With Good Reason

When Shenandoah National Park was built, hundreds of families were forced off their land. Margaret Marangione (Blue Ridge Community College) says new information has emerged suggesting that some of those displaced people were sent to state colonies and sterilized. Plus: Veterans of the Revolutionary War collected the nation’s first pensions for wounded soldiers.

In her book Bible Babel: Making Sense of the Most Talked About Book of All Time, Kristin Swenson explains what the Bible is, where it comes from, and how it’s relevant today. Also featured: Edward Neukrug (Old Dominion University) has collected oral histories of colleagues and former patients of some of the great psychologists of our time, including B.F. Skinner and Carl Rogers.

In the late 19th century, German medical practices were considered to be the best in the world. But by the start of World War II, German physicians were directly involved in the mass killings of the Holocaust. Theodore Reiff (Christopher Newport University) looks at the subversion of German doctors in the Nazi era. Also featured: The movie The Great Escape dramatizes the experience of American and European prisoners of war in Germany during World War II.

Today when we vote, we enter a private space, secretly make our choice, and go about our day. Don Debats (Virginia Foundation for the Humanities Fellow) explains that early voting wasn’t just public; it was a raucous, drunken community festival. Plus: It’s hard to find a smile in a 19th century photograph—instead, you’ll see stern faces and stiff poses.

There is an extreme shortage of nurses in “bush” Alaska, a stunningly beautiful part of the world only reachable by plane or barge.  Maria DeValpine (James Madison University) has spent the last three years learning why nurses elect to stay in this challenging environment on the edge of the earth.

The tribulations of Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, are depicted in the popular film 12 Years a Slave. In a soon to be published book, Calvin Schermerhorn (Virginia Foundation for the Humanities Fellow) documents how the business of slavery gave rise to American capitalism. Also featured: With Good Reason producer Kelley Libby checks in on a log cabin-building workshop on the grounds of Montpelier, the former home of President James Madison.

Nobody knows their exact price tag, but the Sochi Olympics were widely hailed as the most expensive Olympic games ever. And the real question: is it worth the cost? Political science professor Patrick Rhamey (Virginia Military Institute) says hosting the games doesn’t actually give countries a political advantage, but winning the medal count can. Plus: The United States is the only country that attaches big-time sports to universities.

Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison was born Chloe Wofford in 1931. She was 39 when she published her first novel about a black girl’s painful coming of age in a white society. The Bluest Eye and many subsequent works have earned Morrison the highest accolades in literature and established her as one of America’s leading fiction writers. Nikki Giovanni (Virginia Tech) and Joanne Gabbin (James Madison University) paid tribute to Morrison with an extravaganza at Virginia Tech that included nationally renowned writers, singers, and poets, including Maya Angelou.

During the 1910s and 1920s, the question of whether one was “highbrow” or “lowbrow” became a concern in the minds of modernist Americans. Brooks Hefner (James Madison University) says this “brow anxiety” dominated the career of Willard Huntington Wright, who fancied himself an intellectual aristocrat while secretly writing a series of wildly popular detective stories under the pseudonym S.S. Van Dine. And: When Christopher McGee (Longwood University) first discovered the Hardy Boys books as a child, he had no idea the author, Franklin W.

American teens spend approximately two million minutes in high school.  With Good Reason talks with Bob Compton about how kids in America, China, and India are using those two million minutes. And: There’s a difference between hands-on science that asks kids to make models out of Jell-O and hands-on science that puts kids in front of microscopes.