Podcast · Society & Culture

The Glenn Show

by Glenn Loury · English · Society & Culture

Race, inequality, and economics in the US and throughout the world from Glenn Loury. glennloury.substack.com

New episodes: Several times a week
Typical length: 1 hr
Latest: 12 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

12 Oct 2026 · 3 minNew

TGS Live: Daniel Bessner, Ian Lustick, and Eli Clifton on Israel’s Lobby

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit glennloury.substack.com Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Glenn sat out last week's livestream, handing hosting duties to historian Daniel Bessner for a conversation with Ian Lustick and Eli Clifton, authors of Israel's Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power . Though all three are sharply critical of Israel's actions in Gaza and of U.S. support for them, Danny presses his guests on whether criticism of the lobby risks sliding into antisemitism, whether Israeli influence can truly compel lawmakers,…

Play episodeWhatsApp Download

Earlier episodes 29 most recent

9 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 5 min
TGS Live: Warren Smith on Critical Thinking for Influencers
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Glenn talks with filmmaker and YouTuber Warren Smith, author of A Mind of Your Own: Critical Thinking in the Age of Misinformation , a guide for young people navigating claims on platforms like YouTube and TikTok. Executive producer Robert Patton-Spruill, Smith's former teacher, helps guide the discussion, which covers the viral moment that launched Smith's Secret Scholar Society channel, his move from filmmaker to creator, and critical thinking in a fragmented media environment. Glenn wonders how audience-driven incentives shape…
5 Oct 2026 · 1 min
TGS Live: Warren Smith and Robert Patton-Spruill on Critical Thinking in the Age of Misinformation + Glenn on Nikole Hannah-Jones
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit glennloury.substack.com Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Glenn talks with filmmaker and YouTuber Warren Smith, author of A Mind of Your Own: Critical Thinking in the Age of Misinformation , a guide for young people navigating claims on platforms like YouTube and TikTok. Executive producer Robert Patton-Spruill, Smith's former teacher, helps guide the discussion, which covers the viral moment that launched Smith's Secret Scholar Society channel, his move from filmmaker to creator, and critical thinking in a…
4 Oct 2026 · 6 min
Robert Woodson Sr., 1937-2026
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Last week, the American Enterprise Institute hosted a tribute to the life and work of Robert Woodson, who passed away on May 19, 2026. I was not able to attend, but I contributed a short remembrance of Bob, which was read beautifully by Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Devon Westhill. I include video of Devon’s reading at the associated post over at Substack. You can watch video of the entire event here . The Glenn Show is almost entirely audience-supported , so to those of us who are already…
2 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 4 min
TGS Live: Sean Stevens and John McWhorter on Campus Free Speech + Q&A [Free Version]
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Glenn and John host Sean Stevens of FIRE to discuss the organization's College Free Speech Rankings and the methodology behind measuring campus speech climates, alongside concerns about administrations overreaching under the guise of safety—particularly around Israel-Palestine speech. The show then moves to audience Q&A, covering the earlier Nathan Cofnas conversation, race and IQ discourse, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and AI's impact on labor and education. The Glenn Show is almost entirely audience-supported , so to those of us who are…
28 Sep 2026 · 2 min
TGS Live: Sean Stevens and John McWhorter on Campus Free Speech + Q&A + Ian Rowe on Nikole Hannah-Jones
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit glennloury.substack.com Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Glenn and John host Sean Stevens of FIRE to discuss the organization's College Free Speech Rankings and the methodology behind measuring campus speech climates, alongside concerns about administrations overreaching under the guise of safety—particularly around Israel-Palestine speech. The show then moves to audience Q&A, covering the earlier Nathan Cofnas conversation, race and IQ discourse, Ketanji Brown Jackson, AI's impact on labor and education,…
25 Sep 2026 · 1 hr
TGS Live: Roland Fryer on Breaking Through Self-Censorship [Free Version]
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Glenn welcomes economist Roland Fryer—his former student and a John Bates Clark Medal and MacArthur "Genius" Grant recipient—for a wide-ranging conversation. Fryer discusses the Carob Trust Prize, a new $1 million award he co-founded with Bill Ackman (on whose selection committee Glenn sits) to reward independent, courageous social science research. The two also revisit Fryer's path into economics, Glenn's early mentorship of him, the conditions for effective DEI policy, the economics of addiction, and the controversy surrounding…
21 Sep 2026 · 2 min
TGS Live: Roland Fryer on Breaking Through Self-Censorship
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit glennloury.substack.com Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Glenn welcomes economist Roland Fryer—his former student and a John Bates Clark Medal and MacArthur "Genius" Grant recipient—for a wide-ranging conversation. Fryer discusses the Carob Trust Prize, a new $1 million award he co-founded with Bill Ackman (on whose selection committee Glenn sits) to reward independent, courageous social science research. The two also revisit Fryer's path into economics, Glenn's early mentorship of him, the conditions for…
18 Sep 2026 · 42 min
TGS Live: John McWhorter and Nathan Cofnas on Race and Intelligence [Free Version]
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com John McWhorter and Glenn talk with Nathan Cofnas, a philosopher of biology who exposed Jason Arday's plagiarism, for a discussion of that affair and Cofnas's own "race realist" views—that racial IQ differences are real and largely innate. McWhorter voices skepticism, questioning whether Cofnas has reckoned with the implications of his position. Glenn argues society lacks evidence to treat these differences as fixed, while maintaining the topic itself must remain open to discussion. Full version The Glenn Show is almost entirely…
14 Sep 2026 · 2 min
TGS Live: John McWhorter and Nathan Cofnas on Race and Intelligence
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit glennloury.substack.com Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Glenn and John McWhorter reflect on 9/11 twenty-five years on, weighing the pride felt in its aftermath against more ambivalent views of America's subsequent military response. The episode then turns to Nathan Cofnas, a philosopher of biology who exposed Jason Arday's plagiarism, for a discussion of that affair and Cofnas's own "race realist" views—that racial IQ differences are real and largely innate. McWhorter voices skepticism, questioning…
11 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 1 min
TGS Live: Ian Rowe, Bradford Wilcox & Delano Squires on Family Structure and Education
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com On this episode of The Glenn Show, Ian Rowe, Bradford Wilcox, and Delano Squires argue that children generally fare best when raised by two married parents in the same household, and that this discussion is too often avoided. Ian and Brad point to a recent American Enterprise Institute report arguing that the National Assessment of Educational Progress should publish the family-structure data it already collects. Ian, Brad, and Delano contend that preparing kids for eventual marriage starts in childhood, through honest information…
9 Sep 2026 · 59 min
Robert Patton-Spruill – A Wrongheaded Doc about “Black Erasure” in Boston [Bonus Episode]
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com In this bonus episode of The Glenn Show, Glenn and TGS co-producer Robert Patton-Spruill talk about Sabrina Salvati's documentary Removed: Black Erasure in Boston , and how his own attempt to build affordable housing in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood. According to Rob, redlining isn't the cause of present-day housing problems for black Bostonians. It's often the community itself that stands in the way. The Glenn Show is almost entirely audience-supported , so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt…
4 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 2 min
John McWhorter & Tess Chakkalakal – Was the First Black Novelist Actually Black?
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Earlier this summer, I had Tess Chakkalakal, professor of Africana Studies and English at Bowdoin College and author of A Matter of Complexion , a wonderful biography of the writer Charles Chesnutt, on the livestream. That stream was for full subscribers here on the Substack, but today I’m releasing this fascinating conversation for all to enjoy. If you don’t know who Chesnutt is, you’re not alone. Chesnutt was a pathbreaking African American novelist and short story writer publishing in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth…
28 Aug 2026 · 55 min
The John Show Live: The Jason Arday Affair
Support The Glen Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Last Friday, with Glenn still on the other side of the world, John McWhorter slid into the host chair for the weekly livestream. The major topic under discussion was the career and death of Jason Arday. As most of you probably know, we cut a segment on Arday from last week’s episode, because it was recorded the day before news of Arday’s death broke. Though British officials have not yet made public a cause of death, most commentators speculate that Arday took his own life. It’s a tragic end to a story that bordered on farce. We’re…
28 Aug 2026 · 1 min
Jason Arday and Elite Academia’s Rarefied Air
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit glennloury.substack.com Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Due to travel, I wasn’t able to offer my thoughts on the Jason Arday affair as its sad final chapter unfolded. In lieu of a full-length conversation—which I hope to have soon—I want to offer these brief comments on Arday, meritocracy, and the academy.
21 Aug 2026 · 29 min
John McWhorter and Tyler Austin Harper – Why Tyler Left Academia
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Glenn and John McWhorter sit down with Tyler Austin Harper, whose Atlantic cover story documents his decision to resign from a tenure-track position at Bates College. Harper offers an insider's account of an institution compromising scholarly standards and treating him as a token in the service of sweeping racial justice policies — a story of administrative pressure, faculty self-censorship, and mission drift. Note: this episode was originally recorded with an additional segment on Jason Arday, the former Cambridge professor who was…
14 Aug 2026 · 2 hr
TGS Live: Norman Finkelstein and Eli Lake on Israel and Palestine (with John McWhorter)
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Buy Norman Finkelstein's new book, Gaza’s Gravediggers: An Inquiry into Corruption in High Places Nearly three years after October 7th, Glenn and John McWhorter host two guests with sharply opposing views on Israel and Gaza — in succession rather than debate, to prioritize clarity over conflict. First, Norman Finkelstein discusses his forthcoming book Gaza's Gravediggers , which examines failures within the international human rights community to protect vulnerable civilian populations. Then Free Press columnist Eli Lake argues that…
7 Aug 2026 · 2 hr 2 min
TGS Live: Delano Squires on Rebuilding the Black Family
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Glenn welcomes back Delano Squires, director of the Heritage Foundation's DeVos Center for Human Flourishing, to discuss his new book, The Vanishing Black Family: How Welfare and Feminism Made Marriage Optional and Children Vulnerable . Squires argues that failures of black political and religious leadership, combined with a welfare system that has done more harm than good, have contributed to the near-disappearance of two-parent households in many black working-class communities. Glenn pushes back on some of Squires's more ambitious…
31 Jul 2026 · 1 hr
TGS Live: John Mcwhorter on Race and Test Scores + Subscriber Q&A
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Glenn and John McWhorter open with John's recent New York Times column on Stuyvesant High School's vanishingly small number of black admits. Both reject calls to eliminate the admissions test as racist, arguing the problem is inadequate preparation — and that the real damage is done by those telling black students that academic excellence isn't for them. A wide-ranging subscriber Q&A follows, touching on AI, phonics, contrarianism, and Social Security. Then English professor Tess Chakkalakal joins to discuss her biography of Charles…
29 Jul 2026 · 1 hr
TGS Live Bonus Episode: Steven Teles on Ideological Diversity on Campus
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Glenn sits down with political scientist Steven Teles of Johns Hopkins to discuss one of higher education's most stubborn problems: ideological homogeneity. University faculties lean dramatically further left than the broader population, and in some humanities and social science disciplines, the imbalance has become self-reinforcing — conservatives self-censor or don't enter the field at all, shutting down internal debate and compromising academic freedom from within. Teles is working to change that through Johns Hopkins's new Agora…
24 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 1 min
TGS Live: Andrew Day on Trump, Israel, and Iran
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Glenn brings back Andrew Day, senior editor at The American Conservative , to make sense of the war-skeptical right's position on the Iran War. With seventeen Americans already killed and peace talks stalled, Day argues Trump's decision to go to war is flatly incompatible with America First principles — delivering no clear national benefit while disrupting supply chains and rattling markets. Day's sharpest claim: Israel's interests drove the U.S. into this conflict, and with American opinion toward Israel souring even among…
17 Jul 2026 · 59 min
TGS Live: Karmelo Anthony and the Content of Our Character
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com John McWhorter returns as Glenn and John reflect on the nation's 250th birthday and the state of Black America. Both express disappointment — not at racism's persistence, but at cultural attitudes that continue to hold Black Americans back. Using the Karmelo Anthony case as a touchstone, they push back hard against victimhood narratives that treat race as a mitigating factor for individual wrongdoing. But Glenn and John diverge on colorblindness: while John laments the persistence of racial identity, Glenn argues that race as a…
10 Jul 2026 · 2 hr 1 min
TGS Live: 250 Years of Contradiction with Rajiv Sethi
Subscribe to The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Last week’s Independence Day installment of The Glenn Show brought the team together—along with special guest Rajiv Sethi —to talk about American identity, broadly conceived, on the occasion of the nation’s 250th birthday. Who were we, and who are we? What face do we present to the rest of the world? What makes American culture “American”? How do we manage the social challenges facing a coherent nation comprising an uncountable plurality of ethnic, racial, religious, and political groups? The Glenn Show is almost entirely…
5 Jul 2026 · 1 min
June 2026 Q&A
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit glennloury.substack.com Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com BB asks what Glenn and John think of Steven A. Smith’s political commentary . Russell Harvey wants to know what the role of debate is in our society , and whether a debate has ever changed Glenn's or John's mind on any substantial issues. Stan asks why college-educated white women support “wokeness ” at such high rates. Jason asks whether Glenn and John ever had intellectual discussions with AI tools . Michael asks John for his opinion of Zohran…
3 Jul 2026 · 1 hr
John McWhorter on Karmelo Anthony's Grand Narrative
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Recorded amid Glenn's vacation, this month's conversation with John McWhorter covers New York politics, crime, and culture. They discuss Mayor Zohran Mamdani's growing influence after his endorsed candidates swept their Democratic primaries, signaling a possible left-wing realignment within the party akin to the Tea Party's and MAGA's reshaping of the right. They also dig into the trial and sentencing of Karmelo Anthony for the killing of Austin Metcalf, weighing competing explanations — including a Sowellian theory of cultural…
26 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 7 min
TGS Live: Robert Wright on an AI-Driven Global Community
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Longtime friend of the show Robert Wright joins Glenn to talk about T he God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning , which argues AI deserves serious attention — including from its doomers. Wright contends that responsible global coordination, however improbable it seems amid current geopolitical turmoil, is essential to steering AI toward humanity's benefit rather than catastrophe. He points to the near-miss global minimum corporate tax agreement as a hopeful precedent. Glenn reflects on how quickly…
19 Jun 2026 · 1 hr
TGS Live: Harvey Mansfield on Where Harvard Went Wrong
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Harvey Mansfield, the eminent political philosopher who spent over seven decades at Harvard, joins Glenn to discuss his new book, Where Harvard Went Wrong: Fifty Years of Commentary that Fell on Deaf Ears . Mansfield argues that Harvard has traded its commitment to truth for an overbearing political emphasis on equality — fueling grade inflation, racially discriminatory admissions practices, and the erosion of genuine academic standards. Glenn reflects on the irony that meaningful reform began only after Mansfield's retirement, and…
12 Jun 2026 · 1 hr
TGS Live: Michael Poliakoff on Rescuing Civics
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Glenn sits down with Michael Poliakoff, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, to discuss the crisis facing American higher education. Despite the university system's extraordinary contributions to innovation and democracy, Poliakoff argues it is failing at a core mission: civic education. Students graduate without foundational knowledge of American history and principles, while faculty too often emphasize the nation's failures over its ideals. ACTA's new Broadside for the Nation calls for stronger trustee oversight…
7 Jun 2026 · 2 min
May 2026 Q&A
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit glennloury.substack.com Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com Last month, John McWhorter and Glenn explored the latest tranche of questions from full subscribers. They start off talking with TGS writer and editor Mark Sussman about Christopher Nolan’s casting of Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy in his new adaptation of The Odyssey. Aaron Kara asks if diverse societies can sustain social systems in which racial identities bear uneven cultural caches . Glenn often says “Tolstoy is mine” as a way to exemplify our…
5 Jun 2026 · 58 min
TGS Live: John McWhorter on a Black Helen of Troy, the Voting Rights Act, and Teen Takeovers in Chicago
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com John McWhorter returns for another wide-ranging conversation, starting with his latest book-in-progress on American English dialects and his remarkable productivity as a writer. From there, Glenn and John tackle the social media controversy over Lupita Nyong'o's casting as Helen of Troy in Christopher Nolan's upcoming Odyssey adaptation, weighing in on race, casting norms, and where society should ideally be headed. They then take on the Supreme Court's ruling in Louisiana v. Callais and its implications for the Voting Rights Act — a…

About The Glenn Show

Race, inequality, and economics in the US and throughout the world from Glenn Loury. glennloury.substack.com

The Glenn Show is a English society & culture podcast from Glenn Loury. 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: Glenn Loury
Language: English
Category: Society & Culture
New episodes: Several times a week
Typical length: 1 hr
Latest episode: 12 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id505824976
Rights: Glenn Loury

RSS feed Apple Podcasts

More English society & culture

Take it with you

The Melo app keeps playing with the screen off, works in the car and on your watch, wakes you to your station, and browses the whole catalogue offline. Free, no ads, no account.