Month: July 2025

When your long-term boyfriend leaves you for an Instagram influencer, what can you do? In the new Netflix romantic comedy series Too Much, the answer is to go to London for work, and meet a struggling musician who happens to be very, very handsome with a life almost as messy as yours. Starring Meg Stalter and Will Sharpe, and co-created by Lena Dunham, it features a cast full of comedy MVPs, a meet-cute, and a very unusual dog.

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(Image credit: Ana Blumenkron)

Anti-intellectualism is on the rise. And by “anti-intellectualism” we mean the backlash to scholars in fields like the humanities.

According to two intellectuals, Dr. Ally Louks and Jason Stanley, the humanities help us better connect to other humans. According to a lot of online haters, they’re worthless. In November 2024, Dr. Louks recently posted her Cambridge University dissertation online and was piled on by a loud group of right-wing anti-intellectuals.

Today, Brittany revisits her convo with Dr. Louks, and Jason Stanley, a professor of Philosophy at Yale University. They investigate the backlash to Dr. Louks, higher education at large, and why “anti-intellectualism” is prevalent in Republican politics. For more, read Jason Stanley’s book Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future.

This episode originally published January 27, 2025.

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Restoration workers are removing about 100,000 handbound books from their shelves and carefully placing them in crates, the start of a disinfection process that aims to kill the tiny beetles.

(Image credit: Bela Szandelszky)

There are certain bars of music that put people in a specific headspace – and many of them come from our favorite films, where composer John Williams matched his iconic themes with magic movie moments.

Yajia looks back on life in Argentina and Hollywood in Cry for Me, Argentina. David Bianculli reviews an HBO documentary about Ms. magazine. Mottley discusses her new novel, The Girls Who Grew Big.

Olivia Blunt gets a job of working with a sleuth, but can she keep it? NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe talks with Liza Tully about her new mystery, “The World’s Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant.”

Denver museum officials found a fossil 750 feet under a parking lot through a 5-inch opening.

Blockbuster movie releases are increasingly being paired with expensive pieces of memorabilia: specialty popcorn buckets. But how much are fans willing to pay for these? Turns out, a lot.

NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe plays the puzzle with KCFR listener Adam Borden and Weekend Edition Puzzlemaster Will Shortz.

A tapestry embroidered with scenes of the 1066 Norman invasion is returning to the U.K. for the first time in 900 years. On a state visit, France’s president announced a loan to the British Museum. (This story first aired on All Things Considered on July 10.)