“Laïcité,” or secularism, the principle that separates religion from the state in France, has long provoked heated dispute in the country. It has intensified recently, when a teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded after showing his class caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
We look at the roots of secularism and ask whether it works in modern, multicultural Fran ... Show More
Today
The Autism Diagnosis Problem
<p>Once primarily limited to severely disabled people, autism began to be viewed as a spectrum that included children and adults far less impaired. Along the way, the disorder also became an identity, embraced by college graduates and even by some of the world’s most successful p ... Show More
32m 40s
Yesterday
Sunday Special: Wicked, Good?
<p>“Wicked” was one of the biggest movies of 2024. It was culturally ubiquitous, a box office smash and an Oscar nominee for Best Picture. Now, a year later, “Wicked: For Good” arrives in theaters to finish the tale of the complicated friendship between Glinda the Good Witch and ... Show More
51m 44s
Nov 2020
French secularism and the resurgence of terror
Over the last few weeks, Islamist terror attacks in France, and then Austria shook Europe, and the world. In response, the UK has also raised its terror threat level to "severe". But the French President Emmanuel Macron's response to the attacks has sent ripples of anger through ... Show More
30m 7s
Oct 2020
Danielle Haque, “Interrogating Secularism: Race and Religion in Arab Transnational Art and Literature” (Syracuse UP, 2019)
In many popular accounts of contemporary “Western” society there is an inherent contradiction between the principles underlying liberal secularism and Islam. This type of binary discourse about “religion” and “secular” naturalizes these differences and promotes the seeming rigidi ... Show More
56m 8s