logo
episode-header-image
Mar 2022
1h 3m

The Helen Keller Exorcism

Wnyc Studios
About this episode
Fantasy writer Elsa Sjunneson has been haunted by Helen Keller for nearly her entire life. Like Helen, Elsa is Deafblind, and growing up she was constantly compared to her. But for a million different reasons she hated that, because she felt different from her in a million different ways. Then, a year ago, an online conspiracy theory claiming Helen was a fra ... Show More
Up next
Oct 16
The Smell of Hell
Throughout human history, there’s been one element we’ve always associated with death. Just the smell of it is an alarm bell that says, “something here is dangerous.” But what if our noses have been wrong all along?In this episode of our series Viscera: Gripping Tales of the Huma ... Show More
43m 9s
Oct 9
Math Vs Machine
In less than four years, mathematician Steve Strogatz watched AI go from flailing at basic arithmetic to solving problems that baffle the world’s best mathematicians. In September of 2026, Open AI announced it had solved a Millennium Prize Problem, one of math’s highest achieveme ... Show More
31m 22s
Oct 2
A 4-Track Mind
In this short episode, first aired in 2011, a neurologist issues a dare to a ragtime piano player and a famous conductor. When the two men face off in an fMRI machine, the challenge is so unimaginably difficult that one man instantly gives up. But the other achieves a musical fea ... Show More
21m 7s
Recommended Episodes
Jun 2024
Helen Keller had the raz
We are back, Rammies! This week we're covering a highly requested subject, Helen Keller! Helen Keller was REAL and her story is incredible! She was a woman who defied all odds to become one of the most influential figures of the 20th century. Born in 1880, Helen lost her sight an ... Show More
1h 26m
Apr 2022
Helen Keller’s Living Word
Deaf and blind since toddlerhood, Helen Keller was seven years old when her teacher, Anne Sullivan, took her to a water-pump on 5th April, 1887 - and she learned the word ‘water’. It was a eureka moment for Keller, who went on to read braille; write in pencil; learn French, Germa ... Show More
12 m
Jan 2023
The Amazing Life of Helen Keller
Imagine a world of darkness. Imagine a world of silence. Imagine if you could not see or hear. Liz Waid and Colin Lowther tell writer and educator Helen Keller's story. https://spotlightenglish.com/biography/the-amazing-life-of-helen-keller/Download our app for Android at http:// ... Show More
14m 8s
Mar 2018
Helen Keller
She was a student, an author, an activist. She met thirteen presidents, and won the Presidential Medal of Freedom. But Helen Keller was much more than just a symbol for people who are deaf or blind. Her life was filled with both triumphs and tragedies, and with the aid of her men ... Show More
45m 42s
Nov 2023
Helena Blavatsky (2021)
<p>Helena was a very unique and gifted storyteller from her generation. Born into privilege and given access to a tremendous library and exposed to old superstitions and mysticism, she grew into a well-regarded thinker on what it is to be human; how spiritualism fits within our e ... Show More
44m 5s
Apr 2011
Helen Keller
Writer, public speaker, friend, daughter, world traveler, and a woman who may have had physical disabilities, but was not disabled. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices 
1h 20m
Oct 2021
Being Seen with Elsa Sjunneson
Elsa Sjunneson is a writer and award-winning editor of speculative fiction and non-fiction. Her life and work challenge and dismantle ableist expectations and attitudes about disability. This week, she sits down with Jessi to chat about her life, her hope for her new memoir, Bein ... Show More
30m 40s
Jan 2021
Sister Helen
In 1982, Sister Helen Prejean was invited to write a letter to a man on death row in Louisiana’s Angola State Prison named Elmo Patrick Sonnier. She told us, “I thought that all I was going to be doing was writing letters. And lo and behold, two years later, I am in that executio ... Show More
42m 49s
Apr 2022
8. Helena
‘It’s like being trapped in a room with a terrifying creature.’ A few months after her son was born, Helena realises something is wrong. Her search for answers leads to a difficult decision. In Room 5, Helena Merriman interviews people who - like her - were changed by a diagnosis ... Show More
29m 41s