IFC's Conversations for Open Minds

St. Olaf College

“Conversations for Open Minds” is presented by the St Olaf College Institute for Freedom and Community, a space for free inquiry and meaningful debate of important political and social issues. Hosted by Edmund Santurri, Morrison Family Director and Professor of Religion and Philosophy at St. Olaf College. read less
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Episodes

Michael Kazin: Moral Capitalism in the Democratic Party
Dec 21 2021
Michael Kazin: Moral Capitalism in the Democratic Party
Michael Kazin is a professor of history at Georgetown University and editor emeritus of Dissent magazine. He is the author of six books and the editor of three. His most recent book is War Against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914-1918, published in January, 2017 by Simon and Schuster. It won the best book prize from the Peace History Society. His other books include American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation (2011); A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan (2006); America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s (six editions, co-authored with Maurice Isserman); The Populist Persuasion: An American History (1995; revised editions, 1998 and 2017); and Barons of Labor: The San Francisco Building Trades and Union Power in the Progressive Era (1987), which won the Herbert Gutman Prize. He is also editor-in-chief of The Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History (2010). He is currently completing a history of the Democratic Party to be published in March of 2022 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Kazin is a former online columnist for The New Republic and has written articles and reviews for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Affairs and many other periodicals and websites. He has held fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson Center, The Guggenheim Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Study, the National Endowment for the Humanities, The Smithsonian Institution, and the Fulbright Program and has lectured widely in the United States, Europe, Russia, and Japan. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Gretchen Morgenson: The Hidden Force Behind Wealth Inequality in America
Sep 28 2021
Gretchen Morgenson: The Hidden Force Behind Wealth Inequality in America
Gretchen Morgenson is the senior financial reporter in the Investigations unit at NBC News, a position she assumed in December 2019.Previously, Ms. Morgenson spent two years as an investigative reporter at The Wall Street Journal and almost 20 years as assistant business and financial editor and columnist at The New York Times. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for her “trenchant and incisive” coverage of Wall Street in The Times.Ms. Morgenson began her career in 1976 upon graduation from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. She joined Vogue Magazine as an editorial assistant and began writing the personal finance column for the magazine several years later. In 1981 she became a stockbroker at Dean Witter, a job she held for three years. Ms. Morgenson joined Money Magazine as a staff writer in 1984 and moved to Forbes in 1986. She was named assistant managing editor at the magazine in September 1997.Ms. Morgenson is co-author, with Joshua Rosner, of Reckless Endangerment, a New York Times bestseller about the origins of the 2008 financial crisis published in May 2011 by Times Books. Ms. Morgenson has won two Gerald Loeb Awards, one in 2009 for her coverage of Wall Street and another in 2002 for excellence in financial commentary. Ms. Morgenson has also served on two Pulitzer Prize juries, evaluating investigative reporting entries in 2009 and 2010. Ms. Morgenson and her husband live in New York City and have a son.