13 Oct 2026 · 36 minNew
Joy Behar: Her third act
Standup comedian, long time co-host of ABC’s The View, she is now entering what she calls her third act – as a playwright, with her play My First Ex-Husband, a hit in New York and London.
Podcast · Society & Culture
Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda
by Alan Alda · English · Society & Culture
Learn to connect better with others in every area of your life. Immerse yourself in spirited conversations with people who know how hard it is, and yet how good it feels, to really connect with other people – whether it’s one person, an audience or a whole country. You'll know many of the people in
- New episodes
- Weekly
- Typical length
- 37 min
- Latest
- 13 Oct 2026
- Language
- English
Latest episode
Earlier episodes 29 most recent
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S35 · 6 Oct 2026 · 38 min
Kelly McGonigal: Why joy is so joyful
Joy is not just a fleeting emotion or feeling. It's an entire response system that includes changes in your body and your brain, preparing you to take in the good in life. And that response is even stronger when you can share joy with another person.
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S35 · 29 Sep 2026 · 37 min
Patrick McEnroe: Calling the shots
The younger brother of tennis champion John – and himself ranked number three in the world in doubles – he shares connecting and communicating secrets, both on the court and in his present career as a tennis commentator.
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S35 · 22 Sep 2026 · 38 min
Dame Sue Black: Science on trial
Britain’s best known expert witness tells of trials where crime scene evidence has led not only to successful prosecutions but also in too many cases to people being punished for crimes they didn’t commit.
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S35 · 15 Sep 2026 · 37 min
Antonio Damasio: Consciousness starts in a surprising place
Rather than being a feature of our complex brains, he argues that consciousness begins in the feelings and emotions generated by our bodies.
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S35 · 8 Sep 2026 · 37 min
Lisa Margulis: Music shares our daydreams
Letting your mind wander while listening to music can open you up to rewarding daydreams. Surprisingly, there is a good chance that your musical daydream is shared by others.
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S35 · 1 Sep 2026 · 37 min
Joanna Stern: A year living with bots
She spent twelve months trying out the best and the worst that AI has to offer, from the creepy (an AI boyfriend), to the helpful (an AI-powered mammogram) to the weird (a robot masseuse) and the downright annoying (a stuffed animal toy that wouldn’t shut up). You can find Joanna's book, I AM NOT A ROBOT, at her site: https://joannastern.com/
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S35 · 25 Aug 2026 · 34 min
Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda: Season 35 Trailer
Alan and executive producer Graham Chedd introduce season 35 of Clear and Vivid. Topics include how music inspires daydreams, the mind games of championship tennis, a year living with robots, the challenges of an expert witness and the sheer joy of joy.
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S34 · 18 Aug 2026 · 38 min
Yael Schonbrun: It’s not what you say…
There is more to successful communication than picking the right words. We need to understand that our understanding of others is shaped by factors we are mostly unaware of, ranging from our upbringing to how well we slept.
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S34 · 11 Aug 2026 · 37 min
Tom Levenson: Anti-vaxxers are living in the past
Opposition to vaccines goes back to their invention. And while doubts about vaccine safely may have been justified 300 years ago, those same doubts have lingered among those opposing vaccines today – vaccines that are overwhelmingly safe and have saved millions of lives.
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S34 · 4 Aug 2026 · 37 min
Nicholas Epley: Talking to strangers
An encounter on his commuter train led to 20 years of research that changed his life for the better. You too can be friendlier, kinder, more open, more curious – and the first step could be a smile and a hello to the stranger sitting next to you.
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S34 · 28 Jul 2026 · 37 min
Lisa Genova: She lets us into their worlds
A neuroscientist who also writes novels – including one that became an award-winning movie – Lisa Genova lets us experience the stories lived by people with brain diseases ranging from Alzheimer's to bipolar disorder.
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S34 · 21 Jul 2026 · 37 min
Matt Kaplan: They were right after all
Vivid stories of scientists whose claims were ignored or ridiculed, from Galileo to Kati Karikó – the woman whose work was critical in developing the mRNA Covid vaccine that saved millions of lives.
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S34 · 14 Jul 2026 · 36 min
Roxanne Khamsi: You are mutating – and that’s (mostly) a good thing
Mutations sound scary. But the DNA that shaped us is has been mutating since we were born. Some mutations are bad for our health while others are helping us stay alive, sprucing up our livers and fighting off germs.
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S34 · 7 Jul 2026 · 39 min
Lawrence O’Donnell: Inventing Arnie Vinick
Today an MS NOW host, in 2004 he was writer/producer on the popular NBC series The West Wing tasked with introducing a new character – a Republican Senator running for president.
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S34 · 30 Jun 2026 · 36 min
Walter Isaacson: Are these truths still self-evident?
On the eve of our nation's 250th, Walter Isaacson takes a deep dive into the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence. It's what he calls "the greatest sentence ever written."
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S34 · 23 Jun 2026 · 37 min
Kate Bowler: Joy is surprising
A decade on from being diagnosed with a deadly cancer – and eight years since her first visit with Clear and Vivid – she tells of the many ways she has been taken by surprise by joy, as recounted in her new book – Joyful, Anyway
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S34 · 16 Jun 2026 · 37 min
Dhruv Khullar: The doctor has stories
As AI takes an increasing role in medical decisions, a physician employs stories to tell how the role of our doctors is changing
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S34 · 9 Jun 2026 · 37 min
Chris Duffy: How laughter connects us
Finding humor in the many absurdities of everyday life – including our own foolishness – can help us see things in new ways, foster understanding… above all, mend our ability to connect with others.
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S33 · 2 Jun 2026 · 26 min
Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda: Season 34 Trailer
Alan and Executive Producer Graham Chedd look ahead to season 34. Episodes include one of Alan’s favorite topics – humor, and its power to connect; finding joy in unexpected places; why telling stories makes for better doctors; and how Alan’s character in The West Wing, Arnie Vinick, came to be.
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S33 · 26 May 2026 · 39 min
Roger Rosenblatt: Aging well
Alan revisits a conversation with his old friend to compare notes on staying happy when old, as Roger’s new book, More Rules for Aging: Making the Most of Your Ridiculous, Wondrous Life, hits the bookshelves.
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S33 · 19 May 2026 · 37 min
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Lost that loving feeling?
In her new book she argues that if you want to feel more loved, you don't need to change yourself, you don't need to change the other person (which is sure to backfire!). You just need to change the conversation.
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S33 · 12 May 2026 · 37 min
Julia Minson: Disagreeing agreeably
Wondering why she and her husband got into frequent spats while practicing competitive ballroom dancing led her to a career in social psychology with a focus on disagreements; not just on why and how we have them, but on how to turn them from toxic to constructive.
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S33 · 5 May 2026 · 36 min
Ina Garten: Cooking to connect
In her cookbooks and TV shows the Barefoot Contessa uses her early fascination with science to create meals that are not only great to eat but are also ways to connect and communicate.
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S33 · 28 Apr 2026 · 36 min
Jon LaPook: Empathic medicine
CBS News’ medical correspondent, he also heads the Empathy Project, creating Hollywood-quality short films that train healthcare providers to be more humane and help empower patients to be effective participants in their own care.
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S33 · 21 Apr 2026 · 38 min
Valerie Fridland: Yes, you have an accent
Whether it’s the accent that hints at your hometown, your group, your social status or your ethnicity, the sounds we say reveal a lot about who we are and where we’ve been – even for those who might think they have no accent at all.
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S33 · 14 Apr 2026 · 37 min
David Haskell: When the world burst into bloom
Flowering plants were late to evolve, but once they did, they took over most of the planet, connecting and communicating with a network of other living things and making possible our own evolution.
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S33 · 7 Apr 2026 · 37 min
Michael Pollan: The mystery and marvel of consciousness
Best known for his writings on food – and for his crisp summation of advice for healthy eating – “Eat food. Not too much. Mainly plants” – he has now taken a deep and very personal dive into the nature of consciousness.
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S33 · 31 Mar 2026 · 37 min
Edda Fields-Black: The Harriet Tubman you didn’t know
The remarkable and little-known story of how Harriet Tubman played a critical role in a daring raid that in 1863 freed some 700 slaves from rice plantations along South Carolina’s Combahee River.
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S33 · 24 Mar 2026 · 37 min
Gary Marcus: Is AI mostly hype?
For over 20 years he has been a relentless critic of the extravagant claims made for the current generation of AI based on Large Language Models, or LLMs. But he is even more concerned about what may come next.
About Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda
Learn to connect better with others in every area of your life. Immerse yourself in spirited conversations with people who know how hard it is, and yet how good it feels, to really connect with other people – whether it’s one person, an audience or a whole country. You'll know many of the people in
Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda is a English society & culture podcast from Alan Alda. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.
- Publisher
- Alan Alda
- Language
- English
- Category
- Society & Culture
- New episodes
- Weekly
- Typical length
- 37 min
- Latest episode
- 13 Oct 2026
- Feed
- RSS — paste into any podcast app
- Apple Podcasts
- podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1400082430
- Rights
- Alan Alda
More English society & culture
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