This American Life
Chicago Public Media
Each week we choose a theme. Then anything can happen. This American Life is true stories that unfold like little movies for radio. Personal stories with funny moments, big feelings, and surprising plot twists. Newsy stories that try to capture what it’s like to be alive right now. It’s the most popular weekly podcast in the world, and winner of the first ever Pulitzer Prize for a radio show or podcast. Hosted by Ira Glass and produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago.
Location:
Chicago, IL
Networks:
Chicago Public Media
Description:
Each week we choose a theme. Then anything can happen. This American Life is true stories that unfold like little movies for radio. Personal stories with funny moments, big feelings, and surprising plot twists. Newsy stories that try to capture what it’s like to be alive right now. It’s the most popular weekly podcast in the world, and winner of the first ever Pulitzer Prize for a radio show or podcast. Hosted by Ira Glass and produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago.
Twitter:
@thisamerlife
Language:
English
Website:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/
Email:
web@thislife.org
Listen on a live station
Episodes
692: The Show of Delights
6/4/2023
In these dark, combative times, we attempt the most radical counterprogramming we could imagine: a show made up entirely of stories about delight.
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Duration:01:02:53
800: Jane Doe
5/28/2023
Five years after the #MeToo explosion, what’s happened in the lives of the women who stepped forward and went public with their stories? We tell the story of a teenager who spoke out against one of the most powerful people in her state, and what happened next.
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Duration:01:15:37
508: Superpowers
5/21/2023
We answer the following questions about superpowers: Can superheroes be real people? (No.) Can real people become superheroes? (Maybe.) And which is better: flight or invisibility? (Depends who you ask.)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Duration:00:59:19
799: The Lives of Others
5/14/2023
Looping thoughts about people you barely know, or don't know at all.
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Duration:01:03:18
798: Leaving the Fold
5/7/2023
A week after Jerry Springer’s death, we go back to a story we first broadcast years ago, about a side of Springer most people don’t know and can’t imagine: his years as an idealistic politician in the mold of Bobby Kennedy. Plus other stories of people who try to leave some moment in their life behind, which can be hard.
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Duration:01:03:17
352: The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar
4/30/2023
In 1912 a four-year-old boy named Bobby Dunbar went missing in a swamp in Louisiana. Eight months later, he was found in the hands of a wandering handyman in Mississippi. In 2004, Bobby Dunbar's granddaughter discovered a secret beneath the legend of her grandfather's kidnapping, a secret whose revelation would divide her own family, bring redemption to another, and become the answer to a third family's century-old prayer.
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Duration:01:00:06
797: What I Was Thinking As We Were Sinking
4/23/2023
It's funny the things that go through your head during a disaster.
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Duration:01:02:59
796: What Lies Beneath
4/16/2023
Summoning up stuff that’s usually hidden down deep.
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Duration:01:02:05
795: Nine Months Later
4/9/2023
It’s been nine months since Roe v. Wade was overturned. We talk to people who wanted abortions right when the laws were changing in their states. They had to wait for appointments, for money to travel or abortion pills. And during that waiting, a lot of interesting things happened. We see how much life has changed, nine months later.
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Duration:01:03:07
765: Off Course
4/2/2023
Three people, and one animal, who know the path their lives will take until, suddenly, they don’t.
Duration:01:07:13
794: So Close and Yet So Far
3/26/2023
People so close to each other, in extremely intimate situations, who are also a million miles apart.
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Duration:01:03:43
654: The Feather Heist
3/19/2023
A flute player breaks into a British museum and makes off with a million dollars worth of dead birds.
Duration:01:05:11
793: The Problem with Ghosts
3/12/2023
The ghosts that visit us, the ghosts that never do, and the ghosts that walk among us.
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Duration:01:03:18
792: When to Leave
3/5/2023
People staring down that hardest of questions: Is now the time? To leave?
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Duration:01:01:50
639: In Dog We Trust
2/26/2023
Exactly how much are the animals that live in our homes caught up in our everyday family dynamics?
Duration:00:59:33
556: Same Bed, Different Dreams
2/19/2023
People who are tied together, but imagine radically different futures.
Duration:01:01:33
791: Math or Magic?
2/12/2023
When it comes to finding love, there seems to be two schools of thought on the best way to go about it. One says, wait for that lightning-strike magic. The other says, make a calculation and choose the best option available. Who has it right?
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Duration:00:56:34
542: Wait—Do You Have The Map?
2/5/2023
Feeling lost and trying to figure out how to move ahead.
Duration:01:00:11
790: You're It
1/29/2023
Sometimes you raise your hand. Other times you’re just the only one left.
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Duration:00:59:50
789: The Runaround
1/22/2023
People being dodged, delayed, and evaded—and what they do to put an end to it.
Duration:01:03:02