Society & Culture

Charley Rosen is author of the new novel "Barney Polan's Game" (Seven Stories Press) The book is largely based on the real-life college basketball point-shaving scandal in 1950 and 51. Rosen also wrote a non-fiction account of this in "Scandals of 51: How the Gamblers Almost Killed College Basketball".

Meredith F. Small has written the new book "Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Are". (Anchor books) Small explores the various cultural practices used in raising babies. She is also the author of "Female Choices: Sexual Behavior of Female Primates" and "What's Love Got to Do With It?" Small is a professor of anthropology at Cornell University in New York State. (Interview by Barbara Bogaev)

Linguist Geoff Nunberg comments on the how dictionaries have chosen to define words considered to be offensive or derogatory to groups of people.

British standup comic Eddie Izzard. The cross-dressing comic is a household name in England, but little known here. His new one-man show is "Dress to Kill" (at New York's Westbeth Theater, in the West Village). A New York Times review describes him as "a ticklingly entertaining hybrid of mainstream cultural influences and offbeat personal tendencies." (Interview by Barbara Bogaev)

Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great African-American singer, actor and political activist Paul Robeson. Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews his recording of "Songs of Free Men" (Sony's Masterworks Heritage series).

Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg comments on the popularity of e-mail. Noting that in this "age of banter" e-mail suits us well.

Shepard, who died Sunday, penned more than 55 plays, including Buried Child. His breakthrough film role was as astronaut Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff. Originally broadcast in 1998.

Betty DeGeneres talks about her life before and after her daughter Ellen Degeneres publicly announced that she is a lesbian. Betty DeGeneres is now the spokesperson for the National Coming Out Project for the Human Rights Campaign. HRC is the nation's largest national lesbian and gay political organization. National Coming Out Day is celebrated every October 11.

Filmmaker Doris Wishman. She's considered to be a pioneer of sexploitation movies, of the "nudie" and softcore sex genre films. Between 1960 and 1978 Wisman wrote, directed and produced 24 low budget films. Her films include "Bad Girls Go to Hell," "Nude on the Moon," and "Too Much, Too Often." Revivals of her films have recently been shown in Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and New York. In August she will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Chicago Underground Film Festival.

Michael Bowen is author of a forthcoming book on Sexplotation pioneer filmmaker Doris Wishman. He is a writer based in Brookline, Mass.

Writer Robert Sullivan. His new book "The Meadowlands: Wilderness Adventures At the Edge of a City" (Scribner) is about his intrepid trek into the swamp land five miles outside of New York City, where decades of garbage, chemicals, and corpses have been dumped. Ian Frazier calls is "funny, interesting, surprising and bizarre." Part of the book was excerpted recently in The New York Times Magazine (Feb 15). Sullivan is contributing editor at Vogue. He also writes for The New Yorker, Conde Naste Travler, The New Republic and Rolling Stone.

Film critic John Powers comments on the Academy Award winners.

Playwright David Henry Hwang (pronounced "Wong"). He received numerous awards for his Broadway debut "M. Butterfly." His newest production "Golden Child" about the struggle between tradition and change in a family in 1918 China, opens on Broadway in April. It received a 1997 Obie Award. (Interview by Babara Bogaev)

Wall Street Journal reporter Tony Horwitz has written "Confederates In The Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War". It is published by Pantheon. Horwitz explores the subculture of Civil War re-enactment fanatics. Many of these wannabe rebels will run barefoot, sleep in the rain, and starve themselves to recreate the conditions of battle to get a "period rush". Horwitz won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting at the Wall Street Journal and is the author of "Baghdad Without a Map" and "One for the Road".

Edward Ball has written about his family's role in American Slavery. His book is "Slaves in the Family" which is published by Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. Ball traced his family's history and learned that over six generations his family controlled more than 20 plantations and over four-thousand slaves.

Fauziya Kassindja and Layli Miller Bashir have co-written "Do They Hear You When You Cry". It is published by Delacorte Press. The book is based on their experience. Kassindja fled Toga, Africa to escape female genital mutilation. Bashir as a law student fought for Kassindja's freedom. Bashir is the founder of Tahirih Justice Center, which assist women facing human rights abuses.

Dr. Benjamin Spock died yesterday at the age of 94. We'll hear a interview with Spock he did in 1988. (Originally aired 10/5/88)

Film critic John Powers reviews "Love & Death on Long Island."

Mary Gordon is the author of several bestselling novels which are often about the conflicts facing contemporary women. Her novels include "Final Payments" and "The Company of Women." She's also the author of the memoir, "The Shadow Man: A Daughter's Search for Her Father" (Vintage Books, paperback). Gordon's newest novel is "Spending" (Scribner) about a woman painter who finds a patron, muse, and lover in a wealthy commodities broker.