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"Pondering the persistent questions of life with my students." -Professor Cordell Schulten Home > Programs > Commentaries
Commentaries
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Pete Abel
Michael Allen
Bob Archibald
Liz Forrestal
Donn Johnson
Terry Jones
Nancy Kranzberg
JoAnne LaSala
Sandy MacLean
Anna Navarro
David Pannell
Tom Schlafly
Mark Shook
Wm. Stage
Mira Tanna
Susan Uchitelle
Elaine Viets
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Tom Schlafly
"What in the World Were They Thinking?"
Aired March 08, 2010
The St. Louis area has some incredible treasures. All too often, however, we don't appreciate what we have until it's too late. That was the case with the Cahokia Mounds, the largest pre-Columbian settlement north of Mexico. It's now recognized by UNESCO as a world heritage site and attracts visitors from all over the world. It wasn't that long ago that one of the mounds was destroyed in order to make way for a Grandpa's store and its surrounding parking lot. Looking back today one can only ask, "What in the world were they thinking?"
One generation later history is about to repeat itself at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.
Nancy Kranzberg
High Art and Pop Culture
Aired March 05, 2010
An article I recently read in the Los Angeles Times about the late producer and director Joseph Papp got me thinking about the age-old debate between high art and pop culture.
Papp believed that Shakespeare was for the masses and arranged to bring the bard's work to them in an outdoor theatre in New York City. Actress Colleen Dewhurst, after performing in his first production of Taming of the Shrew said she realized that the theatre is not an elitist art, it really is for the people.
Bob Archibald
Von Phul's Sketches
Aired February 25, 2010
Anna Maria von Phul, like any young woman of breeding, knew such arts as sketching and drawing, a bit of music, embroidery and other fine needlework. Considered a spinster at age thirty-two, she had learned to occupy her time with these ladylike skills. But in addition to a talent for genteel watercolors, she had an artist’s eye for the everyday and gave us a rare vision of a vanished time.
