11:00 AM Pacific Time: Thursdays
Choose to Be Curious is a show all about curiosity. We talk about research and theory, but mostly it’s conversations about how curiosity shows up in work and life.
Hosted by Lynn Borton.
Each week, for 15 years, Yale professor Shawkat Toorawa has offered to talk about “three things worth knowing” from literature, music and general knowledge, no strings attached. “It’s not me, the pedagog in the classroom who has a certain responsibility,” he says. “It’s me navigating the cultural landscape with the people in the room and …
I often find myself laughing that my biggest job as a radio host is not talking, it’s listening. That resonated for novelist and ghost writer Laura Zigman. “When you’re interviewing or trying to get the[ir] story out,” she says, “the best thing you can do is just not say anything. The more you just let … Continued
Some shows renew — or, if I’m honest, restore — my faith in this effort. Neuroscientist Matthias Gruber’s research was hugely influential on my entry to this field. When we spoke, I learned our original stories were more entwined than I knew. “I actually still remember our first encounter,” he said, “You gave me one … Continued
“This is one of the things with the fast world that we’re in,” says solutions journalist Mónica Quesada Cordero, “how do we get people to stop — and to question?” As I try to slow down a little right now, I returned to solutions journalism, a rigorous form of reporting that focuses on responses to problems. No … Continued
Come Together Music Project founder Shaka Mitchell says, “I have seen firsthand how sharing a song can shortcut barriers and spark curiosity about perspectives vastly different from our own…” At a time when we can use all the connective tissue we’ve got, why not turn to something as fundamental as music to build our curiosity … Continued
The research made headlines: the raccoon raiding your garbage can might just be solving puzzles for the fun of it. Animal behavior scientist Hannah Griebling’s work focuses on raccoon cognition and human-wildlife conflict. Short version: they win. They love the challenge. The masked bandit as a curiosity role model! Theme music by Sean Balick; “Variation 19″ … Continued
Have you ever noticed how much a space influences how you feel? How a place can put you “in a good place”…or not? How might we design and inhabit spaces that make choosing curiosity easier? Leidy Klotz offers tips to navigate the spaces around us, making both the best of them and feeding the best … Continued
I asked author, innovator and advisor Larry Robertson to help me navigate an episode marking the tenth anniversary of launching Choose to Be Curious. We had some fun.
Manisha Biswas danced her way into my heart. She was the 2025 social science category winner of the Dance Your PhD contest – a prize she won for her interpretative performance of her thesis, “The Powerful Outcomes of Collective Synchrony”. The Dance Your PhD contest was launched in 2008 to help educate people about complex theories through interpretive dance. I … Continued
When the world feels like it’s breaking apart in a million places and even more pieces, I find myself wanting to learn from folks who are leaning into curiosity about the other, people who believe we can promote peace through what Sister Cities founder Dwight D. Eisenhower called “people-to-people diplomacy.” Fred Blanton is one of those people. Fred serves as … Continued
I’ve been wanting to do a show about curiosity and community engagement in urban planning for a long time. Amber Wiley’s Model Schools in the Model City: Race, Planning, and Education in the Nation’s Capital is a fascinating, densely-researched look at how Black Washingtonians drove urban planning and design policy for public education. The book is, … Continued
