As part of the events in 2016 surrounding the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death, Dialogue host Marcia Franklin talks with Professor Eric Rasmussen of the University of Nevada, Reno. Rasmussen, the chair of the English department at UNR, is a pre-eminent Shakespeare scholar and an expert on the First Folio, which was published in 1623 and includes almost all of the Bard of Avon’s plays.

Rasmussen, also the author of a 1000-page catalog called The Shakespeare First Folio, worked with a team to locate 232 surviving copies of the First Folio, 72 more than were originally thought to exist. An estimated 800 were originally printed. There are now 235 known copies. The group went on to painstakingly document the condition of every page of as many copies as it could examine.

Rasmussen is also the author of The Shakespeare Thefts: In Search of the First Folios, in which he includes some of the more colorful stories surrounding the various copies of the 900-plus page book, both ones that have been found and those that are still missing. Franklin talks with the professor about his interest in the First Folio, how he authenticates the new copies he finds, some of the unique aspects of the books, what he’s learned studying them, and what he thinks about the various authorship theories regarding Shakespeare’s works.

The interview took place at the Humanities Institute at Boise State University, one of 52 locations in the United States chosen by the Folger Shakespeare Library to display the First Folio in 2016.

Originally Aired: 09/09/2016

Host Marcia Franklin talks with Strobe Talbott, a former journalist and diplomat who was the president of the Brookings Institution from 2002 to 2017. Talbott, who wrote for Time magazine for more than 20 years, has also penned a dozen books.

Franklin and Talbott talk about his passion for the subject of global warming, and whether the issue is still on the political radar for politicians and the public. His book, Fast Forward: Ethics and Politics in the Age of Global Warming, suggests political and societal solutions for reversing climate change.

The two also discuss his views on global governance, about which he writes in The Great Experiment: The Story of Ancient Empires, Modern States, and the Quest for a Global Nation. Talbott also sits on North American Executive Committee of the Trilateral Commission. The two discuss some Americans’ fears of a "One World government."

Talbott, who was Deputy Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton, specialized in working with the new independent states of the Soviet Union. He talks with Franklin about a scandal in which Russian spies were found to have been living in the United States for many years. The two also discuss Brookings Mountain West, an offshoot of the Brookings Institution in Las Vegas, which examines public policy issues pertaining to the Intermountain West.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast and visit the Dialogue website for more conversations that matter!

Originally Aired: 12/16/2010

The interview is part of Dialogue’s series, "Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers' Conference," and was taped at the 2010 conference. Since 1995, the conference has been bringing together some of the world’s most well-known and illuminating authors to discuss literature and life.

Host Marcia Franklin sits down with historian and law professor Annette Gordon-Reed about her book, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family. The book, which won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, explores the complex bonds between President Thomas Jefferson and one of his slave families, the Hemingses.

Using primary source documents, as well as second-hand accounts, Gordon-Reed tries to piece together the relationship between Jefferson and Sally Hemings, with whom most historians now believe he had as many as seven children. Hemings, a slave at Monticello, was also the half-sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha, who died when Jefferson was 39.

A professor at Rutgers University and the New York College of Law at the time of the interview, Gordon-Reed is currently the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard Law School and Professor of History in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast and visit the Dialogue website for more conversations that matter!

Originally Aired: 12/03/2009

The interview is part of Dialogue’s series, "Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers' Conference," and was taped at the 2009 conference. Since 1995, the conference has been bringing together some of the world’s most well-known and illuminating authors to discuss literature and life.