Trapped inside with Susanna Clarke's Piranesi Oct 14, 2021

Show notes

Vox's Constance Grady talks with novelist Susanna Clarke about her latest book, Piranesi, before a virtual audience for the Vox Book Club. They discuss how Clarke's novel engages with themes that have come to characterize the pandemic experience, such as solitude, confinement, and isolation from society. They explore the idea of being forced to step away from the world. and what we lose — and gain — when we do.

Host: Constance Grady (@constancegrady), staff writer, Vox

Guests: Susanna Clarke, novelist

References:

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury; 2021)
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Susanna Clarke (Tor; 2006)
"The meditative empathy of Susanna Clarke's Piranesi" by Constance Grady (Vox; Sept. 17)

Enjoyed this episode? Rate Vox Conversations ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of Vox Conversations by subscribing in your favorite podcast app.

Support Vox Conversations by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts

This episode was made by:

Producer: Erikk Geannikis
Editor: Amy Drozdowska
Engineer: Paul Robert Mounsey
Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bryan Stevenson on the legacy of enslavement Oct 07, 2021

Show notes

Vox's Jamil Smith talks with attorney, author, and activist Bryan Stevenson about the newly expanded Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. They discuss the museum's project to connect America's history of enslavement with the contemporary realities of voter suppression, police brutality, and mass incarceration. They also talk about the museum's relationship to Stevenson's work with the Equal Justice Initiative, and legal advocacy on behalf of the wrongfully convicted.

Host: Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith), Senior Correspondent, Vox

Guest: Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director, Equal Justice Initiative

References:

The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration (400 N. Court Street, Montgomery, Alabama)
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice (Montgomery, Alabama)
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson (Penguin Random House; 2015)
"Images of Border Patrol's Treatment of Haitian Migrants Prompt Outrage" by Eileen Sullivan and Zolan Kanno-Youngs (New York Times; Sept. 21)

Enjoyed this episode? Rate Vox Conversations ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of Vox Conversations by subscribing in your favorite podcast app.

Support Vox Conversations by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts

This episode was made by:

Producer: Erikk Geannikis
Editor: Amy Drozdowska
Engineer: Paul Robert Mounsey
Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's your status? Oct 04, 2021

Show notes

Sean Illing talks with writer Will Storr about his new book The Status Game, and its central idea: all human beings are constantly competing for status. They discuss how certain aspects of society "supercharge" our innate drive for status, how social media has hijacked these impulses, and the risks posed by the status game's most dangerous players.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), Interviews Writer, Vox

Guest: Will Storr (@wstorr), author and journalist

References: