Society & Culture

Full Frontal host Samantha Bee makes no bones about the fact that she was caught off guard by Donald Trump's victory on election night.

In 2009, Maj. Mary Jennings Hegar was shot down by the Taliban in Afghanistan while co-piloting an Air National Guard medevac helicopter. Though she was wounded in her rifle arm, Hegar managed to return fire while hanging onto a moving helicopter, which saved the lives of her crew and her patients.

Geoff Nunberg on speaking with hands.

After working mostly as a behind-the-scenes guy on Chappelle's Show and Inside Amy Schumer, Neal Brennan is now stepping out as a performer.

Sheenan reviews In the Mood for Love the new film by Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai, whose previous film was Chungking Express.

It's been almost 20 years since Barbara Ehrenreich published Fear of Falling, her brilliant book on the anxious "inner life" of the American middle class. The book's title, "fear of falling," has become a catchphrase to refer to the cosmic jitters that afflict anyone whose lifestyle and sense of identity can be wiped out by the loss of a job or a plunge in the stock market.

The late James Baldwin was one of the most influential African-American writers to emerge during the civil rights era. During the late 1950s and 1960s, he traveled through the South and addressed racial issues head on. Though Baldwin died in 1987 before that book could be written, the new Oscar-nominated documentary, I Am Not Your Negro, draws on his notes for the book, as well as from other of Baldwin's writings.

Consumers have grown accustomed to the idea of online retailers collecting information about them, but author Joseph Turow says that now physical stores are doing it too.

Willie Lincoln was only 11 when he died in February 1862 of typhoid fever. The Lincolns' third son was said to be their favorite, and after Willie was interred in a borrowed mausoleum in Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown, his father, Abraham Lincoln, returned to that cemetery several times. Newspapers reported that the president visited the crypt to open his son's coffin and hold his body. It's that image, of Lincoln cradling the corpse of his beloved son in a Pietà pose, that inspires George Saunders' first novel, called Lincoln in the Bardo.

Mukherjee, who died Saturday in Manhattan, grew up in India, Switzerland and England. Her work explores the thoughts and experiences of immigrants from many countries. Originally broadcast in 2002.

Utopian communities don't fare much better in fiction than they do in real life. As the plot usually unfolds, a brave new world loses its luster fast when the failings of its founder are exposed, or when the community itself begins to morph into a cult. Think of Lauren Groff's Arcadia or Carolyn Parkhurst's Harmony, two recent novels that have imagined alternative communities and their inevitable crack-up.

Two ethics lawyers who worked for President Bush and President Obama, respectively, outline their concerns about a Donald Trump presidency.

Author Mat Johnson reflects on how the election of Barack Obama, made him feel like he belonged in America for the first time.

Sixty-three years after the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, many schools across the country either remain segregated or have re-segregated. Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that when it comes to school segregation, separate is never truly equal.

Our resident linguist looks at the differences in the language used to describe Republicans and Democrats.

Author Lisa Servon says a growing number of Americans are giving up on traditional banks and relying instead on alternatives, including prepaid debit cards, check-cashing centers and payday lenders.

At the end of each year, our linguist Geoff Nunberg gives us his word of the year.

Mike Mills' latest film, 20th Century Women, is inspired by the yearning to understand his mother who raised him. Set in Santa Barbara in 1979, it stars Annette Bening as Dorothea, a 55-year-old woman who grew up during the Depression and is struggling to raise her teenage son, Jamie, on her own.

Sarah Hepola reflects on how our culture doesn't make it easy for nondrinkers, especially during the Holiday season.